Rave Master Appreciation Blog

So for those of you who don’t know, this is Sieg Hart. He’s a character from mashima’s first series Rave Master and was brutally and cruelly murdered who bears a great resemblance to our jellybean. Why?

Well you see Sieg as well as all the other natural born magic users in Rave hail from the village of Mildea and as such, have tattoos on their face to show as such. They were rather reclusive and kept to themselves but after the war at the end of the series the villagers began to spread out and joined the general population.

Now as I’m also rather partial to the theory that Rave and Fairy Tail take place in the same universe this contributed to the rise of magic as the Mildeans mixed with the population (but not by much as the total magic population in fairy tail is just 10%)

But since generations passed the original Mildean culture diminished greatly. Except for a subset of people. Like in Avatar where we have descendants of the sun warriors keeping the culture alive, there’s a line of direct descendants from the original Mildean people who practice the whole thing with the face tattoos and have access to particular powerful caster type magics (because cool stuff tends to be passed down the family line right?)

Am I saying that Jellal is possibly descended from Mildean people which would explain his tattoo and his really OP heavenly body magic? Yes I am.

fairy tail takes place in x777-792 (i think? somewhere around then lol), while Rave Master takes place in the year x0067-68. we know that, in this case, the ‘x’ indicates that the year is actually 10,067 because Resha Valentine was born January 1st, 10,000

When this journey ends…I’ll never see you again. Does that mean I’ll be gone for good? Or do I just have to leave, never to return? I know I can’t avoid it… I don’t want to be apart, but I can feel it coming. So I can’t stop. I have to keep going! Just like Haru would. When the time comes, I’ll never forget. I’ll always remember you. We’ll have all our memories. Fighting, playing… Laughing, crying… I won’t forget a thing. So if I do that… Will you promise to remember me?

Everyone’s hopes for peace and freedom, including mine, are riding on the Holy Bring. That’s why I have to hang in there and do my part.

just keep an eye on the more expensive ones!!! I know volume 28 (and I think 30? but i’m not sure because i got mine for a reasonable price) are hella fucking expensive for no reason, but they aren’t always! I managed to snag 28 for $35 and it was the best decision of my life

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSS

12 Days of Rave: Day 3 - Favorite Antagonist

Retranslation of Lucia’s Lines:

beginning from the bottom left panel of the first page, for nuance

Lucia: But in the end that’s just human thinking!!! It’s impossible to destroy “God”!!!

Lucia: People manipulated space-time at their own convenience…. and obtained a false world!!! That was sacrilege against god!!!! [emphasis mine]

Elie: But…. we’re alive…. No matter what kind of world it is… We have the right to live……

Lucia: The right to live?!! HAH?!?! What arrogance from fakes!! [1] HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Elie: Don’t laugh…

Lucia: God (said as ‘Endless’)[2] has decided to… revoke that right from you all. (sfx: Lucia’s laughter in the background)

[1] Lucia says ‘fakes’ and ‘arrogance’ in katakana - as far as I can tell, it’s either for tonal emphasis, or indicating an ‘inhuman nature’. I can explain more on this if anyone wants me to.

I love how unhinged Lucia is here. Mostly because I adore his way of speaking ❤ I think this translation gives a better understanding of what Lucia and Haru are talking about within Endless - and also gives a more layered take on the story. Perhaps it even implies that the first world ended through the fault of humans, and so ‘they no longer have the right to live’?

You know, most of the things Lucia says, like how Haru is bound to a fate called ‘Rave’, isn’t really wrong. They are very deterministic though… very ‘black and white’. I get the sense that for Lucia, there’s ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and this kind of thing is usually very absolute… just like the world was for Haru at the start of the series. It’s very subtle, and I love it.

(Also, anyone else think that it looks like Lucia’s hair gets longer, while Haru cuts his shorter throughout the series? Hngghhh they’re chasing each other round in circles!!!)

ETA: Btw, remember Elie bulleting Lucia in the face? His teeth must be made of adamantium or something because that was a special bullet Elie made that could shatter Dead Bringers.

Jegan

Like, holy shit. This guy has written amazing couples before. The guy who completely flattened Juvia and Levy’s characters to pander to shippers is also the guy who managed to make Let and Julia such a sweet and blatant couple without them ever having to affirm that they’re a couple. The difference between the moments building up Natsu/Lucy and Haru/Elie is staggering. How did the guy who wrote Celia end up deciding that Juvia was a good way to portray someone hopelessly in love? It was all good and fine when Juvia was a one off villain with a gag, but at some point you think she would have chilled a little.

King was such a wonderful villain death. Gale dying was brutal even though he was only in Haru’s life for like a day. Reina dying was brutal and holy cow is it sad that the bulk of Reina/Musica is just built around the lost potential from her dying right when they were able to connect. Fucking Jegan dying was brutal just for how utterly senseless it was. I could not care less about Jegan, and his death got me anyway. I’m still bent out of shape over Sieg’s death. The guy who did all that is now known as the guy who just writes fake out deaths for cheap, temporary shock and drama.

And like, the fights from the original chapters feel like so much more love went into them. There’s actual strategy, and emotional weight goes into the really hyped conflicts. Hell, even when the fights are short, a lot of the earlier fights live up to the hype because A) the enemies are built up to realistic levels of hype and B) it takes actual strategy or outside help to defeat them. Every fight for years now has not only been void of any tension because you know someone is gonna throw an extra strong punch while talking about friendship in order to win, but void of any actual meaning because even the characters don’t feel too invested in what’s going on. Erza couldn’t have cared less about meeting her birth mom. Natsu and Zeref’s fight was practically null because neither of them seemed to care about their relationship.

The consistency too. There were a few magic tricks early in Fairy Tail that had me call BS but I can think of exactly two moments in all of Rave that made me think that. (Silver Bonds not being clarified early enough and that time Haru screamed down Lucia’s attack, just for reference.) Throughout the series, nothing else in Rave made me thing that Mashima was going against what he previously established for convenience. When I reread Fairy Tail now, I’m so baffled by the early scenes where Lucy is negotiating contracts or where it’s a big accomplishment that she can close a gate by herself. Her spirits just pop the fuck out whenever they feel like it now. Do they even need her around to take place in a fight? I know she says they use her magic but despite the star dress stuff it really feels like they don’t even need her. And what is even up with Erza? It was one thing when she conveniently always had the armor that she needed, but she randomly pulls out abilities now that she then never uses again.

Lucia and Acne have the exact same goal and even that feels like a massive cop out comparatively. Like, Lucia had motives and a backstory and shit to justify his overly exaggerated rebellious phase, and there was actually something he accomplished by making the world go boom. He broke a curse his family was under and got to have a chance at a decent life in the original world, and he’d been raised to believe he was born for that. Acne just wants to break shit because he’s evil or something idk. I can’t even tell if he resents getting turned into a dragon or not. And I mean, there are little inconsistencies with Lucia’s writing that I like to think are him just not being forthcoming about his motives but JFC did Mashima make that contradiction thing up just as an excuse to write Zeref however he wanted in any given scene after realizing how much work would go into making sad!Zeref an active threat?

And his OP characters? Hardner could recover from literally any damage, so they had to beat him by wearing down his endurance until he couldn’t supply the energy for his Dark Bring to keep healing him. That’s an actual good way to overcome a threat that the hero shouldn’t be able to beat by conventional means. Like, I would have preferred to see Ogre go down with more strategy moves like when Reina tried to suffocate him, but at least Mashima made up a non-physical attack that could bypass his being immune to physical damage. With Juvia, he just gave the fuck up. Remember how Juvia’s whole combat shtick was that she’s immune to physical attacks? Mashima doesn’t. I think he just buried that memory because it was too much work to keep coming up with new opponents for someone with an ability that he classified as being the best ability in his previous series. A villain who’s not only immune to but empowered by all magic attacks is a great threat but let’s be real. Acne’s gonna get his ass beat by someone punching him hard enough while talking about friendship.

Even the freaking fanservice. Julia and Weevile’s fight is actually better from a narrative perspective because of the fanservicey situation it delved into. The torture scene worked well enough but there’s so many moments where it’s like… why? I’m not even offended by it. It’s just… It’s just that he can be classier about it. Or at least keep it to moments that are specifically about sexy times rather than throwing weird angles into otherwise tense moments.

And the struggle makes sense, because before Shiba Haru has literally never touched a sword before.