User blog comment:FairyRaven/Fairy Tail Chapter 323: The Shadow That Comes And Goes, Review and Commentary/@comment-4829046-20130315142340/@comment-4829046-20130315165102

That's what happens when you try to pull such a long arc when you weren't born as "Oda". Oda was the only one who successfully made super-long arcs of this nature. Yes they were repetitive but he didn't fit too many themes into just one arc, he built it up slowly. For another instance Naruto, the current arc is very interesting because it has one common theme that doesn't interfere with any other theme. Mashima overloaded this arc with too many themes and too many characters who we are ACTUALLY EXPECTED TO REMEMBER! WTF?

How can he expect us to remember so many bland characters. The Legion of Hungry Wolves were introduced but later turned out to be shit. And actually Mashima pulled this in other arcs as well. He put too much attention into the useless cannon-fodder characters. At least in the anime they like put masks and the same outfit and weaponry on the useless minions. This maybe a lazy move but at least then we don't have to remember any characters other than the ones who actually do shit. And people like me, we don't like to remember characters who serve no real purpose. Even in the greatest series, there are plenty of unique characters that despite being well scripted serve no real purpose, and are thus, forgotten.