Fairy Tail Movie 2: Dragon Cry

It is my first review I hope and you like it
I will first say that I will review it from 2 points of view the objective and subjective I will start with the objective:
objectively the movie is mediocre and seen many worse yes. First I liked the beginning to see natsu falling and then they will explain how I got there although in my opinion they did it very badly then 20 or 30 minutes of pure fanservice that I do not complain I love it in fairy tail fanservice but 80% dislike them later They show us gajeel levy and juvia who are going ... on a mission and I was happy after months of finishing fairy tail that in the movie my fav characters came out I was excited but it was very poorly managed: first they don't say what the mission is about, just suddenly They arrive at the kingdom then we do not see what they do whenever they appeared they said 2 words and they cut them like that the whole movie when they start fighting out of nowhere juvia appears going where gray so out of nowhere they do not explain what their mission was that they did in the kingdom also apart from juvia levy gajeel they did nothing at the time of fighting only 2 blows and voila. the 2nd part of the movie when it is discovered that the king was sonya I was surprised it was a good plot twist and it was managed very well the animation was very good the epic fights in general mediocre but pulling good

now the subjective:
Subjectively speaking, I loved it, the animation was great, good soundtrack, Gajeel and Levy appeared, who are my favorites, that always adds points, the great fanservice, I loved seeing Lucy and Erza, the fights as always, very good when Natsu becomes half dragon, it was EPIC !! I literally shouted when it happened and when the dragon said you are the one who will destroy all E.N.D and he responds with the beautiful nakamapower and in the end that hug between lucy and natsu is the best of the movie a hug is always appreciated between them
and the end with acnology and the past of what happened to sonya I liked it I feel that it fit perfectly with the plot of fairy tail and the dragons
in general as the fan N1 of fairy tail I loved it
9/10

well well well. spent the whole summer going through the first 2 seasons of fairy tail to end it here. at fairy tail movie 2. one disclaimer before i go in. i have only watched the anime, havent read any of the source material. since i havent read it i have no idea if it will affect what ive seen, so... yea dont b mad at me if i miss something that makes sense from the source. for the most part spoiler free.

ALSO. IF YOURE READING THIS ABOUT TO WATCH IT AND YOU CANT TAKE SPOILERS, JUST DONT WATCH IT. IT (i think) CONTAINS ... SPOILERS ABOUT SEASON 3.

STORY: 8
The story, as a standalone story, is not that bad. obviously with an anime as well-recieved as fairy tail, you want to have some sort of connecting factors between season 2 and this movie, but as a standalone, it brings all the fairy tail intensity, fanservice, and storytelling into one pretty good story. Yes there are huge plot holes, but im willing to overlook them seeing as it will probably all be explained in season 3. what im looking at is a movie that is set partways through season3, so even though it has plot holes WHEN TAKEN IN CONTEXT OF THE FIRST TWO SEASONS, im not gonna penalize this story too much simply because it was released at the wrong time. Also, if you are gonna watch this, be prepared for things that (i speculate) will spoil some parts of season3. because it is set some time after season3 starts (i speculate). but overall, as a standalone story, its not too bad. its not the best story ive ever watched, but its not bad either. its entertaining, and it also generated alot, i mean ALOT of hype for me for season3. So personally, storys very good. but be prepared for spoilers for season 3 and because that doesn't bother me that much, ill stick to giving it an 8.

ART: 10
The art is outstanding. absolutely breathtaking. the animation is smooth fluid, the color palette is perfectly done. the only difference between this movie and season 2 is the eyes of the girls. they got a overhaul and the animators took extra time making them look better. but hey, im not complaining. The drawing is crisp, and the character's redesigns (costume-wise) are pretty good. Lucy and Erza got alot more curves now (Again, not complainin in the slightest ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)), so be prepped for that. though... Lucy's chest is starting to border on the insane now with its proportion. maybe tone it down just a little bit for s3. theyre literally starting to look like basketballs. uh... other than that most of the art is the same, the characters all look pretty much the same, besides some minor wardrobe changes.

SOUND: 9 or 10
Not really sure if i should have gone with 10 or not, but i enjoyed the in anime sound. I dont remember if there was any op/ed, but i never watch those anyways, so keep that in mind. anyways, sound is good, nothing is super out of place. i think all the VAs stayed the same, or they sound really similar cus i couldn't tell a difference, if there is one. uh... dont think anything else has to be said about this part. sound adds to the anime, doesnt take away. which is good.

Character: 8
The characters are the same characters we saw in season 2. more or less exactly the same, at least at the beginning. So well we all enjoyed the characters of FT so, cool not much else to add about the characters. they're good. Do we see development? subtly. Theres alot of information to take in about our beloved characters in this anime, since it is set a ways in the future past season 2. So theres development there. but throughout the movie? eh... not really. i mean you see it kind of with natsu, as he seems to become more aware of who he is. you also see it in the ships they have, aka nalu and gruvia. but other than that, not much. the characters are good solid characters, that pretty much carry on what happened in season 1 n 2.

Enjoyment: 10
I enjoyed the heck outta this movie. it brought back the nostalgia of all the fairy tail characters along with the fairy tail style of action ecchi and fantasy. the story was enjoyable given that its set some time after season 3 starts (i presume). and really thats all you need to enjoy a fairy tail movie. the characters, and the fairy tail style of story.

Overall: 9
I wanted to give it a 10. i enjoyed it alot. the story was good, the art was amazing, the sound was great. characters were good and nostalgia was pretty on point too. Buuuut, i cant give it a 10. why? because its spoilers for season 3. right. ITS SPOILERS FOR SEASON 3. personally i can handle it, its not a big deal for me, season 3 will explain it all and even though we'll have some idea about what they achieve in season 3, we'll still be entertained by it. at least i will. But i know some people cant really take that, which is fine, so i cant give it a 10. now if it had released halfway through season 3, or like after explaining everything and how our characters came up to this point this movie would be a solid banging 10. But because it didnt, because its more promotional material and because its just not set at the right time, its only a 9. Its enjoyable for sure, but not exactly understandable. So depending on how you like your anime, you will have different ratings for that. And i docked off a point from 10 to respect those opinions. So overall, 2 for story + 3 for characters +3 for enjoyement + 2 for art= 10. - 1 point for wrong timing. equals 9 total.

peace.

::Spoilers::

The plot really doesn't make much sense at all and it's way too fast-paced. The movie actually has a lot of interesting ideas, but it fails to actually do anything with them.

It's honestly a bummer, the movie has a lot of good scenes and it's overall just really enjoyable to watch; however, the good scenes don't get enough time to really shine. For example, there's a scene where Lucy is kidnapped by the main villain and is about to be tortured for his magic before being immediately saved by Natsu, who rushed over as fast as he possibly could because he blames himself for her ... capture. On paper, this actually sounds really interesting. Natsu was forced to hurt one of his closest friends due to mind control magic via the villain and it's because of this that she was captured. However, it fails to actually start or go anywhere. Lucy is saved within minutes of waking up in the dungeon and we get less than a minute total of Natsu looking for her and being upset with himself for the situation.

This could have been a really interesting character study on Natsu. He's someone who values his loved ones more than anything, and that is shown multiple times within the movie itself even before this scene. Just take a moment to imagine the pain Natsu must have felt. Even though he knew he was being mind-controlled, he's still the type of character that would beat himself up over not being strong enough to fight back against it. No matter how illogical it may be to think he could stand against the mind-control, he's still the type of character to think he could or should have.

And yet, this is never explored. We have maybe 2 scenes that are seconds long each showing Natsu being mad at himself, but they don't even last long enough to be anything noteworthy besides a "what could have been". We don't even get a touching moment after Lucy is saved where this is discussed, the most we get is Natsu wanting to fight and Lucy stopping him by saying they need to understand his magic before they can stand against him. Again, this could have led to something, anything. But it falls flat immediately. This is the last time the situation is mentioned. I will say that I haven't finished the movie yet, I still have 20 minutes to go. But a big character moment like this doesn't work if it's completely ignored and then gets suddenly brought up during the last 5 minutes. It needs proper set and build up.

The almost torture scene also never goes anywhere. Lucy was mind-controlled into being obedient to the villain, allowing him to tie her up, then standing still while he was about to do whatever he would have done, which was implied to be assault amongst the torture. The villain explains that he has these girls in the basement to cut up in order to harvest their blood for his dark magic, as it apparently needs a lot of blood despite us never being shown him needing blood or how that would work. He just goes straight to wanting to cut Lucy before Natsu storms in.

Now, call me a sadist all you want, but I wish Lucy had been captured longer. I don't think it would have taken away from the movie at all if we'd had a longer sequence showing Natsu searching for Lucy with the others, and finally finding her only after she's had some of her blood already harvested. I really think this would have been a good character moment for Natsu.

Honestly, one of my favorite scenes in the movie was soon after this. Lucy is on watch for the night and is staring at the small view of the sky she can see through the forest canopy. Natsu suddenly comes down from the canopy, sees her upset, and convinces her to climb up the tree to show her the starry sky, something she previously mentioned really wanting to see. It was a sweet moment between them and shows how observant and caring Natsu really is. I think it would have been great for Natsu and Lucy to have a talk about him attacking her and her capture here; however, it's just shown that Natsu spent the whole time... training? If you can call it that? To be able to destroy a material on the island stronger than diamond. Although I don't think this is a bad scene by any means, it really goes along with the previously mentioned to showcase just how much wasted potential was in this film. I understand that not every film can be a 3-hour Avengers movie, but that doesn't mean it can't still be good.

Overall, it is an enjoyable watch and I do recommend it to any Fairy Tail fans out there. It has fun scenes, funny moments, and a great soundtrack. I like a lot of the character interactions between the main cast, especially during the heist. But it just wasn't enjoyable enough to save it from constant wasted potential and a story that doesn't make any sense past the heist.

EDIT: just finished the last 20 minutes and wow it just got worse the longer it went. The best part of the end was Natsu asking "What do I look like" and Lucy replying "like you". Nice call back to the beginning and I like the implication of Natsu being scared of what he is. I didn't think he found out that he's E.N.D until the fight with Zeref, but maybe I'm remembering wrong or Natsu doesn't actually know entirely that he's E.N.D yet.

Well, short version, it's nothing like the series and i suggest noone wastes their time on this.

The story and scenes felt rushed and the supposidly emotional scenes where too slow. Overall the entire thing felt nothing like the series. The drawings where off too, Natsu's mouth is all wrong, Lucy (and Erza) have way too fat legs and big boobs all the sudden and in some scenes the eyes and mouth where very unnatural, doll'ish and sometimes even creepy. Especially the all-good-end-good scene where 2 of em look at eachother, yaikes.

I really hope this piece of garbage is nothing like the upcoming season, might just ... skip it all together if it has any resemblance.

I don't really know what else to say, other then the big Natsu change near the end. Where the heck did that come from? No backstory whatsoever, just some random crap that's supposed to get me hyped? Well thank you very much, but please don't.

Only possitive thing i could say is that some of the symple humour and happy sounded and felt like the original at times. But overall, it felt like someone else had made this.

Same beat as the first...but a slightly louder beat.

Fairy Tail: Dragon Cry's movie takes place between somewhere between the Avatar and the Spriggan 12 arc and this movie might as well be a stand alone movie much like Priestess of the Phoenix movie due to it having an isolated story involving the Fairy Tail crew.

So on speaking of Priestess of the Phoenix, Fairy Tail: Dragon Cry has a similar setting and setup, with a female movie-only character central to the plot (Sonia) whereas they try to find an artifact (Dragon Cry staff) that may revive or fix something in their country for the greater ... good, but is stopped by Natsu and the crew as they aren't helping at all at the expense of all the sacrifice happening. But where Priestess of the Phoenix takes this to a T with no great twists about it and is the typical stand alone anime tied movie, Fairy Tail : Dragon Cry though having similarities to Priestess of the Phoenix, at least "tries" and LA says "tries" in the loosest definition to get out of the mold and gives us a few plot twists here and there.

Once again LA will say that Natsu and the crew and obviously Natsu is subjected to plot armour but that isn't really LA major problem with Fairy Tail: Dragon Cry, but it's almost plot beats to Priestess of the Phoenix right down Erza taking on a enemy mage having to do with "beauty" in this case LEGS and of course what LA detailed in the above premise.

Where Fairy Tail: Dragon Cry does at least have one major strength is in it's plot twist and that plot twist being linked with Sonia and LA really didn't see it coming and it does take some liberties here and there especially in the dragon lore department for some suspension of disbelief but nonetheless the Sonia twist was a strength to say the least, the next would be that the animation done by A-1 Pictures this time did great from the sharper and crisper character designs and though the the battles does get rather hectic and chaotic at times as well as the few cutting corners choreography in fight scenes, the animation was step up from Priestess of the Phoenix and LA says this as Satelight helped with that but in this one, A-1 Pictures took the helm. The last strength LA could see was again Sonia and her presence in the movie but to counterbalance this, the instigator that kickstarted the movie, the sub-villain of Lord Zash was an unbashed typical lecherous asshole of a character and sure like Sonia, he gets screentime as well as his motives in all this, but man did LA not like his presence in the movie.

As for the voice cast, with the addition of the new movie only characters, we have Aoi Yuuki as Sonia, Makoto Furukawa as Animus and Jirou Saitou as Zash, with Aoi Yuuki probably being the best out of the three though we do get to see Makoto and Jirou go a bit ham with their roles as well. Since this is a Fairy Tail movie, the large cast is back but with most of the screentime going to Natsu's crew, thus Tetsuya Kakihara, Aya Hirano, Sayaka Ohara, Satomi Sato, Yui Horie, Rie Kugimiya and Yuuichi Nakamura gets most of the limelight of this movie and thus the voice cast from the anime series is mostly back.

Fairy Tail: Dragon Cry does take ALOT of the plot beats from Priestess of the Phoenix thus almost a carbon copy of it, but Fairy Tail: Dragon Cry DOES by the by try to do it's own thing with the setup given and the plot structure it was given, from the good character developments from the new movie only characters, the great plot twist near the end and what looks like better production value than the first movie. Yes Fairy Tail: Dragon Cry has it's problems especially with the movie trying to put the Fairy Tail crew mashed into another plot to the Natsu plot armour and the character quirks and running gags to this even being an isolated story that really doesn't effect what will happen in Fairy Tail: The Final Series going against it, but where LA sees it, Fairy Tail: Dragon Cry was doing what could had been improved by Priestess of the Phoenix but using that template thus all the problems stemming from it and healing some wounds in the process with some of the strengths of good movie only characters, good plot twist and better production value.

Fairy Tail: Dragon Cry isn't gonna win any awards here, but for a "Fairy Tail movie", it's a marked improvement from Priestess of the Phoenix whilst chained down to the same problems Priestess of the Phoenix had.

It's no secret that I don't think Fairy Tail is good. But the fact of the matter is, is that I hold a nostalgic connection to this franchise that shields it from me for everything it deserves. The franchise may be bad, but I have made my peace with it, and can enjoy it for the pointless fluff that it is...

That being said. This movie...

What I was expecting:

A fun yet pointless adventure in the land of Fairy Tail that wouldn't be anything marvelous, but a fun and distracting romp.

What I got:

A poor looking mess of a story with a beginning that was much like I ... was expecting, fun and consistent with what Fairy Tail is, and a second half that was one of the worst things I have ever had the displeasure of watching...
There were so many confusing aspects that left me scratching my head speechless. Many CGI scenes fell unbelievably flat (i.e. the ending shot), and many of the characters were left under utilized and completely superfluous to the film. It was stupid, and made absolutely no sense. Most of Fairy Tail can be said to be pointless and repetitive, but at least I can derive some pleasure out of it. This was a confusing mess that made me angry throughout. I would not suggest this film to any fans of the franchise as it is probably one of the worst things to come of it, and that's saying something from a series such as this...

WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS AHEAD!
Oh, even to people who just started watching Fairy Tail, THIS MOVIE'S CANON! I'd wrap up all episodes before watching this movie!
Otherwise, it wont make sense. But even us fans who HAVE finished, might have some questions to some surprises.
(Im terrible with remembering the movie cuz I enjoyed it overall, but here goes..)

Pros:
-The nostalgia from the beginning.
Its been a year since the last episode ended, and we wanted to hear ehat's up with Fairy Tail! And the crew is back with another mission to save Fiori, or as Natsu always say, to save his friends!
Hearing their voices again...man, its awesome seeing them ... again!

-Surprising turn of events (although this shouldnt surprise u buuuuut..)
I said THIS MOVIE'S CANON for a reason. I read other reviews in MAL, and apparently one mentioned that all actions that they put in the movie were all true from the manga, which includes Charles' "Sailor Moon" transformation (which I had to scream at the theatre, "SINCE WHEN??!?!?")
and Natsu's Dragon Form, which hopefully both will be explained when the anime premieres late next year.
(Oh, dont forget the end credits. Kinda the reason why ppl are watching the movie anyways?)
There might be more, but again, I enjoyed the movie without trying being a critic.

Cons (oh boy..):
-The story is WORTH extending 12 episodes, because...
Its all plotholes at this point.

-Many characters left out as extras, especially when Juvia, Gajeel, Levi and Lili were seen in the movie (we all wanted action to all characters... They didnt get any)
The so-called Lucky Stars may hv been OP, but when encountered again, its like a forced shutdown as "movie time is running out" as the wizards somehow finds the EASIEST of ways to beat them that they wouldve in the first 5mins of their fight..

Which made me think that
-we're used to watching filler episodes of FT fights that seeing it in movie form feels like its not enough to satisfy the whole series.

Seeing the movie JUST TO ENJOY THE FEELS is the reason why I loved it regardless.
Although my scores will be on the average because its all the same as it is in TV anime form, I'd watch it as if it was.
Its great hearing from Natsu, Happy, then Lucy, Erza and Grey, coming back together to fight more evil as the one and only, Fairy Tail.


PS
I live in Vancouver, and 3 weeks ago as of this review, a convention was held where Todd Haberkorn has a spot for signing and panels. I was in one of his panels, told him that he did a great job on his role as Natsu, and reminded us of the movie.
He was also kind enough to tell us that as Natsu, he had to scream for 8 seconds in the movie.
While watching Natsu's battles, I counted down his screams, and there was that one section, before he beats the boss, where he ACTUALLY had an 8-second scream. I immediately felt bad, but loving his dedication as he plays the role of Natsu.
FIIIIIRRREE DRAAAGON, ROOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRR!!!
(Not really the segment, but you'll find it! #HaberHints)

PPS
My 1st review! Would appreciate any feedback, yoroshku onegaishimasu!

Dear readers,

The movie Fairy Tail Dragon Cry was a great, enjoyable movie.

I liked that they have put the same ost in the movie as in the series. No new soundtracks were given in this movie.

The story about the staff was worth an 7, because it really seemed important to Fairy Tail as is was their mission to retrieve it, but it would have been nice if there were more things important during the mission.

The characters were maybe less, because they looked as there developed differently as in the series. More drawing style and less anime like if you know what I mean.

Overall I liked ... the movie and I gave it an 8, because the music was good, the enjoyment was great and it had actually a good story too which not all movies have, so I am happy with this movie and it is certainly better than the first movie of Fairy Tail

To start off, this isn’t a bad movie and it’s also not a good movie either. It’s just sort of what you expect from Fairy Tail – magic, fighting, fanservice and Natsu taking the limelight. So, that ultimately just puts it into the okay to ‘meh’ pile for me. Which is almost kind of a shame because Fairy Tail, as a world, does have so much to offer but it mostly played it safe with its story and characters. In the end, it’s a pretty standard plot and nothing special to be honest. Which brings me back to it being a competent film – it’s ... competent in its writing, animation, acting and editing. I for sure wouldn’t go around recommending it however. Mostly because, at the end of the day, it’s still just another Fairy Tail film.

So what is good about it then? Well, for one the animation is almost insultingly good. A-1 pictures makes some damn good looking anime (just take Black Butler, AnoHana, Tsuritama, Your lie in April and ERASED for example) so beef up that already good animation to a movie budget and Fairy Tail looks amazing – it’s fight scenes are smooth, the colours are dynamic and the lighting is perfect. It makes for one enjoyable visual experience. So, at least out of everything, you still get a film that is nice looking.

The second, and perhaps most important thing about Dragon Cry, is that it remembered canon! Which is a huge deal when you consider other anime films that tie into a continuing series – most take place in a sort of blob of ambiguity with a little tie here and there to remind you when it takes part in the story without referencing specific events. Dragon Cry doesn’t do that; it makes sure you know when exactly the story takes place by making specific references to events which is awesome actually! Dragon Cry takes place post-Tartaros arc but pre-Alverez (thank god) and because of this makes use of Lucy’s stardress transformations, Gray’s Demon Slaying abilities and Carla’s transformations. It’s refreshing to have that in there because I went into that film hoping to see something like that – so I wasn’t disappointed.

However, that’s about it for the good parts of the film. Because, sadly, it gets bogged down by Fairy Tail’s ongoing problems but I won’t go into much detail here about some. Though, I certainly will address the fanservice – because god how obnoxious it is – and if it’s unnecessary in the series, it sure was unnecessary in the film. Could have been perfectly done without it. But I’m getting off track here. What else let Dragon Cry down? Well, for one the villains – they were just generic and disposable, for the most part. They didn’t add much other to push the plot along and the ‘big bads’ of the film were only threatening until they didn’t need to be and were quickly disposed of – as per usual. Also, the inclusion of Gajeel and Juvia (yeah, they were in this film) felt very unnecessary – they really didn’t add anything to the film at all and could have very easily been left out and not much would have changed. Juvia was really only there for ‘comedy’ regarding her looking for Gray – which is funny for about five minutes before it becomes tedious.

Dragon Cry is a messy film with some flimsy ties to canon – but even then, I can’t really say not to see it. I wouldn’t recommend it (unless you’re a die hard Fairy Tail fan) but it’s also not awful. So, if you like well animated films with some comedy and, honestly not bad fight scenes and can get past Fairy Tails’ many glaring flaws. I’d say check it out, otherwise give it a miss. It’s nothing special.

WARNING SPOILERS AND RANTING DON'T LIKE, DON'T READ





So I've been reasonably fond of fairy tail for a while now. it was among my first Anime and while it defenitely has the typical tropes and bad overexplained pacing shounen tend to have it was not without its merits. The initial pull was the characters who were loyal to one another . The music and animation have always been above average and I'd be lying if I said I didn't shed a few tears sometimes but it had been a while since the tartaros arc (by far the best of the series so far) and I ... was looking forward to this movie to reinvigorate my passion for this series I hold close. I had a friend who's birthday was the day of release so a bunch of us got together and I paid over 60 bucks for all our tickets. we got our popcorn and took our seats unaware that the next hour and a half would be the worst in our anime watching history!!!

Story: 1
The plot is so simplistic you'd think they could at least pull that through but nope!! Right out of their gate it starts with a flash forward that does not explain anything that its supposed to supplement. And I swear the director had a book of anime tropes he was attempting to check off because there were several times my friends and I joked about a cliche being set up only for it to happen completely unironically!!! The final fight alone had so many issues and cliches that I can't cover them all. So many plot points were left unanswered!! What about the crystals? What's the aftermath of the fight? What happened to the secondary villan who just dissapeared? Did he die? Is the new female character going to be ok. She kinda just lost half her identity and got no closure? Those are but a few of the unanswered questions by the end of it

Animation/music: 2
It's funny really, fairy tail is known for its animation and sound but somehow it even fails at this!! The battle choreography is terrible, the main characters have new abilities with absolutely zero explanation or reasoning. The only points of budgeted animation was the beginning fight. But even those scenes were so focused on fanservice that the "camera angles" pandered more to the fanservice than the action. The final fight is literally like 3 hits back and forth before Natsu turns into his movie selling transformation....and.....ends the fight with a single attack..... talk about anti climactic!!! And to add insult to injury they pour the rest of the budget into this overly glorified pan shot that shows all the characters and zooms out before dropping the credits....as far as the music is concerned, I was severely dissapointed, they played a few familiar classic songs but they were either played quietly ot distorted into something terrible the best ost dragonforce was played for like 15 seconds to one of the fights before dropping off halfway through. Thouroughly disappointed!!!!

Characters: 1
What can I say!! besides the basic interactions from the chemistry of the group, there was nothing in the way of characterization or development. The villans in particular fell flat. The "main villan" was introduced as a badass that had betrayed several countries!!!!! Surely someone of this skill and prestige has more than the one battle he was introduced with right? Wrong! The closest he gets to fighting is getting upset and releasing a single attack from the staff that does nothing but destroy the room they are all in.... no motivations, the design of the actual villan was terrible!! also as mentioned previously the fight fell flat. The new girl introduced was flimsy at best and got almost no screentime!!

Enjoyment: 1
The main reason I'm writing this review is that I went to Mal to check it out and it's scoring a 7 point something when critically speaking it's not even a 5 at best. Everything this movie set put to do failed. I don't understand how people can leave scores of 9 or 10 simply because they are a passionate fan!! It's a huge dumpster fire that gives the Fandom a bad name.

Final score: $60 I want back/10

This movie was just a mess. I love FT series, watched every episode and loved everything about it. But from a certain point I noticed the characters became over-sexualized (like everyone getting bigger breasts suddenly, close up camera shots at specific female parts etc.) This especially became horrible in this movie, literally a fanservice fap fest. Almost every scene had a character wearing bunnysuit/striptease outfit or almost nothing at all etc. while performing a dance or just crawling on all four with camera zoomed in right up their....

It's about 80 minutes and first 60 minutes is literally about nothing. The story premise is not bad ... actually, it seemed interesting, but watching a movie with no decent scenes, no interesting parts or anything, just fanservice everywhere, ruined any enjoyment of the story behind it. The last 20 minutes were good at least. Though the main story about Natsu was so rushed, it felt pretty cheap even for a tease.

Another thing is Fights. It felt like the characters forgot everything about fighting. They clearly had skills from the latest anime episodes (which are damn strong) but in this movie, they did not use them at all, and when they did, it felt really weak compared to the original (like 2/10th of the strength). Even Natsu felt really weak even though he is a beast.

Characters seemed the same as in anime. No development or anything, though it's not something I thought would be different anyway. Some new forms appeared, some characters showed new story elements (new to people who never read Manga, or story fragments... for others it was nothing new and then again, they mentioned it like twice in 5s dialogue so...)

Sounds & Art were awesome, typical FT music with cool animations.

Overall I gave it 4 at MAL. After all the hype about the movie from posters, discussions etc. it was a real disappointment. If it wasn't Fairy Tail, I would have not even finished the movie...

Preface: Most reviews break down into categories to assign a numerical rank too (sound, story, art, etc), so to change it up my reviews will be focused on what works, doesn't work, and what kind of viewer I think would enjoy this series.



Introduction

I won't pretend to hide my fandom for shonen animes, I simply adore the heroes and the common tropes in the genre, from powering up, emotional driven storytelling, and the constant escalating battles and enemies, to the point it's no longer relatable. Fairytail Dragon Cry has all of these, much of the core stuff that made the original series great, ... but yet falls short. Due to pacing issues, the fact scenes just feel removed at times, and how it follows the formula to the point without reason the whole movie is just.....underwhelming.




Welcome Home (what works):

What works here is most of the stuff Fairytail fans are familiar with, the character dynamics, long running jokes, eechi amount of fan service, amazing score, and the bits where the plot slows down really feels like you're watching Fairytail at its best. The action scenes look awesome animation wise, though briefer then the show fights. There is also a half decent twist that I didn't see coming (but at the same time the movie doesn't give hints to this either, so it had some room for improvement). Still Dragon Cry does embody the original energy of the series quite well and when things are working, it's quite pleasant to watch, with the same energy and warmth of its parent show.



The Drop (What doesn't work)

All that being said the rest really doesn't work, and there is a lot here. The pacing is a mess, this movie would have really benefitted from another half hour to full hour of screen time to really explore stuff. The villains are barely flushed out, certain scenes feel missing (one is part of the opening scene where Natsu breaks out of prison and suddenly everyone else is free really bothered me), and there is a lot of new abilities that come out of nowhere. While some are justified with some foreshadow or is meant to leave the audience confused like the characters, the rest just leave you off balance at their sudden appearance. Additionally other characters are shoe horned in when they really don't need to be there and provide nothing of merit to the overall plot. There is also the fact this movie is supposed to be canon, but it doesn't explain the gap between where the anime left off and the movie starts. Even some research suggests it's oddly placed in the Manga. That being said anime movies having odd timeline placements aren't a new issue, but with the ability developments that never aired in the parent show leaves anime only watchers confused.

Finally the biggest thing that doesn't work here is the lack of focus, on well anything. The Dragon Cry is our plot gimmick, but it's never even terribly clear what it is and our heroes have zero emotional investment in the object. The plot works fine enough as it starting to be a mission, but never really evolves into anything grander. The characters that do have emotional connections are all antagonists and are barely flushed out, getting maybe one to two lines of dialogue to explain their motivations. This lack of focus really doesn't give the movie any real "impact" moments to be built towards. Even the previous movie had the main gang be friends with the movie character, that created some sense of the "family theme" Fairytail has at its core. While Dragon Cry is just going through all the correct motions, it just doesn't justify a reason to be invested in the movement.



Do I give it a shot? (Viewer recommendation)

This is a movie for Fairytail fans and that's about it. If you don't like the show or are unfamiliar with it, don't watch this. Cause of it's weird canon placement the background of the show (or manga) is pretty mandatory, so new viewers will be pretty alienated here. If you like Fairytail, I recommend the movie, just be up to date first, suspend some disbelief, and don't get too hyped.

I love Fairy Tail, but this movie was freaking appalling. The second cinematic movie spin-off of Fairy Tail involves our regular protagonists fighting off members of a newly introduced kingdom who steal a magic staff from Fiore in order to use it to stop their city from exploding due to convoluted reasons... and unleash a giant dragon from the body of their evil king.
First the animation. Normally when series have movie spin-offs the animation looks better than in the shows due to the higher budget. Not this movie, in which the only difference in visuals is that all the girls have boobs that are ... twice the size that they are in the show. There are moments when Lucy and Juvia are running that their boobs jiggling in front of them is practically all you can see in the frame, and it really doesn't help that Lucy is needlessly oversexualised to degrees far beyond what she ever was in the show, even doing a roughly minute-and a half erotic dance scene in a very revealing bikini to "distract" one of the villains. What is the point in this? I have no idea.
Apart from the oversexualisation, the writing is also terrible. All of the main characters suddenly have new unexplained powers that they never had in the show (e.g. Lucy can now re-quip like Erza for some reason, and Carla can turn into a catgirl for some reason), and get dozens of out-of nowhere power ups during the many anti-climactic fight scenes. The evil dragon has no motivation for any of what he does at the end of the movie, and the other main villain is far weaker than most Fairy Tail arc villains and has an exceptionally anticlimactic death despite all of his set-up. It is often not clear whose side some of the minor villains are on (in terms of which of the film's two main villains), and none of the characters show any level of development throughout the film that looks likely to lead to any kind of change in their personalities. Why make a film like this which does set up future story elements regarding E.N.D. if they aren't actually going to face a significant foe to the main story of Fairy Tail and come out of the story with any change in themselves, their knowledge, or their powers, which would directly affect their ability to defeat Zeref or Acnologia later on in the story? Even the series's longer filler arcs usually integrated some important set-up into themselves like what the Key of Starry Heavens Arc did with Kinana, which would otherwise have felt like a ridiculous out-of-left-field reveal. Instead, we get pointless villains and a pointless, very rushed, barely coherent plot that contributes nothing to the overall narrative.
Another frustrating element of the film is that several characters from Fairy Tail travel to the villains' kingdom to help our heroes, but they do virtually nothing and feel completely superfluous, like they were brought into the story as an afterthought.
The soundtrack is also bland in comparison with the series, which doesn't help with the fact that none of the fights are memorable in terms of animation.

In summary, the movie is badly written, hypersexualised to the point of being hard to watch, has mediocre animation, adds nothing to the overall narrative, and just comes across as a rushed mess that has major plot holes with the series when you actually stop and think about it. With that said, I recommend this movie anyway for the one scene in which Gajeel is reading a book about cat pictures (seriously). 3/10

After finishing this I thought to myself: Why did I just watch this? Then I thought further: Why am I watching Fairy Tail at all?

Okay, okay, Fairy Tail isn't that bad, put down your pitchforks. Fairy Tail is just an easy punching bag for being just a generic shounen fantasy that just keeps repeating the same story beats with different characters over and over again. So why watch an anime movie, which you know is just going to be filler, for a show that already feels like filler in the cannon material? I don't know the fight scenes are cool I guess?

I watched this coming ... straight off the end of 2014 Fairy Tail, which ended with the Zero Arc. I also watched some OVA's in that break, so basically this was the big return for a lot of these characters for me, as I hadn't seen them on screen in a while. I hadn't started the Final season of the main show yet, so this movie actually had some spoilers for where characters ended up after the time-skip. If you're planning on watching this, wait until you've seen a dozen or so episodes of Final Season first I guess. Not that I think spoilers matter much in a show like this. Did anyone really think Gray had turned evil?

There's a sort of comfort in the simple predictable plots of Fairy Tail stories. That combined with knowing how anime movie plots usually go helps you be able to predict what's going to happen fairly early on. I'll admit I didn't see the twist villain coming, but it wasn't like "OMG this changes everything!" The end also weirdly foreshadows stuff from the next cannon arc, so I'm not 100% on whether this movie is supposed to be cannon or if it's just the power of merchandising. Every anime movie needs a mcguffin that powers up the hero to a new, one-time use form or one-time upgraded version of their normal finishing move.

Anyway, nothing special here. 7/10

This is the second film of Fairy Tail the movie in the theater. Normally, Fairy Tail is about the story of wizard group adventure and friendship. In this film, there are action scenes when characters adventure to find the "Dragon Cry" that was stolen from their kingdom, and the relationship between characters along the trip is so funny. This film also did a good job as same as Fairy Tail the series.

If you are Fairy Tail's fan, you'll know that Natsu is the main character. He is one of Fairy Tail's wizards who use fire elemental magic. His personality is funny, brave, and very careful ... of his friends. In this film, you'll see his character development from the series. He calmed down a bit and try to find a way to find his friend. And about my favorite character, Lucy, she is one of Natsu's team and his best friend. In this film, Lucy's character is still the same as in the series, she is kind, smart, and funny. Lucy is the main character too, in this film she's the one who is sympathetic to a girl under the order of the king. So Natsu needs to consolation his friend.

The interesting thing in the film is the location scene and culture of the Kingdom of Stella where the Dragon Cry was stolen too. The sky and crystal on the land are beautiful so characters are like them. The character's costume is also changed because they're in another Kingdom and it's beautiful and fits on the character.

I want to recommend this film to anyone who has never watched Fairy Tail because this film is the movie film, it will end in about 1 hour. And it's funny and exciting to see the characters adventure and do a new thing. As a fan of Fairy Tail, I like this film a lot because I can see the relationship between the characters more than the series and the characters' personalities and skills developed from the series. But I also don't like this kind of painter's line design because it changes the characters' faces.