User blog comment:Miskos3/Fairy Tail Episode 256: Tartaros arc: The Final Duels, Review/@comment-4829046-20151024094822/@comment-4829046-20151024122651

Indeed and I respect that. If I were writing proper reviews for each episode, I would have lost heart a long time ago *cough*certain*cough*TMITA*cough*writers*cough* so it is essential that you take enjoyment when you find it. :)

Unfortunately though, the action part is not made to be by itself, and that is where the manga is better and in some cases superior to the big 3. While this section in the manga may have been iffy, I enjoyed it. I have reread it multiple times for other fanboy reasons but I never skipped out on the Tempester ownage. It was handled sharply and decisively to be blunt see what I did there? :P.

Mashima really puts effort into making a prominent battle of just the right length with all the flashback, exchange of blows etc.(yes I know he effs it up as well but the effort still counts since he rarely goes cheap on his workload) We all have had issues with how majority of the fight lengths(or lack of it) are handled in the big 3 after all and it is agreed upon that the core fights in the early arcs of FT were just great. Even now it is mostly repetition of tropes(plot armour, nakama power etc) that ruins fights the way I see it. It suffers from the 'long-running shounen curse', something RAVE did not have for obvious reasons. The only other series of similar fantasy nature currently is Nanatsu no Taizai and the fights there are very reminiscent of FT except for the fact that there is loads more death and carnage. XP I think of it in the manner that if FT didn't use those tiresome tropes, the manga wouldn't have lasted this long. Anime adaptations in these cases depend on the manga sales and popularity after all because as long as the manga is having great sales, the anime will as well because- 'shounen', and more fillers = more episodes = more cash.

Of course, I'm also used to reading action 'manhua', where fight sequences are like a dozen times faster and more inflated so maybe I've grown tired of having pacing that is slower than average. Might also explain why I didn't join the Rokka no Yuusha bandwagon. T^T Yes, yes I know I sound silly for that, but I can't lie; having a fight or incident drag on and on with pretty much the same lines gets really tedious for me, no matter how spectacular the storytelling and intrigue may be(and I'm usually the more patient of the anime fans in my friend circle since I'm the only one of them that didn't drop RnY so there's that). On the other hand, Boku no Hero Academia is a good example of doing it just right since the very first chapter: Fights are detailed, well paced, dire, have occasional but short flashbacks, generally immersive and you can clearly see what each character can deliver. It is a typical superpower shounen, but does it so goddamn smoothly.