Forget about Fairy Tail kids, Rave Master is the real deal when it comes to battle shonen. Having read over both manga several times, I can easily say that Mashima really dropped the ball with Fairy Tail and that Rave is a much better story and it stands above almost every other shonen I've read.

Now, as much I as I enjoy hyping Rave Master up, I can't deny that it's another generic and cliche shonen. It has the stereotypical characters and tropes. But what I am saying is that Rave takes these cliches and executes them in a way that is better than just about any other shonen.

I'm sure many of you have seen have watched the watered down anime with it's watered down dub several years ago, but don't let that fool you into thinking that Rave Master isn't very good, the manga is so much better that it's ridiculous, especially considering the anime stopped before the best parts started. And if you guys think characters like the jiggle butt gang are silly, it should be known that they're only in two chapters and are later written off completely.

What makes Rave Master so great is that compared to other shonen manga, the characters in Rave Master felt a little bit more human and actually had developed personalities. I'm not saying they're NGE level deep or anything, but compared to people from One Piece or Naruto they felt a lot more realistic and less contrived at times. It often makes for great emotional scenes and the characters do have great tension with each other.

Story is pretty good for a shonen as well. At first, it just starts off as "evil empire with super powers are trying to take over the world" but it eventually evolves into something far deeper than that. The pacing for the story is also excellent, seeing as how Rave completed it's run in just under 300 chapters with several story arcs.

Fights are also pretty good too. Most characters have abilities that are similar to ones from Fairy Tail. See, in Rave, the characters have things called dark brings, which basically give them magic like abilities. Unlike in Fairy Tail though, these fights actually have a good deal of tension and suspense in them, as the heroes in Rave aren't as invincible as the ones in Fairy Tail. Not to mention Mashima is talented in drawing out fight choreography. So the battles and EVERYONE gets a real chance to shine, unlike other manga where a lot of characters are thrown away so the MC can steal the precious victory.

Now, I'm not saying the manga is flawless, the ending was rushed and I didn't particularly like the main villain. But aside from that I can't really say that I could find anything else that I didn't like about it.

Rave Master is great when you add all the parts together, it really works well as a manga. I can only feel as though Mashima didn't really take a long enough break between writing Rave and Fairy Tail to get any good ideas for it. Rave Master is actually a quality series.
Fairy Tail just feels more like a fanservice one.