User blog comment:IamJakuhoRaikoben/Chapter 281: Malice is Concealed by the Curtain of Night, Review./@comment-4449950-20120505132932/@comment-3290324-20120505142610

Personally, I believe if this was any other author that this would hold true. But I'm too suspicious of Mashima to believe it for him. He has a knack for putting in fanservice where it just isn't needed. Why, in the middle of battle, was Erza groped by tree limbs? Why, in the middle of battle, was Lucy bound provocatively by hair? Why were they both bound by chains around their breasts, also, in the middle of battle? Why was Lucy's shirt blown to shreds where parts of her breasts could be seen in the middle of battle? A common misconception is that I believe the scene was "just" fanservice and I don't. I think the main purpose of the scene was Mashima trying to get us to understand ST and how it's run and what kind of person Jiemma is, however, I feel the way in which he did so was not a carefully calculated move by a good author as you made it out to be, but the perverted nature of a perverted man. Knowing Mashima and having read his manga for quite some time makes it hard for me to accept any naked woman in his series as being naked for a reason. I think he wanted us to view ST for what it really was, but I think the Yukino stripping was done as less obvious fanservice added in at an inappropriate time. Another thing that was bugging me, and this could be my raising coming into play, is that why are women always used as the mediums of showing how evil something is? Sure, it's a lot easier, but it gets aggravating. There are plenty of alternates.

Now do I think Mashima is a woman hater? No. Not at all. I just think he's a very perverted individual. Scratch that. A perverted individual (if we are being honest here the vast majority of the people in this world are perverts, those who we consider very perverted are just those who express their perverted nature instead of doing the proper thing and concealing it, but that's another conversation for another time, lol) who likes perverted things. And am I right about this situation and Mashima? Probably not. Simply because I can't really speak from an unbiased point of view since not only was I was raised to be very respectful to women, but I think, and have thought, that Mashima was a pervert since the first time I saw his series. I'd also like to clear up the fact that my dislike for this scene was not because I believed it didn't happen in real life. Opposed to popular belief on this blog, I'm not naive to the issues of this world. -_- It's just, as I was saying earlier, I felt like the nakedness wasn't calculated genius, but perverted add ons.