Fairy Tail

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Intriguing plot. Unique and original world. Well developed characters. Amazingly epic and suspensful battles.

Fairy Tail is none of these. When I was first introduced to this manga, it sounded like it knew where it was going. It seemed to have a plot, interesting secrets and mysteries. So far the biggest mystery to me is how Natsu isn't the Guildmaster of Fairy Tail as well as the strongest of the Ten Wizard Saints. As I sat reading chapter after chapter, I watched how characters 10 times stronger than Natsu were defeated by apparently overpowered foes, only for Natsu to stand up, eat some random flame, ... and beat said foe because, hey, I'm the main character.
Additionally, the same happens to the at first like-able Erza. I wanted to like her, her magic was interesting and she seemed like a fun character. But her nakama power-boosts are just too overwhelming and all the Deus Ex Machina thrown around her are just too much, extremely apparent in later chapters.

Worst of all, I know that Mashima is actually capable of making good battles and interesting characters. This story actually DOES HAVE some good characters who have more realistic battle outcomes. Yet, for some reason, he decides to leave them aside and laugh at how weak they are in comparison to his godly main characters.

To finalize my hate for the main characters, we should analyze Lucy, the MC that exists for the soul purpose of fanservice. Constant, never ending fanservice. I remember a chapter in which Natsu and Grey see Lucy naked (again) and don't react, saying the novelty is over because they've seen her naked plenty of times. I was thinking around the same lines. It's just plain annoying seeing in how many ways Mashima can remove Lucy's clothes.

What else can I say about this manga? Well, the fact that no good guys ever die is always annoying, even though that just seems to be the norm for shounen anyway, with very few exceptions. Also, that the plot never seems to advance anywhere (which brings me to wonder if it even had one to start with or if I was just being trolled into believing it did as I read on) is just plain annoying.
And as I have said quite a few times, I hate how the battles don't hold any type of suspense. We all know that Natsu is gonna win, and all the good guys will survive, something that completely pulls out of the story and makes me think I'm wasting my time when I'm reading battles.


....if anyone read this entire rant, I commend thee, thank you for reading. You can agree with me or not, it's just my opinion, I'm just pointing out that I believe this series to be completely overrated, not to say it's just plain awful, and I would just not bother.
If you really want to read an epic shounen, read Naruto, One Piece or Bleach. And don't ever compare Fairy Tail to them. They aren't the greatest series, but they are the top three Shounen, and with reason, and Fairy Tail only wishes it was half as good as any of them.

A replica of One Piece? Seems like it
Worth reading? Yes

Fairy Tail undertakes another fantasy setting. I have always been skeptic of fantasy anime's as most of them is always obscure, and prone to be uninteresting as the story progresses. But that mistake isnt repeated here in Fairy Tail as Hiro Mashima performs excellent on making his own fantasy world out of thin air.

In this manga, all sorts of mages roam about the world. Some of them even bond together and form a guild that takes requests from people in exchange for money, there are even such guilds that are "dark", who are not among the ... law-abiding. Fairy Tail is among the hundred of guilds out there. But unlike the general they, to quote their master" do what you think is right". Yes, they do what they believe they should be doing, all for the sake of just finishing a job. Whether its wrecking a house to turning a whole town into a scrapyard, it doesnt matter for them, as long as they get the job done.

Fairy Tail tells the story of Dragonil Natsu, a Fire Mage who was raised by an ancient fire-breathing dragon. and his newfound friend Lucy, a Spirit Mage who's pretty much new on the world of guilds. Together they and the rest of the members of the Fairy Tail guild goes through all sorts of adventures.

At first glance, it may sound lame because of how it follows the monster-of-the-week formula. And yes it does. But dont let that stop you from reading this. Sure it is pretty much follows a shounen formula. But to my surprise, the plot twists were variable. I am constantly impressed on how detailed the arcs were. They start out as something terribly cliche then suddenly turn out to something unexpected. Furthermore, each character is connected to each other and each of their past is no exception either. I love how every character is significant to further progress the story.

The art during action scenes is very impressive. It is comprehensive. You can understand what is happening to the characters and around them. At some climactic parts, I even got around to get my Ipod to listen to some One Piece Soundtrack while I was reading. Surprisingly, the music pays off. It gave a better atmosphere and it invigorated me. Another plus is it doesnt fill the panels with unnecessary captions. But it never forgets to show the reaction of each character in the scene. And most of those reactions are just plain humorous. And each character design is likable, as every male boasts their six-packs and every female shows their cleavage.

Fairy Tail will not fail to deliver its action packed, slapstick comedy to its readers.
If that sounds good to you then dont you even dare to miss out on Fairy Tail.

Oh Fairy Tail, You could have been good, you had so, so much potential in you, but here you are, going out with barely a yelp.

Where did it go wrong Hiro? You had an immensly popular manga at your disposal to really give all your readers a satisfying manga to reread over and over again. You had the chance to make Fairy Tail something really, really great . But you wasted the opportunity. You have thrown it away by being stubborn to the end.

Of course, I'm not saying this out of no reason. There are a lot of good reasons as to why many readers, ... including me, were sooooo disappointed at how the manga turned out. However, there is one main reason that has been the biggest downfall to Fairy Tail, and that is the formula.

You see, Fairy Tail only ever has the same formula for every single one of its arcs. Meet Enemy, Fight, Get beaten up, .... activate Friendship power and win. That's it. That is the one and ONLY formula Hiro relies on to create each and every arcs. It's so ridiculous to the point that, in the later arcs, everyone could predict the outcome of the fight so easily. "Fairy Tail will win, Fairy Tail will not lose a single member because Natsu and co. will activate their bullshit asspull to overcome the enemy every single fight." This asspull was somehow most present in the damn FINAL ARC. Meet strong enemies, Fight but get pushed back a bit, then a random speech about family, friends, guild... then win. It's unbelievable how the "hyped" fights were all ended this way. This, this right here is what truly killed Fairy Tail.

There are other reasons as well. The characters were too linear and undeveloped throughout the entire story. Although some of them did seem to get development, particularly Gray, it got nullified towards the end of the story as they just became the same, dumb characters they once were. Almost all of them did have potential to become better to even great characters, but nearly all remained too same, and too much of an annoyance throughout the end.
The plot holes are also very much evident. I can't count the number of times a Fairy Tail guild member had an intense fight and just walked the injury off afterwards like nothing. Characters like Erza, Natsu, Gray... they should be out, they should have been unable to move so easily after the "intense" fights. But of course they are able to run around just minutes/chapters after.

Convenient plot devices like some bullshit returns and lame deux ex machinas did not help cover plot holes either. Oh, and did I mention that there are basically no deaths in the story? This should really have gone with the formula part I wrote, but the fact that almost every characters just come back alive or not die after "fatal" blows is infuriating. Hiro, you could have created some quite powerful moments through some deaths, all the while developing characters, but you chose to bring them back just a couple chapters later... sigh...

Another brief thing I want to bring up is the fanservice. Now, I don't mind a bit of fanservice at all, but Fairy Tail has fanservices all over the place, even in places they do not belong at all. Normal, everyday life will have some kind of fanservice and of course, the supposedly "toughest fight of their lives" will have some kind of fanservice. It really gets ridiculous and just makes light of any kind of situation, even though when the tone is supposed to be darker. *cough, Grand Magic Games, cough*

All right, so is there anything good? Anything?

First, there is the art which is very attractive to many people, including me. The character designs are pretty good, the background is nice and detailed, and overall, although a bit similar to One Piece, the art maintains a clean yet detailed complement to the series. Just unfortunate that the nice character designs didn't equal good characters in the end.

There was one particular arc that actually stood out in the midst of mediocre and bad arcs. And that was the 2nd to last (or 3rd to last if you count the Avatar arc) of the series. Without spoiling it too much, the Tartarus arc is without a doubt the best arc of the series. Contrary to just about every other arc, Tartarus actually has some emotion in it. Not only that, it brings some really surprising revelations the fans were asking for years, along with newer powerups for some characters. It still follows much of the same formula as the rest of the series, but there's no doubt that this was the arc I've enjoyed the most.

Chapterwise, The earlier chapters did give some entertainment and couple chapters midway through the story were pretty fun. Also, the last chapter turned out to be fairy good, at least better than the ending in bleach and Naruto.

That's it really. I was going to give this a higher score had the Final arc been as good as the Tartarus arc, but it was an epic failure, one of the worst in the series. I don't really recommend this series to anyone anymore, especially after the travesty that was the Final Arc. So please, if you want to save some time by not reading through something that will infuriate and disappoint you, please step away.
Actually, just go onto youtube and find the music scores for Fairy Tail. The music score is undeniably great, and most of them are worth listening to at least once. Which makes it even more shame as it was wasted on this.

Good job Hiro Mashima. Good job on throwing away a potentially great manga.

It's funny to talk about Fairy Tail, because, what in the middle of the series, became one of the most interesting and enjoyable shonens (even with the monstruous fanservices), it later became one of the most clichéd and exagerated mangas around. And I mean, today, it has embraced, if not all, most of the clichés that exist today...

I believe everyone may be aware of the plot, in general, so, I'll skip to the main points of my review:

Story:

Hiro Mashima knows very well how to estabilish a good plot, with various mysteries for you to wonder, etc. The problem is in the development of it. Most ... of them, end up as silly explanations, or things too logical, that leaves you wondering "So, that was all this was?". I won't lie, the plot still holds a lot of interesting points. But I don't know what to expect of them from now on...

Art:

Very good. At least in this, Mashima knows how to make it right, with nice and well-done drawings, reminiscent of a better quality One Piece.

Character:

OMG, this is where he is great to crap everything up. Let's start by the protagonist, Natsu.

He feels like a copy of Luffy, but, as another reviewer said, a more arrogant and cocky one. He acts imaturely through the entire series, and hasn't grown up an inch psicologically. Mashima makes him receives some good lessons from people more mature than him, but he spits on everything, and makes Natsu forget everything, acting again, as the same old cocky innocent kid, who believes he can just press on, that he will defeat the boss. And the worst: HE DOES IT! Mashima has developed escapisms to give the good guys the victory (and to him, mainly) through the use of absurd Deus Ex Machina, and THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP. Oh, come on, who does he think we are? 5 year-old childs? What makes me more impressed, is that there are people who find his explanations solid.

And that's not even the beginning. There is Lucy, the cute and dumb female protagonist, who is a contradiction herself: she is regarded as one of the most smart members of Fairy Tail guild, and has got miraculous powers every time, but acts dumb in almost every battle, always needing to be helped by the others (mainly Natsu, again).

There is also Erza, the tsundere of the main team, and Mashima's muse. Really, she is the second most-protected character of the manga, behind just Natsu, and is able to pull the most equally absurd victories, with, again, THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP.

There is Gray, that's the rival of Natsu. And coincidentally, uses ice magic. But he ends up almost as a random character, as Mashima usually tends to give more focus on the three right up there. And, finally, there are tons of secondary characters, who, in the most funny way, end up being more interesting than the main characters. But Mashima almost don't give a damn, as he tends to illuminate them little, always giving the bigger actions for the great ones Erza and Natsu.

People may find that I'm overreacting. I won't lie again, there are nice secondary characters moments and battles, but that is all you will get from them.

Enjoyment:

In the beginning, you will have some fun, with the dumb adventures of Natsu and company, and, when it enters a certain arc, you will feel the pain and vengeance they will look to inflict on their adversaries (in what I call the best of the manga, till now). But, after this, if you do not like this Deus Ex Machina and friendship excuses for the good guys victory, you will start to feel unfazed, angered about every next impossible victory they pull out, and will even come to a point, where you will be cheering for the bad guys, to give them a good kick in the ass.

But, as I said, if you read it without any compromise or need for anything serious or plausible, you won't get as frustrated as I got.

Overall:

What began as a promising series, had one great arc, that created great expectations for me, in relation to the series, entered in what I could call the "Shyalaman effect" (which I believe film lovers will understand better than anyone): slowly went downhill with the story, focusing more on brainless battles, and exagerated use of plot and shonen escapisms, to make it move on. And I don't really know how it will end, but I can say I feel quite displeased to imagine...

A wise man once said..."To deny Fairy Tail as absolute garbage, is to deny reality itself"

At the risk of this turning into a rant, I will be censoring myself a lot to give a genuine review. This review will contain very minor spoilers as names (except the main character slot) will be withheld because for god know what reason you still want to pick up this manga after everything I said, you won't be spoiled...you have been warned.

Well, well, well...what can I say that hasn't been said about FT? Actually nothing really. FT is what happens when you wrote 1/4 of your manga and then ... fire all your co-writing staff, go to a nursery and replace good plot with whatever those toddlers vomit on a page and there you have what FT is. Granted for a battle shounen, you shouldn't expect much when it comes story and characters but this just happens to be worse than every battle shounen I've ever watched/read. How did it fall so fast into the shitter that it actually becomes a chore to read it every week? I remember back in the day when a new chapter would come out and I would genuinely feel excited but as time progressed and the quality of work just became worse and worse, you get the feeling of apathy because your hopes and expectations have been shattered time and time again. At least I can praise FT for one thing and that is its unpredictability because it surprises you every time in how much worse it can become with every chapter.

Normally in battle shounen you see the characters train to become better but not here...no, no, no here the give friendship speeches and cringy one liners about emotions and then gain all sorts of asspull power. Battles go something like this

4vs1...villain slaughters them
*cue the friendship speech*
1vs1...badly damaged FT member one-shots
*cue the viewers tears after watching a horrible fight*

If the whole "friendship" power-up always defeats the enemy despite how powerful they may be (even GODS), what's the point of even training to become stronger? They always put so much effort in fighting the enemy, seemingly intensifying the situation they're in, then use the overused, effortless power-up known as "friendship" that ALWAYS ends it. It's not even because they are stronger than their foe. Sometimes the foes power outclasses them completely yet the 'believing in myself' and 'my friends give me power' stick always wins...I'm surprised the series hasn't ended sooner.

The characters are horrible with almost no redeemable ones among them. Character development here somehow makes the character worse, I didn't think it was possible but Hiro did it. This manga features some of the worst characters I've ever come across and the character assassinations that happen to mildly interesting characters, just because of their contact with the main cast is truly shocking. It's like they are all absorbed into the bullshittery of emotion that is the Fairy Tail guild. They lose their individuality and just like a corporate environment, become slaves in a never ending rut just going with the flow of things. At the end it's like the same characters just all wearing different faces until they just become numbers.

The Main Characters

Natsu - Carbon copy/paste of the idiot shounen male lead that thinks with his fist but somehow he's worse because instead of training to become stronger, he just spouts crap about "my friends are my strength" and one shots the opponent even though the foe was winning 99% of the fight...fucking ridiculous.

Lucy - The fanservice character with forced insertion due to her magic type to make her seem more than a massive set of tits in clothes that are clearly way too small for her. If she's not randomly losing clothes, becoming naked or falling on Natsu's face, she would hardly feature. She's not a good character but as far as FT characters go, she's one of the better ones.

Gray - At least something Hiro done right. With his unique Ice Making magic, he can construct objects and combined with his keen intellect, he uses this and strategy to defeat his opponent in a non-bs way. Then kinda murdered the characters progression to make him blend in with the rest of the mind-numbing cast. Hiro does this with a few characters but why would that surprise you...

Erza - The worst character in the series and I'm not even going to go here. I could start an entire website dedicated to my hatred of this character and how appaling she is written..."because she's Erza" oh the cringe.

Happy - Natsu's flying cat that's there to make jokes and eat fish...that's it...no lie.

The manga art also takes a major change in the middle but personally I was fine with it as it made the characters look older than they were before due to a time passing by but still recognizable. Character outlines are also thinner. I think I was one of the few people to actually like the new art as I've only heard backlash on it but meh, you either like it or you don't. It's not like it subtracts or adds much to this terrible story.

The characters don't even look that much different especially the female characters. It's like Hiro just took the same body shape for every female except for Wendy that is treated as a loli for comedic scenes about her big breast envy and a bit of fan-service for those that want that...just horriible and lazy.

The story is a linear set of events that really serve no purpose other than introducing fodder villains for Fairy Tail to bulldoze and the final arc has to be one of the worst things in digital and printed history. Even the final chapter like seriously? You couldn't give the fans a better ending than that after suffering through that mess? I wouldn't print it on toilet paper. Over 500 chapters and 11 years of work, most of it is horrible but I guess the series had to remain true to itself and remain trash to the end...wouldn't want to mess with the Krabby Patty formula now do we?

Personally I've spent 4 years following this series and it was one of the worse things I've read and now I've have nothing more to say except goodbye and good riddance.

I first started Fairy Tail because all my friends were like: "You love One Piece, you'll LOVE this!" I thought it would be a rip-off of my favorite series and went into it with very low expectations. However, only a few chapters in, my attitude changed significantly!

This series is reasonably new so the story is only just started, however what there is so far is great! A lot is still open and YET TO HAPPEN and I find myself excited to find out what happens next. The jokes are original and don't get stale and the overall tone of the series ... is a very fun one.

Each character you come into contact with is unique and interesting. Most of them have a quirk that will have you laughing. There's the chronic-stripper Gray and the motion-sickness prone Natsu. Not to forget Elfman who practically walks around spouting Chuck Norris quotes. This series has strong female characters and wonderful male characters! And let's not forget the token animal characters.

I love the art style. It's clean and the characters have very distinct facial expressions. At first glance, it looks like a One Piece rip-off. While the styles are very similar, you will be soon to realize that the art styles are very different!

The tone of this series is light-hearted and hilarious. Like all series, it has its serious moments that are very well done. I'd sit here and tell you all about the series but I think you should see for yourself! It's worth giving a shot!

I should start by apologizing to all hardcore fans and lovers of “Fairy Tail”, for I am going to be extremely critic in this review (maybe a bit too much).

In “Fairy Tail” we find ourselves in a completely new universe, where magic and fantasy set the rules. Here, in this universe, there live dragons, flying cats and talking monkeys, as many other mystical creatures. We see powerful mages who can control elements such as fire or ice; others who can control their shadow and some who can even “swim” on the ground. There are also another group of mages who call themselves celestial wizards, ... and whose power resides in summoning mythical creatures with the help of some special keys, called Gate Keys.

It is in the middle of this fantastic world that we meet Lucy, a cute seventeen year old blond girl (and a celestial wizard), whose ultimate dream is to join “Fairy Tail”, one of the most powerful and well known guilds in the whole Fairy Tail Universe.

The story begins when she meets Natsu, a young boy with spiked hair that like her, wins his live as a mage. Natsu is accompanied by a small winged cat and his lifetime companion, Happy. Lucy gets to know that this young mage Natsu is in fact a member of the Fairy Tail and a very powerful fire mage known as “Salamander”. For her great happiness she is invited by him to join them. At the guild she meets a lot of other mages as well as many strange characters. She learns about Natsu’s search for Igneel (a powerful fire dragon), as well as many aspects of Natsu’s past. After this, the story evolves into a series of little adventures and dozens of magic battles.

The plot itself is very poor, there is almost no development and we just have to read adventure after adventure for about 100 chapters, with no progress at all. The fights aren’t also very impressing. But what really misses in “Fairy Tail” besides the poor plot, are the characters.

Natsu is just another Luffy; but a more arrogant and cocky one (which can sometimes be extremely annoying). Lucy plays the role of the girl, who follows the protagonist on shounen series, “hot-blooded” (screaming and weeping all the time), innocent, cute but stupid. Erza is the typical “tsundere” character, harsh on the outside but kind on the inside.

I could keep on like this and describe all the characters, just to show how typical and predicable they are but I would like move to another topic.

Just to show another example of total cliché, we just have to look at the rivalry between Gray and Natsu. We have already thousands of such rivalries in other comics, like the one form Naruto and Sasuke or Soul and Black Star.

But then again, we’re talking about a shounen manga…

This is the main problem of shounen comics; they all apply a similar structure and make use of many identical elements. But they almost every time, manage to arouse the reader’s interest by presenting an interesting plot, a nice animation, great fighting scenes or even grasp the reader’s laugh with a funny sequence. Fairy Tail may contain for most people, all this elements, but it lacks in something where all other successful series of the type succeeded. I’m talking about a very important aspect, the originality!!!

The artist simply picked up all that is cliché, and put it together to form “Fairy Tail”, forgetting to craft something original, which I, as a reader, expected to see from the beginning.

Hiro Mashima did a great job coming up with such a marvelous world of fantasy, but he failed on its presentation.

*Review contains minor spoilers*

Fairy Tail is the titanic of manga, it starts out on a great voyage and ends up sinking. That’s how I would describe it.

Honestly the amount of potential this manga had when it started was enormous, but at somewhere along the lines it just became a drag to continue reading it. As you were waiting for each release the thing that went through your mind was “can’t this manga end soon?”.

The story of this manga is honestly good, it’s an interesting concept about mages travelling the world to complete quests for a reward and the more quests the guild members complete ... the more prestigious the guilds becomes, etc. but everything starts going south with the characters.

The source of the characters power are basically their nakama (companions), if they’re at the brink of defeat but suddenly one of their nakama shouts their name it gives them the ultimate boost to take down the enemy. Although this could be said about most shounen manga.

After a few hundred chapters in you also starts to notice that there’s suddenly a large amount of fanservice. Some hot springs scenes where they accidentally grab some boobs and spank some buttocks along with some naked (but not actually naked, their nipples and genitalia is hidden with hair, objects, and whatnot) scenes during a battle to the death. It almost felt like the author was pushed to implement this because they were losing readers.

I said “battle to the death” previously but there’s no actual deaths… Not during any battles anyway. One of the things that pissed me of was that this one (important) good guy used a spell that would kill himself but save his nakama so he wholeheartedly does it, and honestly if that would have been it that would have been good, but no, a few chapters later he miraculously comes back to life. The author basically wants a happy ever after ending.

All of this is basically the core ingredients for a shounen manga though, so no huge surprise. But while it does have its bad points I would say that it also has some good points, more specifically its humor. While the fighting scenes may be cringe from time-to-time, Fairy Tail has a great sense of humor which makes it stand out from other shounen manga.

Although the biggest reason you may want or may not want to read this manga is the ending. It leaves some plot holes but honestly it’s just purely unsatisfying to read 545 chapters of a manga and then you get such a plain happy ever after ending. But I will not lie, I do not regret reading this manga, it has some great moments and its brought me many laughs; not worth a re-read though.

Fairy Tail. It's very similar to One Piece, with "nakama" and some of the character designs looking quite similar (in fact, one could say some designs are plagiarised *cough*Gildartz*cough*) to One Piece and therefore is often compared to it. However, it's nowhere near as good as One Piece; don't get me wrong, it's a somewhat okay series, but it is let down by its story.

The art in this manga is good with excessive amounts of fanservice which I am not personally too fond of but I'm sure it'll appeal to a lot of its target audience (presumably heterosexual males). Still, it ranks only as "good" ... and is by no means exceptional.

The story is where this manga really fails. Fairy Tail has never had much of an engaging plot, but that's understandable, considering it is mainstream battle shounen. However, something that really annoys me is the use of deus ex machina in order for the characters to escape difficult situations as opposed to more inventive solutions. For example, in one of the recent arcs the big bad was defeated through "the power of friendship", which is a concept which might have some appeal to five year-olds, but unfortunately I'm not five. There are plenty more examples of deus ex machina in this series but I don't want to spoil anymore of it.

The characters are typical mainstream shounen characters. I don't have any real complaints except for Natsu, the main character. His character has received zero development over the course of the 200+ chapters that FT has ran for so far. Despite him apparently learning an important life lesson about how one cannot always win during a battle with someone who far outclasses him, a few chapters later he seems to have forgotten and is back to his old, egoistical self, jumping in, thinking he can protect everything and completely ignoring the orders of his master. If this was any other manga, there'd be dire consequences. Unfortunately in Fairy Tail Natsu always wins and it is always he who defeats the enemies through THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP- yeah no.

Overall, Fairy Tail is enjoyable, but only if you don't take it seriously at all, pay no attention to the plot and just look at the pictures and watch the fight and comedy scenes. Even then, the fights are wholly unsatisfying because of how they end (again, with Natsu always winning through THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP or deus ex machina of another kind). In all honesty, I'd recommend steering clear of this series entirely or just reading it for the aforementioned scenes.

I started Fairy Tail before the Big 3, and it was one of the first long ongoing shonen manga that I've read (and watched). While it started mediocre, Fairy Tail reached high potential once it reached the Phantom Arc and onwards. And I must say that I was captivated from that point onwards.

But then the more I read, the more I began to enjoy it less. There is this lack of uniqueness in the plot of each arc, where it begins to form a pattern of Fairy Tail fighting this dangerous enemy, and gets thoroughly defeated. Yet after no training, no whatever, they seem to ... do much better in a one on one battle, finishing the arc off with Natsu beating the big-bad with some kind of "power of friendship".

If this happens once, or even twice, in a story, I would just overlook it as a writers' block for the mangaka, but unfortunately, for Fairy Tail, it seems to be the basis for almost all the story arcs. I'd like to point out that Natsu has NEVER lost a deciding battle, no matter how strong they are supposed to be. What's worse his that he doesn't even train for it, and the only permanent-powerup he gets is from someone else magicing him stronger.

And then lately, it was the last straw. When the long awaited battle in the Grand Magic Games ended up in an anti-climatic surrender. Shortly afterwards, the mangaka has spent at least 10 pages on wasting space and room by drawing our main character naked for no reason other than fanservice. I can't say I can expect anything from Fairy Tail anymore.

I Advice every and anyone. DO NOT BOTHER with this series. I gave three weeks of on and off reading for this series. I got through 200 chapters, I've earned the right to judge this series.

It was recommended to me through several friends whom could be quoted with:

1) "You like Onepiece right you'll love this manga than"
2) "This might be the best shonen of the past 5 years"
3) "Erza is the best female role I've ever seen"
4) "Possibly one of the greatest starting arcs"

All of what my friends said were wrong. Upon Grey's development arc I quickly found a hatred for the main characters. Within ... 40 chapters I already lost count to how many times Lucy is used for fan service, and nothing else (Besides getting stomped and cries). Her legit reason of being written into the story is to be fan service. Something that Hiro Mashima himself admits through several character's commenting on this.

Natsu is by far the worse male protagonist I've seen too date. His first victory in the series is bullying a grunt whom Lucy could even defeat. (Please note, Lucy is PATHETIC). His second victory is won via anime physics. Which leads to the formula he uses to secure every kill afterwards. The infamous 'Nakama-punch' This punch is his closed fist chock full of the love he holds for his friends. This punch ALWAYS comes directly after some deus ex power-up. His goal since childhood is to find the dragon he calls father.. a goal he has done nothing about for 10+ years of his life, and for more than 140 chapters into the series. He literally doenst even look... He waits to be told a lead... Not only is that lazy but thats a horrible son. The only thing i even liked about Natsu was how ignorant a weakness he has. Which I won't ruin. It got me to laugh a couple times.

Erza Overrated Scarlet. Is an amazingly missed opportunity for Hiro Mashima's first good female role. "We don't die for our friends, we live for them." That is Erza quote before her character arc... were not on just one attemp. But several she tries to sacrifice her own life for her friends..... Hiro Mashima has written a female role as ignorant and deus ex as Natsu. She's basically Natsu..but smarter....

I've only written about three characters and im already mad again so I"ll just leave on this. Hiro Mashima doesnt respect women at all. He has yet to write a woman as something more than chattle. Overall this series is a 4/10. It isnt worth the read or the three weeks time spent on it. The only characters I ended up caring for are Grey, Gajeel, and Laxus.. dat it

Notice that i have read only the first volume of this manga,and i still acn't wait for second one to get realesed.

Story:The story follows the adventures of Natsu,a fire-based mage,member of the greater mage guild,Fairy Tail,that gets sick easily by any kind of trasportation,his talking cat,Happy,and a girl named Lucy,that practices 'key' magic.Natsu is in search of his great master,Salamander,and at the meanwhile,joins Lucy and together they establish guild jobs.

Art:Pretty sweet,shounen artwork,with nicely drawn characters,males and females.Detailed costumes.The only bad about it,is i think the way the eyes of te characters are drawn when they are surprised(huge black eyes fill the face).

Character:The characters,as i said ... before,is Natsu,that has a really funny personality,and makes great,smart dialogs with any other character.He is quite strong with magic too.Lucy,'a bit of a tsundere' pretty girl,in search to make her dreams come true.Happy,the cat ,is a really funny one too.

Enjoyment:A great fantasy shounen-comedy series,with a lot of adventure and action.For the bit that i have read,it gets a 10.

If your looking for an action packed manga with a dose of comedy as well, then I highly recommend Fairy Tail.

Short Summary:
The story looks at the Adventures of Natsu, a fire based mage, and Lucy, a young mage with the goal to join the mage Guild called 'Fairy Tail' which Natsu is from. The encounter each other and after a battle involving another mage, they eventually head back to Fairy Tail where a whirlwind of adventures begins to ensue.

There are a lot of things that makes this manga awesome. The characters for one are great. There are a range of personalties in this series and ... you will quickly find yourself liking a certain character as they are just so appealing.

The action and fight scenes are really Good. Fairy is the first manga I picked up after Bleach and I really wondered what it would be like to watch an un-animated fight scene, but Fairy Tail has consistently blown me away with the action and art quality.

How can I know comment on the comedy factor. Right from chapter 1 Fairy continues to provide not only action and a good story line but a lot of funny moments which you would not soon forget.

Overall this series is awesome an being new to manga has made me wish I had picked up manga a long time ago. Can't wait for it to get animated.

Highly recommend this!!!!!

= Story =
- Honestly, there isn't really a story. There isn't a solid plot at all. Fairy Tail's 'plot' just goes from one arc to another. Each arc is basically "someone/something/the guild/the world is in danger of Jellal, Phantom Guild, etc. and Fairy Tail (or members of the guild) ALWAYS has something to do with it and so they try to save _________"
Each arc is really nice. So I like the fact that there's not really a solid plot, but a go with flow time of thing. It's rather nice. -

= Art =
- 'As for any of my reviews, art always gets a 10 b/c ... we probably can't draw better and most of us probably wouldn't be reading a manga where the art is so bad you can't identify who is who.' -

= Character =
- I'm not really sure where I can start with the characters. There isn't really a main character. Some characters show up here and there so each character literally has the same amount of 'screen' time. However, when Lucy is one of the first introduced in the series which made me think she was the main character. A lot of characters that are not introduced in the beginning end up being one of the main characters later in the series. But based on main characters in general, Natsu Dragneel has to be the main MAIN character. Due to the fact that he's one of the first to be introduced and the fact that he's literally the only character that says cheesy lines before beating the shit out of the antagonist. There are other characters who do that too, but Natsu has done it the majority of the time.

With Fairy Tail characters, the development is pretty good considering the fact that there are quite a bit of characters. You know little about some and a lot about others, but in the end you actually care for them all. The connections and conflicts b/n characters is also quite nice. For example, Gajeel and Levy have an indirect relationship and these types of mini side relationships make you want to keep reading to see where all the relationships go. And with Shounen mangas, you have the fans pairing up characters now which shows how well the mangaka did in making the audience connect to the characters. -

= Enjoyment/Overall =
- All in all, the manga is pretty good. I think Fairy Tail is in its final arc now which makes me kinda sad which is something that doesn't happen with Shounen mangas for me. I love the characters and they're also very well drawn. I have also read "Rave Master" which was another manga by Mashima Hiro. So it was rather fun having some similar characters added into Fairy Tail. So I'd be reading and then I'm all, "Oh! _______ is ________ from Rave Master!" So yeah... still enjoying the series. Totally recommended. -

Fairy Tail started out as a very promising comic! It threw me through some very exciting arcs, tied me in a knot with it's plot twists, and even brought on small bouts of sadness. I have seen comparisons made to One Piece, and I would agree somewhat to those points. However, after a certain arc, the story starts to drip out of it's bucket.

Given the never ending, hopped up, exciting pace of the story, one would expect the plot to develop at a rapid pace. Hopefully keeping you on your toes every week, squirming uncontrollably for the 7 days in between each instalment. If you've ... read the FT Wikia, you would realize that this story has some very incredible plot development and some things are just dying to be revealed. The author has let us down.

I would not be surprised if the author has actually died, and they've covertly replaced him with some fraud. I'm dead serious, the story progression for this manga has burnt out like a log. Plot progresses at an un-moderated pace, whipping you around like a wet rag trying to find some bear skin. When it finally makes contact, it hurts... There are times for devastating plot change. One Piece did it well, hell even Naruto did it well, but Fairy Tail did it for the sole purpose of doing it. Seriously, there was absolutely no point in it. It happened, it sucked. Life is going to suck now, oh wait they fixed everything in the space of a single chapter. (Note: The story has been terrible for approx. 100 chapters.)

I can't go into much else without spoiling it, so I'll put it simply:
Avoid this manga. Yes, it is a good story. Yes, it starts out well. But if you wish to save yourself the pain of watching a manga die, please do not read it. All we can hope for is that the story will recover in the future, and move on from it's current pig pen.

Cheers~

When I first started reading Fairy Tail, I thought that it was way too similar to one piece, but as I kept reading, I felt that I liked this story and art much more.

I like that it is based around a girl and that you can see the characters getting stronger. I felt like One Piece went on too long and didn't go anywhere for a while, whereas there are always mysteries, story progression, and interesting characters in this one.

The best is that there are so many varied characters that are focused on. It is nice that we don't have to be confined ... to pay attention to a small group of people for a long time. Also, just seeing all of their different powers is interesting and very creative.

Although this manga may seem like its a bit cliche "been there, done that" kind of thing, it is very unique. It has a nice light tone most of time.

First of all one should explain that although the art is, at the very beginning, very similar to that of Eiichiro Oda author of One Piece it should be obvious that the similarity is actually feeble. Mashima's art also gets an outstanding especially for the fact that its evolution and improvement as he got used to the character designs is outstanding not to mention he draws clothes like a fashion designer (at leats in the story) and its a lovely dynamic seeing some change in clothing on characters that would obviously care about that.

Leaving that aside it is important to remember that this story ... came after Rave Master, another great manga by Mashima which was much darker and pushed the author to try out a more lighthearted story. This created fairy tail which is all about the bonds, friendship but even more so the warmth of a family created, as well as magical adventures concerning these important bonds which are narrated from the point of view of 17 year ol celestial age Lucy Heartfilia, a rookie that gradually improves throughout the story and at a realistic pace in the timespan given. Mashima also introduces numerouscharacters each with their own quirks of which are our protagonists including our main portagonists the destructive fire mage Natsu who literally sweeps Lucy off her feet to her new home, the fairy tail guild, his partner in crim Happy the talking cat?, the exhibionist Gray Fullbuster an ice mage, and the stoic beauty Erza Scarlet.

Their adventures lead them to creating more of these bonds and hopefully the mystery involving the day Natsu's 'special' father dissappearance, with only his scarf as a token before he left will Natsu be able to find him, only Lucy can tell us!

No Spoilers

If you have been immersed in the anime and manga community for around, let’s say a week, then you have at least heard the name Fairy Tail once or twice. One of the most divisive series in the entire medium, Fairy Tail has garnered a massive fan base that defends it to the last man and equally large legion of haters who will fight and die on their desire to see it burn in the fiery pits of hell. This ridiculous conflict between the fans and haters has created an extremely toxic environment surrounding the series, which severely discourages newcomers from even seeing why ... this has escalated to such a degree. For me, I am a bit more in the middle of the conflict. As a series, I appreciate what it did well, but I can’t just overlook the flaws either.

This manga is known for its extensive and awkward mix of childish storytelling and adult fanservice, which is one of the biggest points of contention. However, this was heavily exaggerated by the first anime adaptation, which censored most of the more violent scenes and somehow made the fanservice more in your face. The manga of Fairy Tail gives the reader a much greater sense of gravity to each situation, especially during the second half. At the same time however, this is contrasted by the lack of a specific story arc in the anime that covers important material related to events in the second half. While not a dealbreaker, it is certainly debilitating.

For starters, the story is a big dividing point in the fandom. The story moves at a considerably fast pace from the get go before slowing down around the halfway point. However, most of the story arcs are disconnected in the first half, usually for the purpose of introducing a new character or story beat for later. This brings up an interesting issue. Hiro Mashima wrote the story for Fairy Tail on a week-by-week basis. He would get ideas when out drinking with his friends and try to incorporate them into the greater story. The only thing he had preplanned was the backstory of Natsu, the main protagonist, while everything else was just added as the series went on. Fairy Tail was never meant to run for as long as it did, which is likely the reason for its incredibly odd pacing and story writing, especially with how some plot points are either introduced and fade into obscurity, or are barely foreshadowed at all until their execution.

Despite this, the strong points of the story stand tall with fantastic highlights that carve out an interesting identity for Fairy Tail. The first half is far more geared toward the adventure theme of the series, while the second half takes a more focused approach around the evolving narrative. While some pieces of the story are relatively predictable, whenever it takes a sharp turn it does so in an unexpected manner that adds a more flare and interest to the growing story. The most interesting stretch is by far the middle section, which brings together all the different moving parts of the story into what feels like a well oiled machine with how it is executed. Unfortunately, it doesn’t keep momentum into the final stretch, but the upswings are a blast.

One of the biggest complaints about Fairy Tail is the lack of character development, which is just a completely false statement. Most of the cast gets substantial development throughout the story, but Mashima’s own fear of killing off the wrong character and relying on the power of friendship archetype gives a bad impression and execution in places. Still, the characters are an interesting bunch that bring together all sorts of emotions and styles, with a crazy amount of different designs that reflect their personalities well.

The Fairy Tail guild serve as our main heroes with Natsu taking the role of protagonist. Natus as a protagonist is not one of my favorites, but he is serviceable. He has strong ideals and a basic, but well defined power set with some added quirks that give him more personal depth. Still, most of Natsu’s development in the first half is extremely subtle beyond some clearly big moments, and it is difficult to wade through his over-energetic personality sometimes. Lucy is initially a damsel in distress who gets more competent and relevant with each story arc. She can be a bit disappointing, but when she shines it is certainly entertaining and heartwarming. Gray is my personal favorite character with his interesting story and hilarious dichotomy with Natsu. Erza is called the queen for more than just one good reason, and Wendy is precious and must be protected at all costs.

The supporting cast is separated into major and minor characters. Most major characters are the other members of the Fairy Tail guild with some others from different groups or locations. A pretty good chunk of the supporting cast get strong development of their own, however their personal stories become more disconnected from the main story after around the halfway point. Despite this, most of the characters still are heavily involved in most of the story arcs. Each of the major characters feel like more than just a simple side character, oftentimes having moments in the peak of the story that enhance the already emotional highlights. Emotions are the focus here, and while the story itself doesn’t always work with the characters, the resonance of each personal journey they experience still hits home more often than not. While you won’t be seeing many of these characters dying throughout the story, it is important to note that the scarcity of character death enhances the few times in which it does happen. This works both to the series benefit and detriment depending on the scene at hand.

The antagonists are a mixed bag that feels like both an incredible accomplishment and heap of wasted potential. The main antagonist of the story is one of the few pieces of the story planned from start to finish, and is executed especially well throughout the series with an impact in almost every major story arc, to the point where I would argue that regardless of the series quality as a whole, they should be regarded as one of the best villains in shonen. Despite most of the other antagonists not being planned throughout the manga, a multitude of which are brought into the fold early on to become major players throughout the rest of Fairy Tail’s run in a positive way. At the same time, this cannot be said for one of the primary overarching villains. This is a character that lasts until the end of the story, and while his status and strength create a strict and constant power ceiling to measure other characters against, he is very one-dimensional personality wise, and by the time we understand why it is too little too late, at least for me. Some other villains that feel like they could become major players in the story turn out to be less impactful than previously thought, which is a pretty big letdown.

Another major complaint of Fairy Tail is that a large number of the story’s villains end up turning over a new leaf, which diminishes the gravity of both their actions and quality as an enemy. This is actually not as big of a problem as the fandom has made it out to be, mainly because of how villains that do end up turning good are given a proper story-basis for their morality change, or have been influenced by the protagonists to a degree that it feels reasonable or at least acceptable character-wise. To compensate for this, there is still a plethora of villains that remain evil to the core from start to finish, specifically in the second half. Even with the large emphasis on the ‘Power of Friendship’ archetype that Fairy Tail is famous/infamous for, the second half of the story brings out those that are as disconnected from that concept as possible to contrast them against our heroes and their own values, or sometimes the way it has been twisted into something of their perspective on the archetype.

The action is one of the consistently strong points of the series that never really drops in terms of quality in the manga. Complemented by Mashima’s own fantastic talent and skills with drawing, the action is presented with beautiful panels that show a strong understanding of the page and two-dimensional space. Combined with the manga’s willingness to showcase the gore of a scene and the spectacular art, the fights always feel properly grandiose in execution. The magic system and each character's individual powers are all taken into consideration for the large majority of the bouts, especially the fights with a heavier focus on tactics and outsmarting opponents. Despite a consistent weekly serialization, the quality of the art and action never seems to drop and is one of the few aspects of Fairy Tail that remains consistently fantastic from start to finish, although it would be more than a stretch to say there aren’t some… controversial choices on Mashima’s part for the way some fights end, but that is more up to the individual reader to decide.

This has been a fairly mixed review overall, which is pretty much how I feel the series is meant to be seen by each individual person. The highs of Fairy Tail are immensely high, but the lows are some of the lowest in the shonen genre. It is a mix of good and bad that leaves more up to the reader than some might find comfortable. It really depends on whether you think that the positives outway the negatives or the other way around. While my personal rating for this series is an 8, that is my own biased opinion, and as such, I don’t feel comfortable rating the series quality that high when the ending is such a controversial one. Instead, I will give it a relatively middle ground, but somewhat more positive rating due to the series having one of the best antagonists in shonen manga, a lovable (and sometimes infuriating) cast of characters, and some story arcs and action scenes that stand tall in terms of both quality and visual value despite all of these problems that the series suffers from. Anything else is your own conclusion.

I loved this manga when it first started out. It looked alot like Oda's style so I read it and thought it was superb. As I continued on and on, I realized this manga is almost if not literally a copy of One Piece.
That pissed me off to the point where I don't even want to read it anymore.
Some of the people who didn't like One Piece as much would probably love this manga though, since they wouldn't know the similarities between One Piece and Fairy Tail.
I, struggled to continue reading this. It's really hard for me to control this inner rage I have towards ... Hiro as he continues to ever so gracefully copy most of Oda's wonderful arcs.
But I do have to admit, Hiro is creative with the designs and characters. But thats probably it, otherwise, it's a replica of One Piece.

Enough about that.

Story :
It has a decent plot that follows a girl name Lucy who wants to be a mage and join Fairy Tail. She meets someone who has the potential to let her join Fairy Tail and that is Natsu. Natsu is this boy with pink hair who has a personality like Luffy's. He fights with flames and loves to eat flames. He got Lucy to join Fairy tail. And as the story goes on, she meets all the other members of fairy tail and go on missions provided by the guild.

Art :
I love the art. It's wonderful in many aspects. The backgrounds and style is pretty good.

Character :
O..my god. The characters are actually quite decent but they srsly follow the formula of the Strawhat pirate personality with a little change this and there but you can obviously see the similarities. Characters are not original what-so-ever, this add to why I dislike Hiro&Fairy Tail.

Enjoyment :
It was actually quite entertaining reading this manga from the beginning. It started off very nice. The rest are quite unique but than yeah, I keep seeing these One Piece deja vu. I enjoyed it's comedy and at the same time, despise it since it is similar to One Piece's. I don't even know why this Hiro guy has to copy that too, I'm pretty sure he has his own style in drawing AND story telling right?!

Overall :
It is good, recommended for all people. But this is just not my cup of tea. As much as I love his other works, this is way too much of a copy to make me like it. How it got so high up in manga ranking is still a mystery to me.

At first glance, Fairy Tail (FT) seems like your average shounen manga with the classic hot-headed protagonist. I'm not against Shounen manga/anime and I've even enjoyed some like Bleach, Naruto, Hunter x Hunter etc. But thinking that Fairy Tail would be as good as any of those was a major mistake on my part.

To start off with it, I'd say there's nothing wrong with the idea of having a guild of mages but it's the way that the idea is carried forward that ruins everything. Initially, I found FT intriguing but shortly after I lost the interest. Guess why? It's because of the repeated storyline ... and arcs. It's always about how some random villain shows up and messes with Fairy Tail in one way or another and how the characters fight against the said villain and win not because of their own strength, but because of the power of friendship. When the same thing happens over and over the show is no longer interesting since it becomes somewhat predictable.

Hiro Mashima also fails to give the characters a proper character development. It feels as though deep down inside, everyone in the guild is the same person since they all act the same way. Different people think differently but he's generalised the characters' thought processes way too much. Of course, there are some characters with a unique personality like Gajeel and Laxus but he never used this to his advantage and let them blend in with the crowd. I think Gray was the only one who had a serious character development but the ending pretty much ruined that since he went back to being the same guy as before.

Another problem with FT is the fanservice. Where do I start with this one? Lucy, in particular, exists for the fanservice. You don't have many chapters that DON'T include Gray unintentionally losing his clothes, Lucy wearing something skimpy or random guildmates walking around barely dressed.

Then, there's the Bad-guy-turns-good trope that you have to look out for. Jellal, Gajeel, Laxus, Ultear, Lyon, Juvia, Meredy etc were all once villains but turned out as heroes instead. Look, there's nothing wrong with this trope but that is only when it's used sparingly. Mashima used it so much that I started expecting every villain, including Zeref, to rectify themselves and become best buddies with the heroes. Zeref is one of the most interesting characters in the story mostly because this trope doesn't apply to him. Personally speaking, he was one of the few characters I was actually rooting for.

The characters were not that great, as I already mentioned and the ships were worse. I was particularly against Gruvia and you can guess why. The romance between Gray and Juvia was poorly done since it remained one-sided for a really long time and even after that, it felt a little forced. It might have been acceptable if Juvia did something other than obsessing over Gray from time to time. Yes, she's a decent fighter and she had the potential for an interesting personality but her infatuation with Gray made her talk about nothing else and that was starting to get irritating. As for Gajeel and Levy, I wasn't a fan of it either. Levy's attitude changed too drastically after she met Gajeel and she ignored her two best friends Jet and Droy and went after Gajeel instead. This is definitely not Juvia level obsession so I wasn't too against it.

In other words, FT was predictable because the story arcs were all too similar and the characters were boring. It had the potential to actually turn out as a manga worth reading, but that didn't happen because of the way Mashima went on with the story.

It's not all bad, though. The art was decent and it got better as the series progressed. Despite all the faults in FT, the fight scenes were good even though the outcomes were usually predictable.

You should definitely consider reading FT if you like fanservice, the bad-guy-turns-good trope, one-dimensional characters, fights in which the heroes win because of the power of friendship and a story in which not a single protagonist dies regardless of the situation. If you don't like any of these, don't bother reading FT.