#bitchbrows

At least we have the answer to the age-old question of “why in god’s name does Lucy still have Aquarius’ Stardress”, even if the new question of “…so is that just gone forever?” has now been raised.

say what you will about 100 year quest it’s covering most plotholes except the big one

Honestly, perversion wise this still isn’t as wild as Hiro “strip everyone in a warzone naked”, “contrived cat ear bathtub”, “orgasm magic” Mashima. It’s kind of to be expected really.

not that it isn’t already getting old

it was too many dragon slayers before this stupid series started. i hate fairy tail. why do we need dragon eaters as a modern strain of dragon slayers when we already had 2nd gen, and those didn’t require enough dragons to apparently feed an entire damn guild? if they just said “oh lacrima is just what’s left of dragon souls or magic or something, that’s why there’s still dragon lacrima around because dragon emotions can be coverted into magic items (i.e. the Dragon Cry, since that’s apparently canon), or there’s like… ghost Zirconis... and the dragon eaters just want to somehow convert the remaining five dragons into a power source...

that would’ve been. kind of consistent… ish?

@kyoandyuya yall need to chill. You are comparing two completely different Sasukes..one where he is much older and advanced in his skills to one who was more controllable 12 yr old that was affected by the curse mark. Now, why would Karin stand up to someome who she very well knows is more skilled in combat than herself. It wpuld clearly be suicide. She was smart and shortly after Sakura came in and foolishly tried to pull the i will obey then attack when he least Expect it..with a kunai. Karin has stood up to Sasuke when he made foolish choices outside of fighting which isnt her forte. She acknowledges her capabilities and is logical with that in mind. Sakura yas been more passive with Sasuke than karin has and you were pretty unfair in the comparisons.

Uh huh. Yeah because somehow Sakura standing up for Naruto’s sake again after his descent to darkness went under the radar. Hello Land of Iron!

Fact is, Karin has never stood up against Sasuke. The author has even made her tendencies to be his doormat a joke. Immediately after saying she’ll never forgive him for stabbing her, she’s cooing over him and rubbing herself over him, saying she “can’t help it”. She speaks in gibberish and the Japanese text actually has hearts in her bubbles during this scene, while Sasuke has a comical face of exaggerated horror. Karin is a total pushover around Sasuke and the author makes light of both her behavior towards him and his dismissive treatment of her.

Meanwhile when Sakura struggles with her feelings towards Sasuke when he is in his darker stages, the tone of the manga is very serious and emotional. This is because she genuinely loves Sasuke and his coldness, whether directed at her or not, troubles her.

Compare that to Karin, who really doesn’t give a damn about how nasty Sasuke might become as long as it’s not directed towards her, and even when it IS directed towards her, it’s turned into comedic value and she forgives him immediately. As a sensor, Karin was VERY aware of what was happening to Sasuke during the Kage summit, yet she did absolutely nothing to stop him and didn’t even seem concerned about it for more than a panel. She just immediately jumped when he told her to and went back to being his yes-man. Karin watched him kill people, watched his chakra change, watched him become dark and violent, and did absolutely nothing. She did not care.

What did Sakura do when she saw Sasuke headed down what she feared was an irreversible path into darkness? She opted to kill him. Sure, she was unable to stab him in the end, but this was an EXTREMELY intense and emotional scene, and she was ultimately unable to kill him because she remembered the gratitude she had shown him when she had told him she loved him so many years ago (take note that when Karin “forgave” Sasuke and was unable to hurt him, there was no flashback or anything remotely serious).

She did not even let him off easily by immediately accepting his apology. Sasuke had to repeat himself and be more sincere in his apology because he knew he owed her one.That is what a true self-respecting individual do in the face of standing up for herself. She wanted him to know that he had hurt her and she would accept nothing less than a sincere apology. She knew she at least deserve that much.

I don’t think it’s author favoritism, or at least.just that..Levi, Erza.and  Kenpachi especially, are fan favorites. And it’s pretty much considered too ‘risky’ to kill off fan favorites as the magazines that contain these mangas lose money because fans drop/lose.interest in the manga because their favorite character has died…So I wouldn’t just blame the mangakas..It could also be the editors pressuring mangakas to focus more on certain charas cos of their popularity.

I have serious doubts about how much that applies to Levi. While it’s true that fan popularity saved Sasha Braus, who was the most popular character in the entire manga? More popular than Levi himself? I’ll tell you who, the Colossal Titan. That was an icon, the biggest symbol of power and futility in the series. That did not stop Isayama from killing him off--nor was he prevented from killing off Erwin Smith, another fan favorite.

Here’s an easy way to tell if Isayama in particular is favoring someone. One of the biggest themes in the story is how, when set up against impossible, unstoppable foes like the Titans and Titan Shifters, no amount of bravery can hold up forever and you’re not guaranteed a glorious, admirable death--even if you’re a seasoned, hard veteran, the death you get may involve you screaming for help and being torn to pieces, be too scared to act properly, or just plain having a very unglorious death. It happened to Squad Levi one by one, and it even happened to Mike Zacharias, probably the most skilled human soldier there was after Levi. The sheer horror of their fates made holding up their dignity a very unrealistic concept. Again, this applies even to the Colossal Titan.

Now tell me--can you see a death like that happening to the heroes? Levi in particular? Or Mikasa? You can’t, can you? Hell, when Erwin died, he went out fighting no matter how futile it was, and gracefully accepted his own death. Even when Armin died, he faced a very, very painful death via being steam-blasted with enough heat to burn his flesh off with more dignity than pretty much anyone in the series had mustered, and pain tolerance was never his strong suit.

That’s how you know. The unclean, unsightly or undignifying fates don’t apply to the heroes Isayama likes, only the villains or non-villain characters he doesn’t care for.

Now, I can’t say when it comes to Kubo. I know Kenpachi Zaraki was a massive fan favorite (for reasons I can’t fucking fathom, seriously I don’t get it), and that may have prevented Kenpachi from getting the death he very much had coming. But nontheless, that doesn’t excuse what happened. Kenpachi could easily have been put up against opponents where his powers would have been more believable--despite how stupid his fight with Nnoitra Gilga was, that was indeed what Kubo had in mind. He matched the bladed direct combat specialist with another bladed direct combat specialist, as against any of the other Espada Kenpachi would’ve been pretty damn helpless. Gremmy Thorneaux was not an opponent Kenpachi could stand against. Any number of the Sternritter--there were 27 of them--would’ve made a better match against Kenpachi. Fan favoritism may have been what assured Kenpachi staying alive, but it is not what wrote the fight scenes and battle match-ups. If Kubo wasn’t going to keep Kenpachi in fights he could realistically win, he should instead have given him a realistic loss. Neither happened, which is why I think it’s author favoritism.