Fairy Tail Review

 

Fairy Tail is a series I've had an interesting relationship with. I've been in communities where liking Fairy Tail made you a target for mockery and it's also true that some of my closest friends have been massive fans of Fairy Tail. For a long time I saw lots of negative references to FT and these days I see lots of positive references to FT, without me searching in either way. It seems Fairy Tail is a pretty polarizing series and as I've just recently completed the series with one of my friends, I wanted to give my feelings towards the series. 

Spoilers for Fairy Tail as well as PG-13 imagery below. Also, I would like to say first that Fairy Tail is a series aimed at teenage boys and I'm an adult woman, so I recognize fully I'm not the target demographic. 

While normally I would say the three things I like most and the three things I dislike most there is something this series is rather known on I feel I should comment on, even though I feel neutrally towards it.

Something I am neutral on:

Fanservice: Fairy Tail has a bit of a reputation as "the Fanservice Shonen." When I first started watching I thought the reputation seemed exaggerated. More fanservice-y than the average Shonen, sure. But the reports seemed a bit extreme. That said the series seemed to get more fanservice-y as it went along. For the most part, I've never been particularly concerned with fanservice and FT is not an exception. FT's fanservice ranges from good to terrible (I'll get to it later) but for the most part, the Fanservice is basically revealing clothing and camera angles which are things my mind kinda just glosses over. Sexuality as a topic and a theme has always interested me and if you look at my favorite series you'll find I'm really into series with confident female protagonists who own their sexuality. Very often the fanservice in this series puts the girls' in a much more passive light than that, though for a male writing for teen boys, I don't expect the pinnacle of powerful female sexuality. The writer Mashima also does seem to try and include manservice as well. I don't know how well he really succeeds at the task, but for a (presumably) straight male writer writing primarily for a teen male demographic, the attempt is appreciated. As such this part of the series is not one that usually adds or detracts from it for me.  I also liked BL as a teen and don't have much ground to stand. 

Three Worst Parts of the Series:

These are from worst to best.

1: Tasteless Sexual Harassment and Humiliation: 

I wanna be clear. This is, by far, the thing I hated most about Fairy Tail, as well as probably the least controversial thing to complain about I'd imagine. Fairy Tail consistently uses a joke where female characters, generally Lucy, are sexually harassed or humiliated. I HATED these parts, with some being genuinely hard to watch for me. Disgust is the single most unpleasant emotion to me and violations of sexual consent triggers both physical and emotional disgust. I don't understand how anyone can find these parts either sexy or funny. I like to think I'm pretty reasonable about this. Fairy Tail's a 328 episode series taking all the parts. If this happened once, I could dismiss it as an outlier, twice and it would be an unfortunate coincidence. But it happens, on average, multiple times an arc, enough that it's a very clear, very unpleasant pattern. It's not like it even serves a purpose or anything, almost every time it shows up, it could easily be written out of the story with nothing changing. It is meant to be appealing in and of itself, something that I find baffling. This is probably at its worst in the Macao Arc. The Macao Arc is the very start of the series and very short, yet the series STARTS with Lucy looking for the guild of Fairy Tail almost being brainwashed by the wizard Bora into becoming a sex slave (later retconned in the anime specifically) with Natsu having to save her. This to me seems a really bad way to introduce a new viewer into your world and to your main female lead. And I don't think Hiro Mashima is a bad person for writing it, I don't know the guy. Nor do I think anyone who enjoys these scenes for whatever reason are bad people for it. But if you're asking if I personally enjoyed it, I would say 'No, I couldn't stand this.'" If the ultimate test of quality for a series is how willing you'd be to re-experience it, I know this is by far the biggest obstacle for me being willing to rewatch the series, moreso than the length or either of the other problems. 

2: Lack of Consequences: 

A lot of the time when it comes to consequences, Fairy Tail wants to have its cake and eat it too. FT wants to have big dramatic emotional scenes constantly. However not coincidentally, the fallout of said scenes tends to be hard to write and creatively risky and time-intensive. So Fairy Tail very often tries to have the big dramatic moments but remove the consequences or brush past them in order to try and get the emotion from the viewer without having to bog down in the consequences. The most obvious manifestation of this is the "fake-out death scenes", particularly of Makarov, though the problem extends past that. Plot Points in Fairy Tail are often introduced and made out to be a big deal either to be retroactively expressed as not actually that big a deal or sidestepped. There's a part where Makarov disbands the Fairy Tail Guild on shoddy logic and everyone just falls apart, people don't keep in touch, don't reform the guild themselves, they just let the people they care fall into disarray and despair for a small arc IMMEDIATELY narratively after of them getting back together. Even the sexuality of the series can be viewed as part of this. I like series that examine sexuality as a theme but sex isn't a THEME of Fairy Tail. Sex isn't used to develop the character's relationships and rarely to characterize the cast's personalities. Sex is omnipresent in Fairy Tail but surface deep with most of the main characters, a group of mostly independent extraverted adventurous youths in confined space with each other often wearing revealing clothing not implied to have any real romantic or sexual relationships with each other. Sex in real life is actually a rather major thing but rarely seen in public while in Fairy Tail it is seen everywhere but MEANS nothing. The arc that really suffers most from this in my opinion is the Alvarez arc where constantly things are hyped up as important but come to very little. There's a point where Erza is highly weakened and her opponent Irene summons a large meteor to kill everyone on Earth including Erza. Erza then jumps up and smashes the meteor and resumes fighting Irene who ends up killing herself because she can't bear to kill Erza. Erza's injuries are treated like an important point but then they just aren't. Irene is willing to kill Erza with a giant meteor which is treated as important, and then it's not. And Irene is one of the most important, strongest villains in the series history. For lesser villains, this happens with greater frequency. The reason this is a problem is that the reason these big dramatic moments are hypothetically impactful is BECAUSE they will have consequences, they have meaning. If you don't believe that they will amount to something then these moments that are meant to be dramatic are instead boring and indeed I found a lot of Fairy Tail I was clearly supposed to find exciting to be rather boring because I didn't believe Mashima. The moment that really got me was when Lisanna was brought back from the dead through a really convoluted method. There was no narrative reason too, nothing of note is done with her for the entire rest of the series but it showed me Mashima was not willing to commit to the consequences of his writing if he thought some of his readers wouldn't like it. That was the point that a lot of the series lost excitement for me because it accidentally taught me not to trust what the series was telling me. 

3: Lack of Nuance:

Nuance is one of the most interesting parts of art. The things that tend to make art is the way you take two opposite character ideas and have them simultaneously in the same character or two emotions and have them in the same scene. Fairy Tail constantly chases a huge emotional high, it wants every scene to be big and dramatic but in doing it sacrifices the nuance and subtler joys. The primary antagonist of the series is Zeref the Black Wizard and the series makes a very big deal about his status, cursed by the Curse of Contradiction that makes him like a paradoxical contradictory existence and his will to contradict with his desires. But that's just the nature of human beings, that's how most people in the real world are. At one point in the story Gray is forced to fight his forced to fight his father Silver and Juvia ends Silver's life, freeing him, Juvia's love for Gray causing her to do something that is good for him even when it's not what he wanted. Juvia goes after to talk to Gray. This is a case where what is realistic is actually what is also narratively interesting. There are a lot of emotions for Gray to feel here: Anger or even outright Hatred at Juvia for killing his father, Guilt and Shame someone else had to do it for him, Sadness at having his old wounds opened up, Embarrassment at being as seen as so weak, and Happiness/Gratitude towards her for doing what he needed her to. Gray only feels one emotion, the last one, which also happens to be the easiest to write. And that's a scene that's still on the better side because it says something kinda interesting about Gray's character but it lacks any of the nuance that should be there. Natsu is especially a problem for this. Right before Makarov disbands the guild both he and Lucy go through a traumatic event individually and Natsu just abandons everyone for a year to go train. When he gets back Lucy kinda scolds him a bit, but forgives him instantly when he makes an immature gesture of making things better. The series is on the verge of realizing Natsu is and has been a dramatically immature and irresponsible person who seriously hurt his family but it's not willing to get into the emotional maelstrom of it. The place this is at its most prominent however is at the start of the Grand Magic Games Arc. Almost every single episode, the majority of the scenes in this arc are either "Fairy Tail is so awesome and cool" or "The Villains are evil and cheaters." There are ridiculously over-the-top scenes of Erza solo-ing 100 monsters in one round of a game that was supposed to many rounds for all the teams or Natsu single-handedly beating up Sting and Rogue, who were supposed to be rival Dragon Slayers to Natsu and Gray, even after they powered up... scenes like that just made me really bored because it's just like hammering the same point home over and over: "Fairy Tail SO strong, Fairy Tail Coolest" like a DM who inserts their overpowered DMPC into a game. Broadly speaking a lot of Fairy Tail could have, in my opinion, used more emotional depth and complexity. Lucy is probably the best character for emotional depth. There's a random one-off episode where Lucy reconnects with her estranged father after he fell from prosperity. It doesn't impact the plot but it's pretty sweet and it makes the later ep when Lucy has to come to terms with the death of her father more impactful. But for a lot of characters and scenes it feels like the writer is afraid that every scene is not immediately hugely impactful on a single emotion, that people will lose interest. 

Three Best Parts of the Series:

Unlike the worst parts these aren't in any particular kind of order, they're just the three things I liked most about Fairy Tail in general. 

1: A Large Well-Rounded Cast of Female Characters with Agency

I have seen a moderate amount of Shonen before. If you ignore the sexual harassment stuff (which is a big if), I would say of them Fairy Tail has some of my favorite writing for its female characters period in the genre. A lot of Shonen to me seems either to have a very small female cast who are perfectly enjoyable and do have impact but there's just not a lot of them or have a extensive female cast but they don't have much agency in the story or development. Fairy Tail is the only Shonen I've seen that has both. Fairy Tail has a lot of female characters that are genuinely as important to the story as the male characters. Many people wonder if Lucy is not the main character instead of Natsu and there's a genuine argument for it. The cast is fairly evenly gender divided with the main team of Fairy Tail outside Happy being Natsu, Lucy, Grey, and Erza and when you look at the most important characters after that you still get a pretty even gender distribution. Beyond that the female characters have a lot of agency. Numerous character arcs are focused around them. The Tower of Heaven Arc was focused on Erza, partially Phantom Lord and Loke Arcs heavily involved Lucy, Cana and her relationship to her father Gildarts was a major focus of the Tenrou Island Arc, etc. Lucy and Wendy have in my opinion the best and I definitely think the most development over the series both as fighters and as people, the overarching Big Good of the series Mavis is female... like Fairy Tail girls have a ton of agency. The Girls do most of the heavy hitting in the final arc and that's something I've never seen before. With a lot of Shonen, if you don't like the one important girl in the plot you're kind out of luck. Personally, I wasn't a big fan of Juvia. I found her obsession with Grey annoying. But that's the thing, because Fairy Tail has an extensive cast of Female Characters, that's not really a problem. If you're not a fan of Lucy, maybe you will be of Erza, or Wendy, etc.. Even when it comes to the fanservice, outside of the unending torment of Lucy for the most part the female characters in Fairy Tail are depicted as being sexually confident and wearing attractive clothing because they want to. The playfulness and confidence the female members were allowed to have without it being seen as a stain on their "purity", is something I can only praise full-heartedly. It applies to a lesser extent to his villains too. Several of his villainesses have very high agency even when they are technically working for someone else such as Ultear, Seilah, Kyoka, and Irene, Irene being probably the Spriggan with the most Agency and Attention and Seilah being my favorite villain in the series. I would say Mashima does have a tendency of excusing his villainesses doing terrible things because male character(s) did something bad to them in their backstory which kinda takes a bit from their agency, but that's definitely not a him-specific problem. Fairy Tail has a lot of fanservice but if there's one thing you can't accuse Mashima of, it's viewing his female characters as just sex objects, they clearly have as much care and characterization as his male characters. 

2: Fast Pace and focus on Emotional Appeal: 

I've given some critique in this review to Mashima's style of writing focused on big dramatic flashy events without regard for consequences or nuances, but let's not pretend he does it for no reason. The upside of that writing style is a very fast-paced writing style that focuses on immediate emotional engagement or "hype." I do greatly appreciate the desire to not waste the viewer time. For me, I found after analysis of my tastes that one of the five things I want most in fiction is for things to move at a fast pace and compared to its contemporaries Fairy Tail does always keep things moving. What I find interesting about this is I'm not actually a person who really gets the feeling of hype. It's difficult to excite me without significant buildup and I find transient emotional highs to be a shallow feeling. It's not that I enjoyed FT's high octane dramatic plot structure per se, it's that in striving for it, it cuts a lot of excess other works might have that generally do nothing for me. I think the arc that most benefits from this is the Tartaros Arc. There's a lot of plot points in the Tartaros Arc, a lot of fights, some parts I liked and some I wasn't as fond of such as Erza and Kyoka's last fight or the return of Jiemma but the arc moves at a really fast pace meaning that the parts that were exciting had the additional benefit of feeling like they had a lot of momentum and the parts I wasn't as fond of didn't overstay their welcome. The art starts with the destruction of the Magic Council, the suddenness emphasizing the new and dangerous threat level of the villains and the actual deaths emphasizing the new tone of the arc. Some people dislike the quickness of the series' final fights each arc and while at times it can be a bit extreme, I found that it made them feel much more dramatic to not be dragged out over several episodes. Stuff like this is all over the series, things that could be several episodes are in one episode and things that could be an episode being part of one, helping keeping the series efficient to the point that the most notable point the opposite happened (the second half of the GMG Arc) it was actually rather notable. It amuses me that this series is apparently compared often to One Piece when the most common complaint of One Piece is precisely the opposite of this point. 

3: The Themes of Loyalty and Devotion

This point was the hardest to write, not because I had trouble knowing what the third point was, but because it was hard to put it into words. In our modern world that is so vehemently anti-hierarchal, a certain sense of beauty has been lost, the feeling of loyalty and devotion towards another and viewing them as your higher. This is one of my favorite things about fantasy works in general, capturing such things as the loyalty of knight to his king or queen, of chivalric romances, of a lady's devotion to her lord and so forth and I think Fairy Tail does a really good job of capturing that feeling. The notion of loyalty and devotion shows up a lot in Fairy Tail and particularly when it comes from a humble character or is dignified in its quietness do I appreciate it. When I think of my top 5 favorite scenes from the series, the first one is a great example of this. Mystogan the ultra-powerful member of Fairy Tail seems to not have showed up to help them in their battle against Phantom Lord, though Phantom Lord didn't use 50 of their subdivisions. It is revealed that Mystogan took them all down by himself without ever mentioning it to the rest of the guild. That kind of silent devotion is one of my favorite things to see, both in real life and in fiction. It also leads thematically into the Edolas Arc which most benefits from this theme in my opinion, an arc which deals a lot with the idea of personal loyalties and which has another of my favorite moments where it's revealed that Happy and Carla were born to bring the dragon slayers to Edolas to have their magic drained and Happy refuses the reason he was born because his loyalty to Fairy Tail and Natsu specifically is that strong despite being a tiny not very strong cat relatively speaking against the entire world he was in. I would say the devotion the members of Fairy Tail have towards each other is the real heart of the series and when I think of the smaller differences between the more mild positives and more mild negatives, it comes from whether or not there was a sense of personal loyalty and devotion. For instance, I liked the character of Fried due to his devotion to Laxus, Seilah was my favorite villain partially due to her devotion to Kyoka, I liked August most of the Spriggans due to his silent devotion to his unknowing father Zeref, etc. The theme of loyalty is one of my favorite themes and easily my favorite in Fairy Tail.  

Some other Points:

Most Disliked Character: Flare Corona

Flare is to me the embodiment of Fairy Tail's worst qualities. She's a generic "insane girl" archetype who's needlessly superficially sexual so she can sexually torture Lucy in what's supposed to be to outsiders a fun sports tournament. No one but Fairy Tail cared about her and her guild's blatant cheating to keep Lucy from fighting back. In an arc that is constantly Fairy Tail winning easily, Lucy is put against someone she could clearly beat but made to lose in a humiliating needlessly erotic manner for "drama." Her fight with Lucy is maybe my most disliked scene in the entire series, encompassing all the faults of the series. And then the series gives her the most shallow attempt at being made sympathetic and redeemed. The minute the arc's over, Fairy Tail treats Flare's actions during the games as though she was just a particularly intense competitor even though she and her guild cheated to sexually harass and humiliate Lucy in front of everyone and emotionally torment her. No consequences for any of that, no nuance she's just suddenly not a bad person. Supposedly, Mashima intended for her to simply remain a villain and rival to Lucy but changed his mind but you can't just change your mind on that after you have them cross the moral rubicon and then cross like five more rivers. I can't believe she's still so popular despite all that. Is it literally just that people think she's attractive? There are other Fairy Tail characters I hated but there's no character where the sheer gap between how I'm supposed to feel about the character and how I actually feel is so enormous. 

Favorite Character: Wendy Marvell

I'll give you a moment to recover from your shock my favorite character is the Magical Girl. I like Wendy not for any one trait in particular or that I think she best exemplifies FT's good qualities (Lucy fills that role better) but I like her most because I liked her character development and I think she's the most versatile character in the series. She had an interesting backstory connected to another one of my favorite characters in the series Mystogan and she develops from a shy and meek wizard to one who can stand along the other Dragon Slayers. Like all my favorite characters in fiction, Wendy is a character characterized by internal paradox, she is a small cute girl who's actually one of the Dragon Slayers, the most important Mages in the setting. This is reflected by her fights, where she is normally not the physically competent but has elemental powers as versatile and potent as any, able to help even Natsu and Gajeel against powerful enemies. This versatility also shows up in her scenes that help balance out every arc she's in. Her fight in the Grand Magic Games was the biggest breath of fresh air, no pun intended. After an arc of  evil cheat-y villains and FT being over the top strong, Wendy has a light-hearted fight against her rival Sherria which is cute, comedic, and shows Wendy's development without making her seem over the top powerful. Yet in the next arc, the darker Tartaros Arc where Fairy Tail has been really struggling with the powerful demons Wendy has to the rise of the heroism level of her guild mates to defeat the demon Ezel and succeeds in another one of my favorite scenes in the entire series. That's the versatility of Wendy as a character, someone for whom both scenes feel equally true to her character and thus provides what the guild needs both in-universe with her combination of offense and support magic and narratively balancing out the tone of the arc. 

Most Mixed Character: Natsu Dragneel

Natsu truly is the most fitting face for Fairy Tail. Lucy represents the hypothetical viewer, someone newer to the world of magic who wants to be strong and wants to join a guild like Fairy Tail. Natsu in contrast represents Fairy Tail itself, the guild and the series. As the most main character in the series, Natsu has the most content. He is the focus of some of the series' more memorable good parts and some of the series' more memorable bad parts... sometimes in the same arc (Natsu's fight with Gildarts and Natsu's fight with Zancrow in the Tenrou Island Arc.) When Fairy Tail is good Natsu is good, when Fairy Tail is bad, Natsu is bad, and no matter what Natsu represents Fairy Tail the guild and the series, a fiery warrior driven by a love of adventure and devotion to his friends. 

Best Character Development: Lucy Heartfilia

Honestly I like both Wendy and Lucy's character development most, but Lucy's is definitely a lot more central to the series and I already went over Wendy. If Natsu represents Fairy Tail the guild and what it is, Lucy represents what it can be, a dreamer who seeks to join Fairy Tail like the hypothetical viewer and carries its underlying spirit as opposed to its reality. Lucy grows a ton during the series with some of the better "small" parts of the series reflecting that as she goes from a mage that has to rely on her few summons to having more summons then ever but fighting alongside them to eventually going so far as to embody her summons, fulfilling that notion that your friends make you stronger even when apart because their spirit resides eternally you. Her scene in Tartaros was great and when Fairy Tail was at its best she was probably my favorite character though I preferred Wendy overall because when Fairy Tail was not at its best it tormented Lucy for no reason.

Worst Character Development (within the guild): Makarov Dreyar

So the actual worst character development comes from a few villains that the series pretended to redeem with absolutely minimal effort but my least favorite character within the guild itself is Makarov.

Makarov is the poster child for Fairy Tail's lack of consequences with his several death fake outs being one of the most commonly derided points. Beyond that he's very clearly supposed to be the wise old mentor archetype but it seemed like he very rarely had much of wisdom to say, his actions as Guild Master ranged from decent to terrible (such as disbanding the guild), got quickly dispatched twice, failed to stop Laxus' rebellion, and despite being an old man and repeatedly referring to the guild as his "children" he has also sexually harassed a few of the female members of FT. Old Men in positions of power abusing that to hit on younger female members is a very serious issue. His archetype tends to die or retire for very good reasons and he never does stunting the potential growth for any character that would take the position after him like Gildarts or Laxus. 

Favorite Exceed: Happy

Already answered favorite Dragon Slayer with my favorite character so will say my favorite Exceed instead, which is Happy. Frosch is the cutest, but Happy is also really cute and by far the most important to the story, including being the center of one of my favorite scenes in the series. 

Also no Least Favorite Exceed because that's mean. 

Least Enjoyed Romance: Juvia x Gray

Thought the reason Juvia was obsessively in love with Gray was weak and I spent most of the series wishing Gray would either accept or reject her. I didn't really care which but it was broadly annoying watching Juvia obsess about Gray for most of the series without any movement. 

Most Enjoyed Romance: Erza x Jellal

Had some eye-rolling cliches but the two had the most chemistry together and had more on-screen development than any other pairing. Lisanna x Natsu had some early on but disappeared along with Lisanna and never returned and Bisca x Alzack was off-screen.  The ship also had a cute moment in the final episode. 

Worst Arc (Not including Filler): Avatar Arc

The arcs I dislike most are Macao, Grand Magic Games, Avatar, and Alvarez. Macao is the worst about tasteless sexual harassment using that as quite literally the introductory plot to the main female lead (arguably laying the groundwork for that to be her defining "joke") and to the world of Fairy Tail. Alvarez is the worst about Lack of Consequences being an arc that's full of anticlimaxes and memetic tier contradictions of what was just established five seconds ago like Irene killing herself to not kill Erza immediately after she just tried to kill Erza or introducing plot elements suddenly like the time vortex. I went back and forth between GMG and Avatar a bunch but GMG was mostly troublesome for being the worst offender of the lack of nuance with the same points being hammered home over and over and it did have its bright spots (Wendy's fight with Sherria, Ultear's sacrifice, to a lesser extent Gray vs Rufus.) Avatar Arc to me has some of all three of Fairy Tail's problems. It has one of the two worst scenes in the entire series for me (the brief torture scene with Lucy, a scene in the same league as Flare's torture of Lucy) despite being much shorter than GMG, the entire Makarov disbanding the guild and so them all falling apart was asinine showing a lack of consequences, and it also was pretty bereft of nuance. Its bright spots are maybe greater in number proportional in size compared to GMG but none of them were THAT good and the arc really felt like it lacked a reason to exist. 

If you asked me would I rather rewatch GMG or Avatar, I would say Avatar because it's so much shorter, but if you ask me to defend either arc it's a lot easier to defend GMG conceptually for me. 

Best Arc: Tartaros Arc

It seems like this is the most popular arc, and yeah can see why. I also liked the Zero, Sub-Zero Emperor Lyon, Loke, and Edolas Arcs, but Tartaros plays to Fairy Tail's best qualities while also having its own unique feel to it being darker and more atmospheric. Of my five favorite scenes in the series, three of them come from Tartaros namely Wendy and Carla stopping Face, Lucy saving the guild single-handedly, and the death of Igneel. This arc has the best atmosphere, my favorite villain, a strong opening, and while some of the latter part of the arc gets more questionable, the very end with Igneel is very moving and the reveal that Natsu is END is one of the biggest and most important twists in the series. Gray vs Silver, Mira vs Seilah, and especially Wendy vs Ezel were all great. 

For the other arcs I liked, Zero had a really good twist and ending, Sub-Zero Emperor Lyon had a really sweet backstory for Gray and symbolism about moving on from the past I thought was wholesome, the Loke arc was one of the best for Lucy until Tartaros and had pleasant characterization for both Loke and Lucy, and Edolas Arc is a very underrated arc focusing around Mystogan who was my favorite character at the time, has the Edolas FT Guild who I really liked, and had the great scenes of Happy's defiance against the Exceed system for his friends followed by him and Carla with Happy's parents. Compared to Tartaros Zero and Loke are both very short arcs so they simply don't have the time to build up to anything like the Tartaros Arc, the Sub-Zero Emperor Lyon arc took a while to get going for me and had some questionable bits... Edolas to me is the real competition. Both arcs start good, get great by the midpoint, and then go downhill towards the end though with the very ending bits of Natsu playing Demon King for Mystogan and Natsu reuniting with Igneel being very good. The main differences are that Edolas feels somewhat disconnected and different from most of Fairy Tail and also doesn't use most of the cast while Tartaros felt far more connected to Fairy Tail, far more like what the rest of the series was going for, and had some of the most comprehensive usage of the cast of any arc. 

Most Mixed Arc: Tenrou Island Arc

The arc I have the most mixed feelings on, this arc has several things I really disliked (Kain Hikaru vs Lucy, Lucy and Cana's fight against Bickslow and Fried, Ultear's backstory, Natsu vs Zancrow, Erza vs Azuma) and several things I quite liked (Lucy and Cana's relationship in general, Cana's reconciliation with Gildarts, the introduction of Zeref and Acnologia, Natsu's fight with Gildarts, the very surprising ending) this was definitely the arc that made me go up and down most. 

Conclusion:

From what I've read of Hiro Mashima and from my experience of FT, it seems like he was anxious about making a decision that would be particularly controversial such as killing off the "wrong" character. It is ironic then he  ended up creating a series so polarizing as FT. But somehow it is fitting as well, it is the power of contradiction. If the loneliest people are the kindest, the saddest people smile the brightest, and the most damaged people are the wisest, then surely it is fitting too that a manga that seeks and is about acceptance should be a series of controversies.

When I've heard people talk why they love Fairy Tail it's because they felt like they gained a sense of family and belonging from it. Fairy Tail as a guild and a story represents an ideal, a particular attempt to bridge chaos and order in the form of a family where you are accepted unconditionally and free to be whoever you truly are inside while still belonging and having the security of heart to know wherever you journey people will be watching over you. What I find about both these reviews and the series itself is they present a fairly one-sided view on the topic. Fairy Tail is an idealized establishment. It is simply assumed you will feel a kinship to the guild and it is simply assumed that people being their true selves will only result in an acceptable level of chaos. In our real world, we live in a complex social game where we must be take on many roles for as many people, where there is a time and place to bare your soul, and a time and place to take on the role others need you to be. But I suppose it wouldn't be Fairy Tail if it didn't throw itself wholeheartedly into the ideal: no nuance, all heart.

If I am honest, overall I am not a fan of Fairy Tail. It has its positive aspects but its negatives, in particular the repeated tasteless usage of sexual harassment, weigh too heavily on me. I can see why someone might like it certainly, but it's clearly for someone of a different temperament to me. I can connect with my masculine side or my teenage side, but not both at once. I can appreciate its good qualities, the heart Mashima put into it, his desire to create something that would be appealing to many people from many angles, and the way he grappled with his personal tragedies through his art. That said my impression of the series was being focused on keeping audience attention through flash and superficial appeals even to the point of tastelessness.

Fairy Tail at its best is the purest manifestation of a type of storytelling and an ideal of friendship that, to me, is like looking into a different world. At its best it showed me why people seek that thing I don't, and when it was its worst it showed me more about what I care for that its picture didn't have in it. It is somehow both a series devoted to a singular ideal, a singular spirit, yet at the same time a series of contradictions to me. But perhaps the most paradoxical of loves born is the love born from contradictions. So if you are on that eternal quest to find out if fairies have tails, I hope you find belonging and companionship in that spirit. 

DC Exploration: the Mighty Endowed

 

((Quick Warning, this blog's subject matter is kinda dumb and I'm doing this mostly because I said I would at one point))

Who is She?

Mighty Endowed was once the archeologist Nina Dowd. She was directing an archeological dig to find ancient artifacts when she came across a wheel-looking device left behind by the New Gods. While her team was hesitant to get close to it, Nina waved off such concerns and went up to it. 

When she touched it she was encased in a strange cocoon. When she emerged, she was transformed into a New God, with the most notable change being the massive expansion of her chest, declaring herself the New God Mighty Endowed. She's a very obscure villainess, with one appearance in the main timeline being the first villain fought by Young Justice. 

How Strong is She?

Actually kinda hard to say. She was beaten very easily by Young Justice, though it's more fair to say she was beaten by herself. She seemed much stronger in the Dark Crisis Young Justice special where she fights Young Justice Conner, Tim, Cassie, and Bart at once but this was a false reality made by Mickey Mxyzptlk so whether that means anything is your prerogative with them even commenting she seems much stronger and like an actual threat. Assuming she could get around her own weakness in some way, most likely she would be equivalent to a weak New God. The bigger question is how strong are weaker New Gods? The New Gods are a race of Kardashev Scale Type 5+ conceptual civilizations from the Godsphere but when interacting with the physical realm they purposefully limit themselves to physical emanations to interact with them safely. 

If she is comparable to the lowest degrees of New Gods physically such as Parademons or Mister Miracle who is considered "powerless" for a new god, this may suggest some degree of superhuman stats with parademons doing things like bringing down planes or fighting Batman, and Mister Miracle one-shotting a human with bulletproof armor or kicking a robot's head off. That said while these are similar low tier New Gods physically, it's totally possibly Mighty Endowed doesn't scale to either of them. This is the range it's likely she would scale logically but nothing really suggests either way and her anti-feat kinda suggests otherwise...

Broadly speaking if you think Mighty Endowed should scale to the feats of other low tier New Gods, she should be at least Low Metahuman Tier. Without she has no physical feats, one physical anti-feat and one power and would probably be a Low Vigilante Tier. 

What are her powers?

Mighty Endowed's most famous power and the only one she's really demonstrated is that her breasts can emanate a bright light that can be used to disorient or hypnotize. 

If she has the abilities of other New Gods, even physically substantiated ones she'd likely have several other abilities. New Gods, like early depictions of Kryptonians, are considered a hyper-evolved race whose physical and mental statistics are evolved past that of normal biological species with superhuman strength, durability, speed, endurance, stamina, and intelligence. They're also ageless (ceasing aging at the equivalent of about age 30), an immunity to many toxins or diseases, and often mild psychic powers such as supernatural sensing or mild telekinesis. 

What are her weaknesses?

So most infamously Mighty Endowed's breasts were amplified to such an extent that she could not actually stand up under her own weight. This could be taken as a strength anti-feat but I would argue probably not. The world's largest breasts are Annie-Hawkins Turner's at 102 ZZZ which are larger then Mighty Endowed and she can still stand up. This is quite clearly a joke and if you are to take the anti-feat "seriously" Nina would have to be not just "not New God" level strength but genuinely a weakling compared to real world humans. Broadly I would just take this as a weakness that she has trouble standing without trying to examine the real world physics of it.

Also technically Nina would have the weakness of other New Gods to Radion which is like Kryptonite to the New Gods. 

In conclusion Mighty Endowed is probably a Low Meta due mostly to scaling to the physical capabilities of other relatively weak New Gods. As for how she would do against them, she would probably lose against almost any named New God as she has almost no experience as one and only one power, with many new gods having some level of resistance to regardless. She could probably beat a normal foot soldier from either New Genesis or Apokolips such as one of the Bugs or one of the Parademons respectively just by controlling them, but wouldn't rank too highly regardless.

Compared to most DC Vigilantes, I would presume most Metahuman tier characters could take her out so long as they can avoid being brainwashed by her and I even think a fair number of higher vigilante tier characters would be able to possibly beat her. Granted if they don't have an outright physical superiority they are probably going to at least need willpower strong enough to not be hypnotized as well as physical training and coordination strong enough to fight an evolved species like a New God, but that's certainly not unheard of from DC Street Tiers. I think her best matchups would be characters that are bricks with high strength/durability but without particular willpower feats, and her worst would be characters with high willpower and combat skill.

The Owl House-verse Strategy Guide

 

How to be OP in the Owl House-verse

Since The Owl House is a newer show I would likely to quick give a spoiler warning. 

Town Tier:

This is the main tier for most of the characters in the series. The series takes place in the Demon Realm, set primarily on the boiling isles, an set of islands that are actually the corpse of an ancient giant being known as a titan. Everything in the demon realm is far more dangerous with normal school events including encounters with lethal monsters and the very weather including things like boiling rains, gorenados, and painbows. As such the beings from that realm are naturally much stronger. 

The characters in this tier broadly range between the kiloton range (town level) and the megaton range (city level) depending on if you use the lower or higher end for their calcs. Near the start of season 2 Luz the protagonist demonstrates the capability to create a massive ice wall, calced at about 3.77 kilotons consistent with End of Season 1 Luz vaporizing one of Belos worm beasts calced at hundreds of tons of tnt. This Luz is still considered relatively new to magic compared to the other students of Hexside. These students in Season 3 would fight and at least somewhat pressure Kikkimora's Abomination Mech that seemed to vaporize a section of the ground with one blast. If it is indeed vaporization this would take over 30 kilotons and the mech tanked the recoil of the blast. King, with his sonic attack was able to do some damage to the finger of the titan, a feat that would require at least 3 kilotons of force based just on the visual damage. Some think it may be much higher judging based on the force of how much a titan's finger flick would have to be and the titan's finger clearing away the local clouds with energy in the range of tens to hundreds of megatons though whether this scales to the dead titan's finger is unclear. Hunter's Palisman Flapjack easily blocks one of King's shouts prior to this. When Luz awakens her own Palisman Stringbean just the energy released has been calced as being between 2 and 260 kilotons, and her accidental blast with Stringbean being calced at 33.7 kilotons for pulverization and 4 megatons for vaporization. Finally the series has a relic called the Green Thumb Gauntlet that can create any tree one can imagine, the energy needed to simple create a tree actually being quite substantial. Using just trees in the real world, this would come out to over 95 kilotons of energy, though the Boiling Isles from some shots comparing trees to the Titan's head might have even larger trees than exist in the human realm, and would reach a level of 11.13 megatons. Lilith called relics including the gauntlet which she easily overpowered "decrepit relics" yet famously even a dying Eda was still stronger than Lilith proclaiming that "even at your best, you can't defeat me at my worst!" So it's very safe to say the characters are somewhat in the kiloton to megaton range depending on who exactly, though the gap between many of them isn't massive with Season 1 Luz actually doing slight damage to Emperor Belos by hitting him in the eye, Belos being hyped as the strongest character in the tier. The lowballed interpretation is Lower Tiers are single-digit kilotons scaling off Luz simply awakening her palisman, creating a large ice wall, and downscaling from Kikkimora's mecha, Mid Tiers are double-digit kilotons scaling directly to Kikkimora's mech, Stringbean's accidental magic blast, and downscaling from Lilith overpowering the Green Thumb Gauntlet, and High Tier beings triple-digit kilotons upscaling from Lilith overpowering the Green Thumb Gauntlet. The Highballed interpretation is that even Low Tiers are triple-digit kilotons scaling off Luz awakening her power being 260 kilotons, Mid Tiers scale to Palismans being able to take King's sonic attack and Stringbean's own attack value as well as scaling to around the Green Thumb Gauntlet, putting them at double-digit megatons, and High Tiers scaling far above, likely to triple-digit megatons from a heavily weak Eda scaling above Lilith scaling far above double-digit megaton feats. There are actually arguments of the characters being even strong based mostly on scaling to casual attacks from Titan Belos, but I'm generally skeptical of this scaling. 

In terms of speed, characters flight/reaction speed is a bit above their normal movement speed. Their normal movement speed mostly scales around light-timing, generally from Light Glyphs. Piniet, a normal Boiling Isles inhabitant moves at a notable fraction of the light from a Light Glyph on screen, just over a quarter of its speed. In Luz's fight with Harpy Eda, Eda outpaces from the light glyph, calced at nearly 4 times the speed of light, a fight with End of Season 2 Luz keeps pace with her. The gap between the two feats is roughly 13.5x, which gives us the range of speeds for Boiling Isle inhabitants. Lilith also has a feat of moving just slightly above that of the light from a Light Glyph, giving another reference point for where characters would be. Broadly Lower to Mid Tier characters would be Relativistic while High Tier characters would be lower end FTL. However, their flight/reaction speed is a bit higher. After absorbing the power of the Palisman Flapjack, Hunter becomes a speedster, able to appear as just a blur to the other characters. These Palismans seem to fly relative to The Collector and to Titan Belos who was able to tag the Collector. In fairness, the Collector was playing around the entire time with Luz and friends, and Titan Belos tagged the Collector with the help of very large area of efects. That said the Collector is a child from a cosmic alien race known as the Archivists, a group that travels between star systems and whose speed will be explained more later in this blog. If the Palismans' speed is even a fraction of this, the characters flight/reaction speed would likely be hundreds of times the speed of light at least. 

The primary denizens of the Boiling Isles are Witches and Demons. Witches are a humanoid race with pointed ears and a bile sac attached to their heart that allow them to cast spells. Demons are creatures that come in three designates (Beast, Bug, and Bipedal.) They often rely on biological abilities but also have bile sacs and can learn magic. Magic is cast by drawing a circle with any of their limbs in the air or in a material like the ground. While at the end of the series, any one with a bile sac can hypothetically cast any spell as the coven system was disbanded, presumably mages would still use the type of magic that they are most knowledgeable in. The power of a mage's magic increases with both their knowledge and their emotional state. The types of magic that were present during the coven system included:

• Abomination Magic: Most notably used by Amity, her father Alador, and the Coven Head Darius. Abomination Magic manipulates a viscous purple slime into constructs, weapons, or most commonly monsters known as abominations. The strongest abominations are Alador's technology-amplified abominations called Abominations 2.0
• Bardic Magic: Most notably used by Coven Head Raine.and the rebellion group Bards against the Throne (BATT.) Bardic Magic manipulates sound and frequency. This can be used to directly attack with soundwaves or create small localized storms. It can be used to brainwash people or put them to sleep and can be used subtly to change the properties of liquids.
• Beast-Keeping Magic: Most notably used by Coven Head Eberwolf as well as Gwendolyn Clawthorne and Edric Blight. Beast-Keeping magic is used to speak to and control the various strange animal species on the Boiling Isles as well as seemingly to gain some of their traits
• Construction Magic: Most notably used by Coven Head Mason, Construction Magic involves manipulating stone structures to build stuff and can be used to amplify one's physical characteristics. It MAY be related to the magic used to make parts of one's body grow but it's not clear. 
• Healing Magic: Most notably used by Head Master Hettie and to a lesser extent by Viney, Healing Magic is used to heal wounds and poisons. It also is stated by the wiki though I don't know where this is from that it is related to shield spells. Various forms of shields and bindings are seen in the series including barriers that are erected to every exit of Hexside, or Eda creating a shield around the entire Owl House as well as Belos using bindings strong enough that Owlbeast Eda couldn't break them and Amity creating an energy cage around Luz. 
• Illusion Magic: Most notably used by Coven Head Adrian, Gus, Emira Blight and also used by the demon Adegast, Illusion Magic is magic that creates illusions including illusory clones or entire illusory surroundings. Gus and Adegast have shown the ability to create illusions extending to the horizon, Gus' illusions have shown the ability to affect sensations other then sight and sound and Adegast's were targeted to appeal to the victim's desires. Illusion Magic seems to have some connection to memory, often recreating things from the caster or target's memories and Adrian also seemingly demonstrated the ability to read memories as a connected ability and may be the type of magic of the amnesia spell Luz tried in Eda's body. 
• Oracle Magic: Most notably used by Coven Head Osran as well as Odalia Blight, Oracle Magic is primarily used to divine information through the usage of Precognition, Clairvoyance, and Telepathy. It can also be used to invoke spirits and their powers, summoning spirits or psychic energy that can be shaped into constructs. 
• Plant Magic: Most notably used by Coven Head Terra as well as Willow, Plant Magic is the manipulation of flora, accelerating their growth and directing them for usage of various poisons or to bind enemies. 
• Potions Magic: Most notably used by Coven Head Vitimir as well as the demon Tibbles. Potions Magic is the magic of creation potions of various effects. These can be used as acids or explosives, causing sleep or counteracting curses, and even esoteric effects like bringing objects to life or shrinking people.

There are various other spells that seem to be commonly used. Telekinesis and Levitation are extremely common and used by random mages. Elemental Magic also seems to fairly common with light magic, fire magic, ice magic, and water magic all being seen used in normal circumstances. Something known as a Death Hex was sent to Eda in the mail which caused a trash can to disintegrate and presumably would have done the same to Eda. Magic Users can enter an Everlasting Oath which is a type of magic that forces them to abide by the conditions they set unless it is released. It's broadly implied that magic in the verse can affect ghosts with Eda as a child letting loose a bunch of ghosts in the girls' locker room. Likewise mages as a matter of course get a palisman which gives them flight, energy projection, and enhances their speed. Witches also sometimes have garments made of witch's wool, a special material that protects from magic. 

Some of the most important mages are one who were never affiliated with one of types of magic. Hunter was once the Golden Guard, the latest in Emperor Belos' line of prodigy mages who after absorbing the power of a Palisman can enhance his own speed as well as teleport. Kikimora is a coven head who rides around on a dragon monster and uses fire projection. Lilith was another coven head who not only could use all the types of magic but cast a curse on her sister that slowly drained her magic and caused her to sporadically turn into an owl-monster, with no one being able to cure it. She also demonstrated another spell that may be related is the "Share the Pain" spell, a spell that can used to evenly split injuries and pains between people, including other curses like the owl curse, possibly a Healing Coven spell.  Because of the owl curse on her, she's also immortal and universally animate able to tank having her head removed.

However the most important is the main character Luz is a human and so had no bile sac but unlocked the ancient art of gylph magic. The four Basic Glyphs, drawn pictures with circles that appear everywhere in nature and cause magic, are the letters in the Titan Alphabet of Fire, Ice, Light, and Plant. From these and combining these glyphs can create a wide swath of effects including all the coven types of magic as well as numerous other kinds of magic: petrification, windstorms, invisibility, summoning giant monster arms, and more. Luz also has the toonforce ability to induce montages and is a skilled at diplomacy to the point that Amity considers it one of her notable traits. 

However the two strongest witches in the series are the two witches who both have a claim to being the strongest witch in the world: Prime Eda and Emperor Belos. While Eda's magic weakens over the course of the series, Eda early on is considered an uncatchable outcast from Emperor Belos' society, a wild magic user without equal who defeated the Emperor's arguably strongest witch while she was at her weakest. Eda shows a ton of magical abilities no one else in the series does including body-swapping, lasers, can fuse objects together, can summon a dark-multi-headed counterpart of Hooty, can draw a single circle that itself draws many circles to cast many spells at once, magical fire traps, lightning manipulation, and sending people inside others minds. Due to her owl curse nature, Eda is also immortal and universally animate. 

On the other hand, Emperor Belos is the ruler of the Boiling Isles, a human witch-hunter who disguised his true nature and learned to cast the same glyph magic Luz did and developed a form of artificial magic using a special staff that ignores the usual magically resist witch's wool. Belos can create portals and teleport, drain the magic from Palismans, petrify people, telepathically sense and communicate, telekinesis, summoning and was able to restore Eda's consciousness inside the owl creature. Later on his body developed into a sludge-material that he can shift into weapons, shapeshift, regenerate, and possess people. 

The Boiling Isles also has numerous other demons that use their physical capabilities, the strongest of these such as Slitherbeasts, The Bat Queen, and Hooty being strong enough that they don't need magic. The Bat Queen uses webs to bind enemies and Hooty is a long disturbingly flexibly creature with enhanced hearing that easily beat away any attempts people had to attack Eda's home including the strongest mages of Belos at once. There's also basilisks like Vee. Basilisks are shapeshifting creatures that can drain magic from witches and demons nearby, making them highly feared. 

Outside the Witches and Demons there are a few other things of note in the Demon Realm. There is a creature named Grometheus whose nature is never explained who turns into the deepest fear of whoever sees it. There still exists at least one golem, which are the ancient guardians of the titans young. Speaking of, perhaps the most important being in the Boiling Isles is King. King is a child titan, the last living one. Despite his small stature, King is capable of emitting a sonic "WAAAA" attack that is a relevant threat to any of the cast, and hypothetically is full of titan's blood. Titan's blood, even a few drops, is the most powerful power source in the Owl House, capable of fueling especially powerful spells and breaking through the boundary between realms to the human realm. There's also... giraffes *shivers*

So in terms of threats this verse is very versatile including many biological forms of attacks, many mental forms of attacks, many forms of information gathering, several forms of mobility enhancement, high stats for their stat tiers, and numerous form of anti-magical warfare. 

So how to fight this tier?

The first thing that came to mind was to use antimagic of your own. The antimagical properties of the Basilisk is what makes them so dreaded. Most of the powers in the tier are magical, and witches lifeforce seems to be magic. This isn't inherently an autowin button though. Belos magic can seem to ignore normal magical defenses. Also in the human realm glyph magic wasn't supposed to work yet just being near a vial of titan's blood made it work again, suggesting that being near King might help nearby Witches still use their magic even around antimagic sources. Not that it's a bad tactic by any means, just not invincible. Second all magic in the verse outside Belos' artificial magic seems to require making circles. Disrupting witches from drawing the circles such as powerful earth manipulation to knock them off their feet or powerful wind manipulation to knock them back can disrupt their magic. Particularly powerful telekinesis like Belos' also seems to be treated like a very strong power used to disarm people or keep them from drawing circles. Generally shutting off their magic through antimagic or through disrupting circles would be pretty potent against any magic wielding character here. 

Third, the characters' defenses are not actually that high. Defense in this verse is mostly limited to avoiding being hit, barrier type magic, antimagic, and Eda/Lilith's immortality. Any kind of non-magical form of offense that works based on sight or hearing or thought would likely take most characters in the tier by surprise. Biological manipulation would also be especially potent as Witches and Demons rely on bile sac to cast magic and the only one who would resist is the golem. Finally the characters secondary stats only really seem to be middle of the road at best. For a cartoon there's no obvious feats of superhuman skill or stamina and superhuman intelligence is arguable and limited in who it applies too. Plus the characters' range is only fine, characters with dimensional abilities are limited basically only to Titans and it would be extremely hard for characters to fight others with Dimensional Abilities. Characters with especially high ones of these would easily have their own niche. 

So who would be a good counter? My first suggestion would be...

Lord Zagato from Magic Knight Rayearth (Anime version)

Zagato was strong enough to effect Guru Clef with his magic who created a magical explosion calced at 1.7 Megatons. Assuming Zagato needs to be at least near him to use the power, this would make him a High Tier in Power compared to Lowballed TOH and Mid Tier in Power compared to Higher estimated TOH. While his movement speed would be negligible here, he is able to match the Magic Knights in sword combat, the Magic Knights having fast enough reactions to tag monsters made of light and pilot Rune Gods that equal the speed of interplanetary spaceships. This means he he should be able to react the the characters in this tier at least.

Mages in CLAMP like Zagato can naturally resist magic that isn't as strong as theirs, meaning Zagato should have a general resistance to most magic in the verse with the only exceptions maybe being the strongest witches maybe. Against these Zagato can rely on his other tools.

Zagato is able to match all 3 Magic Knights in melee combat, with Hikaru and Umi being able to match and best the most skilled swordsman/swordswoman in all of Cephiro and Chizeta respectively. He is also a cunning manipulator and intelligent enough to rise to the position of High Priest of Cephiro. This gives him a broad mental stat advantage against anyone in the tier, especially given his willpower is so strong that he was able to form his own Rune God from it, meaning that the manipulation of someone like Belos or Luz most likely wouldn't sway him even the slightest bit.

Zagato is a powerful mage as well as warrior and has numerous forms of one-shot hax that have been seen to be highly effective against even high tiers in TOH including petrification, matter manipulation, and mind control, all of which he did more thoroughly and/or quicker than the equivalent spells in TOH. This might not work against something like a Basilisk but he should be a strong enough physical warrior to fight them in melee. 

Even imagining the worst case scenarios for him, Prime Eda or Emperor Belos' with Witch's wool, or he's attacked by raw numbers, not only is his power, magic resistance, and skill likely enough to somewhat keep up but likely he has the power to open a Road, a pathway between dimensions, as seen by his desire to bring Esmeraude to another dimension and having willpower to rival the Magic Knights who can do the same. Dimensional Travel would allow him to escape any fight he needs to and if someone was to try and follow him through dimensions he could simply trap them there.

Still those scenarios especially being attacked by large numbers at once would be dangerous. Another counter you could use might be...

 

Lord Tirek from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

Tirek in his base form scales significantly above Spike the Dragon melting a large ice block with his fire breath calced at 920 tons of tnt. He should also scale to normal Unicorns sending magic blasts that hit the Moon very quickly calced at about 3.56c, just slightly under Eda's speed feat. This means Tirek in his base form would be on the lower end of power for the tier but on the higher end for speed, fitting his centaur-like appearance. Of course he wouldn't be in his base form for long. 

Tirek depending on form has various forms of conventional attacks like fire, shockwaves, and lasers. But he's most known for his primary power: Magic Absorption. Tirek can absorb the magic from other entities. Not only does this increase his power and size, it also seems to give him the ability to use said magic as he gained Discord's reality-warping after draining Discord's magic but also a level of magic resistance as after a certain level of power even the Alicorn Princesses couldn't stop him and they have access to almost every spell in The Owl House. Because magic acts as lifeforce for witches, this would be functionally lifedrain against most of the opponents here. What's worse is that Tirek can drain the magic from Earth Ponies. Earth Ponies use a very subtle kind of magic derived from the land itself which Tirek can drain. But it's not like this is a world where all magic is derived from the ground which is a giant corpse full of magic....Not only could Tirek likely drain everyone in the verse of magic, he can possibly drain the very Titan's body itself for its magic going into a titan form like Luz did. Granted Tirek does say he can only drain the magic of "living" beings so it's possible and even probable he can't, though the context makes it unclear if he means living as in non-dead or just living as in organic as he was explaining he couldn't drain the energy of the Bewitching Bell's barrier. 

Even ignoring that, Tirek after getting stronger gains access to numerous abilities that would be broken. His primary battle tactic is telekinetically holding enemies prone while he throws them around or holds them paralyzed something that would prevent anyone in the tier from creating circles. He has the ability to open portals to Tartarus and send people in, something that no one could return from as only King has any titan's blood, and he doesn't have the knowhow to build a portal. While Tirek would be more vulnerable in his base form, Tirek also happens to be a master of stealth and manipulation having gotten past Canterlot security and manipulating Discord to side with him among other feats. All of this without the Bewitching Bell a magical item that can be used to nullify magic used against the wielder.

Tirek's main weakness is his arrogance. There are plenty of people in the Owl House who I think could trick Tirek but that wouldn't actually be that helpful. Many people in the Owl House were also able to trick the Collector but that didn't give them any potential win condition against him. However it's possible Belos might be able to beat him. Belos uses strange magic that may not even be magic and might be technology as witch's wool doesn't protect against it. He's maybe the best manipulator in the series and most of all Tirek can't drain magic from non-living things and Belos' degenerated sludge form might not count and could potentially possess Tirek if Belos tricks him. However I think the best counter would be

Omega Abigail from Bastard!!

Abigail's power even in his normal state was strong enough to create a giant explosion of energy like a nuclear explosion. Omega Abigail is even stronger, having the Devil's Mace which can be used to destroy cities. This means he would be on the high end of the tier in terms of power. In terms of speed, his movement speed is negligible here, but he should scale to fellow Rider of Havoc Gara and lesser characters like Zakk Walder who have intercepted lightspeed attacks suggesting he should be able to react to most characters in the tier, outside maybe Palismans and Hunter. 

Omega Abigail is Abigail after gaining the Omega Armor formed from the combination of the three demon treasures and them forming into a mech suit. The three demon treasures almost feel like they were designed to counter The Owl House. All of them are the "ancient magic" that is to say technology from before the apocalypse and so ignore the magic resistance of witch's wool and Basilisks.  The First, the Demon-Mail is armor that makes one impervious to magic which would nullify almost any offense in the verse when coupled with its sheer durability. The second is the Devil's Mace. The Devil's Mace absorbs magical energy and life energy of a country wide scale and channels the energy into city destroying earthquakes. There was an event in the Owl House called the Day of Unity where all magic-users were planned to be destroyed by Belos through draining their magic. The Devil's Mace would have that effect on the Boiling Isles, passively and constantly without even asking. And when it attacks the shockwaves of its blows would absolutely mess up any attempt by a witch to draw a circle to create magic as it would mess up the materials from the impact and knock people off center and off their feet. Finally there's Satan's Ring which lets the user empower themselves with the energy drained off the Devil's Mace and cast Giran Ira, a spell that opens a subspace portal to other dimensions which physically sucks people in, something that one again, no one in the tier can naturally return from. Hunter and Witches flying on Palismans might be able to escape from the impact shockwaves of the Devil's Mace but would still be having their energy constantly drained and risk getting sucked into Giran Ira.

Attempting to blitz Omega Abigail would be the best shot the tier would have, but it depends entirely on how far away he starts from them, and given his maximum range is vastly further then anyone in the tier, the chances don't look good. This isn't even getting into Abigail's own capabilities. Abigail is a powerful evil cleric and necromancer. Abigail's own spells are quite potent some of which include Heretic which summons vines to bind opponents and keep them from moving similar to something a Plant Magic user would use, Forbidden which summons a large horde of vengeful ghosts to attack opponents and Blind Guardian which summons hundreds of meters of black brambles that induce eternal sleep, both of which can be used to crowd control a lot of enemies, and Wasp. Wasp lets the Caster exorcise demons from the material plane which is a form of dimensional BFR even more extreme than Giran Ira, and would instantly beat any demon in the verse if the force doesn't rip them apart. Abigail also has the benefit of being a supergenius intellect who was one of the Wise Men of Europa who created the demonic war machine Anthrax as well as the computer back ups of his brain to regenerate from. He even has a magical girl transformation, which is oddly fitting for the verse.

And that leaves out possible Abigail's most dangerous capacity. Abigail is a master of necromancy, the raising and controlling of the undead. It is possible Abigail may be able to raise the bodies of the titans as undead minions of his. Now Liches were not under Abigail's control so it's possible being sufficiently powerful means that a Necromancer can't control them though it's also possible that because they turned themselves into undead and he didn't raise them is the root of them not being controlled. If it is possible, then Abigail can simply turn the Titan itself into a Zombie Titan minion of his which would be rather overkill for the tier.

Small Star Tier:

At the end of Season 2, a strange shadow creature worshipped as a cult by the titan-trappers and who was the one who taught Belos his magic was returned to physical existence, appearing as a floating small child, called the Collector. With one gesture he reduced Belos, the strongest character at the time to sludge, and with gesture of his finger moved the Moon at over 1% the speed of light requiring energy of 12.3 Ninatons with the energy to destroy the smallest star we know of , OTS 44, being 16.5 Ninatons. This was the massive jump in power for the verse. Given how casual the feat is, it's quite likely that The Collector reaches the Small Star range, let along the characters even stronger he is. The Collector would turn out to be a child from a race of spacefaring godlike aliens called the Archivists which may be able to move stars depending on how you interpret the Collector's visual display. Even more impressively, The Collector brings King to his bedroom, its own dimension which has many starts in the background and the audio description of the episode describes as a "galaxy sized bedroom." However it's not entirely clear if this was a space the Collector MADE or it's one he FOUND and simply uses as a bedroom. The Archivists are a spacefaring race, with The Collector returning to the stars and returning in the span of the four year timeskip at the end of the series. Stars are generally several lightyears apart meaning this feat is definitely FTL and realistically thousands of times the speed of light or more.

The Collector demonstrates a wide variety of abilities but broadly speaking he is a reality warper. He can create reality-warping waves of energy that changed the Boiling Isles and possible further beyond into various games including shapeshifting himself into being Pac-Man. He regularly demonstrates summoning, shapeshifting, telekinesis, and transmutation including transmuting people into puppets under the Collector's control. He can teleport and create portals between dimensions. He was able to trap Luz and her friends in dreams while awake of things they feared (that only was broken by Titan Magic) and taught Belos all the non-glyph magic including the draining spell, a form of large-scale magic drain. It required the eclipse for Belos to use, though the Collector could create an eclipse himself if he wanted to use the same ability. As he taught Belos his magic making him arguably the strongest witch on the Boiling Isles, The Collector should scale to almost every magic from the prior tier. He also shows enhanced senses like clairvoyance and sensing Belos trying to possess him, and it's strongly implied he can effect physical laws. Not only does he warp the reality of the Boiling Isles to resemble whatever game he chooses, but when he was unsure what mortals ate suggesting it might be rocks, fire, or gravity suggesting that the consumption of gravity or at least giving other people gravity to eat would be possible. His weakness is that he's only a child and quite gullible but presumably this isn't a weakness for the rest of the Archivists though the capabilities and limitations of an adult Archivist wasn't seen. According to the Collector's book, their role is observe the passing of time and seal away entities from each species to eternally preserve them. This suggests at least Adult Archivists and possibly the Collector can eternally seal entities. 

However even stronger then them back in the ancient past were the Titans. The Collector claimed the Titans were stronger than anyone, and by his tone it wasn't close. This is actually seen in the series as Belos fuses with the decayed body of the old titan and became a relevant threat to the Collector before Luz merged with the remaining magic turning into Titan Luz who was capable of defeating him. The only titan still living is King so what they can do is unknown but the power of the titans within their blood is one of the biggest plot devices in the series due to the sheer power contained in just drops of their blood remaining. All Titans are immune to the magic of the Collectors, though somehow the Collectors succeeding in wiping out the Titans involving a trap. One of the Titans demonstrated the power to seal away the Collector in the "In Between Realm" a realm existing between dimensions and the boundary and life and death. This same Titan's soul remained there even after dying and after Luz died, infused her soul there with his remaining power, returning her to the living world. He also stated that he was able to watch King from there with it being a somewhat recurring element in the series that the Titan was communicating with Luz and helping her learn the glyphs faster than normal. So all in all Titans have resistance to at least Collector Magic, top tier power, the ability to somewhat still act as a soul, sealing, likely soul manipulation, power bestowal, and interdimensional sensing and communication abilities at least as souls themselves.

The last two characters in this tier are two humans given access to part of the Titan's power, Titan Belos and Titan Luz. Belos fused with the decaying body of the Titan, becoming a gargantuan creature. In addition to the prior abilities amplified by the physical power boost of a titan, Belos' sludgy physiology is spread far faster by his titan form, demonstrating the ability to grow as a mold on people, which consumes the life of things it touches and causes thing to evaporate into light. He can also spread it via breathing a fiery gas breath like a dragon that similarly spreads his infectious mold. Opposing him was Luz after being given the remaining magic, the spirit of the Titan. While she had the same abilities before, they were amplified by the power of a titan. She was able to perform the same Titan shout that King can and created red vegetation that seemed to counteract Belos' mold. 

So what possible strategies could you use on this tier?

While information on adult Archivists and Titans is very scarce, some general things can be intuited. For one, Collector's reality-waving and almost all his powers traveled as an energy wave between people. It's possible to just dodge it, reflect it (though Collector can likely just shapeshift back if his own power transmuted him), and spatial manipulation can be used to avoid any of their attacks. Spatial Sealing such as Dimensional Sealing seem to work on them well as the Titan was able to use them to seal them without them able to defend. They also seem to have some difficulty affecting metaphysical things. The Collector explicitly couldn't resurrect Luz after she was mostly killed and sent to the In-Between Realm. As such a metaphysical entity could be resistant to a number of their abilities. Unfortunately but not coincidentally, these things happen to be things Titans CAN do, with even a mostly dead Titan able to imbue Luz' soul with his remaining lifeforce and return her from the In-Between Realm to the Demon Realm. Titans on the other hand have the weakness of various forms of biological manipulation as unlike Collectors they seem to be normal mortal biological entities, if gargantuanly large ones. 

This actually leads me to one particular power that seems to be the intersection of their two weaknesses: that being Time Manipulation. Time Manipulation is a thing in TOH but only in a very specific context using time pools, and is strongly implied to not be a thing the Archivists or Titans can use freely. Like Space Manipulation, Time Manipulation can be used to dodge any particular attack but by shifting into a different time, even with cosmic range an attack from an Archivist wouldn't do anything. While the Titans are very powerful, it's clear that both they and the Archivists are subject to age meaning aging them to death or going back in time and keeping them from being born should work. 

What else could be helpful? Well neither the Archivists and the Titan seem to have very good passive sensory abilities. The Collector showed many active ways to boost his senses, but his only passive sensory feat was sensing Belos trying to possess him. Therefore a character who can utilize stealth would be good, especially as power in the Owl House-verse tends to be rather flashy and hard to miss. Neither side has any large skill feats, and while it's not unthinkable they might be skilled, any character with high skill with by default have much higher skill then anyone but maybe Titan Luz and Titan Belos (who even then are noted to not have much experience with their new powers)  While this presumably wouldn't be a weakness for the Adult Titans and Archivists, all three of the Collector, Titan Belos, and Titan Luz have notable personality weaknesses that could be exploited by a cunning opponent as well. 

Finally it's implied that while extremely powerful both the Titans and the Collectors powers are mostly still magic and so anti-magical abilities might still be helpful.  

So who would be a good pick? You could pick

The Ultrasphinx from All-Star Superman

The Ultrasphinx is a Godlike Time Traveler from the 80th Century BC who can manipulate the quantum field. All-Star Superman after being Solar Amped scales to the Sun-Eater and Solaris the Tyrant Sun which are Star Level. The Ultrasphinx power level is not clear but he scales above Lois Lane with base Kryptonian powers. As the Solar Amp is implied to have multiplied Superman's power by roughly 3x or perhaps a bit more, this means the Ultraphinx should have 1/3rd or higher starbusting power putting him very high small star level. In terms of speed, Ultrasphinx should scale to Kryptonian Tier characters from this verse with Superman going to Alpha Centauri and back to get an alien flower for Lois while she was showering, a speed feat that's likely in the same level of speed as the Archivists. 

The Ultrasphinx manipulates the Quantum field to time travel and suspend other characters in a state of "quantum uncertainty, neither alive nor dead." This is very equivalent to BFR-ing someone to the In-Between Realm, something the Archivists can't naturally escape from, The Quantum Field can also be used to age biological entities, something that would likely work on the Titans and Titan-Powered Entities. This means the Ultraphinx would have a likely one-shot option against anyone in the verse. 

Defensively the Ultrasphinx also has the defensive benefit of the Quantum Field. The Quantum Field in DC is considered pure antimagic, and gives its wielders like Captain Atom a resistance to magic. As a fellow wielder of the Quantum Field, Ultrasphinx should have similar resistance and would have some level of resistance against any magical ability in the tier which includes the vast majority of the Titans and Archivists' abilities. He also can obviously travel freely in time avoiding any attack or fight he wants too. 

In addition the Ultrasphinx is a genius intellect. He is known for presenting people with the unanswerable question (What happens when an Irresistible Force meets an Immovable Object) and if the question is not answered sufficiently, causing the quantum state to collapse in the state of death. However this is where I think he could possibly be beaten, specifically by Luz and Belos. Both of them are known for their higher intelligence and ability to persuade others. Luz in particular is also a massive nerd who's probably heard this famous paradox and potential answers a thousand times. So it's possible that while neither of them are as smart as All-Star Superman, they may be able to give a sufficient answer. Also Titan Belos may be able to infect the Ultrasphinx as it seems to be conventional biological entity. 

Another counter you could use is

Istvatha V'han from Champions. 

In terms of raw power, Istvatha would probably be weaker than the tier as she's stated to be on the lower side of the Cosmic Champions levels of power, though should still have enough power to destroy planets with planet-destroying power being the high end of normal Champions games, and the lower end of Galactic Champions campaigns. One of the ways noted villains at this scale try to destroy the world is to "increase the Sun's power output to destroy the planet." Noticeably increasing the Sun's power depending on interpretation may be a small star level feat that might scale to Isvatha V'han. Similarly "standard enemies" in a Galactic Champions campaign are stated "might threaten several worlds (or solar systems) at once" with destroying several worlds being at large planet level and potentially higher. As such Istvatha may be weaker, but she could also be in the same tier. Standard Cosmic Travel speed in the Champions Universe that Isvatha should scale to would is 250,000 lightyears per year, otherwise known as 250,000c giving her a broad speed advantage over the tier. 

Isvatha V'han is the alien queen of a billion dimensions, most famously known for her supergenius social manipulation, able to efficiently run an empire of many millions dimensions such that they are all relatively wonderlands and there is broadscale peace and prosperity according to her will, manipulating dimensions after dimensions to join her. This level of psychological warfare is something that seems like it would be extremely strong against the tier.

Even if she has to get into a direct fight, Isvatha V'han is famous for her dimensional manipulation and for being one of the few characters in the Champions Universe to gain time manipulation. While she prefers not to use it for fear of messing up the timeline, she will if she thinks she is threatened. Her dimensional manipulation is strong enough to open dimensional tears on someone's position ripping them spatially in half and can transport herself and others through dimensions to bfr them. While it is noted she has trouble transporting her armies, her armies consist of the militaries of millions of dimensions so teleporting some number of Archivists or Titans would likely not be a problem. And of course as mentioned she can simply avoid fights by teleporting through time and attacking them at their weakest point, something she calls "a temporal flanking maneuver." She also has numerous defensive tools including a general resistance to mental manipulation and supernatural luck to protect against attacks that can be dodged against like the Collector's reality-warping or Belos' attempt to biologically assimilate her. 

This is all without the thing that is usually her biggest asset which is the largest army in the Champions World, the forces of many millions of dimensions. The only weakness she has is that she has quite low combat skill avoiding fights herself when at all possible. It's possible she could be overwhelmed by large numbers, especially as she doesn't have magic resistance of any kind other then general mental resistance. While she does have a general resistance field against powers in general, this is only good for defending against low tier powers and not the cosmic reality-warping of something like the Archivists. The numbers of Titans originally and Archivists is unknown and while she could at least theoretically avoid any combat vis her time manipulation, she is somewhat reluctant to do so. So for the best counter I would suggest

Grandmaster Dashi from Xiaolin Showdown

Grandmaster Dashi scales to Wuya who created her insignia on the Sun and in his Xiaolin Showdown with Omi he seemed to cause the Sun to turn into a Taijitu, suggesting at least Small Star Level power on a much higher scale then even implied by The Collector's casual feat. While the Collector may scale to creating a room with a starry sky and is stated to be the size of a galaxy, Dashi's Wu can be used to contain "The most destructive force in the universe" which may scale him as well to the powers of quasars and similarly powerful cosmic events that are similarly powerful. Dashi can also seem to create the Xiaolin Showdowns by his own power, these Showdowns able to bring people far into space in seconds, which would be hundreds to thousands of times the speed of light, putting him in a similar range to the Collector's speed feat.

Dashi with his power was able to create the Shen Gong Wu and can use their powers freely, at least by recreating them at will which he can do. This includes most of the abilities seen by the Archivists and the Titans. He can teleport through space with the Golden Tiger Claws and through time with the Sands of Time. trap people in metaphysical realms with the Yin-Yang Yo-Yo, transmute people with the Sapphire Dragon and the Zing-Zom Bone. He can even replicate the ability to set physical laws and turn the world into kinds of games the way the Collector does, as he can initiate and control Xiaolin Showdown which similarly warp the world into forms of games. It is extremely in-character for both of them for Dashi and The Collector to engage in some kind of reality-warping game, and Dashi to teach Collector a lesson through it. Beyond this not only does he have the aforementioned time manipulation he can reflect attacks via the Reversing Mirror or turn intangible with the Serpent's Tail which would make him relatively difficult for the Archivists to defeat. He can seal them away with the Puzzle Box or even worse for them can use the Sphere of Yun to trap one and gain its powers. 

Where Dashi really shines though are his mental stats. Dashi is the only known Grandmaster Dragon, the highest rank of Xiaolin Dragon, where even the lowest rank have demonstrated superhuman levels of skill. Dashi would absolutely possess Tiger Instincts which is outright precognition as to what his enemies is gonna to do, even without the Shen Gong Wu that also does that. This would allow him to react in perfect clarity, including traveling through dimensions or time to avoid any attack someone tries on him. He is also known for his extremely high intelligence and awareness and could very likely manipulate anyone in the verse he comes across. If he wanted more he could use the Fountain of Hui and Eagle Scope to gain literally infinite knowledge.

Dashi also has two more arguable defensive tools. One is that given he fought a long drawn out battle with the reality-warping Witch Wuya who should be similarly strong to an Archivist, Dashi likely has resistance to most or all of their abilities. Second is that he seems to be able to act as just a ghost as when the second puzzle box was opened he showed up as a ghost and reduced her to a ghost again. Being a ghost gives one resistance to most of the Archivists abilities and reducing someone to a ghost would absolutely work on the mortal titans. 

Overall Dashi would have no weaknesses in the Owl House. He would know everything anyone's going to try against him, can defend in a wide variety of ways including arguably some that are passive, can attack and one-shot in many ways, can use most of the verse's powers usually with higher skill and intelligence, can outwit the verse with arguably infinite intelligence and out-skill the verse by a superhuman degree.

And that's how to be OP in the Owl House-verse