Yeah, Togashi is incredible, especially as how he defies and turns tropes upside down. He is also a brilliant sequential artist. He has really mastered the tools of visual storytelling of comics format. He has a wide range in storytelling methods. Maybe lately little too much telling over showing to my taste, but never the less, he is still brilliant. And as you said, has excellent eye for detail and he really thinks things and makes his characters think too. That's lovely.@Ustegius I'm fine with Boku DakeGa Inai Machi, the manga was great in terms of writing (thousand times better than the anime for some reasons you know ) but I still think HxH deserves this, every little thing in the manga is well thought, the characters writing & plot depth, also exceeds any other shonen manga I know, quality wise. HxH is often regarded a deconstructing nekketsu tropes story. Btw Ishida is a huge fan of HxH ^^: see the HxH volumes in his desk
Tbh, I really don't understand how came One piece be eliminated while its writing is great (it's not like Op is not popular) (D gray man, Gintama, even shingeki no kyojin are eliminated too... )
Not that suprising about the Ishida and Togashi., takes a good writer to know one
One Piece being out is kinda suprising. It is popular and well-written. But I think has a lot do with certain type of people who like OP (and also like FT). Pretty much every OP chapter where there is no action or grand melodramatic twists, there are a handfull of people going "Boring chapter, all time wasted on exposition/character developement/humor/expanding and studying themes etc. That's so dumb and useless, they should go and beat the crap out of Big Mom and Kaido already". Yeah yeah, I want see Luffy kick-ass too and cry my eyes out with some melodrama. But that doesn't work without proper building up, and comes pretty boring pretty fast with actual content that makes us care for the fight and the characters.
As I said, this is pretty much popularity poll imho, that includes both blindfanvotes and not knowing most of the competion.If Fairy Tail wins this I feel like punching myself. Just like Uste I could deal with pretty much every other nominee winning, but voting for Fairytail makes me feel like people are either making a blind fanvote or simply don't know (most of) the other series. FT certainly has some qualities, but the writing basically is the weakest part of the manga.
I've never felt like Mashima actually writes his own story, but he writes his version of story that he has already heard/read. I often feel like there is nothing of him in it.(Which ironically is what drives the protagonist in Boku dake no Inai Machi). He uses tropes, character types, story structures, that could be directly from a "How to write a shonen manga"-textbook. It's not a bad thing and he does have cast of fun characters and a story that flows rather well, but mostly it does not feel very original to me. It's all shiny and he sure knows how to illustrate fights and how to draw boobs and booties. But that's it. It never feels personal. It never feels like it has deep underlying themes or messages. It's kind of an soap opera. The characters have their tragic stories and they win me over with them, but that's that. Never gotten the feels or thrills like with One Piece, Hunter x Hunter, Fullmetal Alchemist or early Naruto. It has never left me thinking about themes and ideas, it never provokes any thoughts in me. One Piece makes think about the nature of freedom and power and the whole picture of discrimination. Fairy Tail pretty much such states things like "Slavery is bad". Well, duh, of course it is.
Honestly, I think Fairy Tail is in completly wrong category here.It's like a Marvel movie in the best Screenplay Oscar category. Sure, Marvel movies are pretty good, but best screenplay of the year? Hell no.