#zentopia

Now Fairy Tail started as manga written by Hiro Mashima, and if it had just stayed a manga then the way of accepting what is genuine would be simple, what’s written and drawn is canon. Hiro Mashima is the creator of this world and all these characters, he is it’s god. Whatever he’d write would be considered canon no matter the context, he could very well write that Natsu is the Easter bunny and that be canon, even if it would make no sense in context of everything that had happened up to the point but Natsu is Hiro’s creation he can decide what Natsu is or isn’t.

However, Fairy Tail isn’t only a manga, like many manga, it was adapted into an anime. As well as light novels, movies, and spinoff manga. Well I’ll try to tackle each of these and boy this is going to be tough.

Now let’s first start with the anime, the general idea of an anime is to capitalize on the popularity of a series to make money for a studio, while promoting the original manga. An often underlining rule among anime/Manga fans is the manga is canon and the anime’s job is to adapt it on to the small screen while adding things to immerse yourself into the world such as music, actors, and coloring. Now here’s the biggest problem when discussing anime is filler and to discuss filler we need to define what is filler. Filler is again meant to immerse yourself into the world of the manga, however with filler there’s a very cynical approach to it and that this is a studio that needs to fill a contractional obligation. Be it one slot or a whole arc to build up chapters to adapt so there doesn’t need to be more filler. Now, here’s the issue when talking about filler in fairy tail and it goes to a little arc called key to the starry night.

With other filler arcs such as the eclipse celestial spirit arc and the daphne arc it’s easy to scoff off them as “they don’t count” because there is no reference to them in the manga at all. But with Key to the starry night arc there is a reference by Yukino in the manga. Even calling it “the zentopia incident” and just to make this cock tail of confusion complete, we add creator involvement. Now let’s try and break this down, first, thanks to this reference I now need to introduce readers to something I call “the Shaz Domino principle”, which is no matter how small, no matter how uneventful, and how insignificant, this reference was put in directly by the creator there is no denying that zentopia is a thing in this universe. But now we get into the nitty gritty and zentopia is a thing in the manga, but what do we know about it? Know you could clearly say “I watched the anime, I know what zentopia is” well here’s the thing, does every Fairy Tail fan watch the anime? How do we know that Everyone who is the fandom has been exposed to the whole arc of zentopia. But for those who may only read the manga not having access to the anime or possibly believe it not to be faithful to the source material will have read that panel and not know what zentopia is with no build up before hand or mention afterwards. It’s something they have to take at face value. As well as the creator involvement, We don’t know what Hiro Mashima really contributed to this filler. There is no way for me to transport to him and ask him this question of “what did you do for the anime staff?”

Because creator involvement can range from a number of things, like Eiichiro Oda providing the linework for daddy masterson in the lougetown filler of one piece to Tite Kubo providing a little pre story to set up the Bleach hellverse movie. We don’t know what Hiro Mashima did for this, and even if we go searching there is no way to be certain that our great internet super highway is right. There has been the controversy of Lisanna’s return with many siting he did it for the anime staff or those saying no it was his intention from the start, there is no way of knowing unless directly from the man himself. And how easy would that be? It’s been well documented that and Hiro even stating he wanted Erigor in the oracion seis arc but due to deadlines he cut it but the anime staff put in Erigor. But there has never been a case of Hiro Mashima saying “This filler arc is canon.” It wouldn’t be hard either he does many afterwords in his manga volumes so how hard would it be?

Now another problem is “well wait a minute, how does angel have that new magic then? Yukino said Zentopia that must be canon” Again here’s the problem lack of evidence, there may be a reference but where is Midnight’s Darkness Magic? Why Sawyer seemingly forgetful of the lesson Mirajane imparted on him? Where is Satan Soul: Halphas? We don’t even see the reaction to Zentopia being mentioned to Lucy. Cobra appears in the GMG arc acting as if he was never heard from sense to the Oracion Seis arc. “Well Hiro’s very wishy-washy with the canon already who cares about these plotholes then.” I can understand that Hiro has forgotten things that he’s written like Lucy can use a different star dress even though she didn’t even summon the spirit, Gray didn’t eat Ice lock when it was around his neck. Well if Hiro Mashima is able to care about things such as the whole Grandeeney mentioning Wendy and Natsu have met, Natsu in Avatar looking up at the former destroyed bell tower in tuly that was only verbally mentioned in chapter 1 and 2. So the man has some self awareness of his series and something as big as an arc where lucy is almost removed from existence would kinda need some justification and not one scene.

Now, on to spin offs and light novels, this I have a better grasp of due to knowing about the manga industry. When a series can be made into a novel or a spin off it is mandated by the publisher because at the end of the day Kodansha Comics is a business and a business wants to profit off it’s hot sellers. Now obviously Hiro would need to sign off on this as they are using his brand in their work, but at most it’s in the hands of the publisher. Now enough of the business jargon you want to know it’s on the canon or not. Well the spin-offs have been done by a variety of mangaka and to varying success. Well the main idea of the spin off is, like filler, is to enrich the story focus on characters that don’t get the spot light as much, like saber tooth or Gajeel or Laxus, but here’s the thing a lot of these spin offs tend to line up with very gray moments between events in the already established series. Since we never focus on Saber tooth who’s to say that the Abyss Horn fight didn’t happen, we didn’t pay attention to gajeel for a while maybe he was on a mission.

Now Unlike the key to the starry night arc there’s never been a reference to ANY event in the spin offs. We never here from Ichiya about the red princess stuff when he showed up in the alvarez arc, Cobra and Gajeel never think of each other, Sting and Rogue never mention they fought an earth dragon. There is easier ways to dismiss it as actually being relevant. “But what about FT zero? Are you going to say it’s canon because it was drawn and written by HIro?” Well unlike the other spin offs there is more references in the manga series to the events to Zero than there is for the other spin offs. I brought up how a person who only reads the manga would have to take “Zentopia incedent at face value well at face value we do get the flash back chapters about FT’s founding, we do get (prooly) Zeira established before her sudden return. They didn’t have to read the the spin off or watch the anime filler to get that info.

Now on to the light novels which are a little harder to talk about because Hiro contributed all the artwork for them. He even reused the designs of Gajeel and Levy’s kids in the manga series. This is another tough one as we know Hiro Mashima isn’t some monkey who will draw whatever is handed to him by another writer he obviously must have had a dialogue with the writer of “colors residing in the heart”. But here’s something that I question all these spin offs make reference to the manga series but does any other outlet acknowledge they exist? We never get the Anime talking about the return to edolas or onne spin off saying Abyss Horn was part of the Balam alliance. Only reference to fillers like the eclipse zodiac arc appear only in the anime and not the manga. The only one that ever gets to be mentioned in another media is the “trouble twins” with Hiro Mashima using the design of Gajeel and Levy’s kids meaning it’s very likely that the events in that light novel could happen.

Now here’s another problem, Omake. They are all written by the author of the manga and are even adapted into filler episodes so are they canon? Well in Japanese Omake literally means ‘extra’ and what is an extra? Is it a little story that’s told at some unspecific time? Is it a kinda “what if” scenario that the author wants to experement his writing skills in? Does he just want to make you laugh and needs the context to do it?

Well at times it seems to be generally accepted as a “what if” scenario because we know that 1 billion years ago the ancestors of Natsu never molested the ancestor of Lucy, we know there was never and Ichiya epidemic, we know that that Fairy Tail and the Seven Deadly Sins don’t share the same universe. “But hey those are so outlandish what about “Mulan Rouge” or “Natsu vs Mavis” they seem like they could very well happen and they were in both Manga and OVA form.” Well hears another nitty gritty we aren’t really given a point they could’ve occurred in the story.

Well at this point I’m sure everyone is reading this saying “Your just cherry picking everything at this point and your making it sound like anything not written or drawn by Hiro Mashima isn’t canon and all of it is just glorified fanfiction”. Well glorified fanfiction is a good term because I know many writers who actually seem to understand and do more with the universe of Fairy Tail than Mashima himself. And here’s the biggest factor of them all, is the audience.

The audience has a wide variety of what they want to accept as canon for personally reasons. I know many who love the Oracion Sies and want key to the starry night to be canon so all that development they got wasn’t brushed off as “doesn’t count”. I know many who would love to pretend the “stone age” Omake never happened because of the disrespect it shows to favorite characters even though they are Mashima’s. I personally enjoy the Gajeel manga because it focus’s on Gajeel and allows him to  get more shine than either manga or anime have given to him. I know some who for shipping purposes will full heartedly state the christmas omake is canon even though people can find flaws like “Jellal being in magnolia makes no sense”. And here’s another thing the Sabertooth manga I didn’t like but I did something with sabertooth that wasn’t just just Sting or Rogue.

The audience sees the potential in this world and most likely wants to create their own canon. Their own way of accepting the things they want fairy tail to be and brushing off the stuff that hinders their ability to enjoy it. Me personally I find the easiest way to accept is “If it wasn’t in the main manga, it didn’t happen” but someone could say to me “If it didn’t happen in the manga it didn’t happen except for Mulan Rouge that makes sense as canon”. We all make are own acceptance of what we want fairy tail to be. And if that’s the case, then no ones wrong or right because like opinions our views of acceptance are different and like opinions, if you have a different take on canon you’re going to end up butting heads.