Joint Review of Fairy Tail 274: Bad Omen

[k-dom]

OK I will start on the analysis, maybe I will focus on the big points first so that we could discuss which ones are to be developed and maybe you can add your opinion too.
Like I said before I'm a newbie in term of review so I'm glad to have 2 veterans with me.

[alphabeta]

Also is there anyone doing a small intro and maybe the ending and the credits? If there's nobody I can volunteer for that, too...and you'll have it in a few minutes

Usually, that's the team captain's job, but if Frosty isn't against it, you can do it.

But like I said, frosty's the one decide that.

---------- Post added at 01:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:28 PM ----------

So, from what I understood, the deadline for this review is the 16th. IIRC that is also the time when 275 should come out, meaning that you would have to move directly from one review to the next. Assuming I will recruit the people that Frosty suggested, I think that we will have a full team starting from 276.

[k-dom]

Hi again here is a first draft for the analysis.
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Summary of past events

We enter the last part of the Battle first round tournament. After Lucy unfair defeat against Flare from Raven Tail, it is Jellal turn to fight. But his opponent is one of the Ten wizards faints Jura from Lamia scale. Will Fairy Tail former enemy be able to give the guild its first points ?


Analysis

After dealing rapidly with the other guilds battles, it's time to focus back on Fairy Tail with Team B match. The guild is in desperate need for points in order to restore its pride.
The battle contestants are, on Fairy Tail side, Jellal impersonating Mystogan and on Lamia Scale side, Jura Neekis one of the most powerful mage alive.
Looking at the past, this battle is quite odd since a former enemy will fight for the guild against someone who was one of their strongest ally of the Oracion Seis arc.

Not only is Jura earth magic powerfull, it also makes photogenic battles. The spectators are happy and so are we. (I'm not sure here but the earth moving pilars kinda reminded me of some naruto battle, but i'm not a naruto expert...)

Desperate to win in order to recover Fairy Tail trust, Jellal uses some of his own magic spells such has meteor and Grand chariot. Are those spells or the revelation of a part of his tatoo the way Jura recognize his true identity ? Anyway, in contrast to Lucy match, Jura is fair play and does not use it in his favor. But the fact that Jura knows will certainly have some importance in the future.

Unfortunatly for our beloved guild, Mashima has decided it is still to early for Fairy Tail to win and as for Lucy, the match ends with Fairy tail humiliation and , we reader, are frustrated of seeing the results of a huge attack for the second time (Mashima you meany !). Why are Meredy and Jellal linked through her Sensory link is yet to be revealed, but this could explain how Meredy knew that Jellal lied to Erza when he said he had a fiancee.

Aside the battle, we have a strange behaviour of the First and another shot of the knight squadron chief to remind us that something bad is about to happen.

And since all chapters seems to end with a gloomy mood recently, this week we have another of Charle premonition. This is the second time Mashima use it as a cliffhanger (let's hope it does not become to much a habit). In the end, the first one was not as bad as it first appeared, but why would Levy write such a formal message to Lucy ? The answer in a next review

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A stupid thing that bothered me while writing was the romanization of the names. I'm not sure if they are official ones, I used the one I'm used to. We can agree of different ones.

Otherwise I wondered if it would be a good idea to make external links to the wikia for things such has attacks or former chapters references. It can help the reader finding some more info (I must say I used it a little for writing some stuff)

[FrostyMouse]

Usually, that's the team captain's job, but if Frosty isn't against it, you can do it.

But like I said, frosty's the one decide that.

---------- Post added at 01:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:28 PM ----------

So, from what I understood, the deadline for this review is the 16th. IIRC that is also the time when 275 should come out, meaning that you would have to move directly from one review to the next. Assuming I will recruit the people that Frosty suggested, I think that we will have a full team starting from 276.

As Alpha said, normally the Captain provides the intro, conclusion, and credits. For this week I was doing it, but along with providing a more cohesive system for the following reviews, which will involve discussion, so as Bene was worried (and we'd seen that issue with the first Bakuman JR), the review will become more cohesive. For this week, it was just a run through, so I wasn't requiring discussion of everything, but as I was giving us until Friday to submit the 274 JR, there is ample time for discussion and creation of more seamless review.

I was thinking that in the future, once we had all of the kinks worked out, we'd have a joint idea for the intro and conclusion, so that the same mind isn't always starting and ending the review, which can provide a certain slant on the review, as that would be the first and last thing to be read.

---------- Post added at 03:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:08 PM ----------

Hi again here is a first draft for the analysis.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
resume of past events

We enter the last part of the Battle first round tournament. After Lucy unfair defeat against Flare from Raven Tail, it is Jellal turn to fight. But his opponent is one of the Ten wizards faints Jura from Lamia scale. Will Fairy Tail former enemy be able to give the guild its first points ?


analysis

After dealing rapidly with the other guilds battles, it's time to focus back on Fairy Tail with Team B match. The guild is in desperate need for points in order to restore its pride.
The battle contestants are, on Fairy Tail side, Jellal impersonating Mystogan and on Lamia Scale side, Jura Neekis one of the most powerful mage alive.
Looking at the past, this battle is quite odd since a former enemy will fight for the guild against someone who was one of their strongest ally of the Oracion Seis arc.

Not only is Jura earth magic powerfull, it also makes photogenic battles. The spectators are happy and so are we. (I'm not sure here but the earth moving pilars kinda reminded me of some naruto battle, but i'm not a naruto expert...)

Desperate to win in order to recover Fairy Tail trust, Jellal uses some of his own magic spells such has meteor and Grand chariot. Are those spells or the revelation of a part of his tatoo the way Jura recognize his true identity ? Anyway, in contrast to Lucy match, Jura is fair play and does not use it in his favor. But the fact that Jura knows will certainly have some importance in the future.

Unfortunatly for our beloved guild, Mashima has decided it is still to early for Fairy Tail to win and as for Lucy, the match ends with Fairy tail humiliation and , we reader, are frustrated of seeing the results of a huge attack for the second time (Mashima you meany !). Why are Meredy and Jellal linked through her Sensory link is yet to be revealed, but this could explain how Meredy knew that Jellal lied to Erza when he said he had a fiancee.

Aside the battle, we have a strange behaviour of the First and another shot of the knight squadron chief to remind us that something bad is about to happen.

And since all chapters seems to end with a gloomy mood recently, this week we have another of Charle premonition. This is the second time Mashima use it as a cliffhanger (let's hope it does not become to much a habit). In the end, the first one was not as bad as it first appeared, but why would Levy write such a formal message to Lucy ? The answer in a next review

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A stupid thing that bothered me while writing was the romanization of the names. I'm not sure if they are official ones, I used the one I'm used to. We can agree of different ones.

Otherwise I wondered if it would be a good idea to make external links to the wikia for things such has attacks or former chapters references. It can help the reader finding some more info (I must say I used it a little for writing some stuff)

It's a good first draft. There are some grammatical issues, but your first language isn't English, so it's fine. I'll proofread everything anyway, as per the job title, so it's fine.

Yeah, use the names you're used to. Like in Bleach, the "official" romanji of some of the names of the Espada is just whacky.

You can have links to the wiki to show what an attack is supposed to look like, if you desire. It would be assumed that you'd remember what they look like after having read the series and the chapter, but there's nothing wrong with being overly helpful.

[benelori]

Are we going to edit in some panels into the review? For example k-dom mentioned that Jura's battles look cool....then we could edit in a panel with Jura looking cool in the chapter

[k-dom]

Yeah I was thinking about that too, it can also help make a link between the paragraphs.
For Jura, which do you prefer, the snake hand or the rock mountain ?

[alphabeta]

Are we going to edit in some panels into the review? For example k-dom mentioned that Jura's battles look cool....then we could edit in a panel with Jura looking cool in the chapter

I'm all for adding panels. I think the person who wrote the analysis could decide what panels excactly, and if he wants to, add the text himself. Otherwise, that'd be frosty's responsibility.

On that note, we should agree on a common panel size for all JRs. I used 450 px wide panels IIRC in my bakuman reviews.

[FrostyMouse]

I'm all for adding panels. I think the person who wrote the analysis could decide what panels excactly, and if he wants to, add the text himself. Otherwise, that'd be frosty's responsibility.

On that note, we should agree on a common panel size for all JRs. I used 450 px wide panels IIRC in my bakuman reviews.

Yeah, adding panels is good, and I'm all for it. Alpha always added panels into his reviews, which always gave them a nice feel, which you can see here, for example.

The analysis writer should choose their pics, as obviously the pics should pertain to the analysis. 450 px wide is a decent size...

---------- Post added at 04:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:17 PM ----------

Yeah I was thinking about that too, it can also help make a link between the paragraphs.
For Jura, which do you prefer, the snake hand or the rock mountain ?

I'm leaving this up to you. It's whatever you think looks better. You don't want a truly massive pic, which the Rock Mountain is, but the snake hand doesn't represent Jura's power as well, so a scaled down version of the Rock Mountain is probably preferable, but in the end, it's your decision.

[alphabeta]

Is it just me, or is it Frosty's turn to write the impressions now?

[FrostyMouse]

Is it just me, or is it Frosty's turn to write the impressions now?

Oh, it is, it is. I was busy last night, so I didn't get around to it, but I'll type them up shortly.

---------- Post added at 06:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:47 PM ----------

Impressions:

At the end of the previous chapter, we were left with the cliffhanger of Jellal, as Mystogan, about to face off against Jura. I looked at the chapter title, "Bad Omen," and I made the assumption that Mashima was foreshadowing that unfortunate things were going to happen as a result of the magical "fruit" that has been referenced lately. Now, I thought to myself, there is no way that this chapter can be any worse than the previous chapter where we just watched Blue Pegasus and Sabretooth roflstomp their opponents or the chapter before that where Obra robbed Lucy of her win over Flare, but no one noticed. We were promised immediately after Lucy's loss, that we wouldn't have to face the trolling again. I don't want to use the word trolling in a review, but there's really no other way to describe what happened.

Considering that Jellal, either as Mystogan or as himself, against Jura had promise, I expected great things out of this chapter. Boy was I wrong...We get what looks it could be a great chapter, but instead, we just end up with the same trolling that we saw in Lucy's match, even though Mashima had promised us that we weren't going to have to witness any more trolling. This time, instead of the opposing team stepping in and stopping Jellal's True Heavenly Body Magic: Star Destruction as was done to Lucy's Uranometria, we have Ultear using the oddly attached Sense Magic on Meredy to prevent Jellal from fully revealing himself, resulting in Ultear knocking out both Meredy and Jellal, giving the win to Jura. We even have Jura asking if this was okay...

You know what, readers? It just wasn't. We could stomach outside interference once, but not a second time. Moving on from this, the scoreboard reveals that Fairy Tail B is still in 7th place with 1 point and Fairy Tail is still in 8th place with 0 points...The magical fruit is still ripening, and we end the chapter with another pointless Charle prediction. Remember the last Charle prediction with Lucy's lifeless looking hand? That's right, we get another one, but this one has Levy telling Lucy that bad things are going to happen in the future, most likely because of the "magical fruit" and Zeref...Why I am not excited?

There were positives and negatives from a character aspect in this chapter. On the one hand, we have Mashima using Mavis for a terrible loli/moeblob moment, but we also have Jura and Jellal making useful comments. Jellal decides to go all out, foregoing his need for concealment, in order to atone for his wrongs against Fairy Tail, and not just Erza. As soon as Jellal pulls out his Heavenly Magic, we have Jura understanding who Jellal really is, but apart from those two, all of the minor characters in the chapter contributed nothing. We have the fans making pointless mocking comments as well as overdone disappointed looks on the faces of Makarov and Mavis.

I wish that there was more to say about the art in this chapter. It was good overall, and sadly it was the best part of the chapter. Now, art is supposed to be one of the parts of a good manga, but it's not supposed to the be the only part that was good for a given chapter.

Overall, I give this chapter a 2/5 for the repetition of the Lucy battle and the repetition of an overly obvious Charle premonition that we know will not come to pass as promised. So much more could've been done with this chapter. A lot more drama could've been added if Jellal's probably ultimate magic KOs Jura and he's revealed as Jellal; instead, we get Lucy version two.

---------- Post added at 06:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:21 PM ----------

There might have been a tad too much analysis there, so I want to think about this for a bit.

[k-dom]

High thanks for the impressions, but I'm not sure to understand what is 'Mashima promise to not troll anymore'. Mashima being Mashima, I think it is impossible for him to stop trolling. Especially in fairy tail...
Otherwise I think some of our point of view are similar (even if i'm more positive but it's because i'm forgiving with this manga :-) so I guess that's good.

[alphabeta]

Wow, things are going smoother than I could've imagined.

Anyway, I'll use my sharingan on k-dom and copy his words about the impressions. I can see how you improved, frosty.

All that's left is bene's prediction.

[benelori]

I will write up some predictions in a few moments...I have some things I need to take care of....until then feel free, to choose the panels that you want to include...

---------- Post added March 15, 2012 at 12:20 AM ---------- Previous post was March 14, 2012 at 10:25 PM ----------

Yeah I was thinking about that too, it can also help make a link between the paragraphs.
For Jura, which do you prefer, the snake hand or the rock mountain ?

Both maybe? cut them out and align them...

---------- Post added at 12:34 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:20 AM ----------

Predictions

Even though this chapter discarded the possibility of Fairy Tail to be viewed in a different light, the future holds promises that things can change.

As it was mentioned above Mashima's promise of Fairy Tail winning was not delivered, however we can still nitpick and say that Fairy Tail has 2 teams, so we can count the two failures as separate.

That is why one possibility is that this nitpicking has some basis, and in the future Fairy Tail will prove its worth in the tournament.

One counter to this prediction would be that the events that will probably interrupt the tournament are near, however it's still a possibility.

So in the end from what we can gather from the events until now, is that the tournament will be interrupted and Fairy Tail will play a central part in the saving the day. This will balance the humiliation suffered in the tournament so far, even if officially they won't be recognized as number 1. This would also serve as a reconciliation between Jellal and a small part of the magical world, and hopefully a cooperation between Jellal and Jura, as a continuation of their show of strength in this chapter.

This is I think the most accurate prediction we can come up with in the long run, because this manga always concludes arcs with a happy ending, so this way the universe "after 7 years" won't be overthrown, but Fairy Tail will still be seen in a favorable light.

How does this prediction reflect on the events of next chapter. Well that is pretty much unknown, because of the cliffhanger, which implies a role of sacrifice(either Lucy or Levy), which is totally different from the events that happened until now. There is also some mentioning that there will be a second day of the tournament, so Mashima is at a point, where he is not constrained to what path he should choose, as he is still laying the groundwork for this arc.

[alphabeta]

Intro, Outro, Poll (can be added later, though) and the review's ready to be published.

Who's up for the intro/outro btw? Frosty? Bene?

[benelori]

I think by default it was Frosty's, but if wants I can do it as well....it's really not much, it's a few seconds to type up both...

But we still need panels...I can't make anything for predictions, however I already have a routine with editing and cropping so I can do that as well if necessary...Frosty included 3 links in his impressions, we could use those for impressions and a mash-up of two badass Jura vs Jellal panels for Analysis...

Let's see what Frosty and k-dom have in mind...