Hero's - Manga Review

Written by Shiggins

On your left.

Crossovers are a lot of fun, aren't they? Characters you've enjoyed in their own worlds finally meeting each other in a unique situation, their personalities and egos clashing to create conflict, and depending on the story, they either team up to take on the other enemies that probably caused their meeting in the first place, or they fight to the death. In this 10 chapter series, Hiro Mashima decided to give us his own crossover, with his three biggest series Rave Master, Fairy Tail, and the currently-running Eden's Zero. It's a very cute and charming idea, but did he possibly make a mistake?

Note: Spoilers ahead.

The use of that apostrophe really upsets me...

The story of Hero's is exactly what you'd expect. The characters of Fairy Tail are on a beach because it's the easiest place to show fanservice, and Natsu is surprised when he runs into Shiki from Eden's Zero. They have a childish fight that escalates, the rest of the EZ cast show up and befriend the FT cast before revealing that they've lost Best Girl Homura, and that leads to them all fighting against a villain using a Dark Bring to try and kill the cast of Rave Master.

As expected, the plot is a simple "there's a bad guy, so stop him" affair, with the main appeal being Mashima's works all brought together in the same environment. This has happened before between Fairy Tail and Rave Master for a one-shot that was later adapted into an enjoyable OVA, but Hero's is showing somewhat more ambition with three projects instead of two, and a larger cast of characters from all three. We have the main groups you'd expect, but we also have Ichiya, Moscow, the Jiggle Butt Gang's leader, and (technically) Jellal and Sieghart. And with that, a lot more fighting going on. And I'm not so proud that I can't admit it's surprisingly satisfying to see Shiki get a German Suplex from RM's Julia.

Either I secretly love suplexes, or I secretly dislike Shiki. I cannot tell at this stage.

As is often the failing of a cute story like this, none of the action or drama is anything unique. You're mostly here to see the characters' egos and personalities clash, occasionally fight with each other, become friends, and have a good handshake at the end with promises to return when it's time to take on Ultron. And that is Hero's biggest strength, since everyone is written exactly as they should be and staying in-character, which is to be expected since Hiro Mashima is the one writing this crossover. It's like when GT wrote Frieza compared to when Akira Toriyama wrote Frieza in Resurrection F. You can feel the differences, no matter how big or subtle they may be, when someone else writes the character, and that's why nobody other than Mashima should do it.

Natsu should be in the middle. Don't pretend otherwise!

One massive problem with this crossover however is that it really highlights some of Mashima's biggest weaknesses. And you all know I love the guy, but let's really take a look here at these characters. Every group has a spiky-haired male fighter, a busty girl companion with big eyes, a cute mascot (2/3rds of them have a Happy!), the third member is a more serious and sexy type, lots and lots of LOVELY BUMS, a handsome blue-haired antagonist with face tattoos down his left side, and many more that even I, the greatest of all Mashima fans, can't really defend. Maybe this is the cynical side of me that grows whenever I'm on Twitter for half an hour, but I don't know if it was in Mashima's best interests to make a series that highlights all of these issues. Then again, he literally ends this crossover by having the totally-not-Mashima character be called a third-rate failure, so maybe I should just chill and stop analysing what is clearly meant to be some harmless fun.

Presented without comment.

Criticising Hero's feels a bit pointless, since it's not trying to be anything more than what it is. And what it is is a quick and light treat for fans of Mashima's biggest hits. I can grumble and mumble about how weak it is in basically every respect except art and the personalities, but what more did you want? It's the same reason why there's zero point in reviewing Sonic the Hedgehog. Like Sonic's film, it's trash, but it's fun for fans. And really, that's all I can say about it. It's ten chapters long, it will be over quickly, and you'll enjoy it if you're a fan of Mashima-senpai. If you aren't already a fan, this will do nothing to convince you otherwise.

Although, no Monster Soul? That's a bit odd.

#releasetheMashimaCut

Shiggins:[Admin]
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Born under the stars of the Dark Gods, Shiggins owns the power of the Great Eye and is utterly magnificent in his omniscience. If you dare to discover more about someone as great as him, then go ahead. And to all my friends and family members, YOU are wrong and I should be disappointed! Not the other way round!,. You can find out about him or ask him stuff on ask.fm/shigginsishere or go to his tumblr page http://otakugajeel.tumblr.com/