User blog comment:IamJakuhoRaikoben/Chapter 492: Elder Sister and Younger Sister, Review./@comment-5303512-20160709030608/@comment-5303512-20160709032332

Your welcome and here is some more, some of it is redundant from above and some of it is new.

Mashima's Q&A from the JapanExpo in France (translated by Docmos from the Fairy Tail subreddit):

Interviewer: Do you have time to play video games, play music? what are your project?

Mashima: I like listening to music and I do play video games. They are my activities when I have free time.

I: What games do you play?

M: I play overwatch but I always get destroyed

I: What style of music do you listen to?

M: I don't know if you have this kind of music in France but something that sounds like punk rock.

I: If a youngster goes and shows you his sketches, what advice would you give him to make him better?

M: I would like to give him the best advice that I can but before anything, that he goes through with his ideas and with his story. I would warn him to not leave things half-done and to star another project without finishing the first one. Finish your project.

I: Very good advice. Let's hear the public's questions now.

Public: Hello. Do you know how Fairy Tail will end as of now, or do you not know at the beginning of an arc how it will evolve?

M: I can't reveal anything about the ending here but I can tell you the story is at it's climax and I hope you will like what follows.

P: euuuuuhhhmmm, hi... At the beginning of the manga we have spoken of the idea of Zeref and only after many chapters we finally saw him. Was it your plan from the beginning to reveal Zeref this way, with his connection to Natsu or not at all?

M: Absolutely. I knew from the get go that I wanted to reuse Zeref later because I wanted to make him a very important character.

P: Hello. A little technical questions about the dragon. Dragons are usually drawn from oriental culture as seen in Dragon Ball and other manga. In your manga, I find dragons are very occidental and I wanted to ask you why did you choose that design for dragons.

M: Very simple. I really like the dragons you have here in Occident and I drew inspiration for that.

I: Did you research dragons a lot before starting the series?

M: Yes, quite a lot. I read many documents about them.

P: Could you explain why there is so much fanservice in the manga?

M: Also very simple. I really like that style of drawing! The problem is that in France, there is no problem as you are very open minded but in other countries, when I put too much of it, I get yelled at.

P: Why did you end to manga Monster Soul so abruptly?

M:It was because the contract had ended and we knew from the star it would be a short series so we respected the time limit established by the contract. Also, because of the techniques the hero uses such as tsunamis and natural catastrophes, it was hard to make it last longer.