Why do people hate the Grand Magic Games arc?

Apr 4, 2016 4:20 PM

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Feb 2015

6844

It seems a lot of people dislike the GMG arc, though I don't really understand why. In my opinion everything up to the end of season 1 was awesome. Yeah, season 2 was a lot worse (especially the dungeon episodes), but meeting Future Lucy, Ultears's sacrifice and farewell, and the Games' afterparty were all pretty good moments I think.

So for those who hated or disliked the GMG arc, I'd like to hear your reasons. :)

Apr 5, 2016 3:39 AM

miskos3

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Oct 2013

205

Yeah, the moments you mentioned were pretty nice, in fact, this arc established Ultear as one of the best characters for me, but...

As a whole, this arc is a huuuuuuuge mess. Even the author admitted that he's involved way too many characters.

We have

1. the tournament, which started great, imo. Gray and Lucy's initial struggles, Natsu getting a first point, Elfman winning in an actually clever way, Erza owning 100 monsters. All great, right? Well, not really. The Twins get owned in a really degrading way, their Dragon Force modes get solo'd by a base Natsu. That... was so anticlimactic I don't know where to begin. And then, the final day of the tournament, which actually started in a nice way, Gray vs. Rufus was cool, Gajeel vs. Rogue as well... but the final fights got rushed so terribly, that the majority of Laxus vs. Jura gets offscreened. Like wat. And while I personally found the whole Sting giving up part... interesting to say the least, I can perfectly see why other people would hate the games finishing like that. So yeah, overall, the games started nicely, but ended terribly.

1.1 the Raven Tail subplot. Something that could've taken a whole arc gets 'resolved' in a single fight... Okay. ( ._.) So Laxus wrecks the entire guild on his own and all we get is a very vague hint on Lumen Histoire. Ivan isn't mentioned since then...

1.2 Kagura subplot, with Erza and Kagura magically coming from the same village as the way to resolve their (non-existent ?) conflict. I can see why Erza would blame herself for Simon's death, but there were circumstances, so pls, word it so that his sister doesn't want to illogically kill you..

1.3 'mysterious' magic power at games, something that eventually evolves into the ...

2. Eclipse plot. And I have to say, while they tried hard to make the mystery interesting, I just couldn't care less about it while the tournament was going on... Arcadios seemed so uninteresting, Lucy being eventually arrested and the whole...

2.1 Garou Knights subplot were so boring and redundant. So until the tournament ends - and in a really rushed way, almost so that the story could move to Eclipse.

2.2 Future Lucy & Future Rogue. Time travel was such a mess in this arc, tbh. But FLucy dying and then going to afterlife with her deceased friends for their timeline was well done. Other than that...

2.3 Dragons coming outta the Eclipse served only to show that Dragon Slayers suck and yet it got resolved with like no problems, minus Ultear.

So to sum it up, a nice start, but waaaaaay too many characters and plot points involved. It was my least favorite arc. Also, it's kinda wrong to say that the second anime was worse, because you can't blame it for the source material which they just adapted nicely.

Apr 5, 2016 5:30 AM

Milennin

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Feb 2015

6844

miskos3 said:
1. The Twins get owned in a really degrading way, their Dragon Force modes get solo'd by a base Natsu. That... was so anticlimactic I don't know where to begin.

Sting and Rogue getting solo'd by Natsu honestly didn't come as much of a surprise, because we're talking Fairy Tail here. Natsu's unlimited willpower won him the match. But I guess it also served to show that being a Third Generation Dragon Slayer isn't as big a deal as Sting and Rogue believed it to be. They were overly confident in being the stronger ones solely because of that.
Agreed on the other points.

miskos3 said:
1.1 the Raven Tail subplot. Something that could've taken a whole arc gets 'resolved' in a single fight... Okay. ( ._.) So Laxus wrecks the entire guild on his own and all we get is a very vague hint on Lumen Histoire. Ivan isn't mentioned since then...

I'm personally glad that we didn't get an entire arc dedicated to it, unless it meant we wouldn't have to suffer through the Celestial filler arc that came after it.

miskos3 said:
1.2 Kagura subplot, with Erza and Kagura magically coming from the same village as the way to resolve their (non-existent ?) conflict. I can see why Erza would blame herself for Simon's death, but there were circumstances, so pls, word it so that his sister doesn't want to illogically kill you..

Didn't think too much of this. Just saw it as something filling up part of Erza's past.

miskos3 said:
1.3 'mysterious' magic power at games, something that eventually evolves into the ...

2. Eclipse plot. And I have to say, while they tried hard to make the mystery interesting, I just couldn't care less about it while the tournament was going on... Arcadios seemed so uninteresting, Lucy being eventually arrested and the whole...

Lol, very much agreed.

miskos3 said:
2.1 Garou Knights subplot were so boring and redundant. So until the tournament ends - and in a really rushed way, almost so that the story could move to Eclipse.

Those guys were the worst...

miskos3 said:
2.3 Dragons coming outta the Eclipse served only to show that Dragon Slayers suck and yet it got resolved with like no problems, minus Ultear.

Yeah, the end was a bit of an anti-climax.

miskos3 said:
Also, it's kinda wrong to say that the second anime was worse, because you can't blame it for the source material which they just adapted nicely.

Using the source material doesn't mean it can't go wrong. The second season had terrible pacing and lazy animation (not just the GMG arc, but all of it). It was much worse compared to the first season.

Apr 5, 2016 5:42 AM

miskos3

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Oct 2013

205

The problem is that they took the strongest form of a Dragon Slayer, Dragon Force, and butchered it with a Natsu that wasn't even trying. No DF on his part. Or lightning flame dragon mode. It just made them look really weak.

My point about Raven Tail being just brushed aside within a few chapters was that there were too many things happening in the arc and were resolved in not a good way.

The pacing of the second series was the same for most part, 2 chapters per 1 episode. The artstyle overall was better in the second series and I think it had really great parts animation-wise. Both series, however, suffered from lack of budget and inconsistency in quality. But since we were talking about GMG as an arc, I wasn't really considering how both series adapted it, but rather the story itself.

Apr 5, 2016 5:42 AM

tsudecimo

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Dec 2012

24355

Didn't dislike it but I really didn't like when Natsu destroyed the twin dragon slayers so easily. Not only was it anti climactic and disappointing, it was also contradictory to the build up of the whole FT vs SaberTooth thing. SaberTooth was build up as a very strong guild, stronger than FT ever was. Yet I never felt during the tournament that FT struggled to get their wins, this is especially apparent with Natsu vs the twins.

Like miskos3 said Kagura's subplot was resolved poorly. Had more expectations for her conflict with Erza. Felt like it was just hand waved.

The whole future Lucy plot. I did not care for that. It was too predictable and nothing significant came from it.

Apr 7, 2016 2:12 PM

BestBoiEren

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Jan 2015

1903

@miskos3

How was that a base natsu? I believe he powered up somehow, dont remember exactly tho, watched it quite a while ago

Apr 8, 2016 3:08 AM

miskos3

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Oct 2013

205

SkullProX said:
@miskos3

How was that a base natsu? I believe he powered up somehow, dont remember exactly tho, watched it quite a while ago

Second Origin was the only 'power up' that he got, all it meant was that he could use magic for longer period of time. In the battle, he was using his 'base' techniques, maybe with the exception of the finisher move. While Sting and Rogue used White and Shadow Drives and eventually Dragon Forces, Natsu could 1v2 them without even tapping into his Lightning powers or his own Dragon Force. He wasn't even trying, yet he defeated both Sting and Rogue at their best.

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Why do people hate the Grand Magic Games arc?

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