User blog comment:Miskos3/Fairy Tail 519: Show Me Your Smile, Review/@comment-203.87.156.106-20170128051413/@comment-25111584-20170129112955

@anon: Hmmm, have you read D.Gray-man? Both art and plot are shaky in the beginning, but the former has been refined to such a level over the years that I personally find it to be better than Mashima's, while the latter gets really going after the main cast has been assembled.

Unfortunately, the anime has a lot of fillers (although they are nowhere near as bad as Bleach and FT) and the mangaka has pretty bad health issues, so the manga, whose Chapters are published quartely, goes on hiatuses quite often (it is on one now). Mashima's work ethic as an artist simply cannot be surpassed.