this is a large can of worms to open, and i feel if i had the time & energy i could make my own 2 hr long youtube video essay on the topic- but the biggest thing that always comes to mind first is the general treatment & depiction of women, both in the writing itself and the art. while theres certainly other things baked into the writing, art, & character designs- such as repeated instances of racism, transphobia, homophobia- the most in your face issue imo is the misogyny baked into his work.
im obvs most familiar with fairy tail, ive only half-heartedly skimmed some of his other works in sheer curiosity. but within fairy tail alone, women never really feel like they get to be truly their own, fully faceted characters. they have to revolve around a man or the men in their life, they have to be sexy & appealing to said mens eye (including young girls)- or, theyre the butt of an "ugly women" joke (the way virgo was introduced comes to mind, for example.)
im a trans man whose been presenting as such for all my adult life, so only part of my life i can really see reflected in these issues. but even not being someone wholly, truly impacted by the effects of misogyny anymore, its such a glaring issue to me in his work. i could never recommend work of his without ten million asterisks regarding the issue.
beyond issues such as that... something that always irritates me about fairy tail is i think there are cool concepts at hand, and neat character arcs. whenever i revisit ft i always am hit with how much i like grays character arc in the beginning, i like the messy family drama of the dreyars that gets introduced/hinted at, i like the different forms of magic. i genuinely like the concept of the dragon slayers a lot, i think its neat! but many of these concepts and character aspects introduced are hinted either dont get explored, or get beaten into the ground too much.
examples of both for the sake of it- gajeel being a spy for ft to get dirt on ivan is never truly explored, when we already had an arc of laxus fucking around with the guild due to family shit. as for concepts being beaten into the ground... even as someone who really likes dragon slayer magic, everything revolving around the dragon slayers in the end gets old. this goes for character traits as well being used to hell and back, causing stagnant characters, such as juvia never becoming someone outside of her love for gray.
i love fairy tail and how cheesy it is and so many of its characters, but it truly is one of the bodies of work in my life that has so many glaring issues from the creator that its not smth i often talk to other ppl about. its peak garbage to me. i love the characters, i also hate so much of the writing mashima baked into them. i love the concepts and the ideas, i hate so much of the execution. it is one of those series i hold in my hand like, "i wish you were put in more capable hands."
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