Ranked #179

Fairy Tail (Manga)

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. read more

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. read more

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! read more

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.
read more

= 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. -
read more

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... read more

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.



read more

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!!!!! read more

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. read more

From the brilliance of Hiro Mashima, who made Groove Adventure Rave [known in the states as Rave Master, which does sound cooler][Review to be done in the next couple of weeks, I'm only halfway through it], we have Fairy Tail [No, thats not a mispelling]- the story about a guild of mage users.

Title: Fairy Tail
Mangaka: Hiro Mashima
Length: As of my posting, 98 chapters in 11 volumes.
Rating: 8/10

Summary: Welcome to a world, populated by mages. A person, even if he can practice magic, is only recognized as a mage if he joins a mage guild, all of which are governed by the Mages Council.

One of the strongest of these guilds is Fairy Tail - a guild that is known to cause mass destruction during their assignments. They have several powerful mages, of which our protagonist, Dragonil Natsu, is one.

Natsu is a mage who uses the dragon slayer magic. He was taught by a dragon, who raised him from when he was young. His magic is that of fire - by consuming it, he can regain strength and heal wounds. He can make it appear in any part of his body, using a mixture of hand to hand combat and magic to fight, which gave him the nickname Salamander. However, the dragon that taught him, disappeared one day, on the seventh day of the seventh month in the year XX77, without a trace.

There are more dragon slayers, of which we've only seen one so far. They all can do the same as Natsu, but each is with a different element. Their dragons all disappeared also.

Natsu takes on assignments with his team, who is consisted of Heartphillia Lucy, a stellar spirit magic user, Fullbuster Gray, an ice user who is also a nimpho-maniac, Scarlet Erza, an Ex-Quipping fighter, and Happy, a talking and flying blue cat.

Hints at a general plot have started to appear, but as for now the arcs are mostly dependant of each other.

Analysis: Its a fun manga to read. The fights are good, even if at first they are all really short. The magic is the most interesting part of the entire deal however - the mangaka comes up with new ways for them to be used alot of times. Its really interesting.

Its also a funny manga. Theres a wide range of characters, and the scenes where they're inside the guild [Which is basically a gigantic bar with a bulletin board], are always a blast to read.

I only have two complaints so far - the first is that each of the plots has to do with the background of one character. Always. Without fail. There have only been 34 exception, each of them spanning a very short amount of chapters. While it is good to explore the characters past, considering that there are only 98 chapters out, I feel like more should be done with the full plot of the manga by now, instead of just the character's pasts. Granted, in some arcs, it plays a minor role [such as the one explaining Lucy's past], but it still annoying. However, the awesomeo fights in those arcs more than make up for it.

The second is the magic. Although I said that I like the magic the best out of anything, I feel like its too loosely defined. Throughout the entire thing they talk about magic power and such, but we're not taught what it is. The closest explination for any of the magics has been about the stellar spirits, but theres still alot of holes there.

Characters:

Dragonil Natsu: Nicknamed the salamander, he fights with fire. He can create it from any part of the body, and can eat it to replenish himself. He's a very fun loving person, who will do almost anything to get a laugh. He's also a very carefree person, with a quick temper. His dragon was Igneel, from whom he inherited the nickname Salamander from. He's constantly on the lookout for clues as to where Igneel disappeared to. His fatal weakness is a very strong case of motion sickness - if he's on a moving vehicle, he gets very sick and can't do anything.

Heartphillia Lucy: Natsu's first teammate. She's a person who joined Fairy Tail at the beginning of the manga series - and as such, she's the only one sane in the entire guild. Over time she gets used to it. She uses Stellar Spirits, whom once you find the keys for, you create a contract with. Afterwards, you can summon them using the key.

Quick Note about her Stellar Spirits - they all have distinctive personalities, which can make them hard to control sometimes. However, one of them makes a cameo appearance from Groove Adventure Rave. A cookie to whoever figures it out.

Fullbuster Gray: Natsu's rival, at the start. Whenever they meet, they always have an argument, and can only be shut up by two people - Lucy, and Erza [who had to beat them up in order to do so]. He's a nympho-maniac, who doesn't realize when he's undressing. Its a result of his training to learn how to use ice alchemy. He joins the team later on after being forced by Erza, and now does it full time.

Scarlet Erza: One of the strongest in Fairy Tail, she is an Ex-Quipper - a form of magic that can equip and dequip armor and weapons very quickly. She always wears armor, can switches quite often to suit the needs - whether its flame resistant armor when battleing Natsu, or a fancy dress when going to the casino [Didn't know that that was classified as armor ... But oh well]. She's one of the only mages that fights fully physically, hardly ustilizing magic in her attacks. She's a very tempermental girl, and has a rather large temper. As a result she is respected, at first through fear, then through power.

Happy: Natsu's ever-present companion, he's a talking blue cat. That can grow wings.

Need I say more?

Makarov: He's the master of Fairy Tail, and one of the 10 Great Holy Mages. He uses his magic to expand parts of his body to fight - whether making his arm super long to stop someone from moving, or growing to the size of a giant for general all purpose smashing.

There are more characters, but I needn't name them now.

Its a good manga to read, and releases are frequent. The reason I gave it an 8 is because, like I said, I would like to see more of a general plot, instead of just exploring character backgrounds.

Review taken from animeruwelz, check my profile out for more info read more