User blog comment:Ncduru/Alvarez Empire Arc: Recap/@comment-1776824-20160229044607/@comment-1776824-20160229064654

@first anon: Lol, I know for a fact none of my favorite characters are going to do anything, as they aren't the main characters. If your favorite character isn't a main character, they just aren't going to end up doing anything. That's pretty much a staple in this series. My issue is with the writing and the writing alone. Hiro's had this wonderful concept for an arc that he just kind of...abandoned. Whatever the arc was hyped up to be isn't what we're reading. Right now, we have a cop out of a character, a half-assed defeat, a defeat that shouldn't logically have occurred at all, and then the only good character that broke all expectations dead because of how exceedingly powerful he was.

Also, "barely any solo fights" my ass. First fight was an all-or-nothing escape attempt that showcased no one's full strength and exerted effort on no one's part. Erza's fight with Ajeel was solo right up until the last second. Laxus just illogically trashed Wahl in a manner so terrible that Hiro Mashima himself admitted that the chapter is going to be made fun of. Natsu fought Zeref alone, and I would say God Serena had a good fight, but we only saw just under half of it. Brandish just straight up gave up. Fighting fodder doesn't count, since that's all one-shots and the like. So right now, out of the four actual fights we've seen in this arc, only one has been a team effort, and that was the Raijins and Ichiya fighting Wahl's proxy. And just because an arc is filled with exciting characters (Mavis is a twat, by the way. Don't get me started on her) doesn't mean it's going to be exciting in and of itself. I'm complaining because the author set up a fantastic premise where he actually could have broken his formula but...then just decided not to because he can. That's annoying.