User blog comment:Miskos3/Fairy Tail 542: Instinct, Review/@comment-1248963-20170703205452/@comment-5894890-20170706165858

I have no doubt that Natsu is stronger than Gajeel in the phantom arc, and continued to excel further. That being said, Natsu also got the whole protagonist-friendship treatment. Anyway, it wasn't really that great of a difference in strength... that it would take months of intense training (after the tenrou arc) just for Gajeel to reach a level equivalent to the first time we saw Natsu motion sick. You would think that before the training, in the Tenrou arc, Gajeel would have at least been equal or stronger than Natsu in episode 1, no? Note, the first time we saw Natsu probably wasn't even the beginning 'level' for motion sickness to occur. Honestly, I don't have that big of a problem with Dragonslayers, or specifically, Acnologia having it... but to see it implemented and spread to the rest of the Dragonslayers half way through the whole story, to me, in a very obvious and unplanned way, just so, Acnologia the strongest being in Fairy tail, could have a lame-ass weakness and be defeated? Not to mention the mediocre/ forced comedy associated with it. I could be completely wrong, but to me this is basically Mashima's thought process in GMG: "Oh shit, how will I make it so non-dragonslayers have a chance against Acnologia... Oh, I know! why don't we just say the rest of the dragon slayers also have motion sickness, including Acnologia!"