Fairy Tail

Fairy Tail is about Lucy, a stellar spirit mage who wants to join the well-known mages guild named Fairy Tail.

The story in the manga is good, this first episode followed the manga carefully. The manga contains some good arcs but also some bad arcs (in my opinion). It will probably a 100+ ep. series.


The art is similar to one piece. I didnt think it was bad, but the spell casting could have been better. I expected a bit more from that, but I will get used to it.

The sound was good. I liked the background music, it fits this anime, the opening was ... weird, but perfect.
Voice acting could have been better, I expected Natsu to have a less mature voice and Happy to have a less girly voice but again, I will get used to it. The voice acting of Lucy is ok.

The manga contains some cool characters, Natsu is a typical Naruto/ Black star, but he is still funny. It contains some other cool characters but I wont tell u about them.

Im sure you will enjoy this series, but probably not as much as the manga. If u like shonen with a sense of humor, Fairy Tail is the anime u should watch.

Every once in a while you make a damning mistake. A mistake so profound you feel nothing but deep regret for yourself. After reading perhaps a thousand reviews on MAL, I knew I had to avoid this sizzling pile of mess like the plague, however I decided to see what made this nausea inducing anime so popular and I learnt what I already knew.

Popularity doesn't make something good.

Obvious isn't it? But curiosity got the better of me and I decided to see it. What followed was torture so gruesome I bet even a guy from the middle ages couldn't fathom such excruciating stuff. Maybe I ... was paying for the sins I paid. Heck even all the sins committed by my ancestors wouldn't compare anything to what I went through. If there is one thing I absolutely hate, its boredom. Fairy tail didn't bore me. It left me a gibberish wreck. There is a certain limit to how much you can recycle stuff. If we had been recycling like this in real life the Earth would be restored to its real glory. But can someone restore the time I wasted watching this harrowing anime on Animax?

No

Time is precious. There are million things you can do in your life. Don't waste it on watching fairy tail. Let me tell you why you shouldn't even touch this anime with a 10 feet long stick

1) No plot. Every anime cannot be Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, however that doesn't mean it has to be totally brain dead with nothing resembling a story. If someone ever tells you that Fairy Tail has a good story, pull out a bazooka and shoot him dead on the spot. He was sent by hell itself to mislead you.

2) Fan service. I watch anime to listen to a good story. See characters which amaze me. Listen to music which gets me peppy. Not large chested females who somehow live with body proportions only a magazine publisher could digest. I am amazed how shameless this anime gets every time I see it.

3) Characters - We had Dragon ball Z before. It had glorious men who fought for the Earth for peace. They were men you wanted to be. Full of courage bravado and daring. What do we have here? An annoying hero who tries to act too cool despite himself. A female lead who apparently puts silicon in her chest every episode. A red haired female called Erza who doesn't have something even resembling a personality. And a guy called Gray who you would probably discard without even looking at him. Just his sound annoys me.

4) Friendship- Its 4v4 between the good guys and the bad guys. Only one good guy remains standing. Now its 1v4. Our hero is outmatched.Can anything save him? Lets see. A boost up in energy perhaps? Some rage induced power? Clever tactics? No mon ami, you are mistaken. The power of friendship will descent from heaven, bringing *sparkly* light and help our hero do things he couldn't do if you had given him a cocktail of redbull, Chilean coffee, strawberry milkshake and cocaine. This anime is bullshit that's my point.

So if you want to feel a universal shattering kick on your nuts or brain hemorrhage watch some fairy tail.


No seriously don't.

Fairy Tail falls under the same category as many of the most popular anime in existence, namely One Piece, Bleach and Naruto, and because the shounen genre is never exactly rich in story or character depth, ive decided to be fair and rate this anime for what it is rather than comparing it to the likes of Cowboy Bebop and Steins;Gate, so please enjoy!

In a world where magic is part of everybody's daily life, we follow the story of Lucy Heartfilia; an aspiring wizard who-after meeting Natsu Dragneel- becomes a member of the wizard guild known as Fairy Tail.
Seems pretty basic right? Well the story ... doesn't get much more complex than thet until later on, which gives the viewer time to get attached to the characters and for the story itself to put all of the pieces in place ready for the last 20 or so episodes.
The show is divided up into around 13 arcs, with the last episode of each arc having some form of impact on the Fairy Tail Guild that will be used as a plot point much later on.
The art is really well done, but repetitive, the most noticeable of which are Erza's transformation, Lucy's gate calling and Natsu's Fire Dragon Powers, but eventually you become used to them and they dont become painful to watch.
the battles are also amazing to watch, which comes as no suprise considering this genre of anime iare the masters at long, drawn out yet visually impressive battles, and last but not least, most of the character designs are also very creative and well drawn, with the female characters being adorable and the male characters looking like the typical strong hero.

When it comes to the sound, and most importantly , the sub and dub of the show, i really have no complaints; Todd Haberkorn (well known for playing Death the Kid in Soul Eater) does a brilliant job at nailing Natsu's fiesty but caring personality to a T and other heavy hitters such as Monica Rial playing the gorgeous Mirajane also do a fine job at nailing Mira's cutesy but serious personality, the japanese script was written to appeal to a slightly older audience than the american dub, with swearing and a much more aggressive tone added to Natsu and Erza, yet they seem to be missing or rewritten in the english dub to appeal to a much younger audience. I cant leave behind this part of the review without talking about Aya Hirano, who often worries me because when i hear her voice i think of so many other characters over the character she's trying to play, but for some reason i was able to look past that this time and can confidently say that she too does a really good job of turning Lucy into a damsel in distress character thats fully equipped with a fiery personality.

The character is where things start to get more complicated though, as, individually MOST of the characters have been given their own backstory and are well fleshed out, but when it comes to character relationships, things begin to slowly roll down hill.
The show makes it blatantly obvious that characters are romantically interested with others, yet throughout all 175 episodes, nothing is done about it until the very last few episodes of the entire series; and even then nothing is resolved, only hinted at.
Back onto the subject of the story arcs, some are incredibly fun to watch but some become incredibly tedious after a while, thats because every arc follows the same formula;
-MC gets beat up by villain
-Villain does something to MCs friends
-MC uses the power of friendship to overthrow the villain
-Villain get their ass whooped back to the stone age

This runs the risk of a person's enjoyment of the series to become very stale and thus people begin to drop the series, made worse by the fact that the best arcs are much later on (Edolas Arc starts on episode 76, Tenrou Island Arc starts on episode 96 and the grand Magic Games arc starts episode 150)
this is a real problem if a show takes 75 episodes to really get going, aend thus enjoyment of the show will vary from person to person, but dont worry, its not like the series BEFORE episode 76 isnt good, its just doesnt really progress the plot.

On the whole, i really enjoyed watching this show, despite a pretty shaky start and a couple arcs that get kind of boring after a certain point, what you have here is 175 episodes of pure mindless fun and because it knows what it is, everything works brilliantly, my only problem comes with the cliffhanger ending, yes after 175 episodes the story STILL hasnt finished, luckily its re-airing in April, but it upset me that they didnt even finish the story arc.

Fairy Tail was the first anime I had ever seen and when I look back to it, I have to say it was a great gateway to the world of anime. But that is about it. The main building blocks of any anime, plot & character could have been executed a lot – when I say a lot I really mean a lot, better.

The plot is quickly summarised as generic. The main team of characters, Natsu, Lucy, Gray and Erza come across some evil activity that has to be stopped. They are later joined by Gajeel and Wendy. When they find out who is ... behind this evil activity they have to stop them, by beating them. The first round they get beaten, but then the group will summon the bonds of nakama’s or the willpower of Natsu will be found and he beats the people who do this certain evil activity. End of story, repeat.
I fear that I have summed up and summarised every arc, including the fillers. The repetitious plot is also accompanied by jokes that get old very fast, like Natsu’s and any other Dragon slayers vehicle sickness.

Outside that the characters are flat, to the extremes. They are cliché stereotypes. It is defanatly not a good sign if you can summarize the characters in one word. You have the rival Gray, the over manly man Elfman, the pervert Makarov, the fangirl Juvia, the OP main character Natsu, the Damsel-in-distress Lucy, just to name a few. It also has inconsistencies, where Natsu at first is shown to the viewer as an user of an extremely rare kind of magic. Later you find out that there are three generations of Dragon slayers. So it is not that special after all.
The thing I dislike most about this show is that the story revolves around Lucy, but she rarely gets any screen time compared to Natsu. I sometimes wonder; “Why do these things always happen to Lucy?’ to then be reminded again, ‘Oh yeah!, she is the main character’. This is easily forgotten because of the immense emphasis put on Natsu.

The art however is not bad at all. The animations of magic are well executed and the characters look appealing to the eye. The art is solid, just like the sound. The voice acing was alright and Fairy Tail did have quite a few good OST’s.

Overall, I would say that Fairy Tail is a great gateway to the wonderful world of anime, but other than that, it is not worthy of being watched. If you had quite the history of anime that you have watched, I would suggest that you skip this show. The art and sound are the only real upsides of this anime.

After watching 175 episodes (minus the potentially suicidal filler arcs) of Fairy Tail, I have come to the conclusion that a total of 3,500 minutes ( roughly translated to 58 HOURS and 20 MINUTES) has been completely and utterly wasted on this horrible excuse of an anime. And in case you're wondering, I am going easy on this since it's a shonen, hell those 3 points are me being MERCIFUL.

This will be a full in-depth analysis to try to understand what exactly makes this show so bad. I will try not to mention "nakama power boosts" and "unkillable characters" as most people think that's ... whats wrong with the show. However, there are many more glaring problems that must be recognized before stuff like "nakama power boosts". Strap on your googles, Pick up your shovels and join me as we shovel to the heart (rectum) of Fairy Tail to decide which shit is better than that shit. Understand? No? Welcome to Fairy Tail. Let's Begin.

THE GOOD
The number of things that are good in Fairy Tail are limited but I will mention the few that are so I don't sound biased.
The first thing that comes to mind is it's great soundtrack. Fairy Tail's soundtrack is both incredibly beautiful and emotional at times, dramatic and even badass at times. I really love it's Celtic styled theme song as it suits the show perfectly. All of it's openings are all great. A few of the abilities in the show like Erza's Requip are unique and fun to watch. Hmmm...that's kind of all really, I mean...Happy's funny, I guess?

THE BAD
1. LACK OF ORIGINALITY
A show needs to offer something that's unique and creative. Something they won't find in any other show. In One Piece there's a daring pirate world, In Bleach there's a haunting afterlife world and In Naruto there's a ninja world. Each of these are different in their own right and that's what makes them so successful. Now, take a look at Fairy Tail. Nothing stands out in fact everything just feels like a rehash of stuff that's already been done in OP, Bleach and Naruto. In fact, look at all the similarities between One Piece and Fairy Tail. The show blatantly copies it's art style and themes. Just take a look at how much Natsu is similar to Luffy.

It's world feels empty and soulless outside of it's guild, which shows how poor it's landscape and world building are. If there was one thing that the show attempts to do differently, it's romance. By romance, I mean "shipping". Don't know what that means? It translates to "a never ending romance that never truly begins but is based purely on MAYBE". Unfortunately, this has also been done time and time again. It's a neat trick that the writer came up with to keep you from escaping this nightmare. TIP TRICK: Listen up, guys. My gone off broccoli is more likely to get with Lucy than that stupid ass pink haired retard. If they ever do get together, I can guarantee it will be only at the VERY END to keep all you fan girls watching.

2.LACK OF OVERALL OBJECTIVE/GOAL
I simply cannot fathom how the show could f*ck THIS up. But surprise, surprise, they did it again. Establishing an overall goal is critical for any anime ESPECIALLY a shonen anime due to their overall length. This is done to prevent people from becoming bored and wondering "what the f*ck is going on?" You'd think that the goal would be to find Natsu's dad, which although it's a cliche in itself at least its a clear goal, but nope. Natsu only mentions his "all important lost father who he hasn't seen in like 10 YEARS" when he feels like it which is every 50 episodes or when he's not eating something. Because of this each arc feels extremely sloppy and random, and we begin to ask ourselves,"what the f*ck is going on?". Oh, almost forgot if you thought the story is awful wait till you watch the filler arcs which will break even the strongest will power to their submission. PRO TIP: NEVER EVER even look in the direction of a filler arc. Luffy wants to be the Pirate King= STRAIGHT FORWARD GOAL, Naruto wants to be the greatest Hokage= STRAIGHT FORWARD GOAL.

In a nutshell, it's like taking away the handle bars on a bike. It doesn't have a clear path but it's definitely going somewhere alright. Probably to the soul crushing and tortuous guild know as Fairy Tail.

3. UNRELATABLE/AWFUL CHARACTERS
I suppose you expect me to now go on a rant on how Natsu's character has as much believability as a magical unicorn. I suprisingly don't have many issues with his character. Maybe it's because I had anticipated this type of character or maybe it's because it's been so overdone, Goku/Luffy, that it doesn't bother me anymore. Natsu is a representation of a symbol more than a character. That however, does not excuse the other main characters in the show. Each and every single character is incredibly beautiful and powerful. I think the writer's intention was for Lucy to feel relatable to the viewer? I find this difficult when her first noble act is seduction in order to get a cheaper price. She then eventually becomes OP as f*ck just like everyone else. The only weak character left is Happy. This would be fine if he wasn't a BLUE CAT. Are the writers implying that we mere humans are as useless as blue cats? No, scratch that, we wouldn't survive a blast radius of 200 metres. Only a f*ckin' blue cat could achieve that.

In terms of 'character development' there appears to be some at the start of the series. It starts off with Gray, whose past turns out to be exceptionally boring. Bare in mind this is within the first 20 episodes of the show. Although, development is seen in the arc after it the development just up and vanishes. Character's simply revert to the way they used to be. Character development means it alters there decisions in the FUTURE. They will do things they would never do before. It feels like the writer wants to get their 'development' out of the way. Some characters are given ACTUAL development but they're usually supporting characters like Laxus and Cana. After their time to shine, they simply fade into the background and return to their roles as insanely beautiful and powerful non important characters. Others characters will feel bland and unmemorable. There's also Erza who can win any fight. WHY? Because shes's ERZ-f*ck off.

The characters in Fairy Tail simply look cool but lack in any depth. They all come as stereotypical and unmemorable. When you turn all your characters into unstoppable gods, they will end up feeling unrelatable to the viewer therefore we will not give two sh*ts about them.

4.ANIMATION/FIGHT SCENES
Aside from it's not particularly original art, the main problem with it's animation is it's god awful fight scenes. It's fights are only bad because of two massive reasons.
1. NO BLOOD. I'm not asking for gore fests like Hellsing just A LITTLE MOLECULE OF BLOOD so I can feel like the character is in danger. Like it's just blood? BLOOD? It's a perfectly normal aspect of life and by not introducing it in the show it becomes a 6 year old cartoon.
2.NAKAMA POWER UP
I said I would keep it short so all I'll say is this. When a character has lost 99.999% of the fight , you CANNOT find that 00.001% and add in "friendship power" in every single fight. I know other animes do this, but go damnit if Fairy Tail doesn't do it the most.

Story: 5/10 The story is okay. I prefer more interesting & original story-lines, thrillers, anime with a strong plot and anime with a strong message behind it. Fairy Tail has neither nor any of those qualities. Instead, it has a very weak and repetitive plot. The story is also really cliché and you can predict everything that will happen.

Art: 6/10 The art is fair. It's not the best art I've seen and it's not the worst either. I think the art is very colourful and vibrant with visually appealing backgrounds and settings. I personally think that the character art have dropped the overall mark.

Sound: ... 10/10 This is one of the anime with the best sound, sound effects and background music I've seen. The background music totally harmonizes with the contemporary theme and the sound effects clicks in at the correct time. The character's voices are clear and the voice actors have clearly done an excellent job. The openings and endings aren't really my thing but other than that, I don't have any complaints.

Character: 6/10 I liked how the characters have their own personality. However, I find their personalities to be too static and have very plain and simple personalities. I personally think that Fairy Tail characters will need more character development.

Enjoyment: 10/10 It's not one of the anime I've enjoyed most but I quite liked watching Fairy Tail. I especially liked the humour in it... not to forget about the sound. I personally think Fairy Tail is a very s***ty anime but I really enjoyed watching it.

Overall: 8/10 Overall, I've rated Fairy Tail a 8 out of 10. The sound is outstanding and it's a great comedy, magic and adventure anime.

* Few general things added from manga *
If you like One piece you will definitely love this one, because it has similar characters and the same kind of funny action.
The story is about a mage guild named FAIRY TAIL. This guild is " infamous " for its special way of solving their jobs, always destroying something.
The world is totally original and has nothing to do with reality. The action happens in a country which contains more guilds, these guilds are ruled by one man, and this man takes responsibility for his guild at the 10 great mages.
Most characters are inspired from One Piece.
Its graphics are ... good, in compare with the manga, the anime adds some great special effects to every spell and the sound is very interesting.
This anime contains: humor, magic, fantasy, dragons, friendship, party, massive destruction, superpowers...
Even in the manga nothing is know about the true story, things are rather starting to get interesting at the moment, more is still to come.
This is gonna be a long ongoing anime.

Fairy Tail revolves around a mage called Lucy Heartfilia and her guild Fairy Tail, embarking on adventures with themes revolving around friendship and family, to summarise it quickly.
Okay Fairy Tail by any means is not fantastic and quite similarly too many mainstream shonen mangas (naruto, bleach and one piece) had many flaws, ass pull, bad character development and anti-climatic boss battles with the most clichéd main character ever. Let me just say though, I enjoyed the anime immensely whilst watching it but looking back at it, it just got worse and worse.
Story 4/10
The setting was fantastic and a world I would have loved to live ... in, other than the fact of using magic and fighting, the guild is the essence of how a family should be like. Friends, camaraderie and all the good things about life, the universe and concept was fantastic to say the least.
Although what ruined it was the poorly written or annoying characters and the unnecessary fanservice in it and eventually the lack of care given to the characters. To focus on the plot first is that it repetitive. How? An arc follows this pattern; Job-mini-boss squad- gets owned- then all of a sudden after some motivational speech on friends etc- Natsu beats up the ultimate big bad whilst the rest finish off the mini-squad. It was that simple. Although in its defence, it shares the spotlight around slightly better than other shonen mangas, some other characters also get some pretty big crowning moments of awesome.
The humour in the anime is also not fantastic, at first it might seem quite amusing but in hindsight now, the latter of the anime relies on fanservice waaaaaay too much for comedic sakes and thus made it slightly unbearable to watch.
Also the ass pull in the anime, with the hope spot after the main character suddenly powers up with some really unbelievable method and an inspirational speech about friends, BAM! Villain gone good guys win with no serious repercussions. For example, one does not simply eat some nuclear rock and then suddenly power-up to defeat a villain who was kicking your ass previously. The motivational speeches were truly quite inspirational towards the start but it was overused so much it became somewhat annoying. Couldn’t they find another way to win a battle? Although it is the main theme of the anime so I guess so slack could be given.
The anime also has a habit of censoring all the blood and making the anime overly fluffy and happy. I understand that it’s supposed to be happy and aimed at children but seriously you cannot go through a fight with a major fight and only come out with minor cuts and bruises, this enforces the unrealistic nature of the anime. Also how the anime just seems to refuse to kill off any characters, instead of giving them an epic death, the author just lets them sit in the background and rot away which I believe no character deserves.
Characters- 6/10
Then the characters in the anime, most of them are poorly developed or overly annoying. First of all being the main lead Lucy, one of the most commonly bashed characters but not to show my bias, I have to agree as well due to the fact that she is useless. Her sole purpose seems to be for fanservice and appealing to male fans, I mean come on; she can’t get through a single fight with her clothing intact. Also the situations she are put in to make her appear stronger and in retrospect to the other lead Erza, her primary purpose is for fanservice and shipping sakes. Perhaps if she was a minor character, I wouldn’t have disliked her that much but the due fact that the arcs revolve around her and she doesn’t do anything annoys me.
Then we have Natsu, your typical hero who has a food obsession, is impulsive and stupid, unbelievably powered and the guy who gives all the motivational speeches. Yeah, really annoying just by the simple fact that he isn’t an original character with virtually no character development throughout the series.
These are the main two character issues but I also have a major issue with the villains. A villain just can’t seem to stay dead or stay gone, they always come back, remember Erigor in one of the first arcs? He appears at least two times later and then you have the members of Oracion Seis who just had to return for a filler arc and don’t get me started on Jellal.
My opinion is that it has too many characters and these characters aren’t fleshed out to a good standard due to the focus on the four main characters, I mean what’s the point of bringing them back if they don’t change at all, other than becoming more powerful with no logical explanation?
But then I did love certain characters in the anime and thoroughly enjoyed to see them in action so I couldn’t rate it too badly.
Art- 7/10
Not the best art I’ve seen but it was decent and considering the detail gone into those magic circles, some of the fight scenes looked pretty awesome although I wouldn’t say it wasn’t an highlight. Also sometimes it was slightly inconsistent, one second a character looks good, the next they are warped that they go from decently looking to pretty horrendous and in the latest the arc, the animation has dropped in terms of standards by quite a lot but that could be due to the lack of funding.
Soundtrack- 9/10
Definitely an up for the anime. The soundtrack by Yasuharu Takanashi is plain awesome. With a variety of upbeat battle music to the slower emotional ones, it captures every scene perfectly and fits the anime. I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed the soundtrack and despite having a heckload of songs in each, it was worth my time converting all the songs onto my ipod.
Enjoyment- 7/10
Yeah, I know I rated the anime pretty low but I did finish every episode within the period of a month and enjoyed it immensely. Maybe as this quote says “Whether fairies have tails or not, or whether they even exist, nobody knows for sure. So it's like an eternal mystery, an eternal adventure.” An eternal adventure that doesn’t end, there was always more jobs, always tough situations and it just doesn’t end with a happy ending for most things. In a contrast to reality I think this was the reason why I enjoyed it, an eternal adventure, an escape.
Final Score- 7/10
For a long-running manga, it has its highlights and its detractors but based on everything I did get some form of enjoyment out of it despite the poor story line so I couldn’t rate it too badly. It was decent for a shonen and not appallingly bad like some others.
Yeah, I know I said quite a few negatives things about the anime but I judged it like any other anime and like any mainstream animes, it has the same flaws so I tried my best to ignore those tropes. 'Tried being the operative word'

Ok, I watch Fairy Tail because everybody say it's similar to One Piece or FT is ripping off One Piece. Here are my thoughts from a One Piece fan point of view.

Story: 6
When I just start Fairy Tail, I was REALLY excited. A world of magic where everybody (mostly) have unique magics (just like One Piece Devil Fruit ability). Then they are in a guild with lots of colorful characters and a request board where they can do quests and earn money. I thought, wow, that's a really good base for some creative and unique story. But unfortunately, their adventures are kinda lacklusture compared to ... One Piece's. One Piece really had some amazing adventures (Sky island, desert kingdom, haunted island, fishman island under the sea etc). But I understand Fairy Tail is a lot more condensed. Each arc normally last only about 20+ episodes. One Piece is focused on Luffy's ambition to become the Pirate King. Fairty Tail's main objective is.. Natsu's search for Dragneel?? (I'm really not sure).

Art: 8
The art is Fairy Tail is pretty conservative and stick to those typical modern anime. It'll appeal to wide range of audience. I know a lot of people are turned off by One Piece's unique art. One thing that really bugs me is the amount of fan service in the later part of the story. Lucy just happen to get her shirt torn off in every battle. I'm ok with fan service, but when it happens in a battle, it's hard to take it seriously.

Sound: 8
This is not my forte. I don't really research much on voice actor/actresses. My impression of the music is good, the celtic style music suits the whole magic theme.

Character: 7
There are lots of colorful characters in this anime. And their interactions are funny. Most if not all of the major characters have their background story. And Mashima had a lot of planning put into this, when you will find out how he/she got her name, or why he/she act that. But maybe Mashima put too much effort into this when one of my reaction when knowing how Erza got her name I was like.. "Come one..". However, the characters are not that wacky or as distinct as in Once Piece. And Erza's background is similar to Nico Robin, but Nico Robin seems so much stronger becuase Erza dwell too much about her past. It's sad because she should be the tough one.

Enjoyment: 9
The fighting in Fairy Tail is not really intense. Since most of them will be done within an episode. My favorite battle is when Mirajane is fighting =). It really eclipse even Natsu's battles. The jokes in FT is pretty funny, and the huge number of characters are fun to watch.

Overall: 8
Overall, I had high hopes when starting this anime, my enthusiasm slightly wane during the middle. It's a good anime, don't get me wrong, I even read the manga after I caught up to the anime since I want to know what happen next. Just don't predict this anime, because there are too many "ohh.. ok.." moments, like the author making up his own rules along the way. But that's to be expected in "magic" world right??

DO NOT WATCH YOU WILL REGRET IT, BIGGEST WASTE OF TIME EVER. But seriously the story never gets anywhere, and the characters are so bland and generic. If you are a general Narutofag then you will most likely enjoy this anime. For someone who wants more from their anime than fighting and bad voice acting then I wouldn't recommend this. After watching 29 episodes the show gets nowhere, and if you like shows that take more than 40 episodes to get started, for example one piece, then go on ahead and watch this.

Okay, so I wanted to write a review about Fairy Tail for a while, and here it is.

Honestly I nearly dropped the show after a few weeks. The story is just your average shounen, nothing really outstanding yet. The art is only slightly above average, the magic circles look kind of weird and the fights aren't as intense and well animated as they could be. So normally this would have been dropped by me, as many other average to slightly good shounens.
However there were three things that kept me hooked, and these are the main things I want to talk about here.

First, and this is ... only for the fanboy in me, this show does not only have Hirano Aya, but also Kugimiya Rie. That alone was enough for me to keep me interested for a while, and if your a sucker for their voices like me, then you'll probably really like the interaction between Lucy and Happy. As for the other voices, they are generally quite good too.

The second thing I really enjoyed about Fairy Tail are the characters. Most of the mages in Fairy Tail and especially the main characters are either awesome, funny or both. They are not to deep characters, but Erza, Lucy, Natsu, Grey and Happy as the main bunch are really enjoyable, so are the others like Juvia or Makarov.

But what really kept me watching the show is the music. This anime has one of the best background music I've ever heard. Nearly every piece of music is memorable and extremely well down. From Irish Folk like pieces over Pop/Rock themes to pieces with influence from Symphonic or Power Metal the soundtrack is simply perfect. They could probably show a few stick figures doing their laundry and I would still watch it just because the music is so great. They could even air a discussion of your local parliament and with this music it would seem like an awesome battle. Almost everytime a new piece of music starts I can feel shivers running down my back. The music in this anime is just outstandingly good.

So if you are interested in shounen I would suggest at least trying Fairy Tail. It is a fine show, with a few flaws and an unbelievable awesome Sound.

Fairy Tail is probably the worst shounen of the big three, but its not the worst anime ever. This is an honest review and I am not hating. I will look at the good and the bad of the show.

Story - (2/10)
What story? Fairy tail is a string with cliches plots and fight scenes attached to it. It's as if Hiro Mashima wanted to add every shounen cliche ever, into his show, time skip, tournament arc, alternate universe. The entire story is predictable and so are all the fights, Natsu and his friends always win with the power of friendship which is horrible. Hiro Masima ... refuses to kill off any of his characters (besides extensions ie. edo-Lisanna or future Lucy or ghost-like Mavis) You know the heroes will win in the end through overused tropes and cliches, so unoriginal.

Art - (7/10)
The animation is fine. It's very good during fight scenes, it's nothing too spectacular though.

Sound - (9/10)
I can't even lie. The soundtrack is amazing. The old European Irish style and flutes are nice. The Openings are so energetic and the endings are so calm and sad.

Characters - (3/10)
Fairy Tail probably has the worst cast ever. I have never seen such one dimensional characters in an anime. Natsu and friends ALWAYS win. No mater what, no matter how unrealistic, through the power of friendship. Natsu is honestly the worst anime protagonist ever, he never trains or does anything and everything always works out fine for him. Villains are even worse, they have such one dimensional goals (take over the world muhahahaha!) and the worst part is how after losing in a fight against Natsu they automatically "turn good." Like seriously, sociopathic murderers are totally kind-hearted and nice after losing in a fight.? really? Other than a butt kicking from Natsu, they also receive no punishment for their actions.

Enjoyment - (5/10)
I think this is only reason why Fairy tail is popular is because its enjoyable. The fight scenes are fun and show is sometimes funny. People (not me) also enjoy the fanservice.

Overall - (4/10)
Overall, Fairy Tail is a gigantic messed that looks like bad fanfiction. I recommend it to those who have no real taste in anything.

For the longest time, I was very reluctant to watch any Fairy Tail. The reviews I read were incredibly polarized, either praising it to high heavens or dooming it to the thrash heap. But no one can deny the huge popularity of the show, so after I was done with binge-watching many serious seinen/josei series, I needed some dumb fun, so after all these years I gave Fairy Tail a chance. After 130 episodes, I'm still not sure I made the right choice. Let me explain...

Right after the first episode it was obvious Fairy Tail was designed by a committee to be TNBT (The Next ... Big Thing) in shōnen anime. Taking up the mantle from Dragon Ball, Pokemon, Bleach, One Piece and especially Naruto, Fairy Tail is the same "fun for the whole family" type anime. It uses the same exact recipe, one main protagonist, many typecast side-characters, all part of the same group, and they go on adventures, defeat evil in spectacular eye-candy fights, for justice and camaraderie, etc. We all know how it goes.

But Fairy Tail brings a few twists into the mix. First of all, it tries a new format. Instead of incredibly long, drawn out arcs and fight scenes to draw out the run time, it operates with a machine gun for content. The story arcs are short but there are an incredible number of them. This eliminates boredom, but does get a little old after while, when it seems Natsu and gang saves the world from some new apocalypse five times a week. Same goes for fights, which are "short and sweet", never get boring or outstay their welcome. They do repeat things a lot, but at least we don't have to watch the protagonist "gather power" for twenty episodes for that one special attack, grinning through the exertion like he is about to soil himself. When Natsu says "you're gonna get it now!", he really means NOW, not four months later, which is kind of refreshing. It seems the creators really did their best to come up with new stories, enemies, arcs and fight sequences for every episode, without reusing much of them, which is very commendable, but I wonder how long they can keep this up...

One thing that helps this process is the incredibly lax laws of Fairy Tail's concept. This is an anime where literally everything goes, from easy going adventure, happy fun times, heated and serious battle, unimaginable evil, crying, death, pain and suffering, oh, and also dragons, flying cats, flamboyant wizards, fan-service boob parades and The Butt Jiggle Gang. There is practically no limit on the imagination here. This makes the series less boring than any shōnen adventure series I watched so far, but also a little inconsistent and sometimes hard to follow.

The other thing is the series tone. In short, it's all over the place. Fairy Tail is incredibly self-aware when it comes to humor. Sometimes it's smart and witty, but largely it's goofy, slapstick and low-brow as far as kids anime gets, uses lots of pop-culture references, tons of fan service and it breaks the fourth-wall so frequently it might as well not be there. This makes the series largely really fun, and makes for some great "laugh out loud" moments. The only problem is, the creators don't seem to know the biggest secret of humor is TIMING. They frequently ruin serious or emotional moments with jarring slapstick bits, bad puns or just pathetic scripting.

It's not just the humor, though, but the way the series never really takes itself seriously. Yes, it's not a bloody, gory, cursy seinen series, but sometimes Fairy Tail takes "family friendly" a little too far. All the characters are wearing "plot armor", even the antagonists, so no one dies in fights, or gets hurt worse than a few boo-boos. This makes for some very anti-climactic fights, when you know just how low the stakes are. When the enemy gets "defeated" it only means they get knocked out for a while, after which they usually come to and grumble about being defeated. That said, the biggest hurdle for me is when the enemy turns out to be a good guy in disguise, which happens with alarming frequency. Many times during big, epic fights, the antagonist gets something hidden revealed about their past or the situation at hand, and they instantly turn into good little puppies, stopping everything in it's tracks, which is the cause of some the most jarring anti-climactic endings I've ever seen. "Me trying to murder you all and take over the world, it was all just a misunderstanding, I'm not evil, I'm actually a good guy, honest!". Worse yet, many of them turn out to be flat out heroes. And the protagonists just go along with it EVERY TIME, without question. "Oh, no biggie, you didn't manage to murder EVERYONE or destroy EVERYTHING, so I guess we forgive you. Hey, now that you are not evil, how about joining us?". And that happens more times than I can count. This releases the carefully built tension with a wimpy fart-noise instead of a BANG and makes many of the story arcs really lackluster and unsatisfying in the end.

The characters serve their purpose. That's about the best thing I can tell about them. The protagonist, Natsu Dragneel, is a Naruto wannabe, with a lot less personality and a lot more annoyance. The typical absolutely clueless, but incredibly powerful adolescent manchild, who is incredibly high-strung, always rushes into battle without any amount of thinking, gets his ass kicked, then gets up heroically and defeats the enemy with one last spectacular attack with the power of friendship/love/family/courage/cookies/refrigerator/whatever. Rinse, repeat. BORING! Same goes for the rest of the pathetic cast, which are all typecast trope-factory rejects, fan service bimbos, prissy tsundere, cutesy moe and talking chibi animals. The cliché-meter is so off the charts, it's insane.

BUT!

And this is a big but, because with all that said, surprisingly enough, Fairy Tail is...FUN! A huge amount of fun, in fact. I can't really put my finger on it, because if I look at the individual parts, the story, the characters, the world, etc, it SHOULD be a huge trainwreck, a bad flop. Fairy Tail should have crashed and burned before if even started. And yet, somehow it works! The incredibly cheesy and pretentious story, the goofy, slapstick, fourth-wall-breaking humor, the huge amount of low-brow fan-service and the characters, kings and queens of Cliché Mountain, it all somehow comes together to form something really fun and entertaining. The fast paced, varied, no-nonsense story and action is very captivating, and the weird humor somehow does work, despite ruining many of the serious and emotional moments. As I said before, Fairy Tail is very self-aware and seems to wear it's faults and shortcomings like a badge of honor, with a knowing wink to the audience.

Most of all, what makes this series for me is THE MUSIC. It's simply incredible! And I'm not talking about the OP or the ending, but the backing tracks! I always liked metal music, but Fairy Tail's background music is simply awesome! The celtic-style flace-flaying heavy metal suits this series incredibly well and elevates what could've been a mediocre schlock to a really enjoyable experience, at least for me. Fairy Tail's OST now dominates my favorite anime music top list, and with good reason. Most anime series have one or at most a few good songs, but this time THE ENTIRE OST is pure awesome, which is very surprising for me. The thunderous, shredding metal makes every fight scene at least twice as epic! Huge thanks for the musicians who made these!

All in all, Fairy Tail is a weird mix of utter nonsense, that somehow comes together to form a very enjoyable experience and it's so immensely popular with good reason. On paper, it shouldn't be. It's pretentious, pedantic, goofy and a huge amount of dumb fun that never seems to end. If you are ever tired of high-brow, intense and meaningful seinen/josei series, give Fairy Tail a spin to clear your palate or just take it as something to watch on a boring afternoon.

fairy tail:- beat bad guys subordinates, make friends with them, beat the final bad guy, make friends with him/her, throw in some fanservice and flashbacks, throw in some emotional scenes where they cry over pointless crap, have some crappy comedy every 5 seconds, talk about friendship and thats fairy tail for you -_-

it was good, keyword was, but then after watching the same thing happen over and over again, it gets tiresome

There is a specific mindset required to watch long-running shounen anime, if u have that mindset and perseverance to watch an 100+ episode long-running show with Magic, Fight scenes, great characters, humor and epic moments then my recommendation is Hunter x Hunter 2011 because its the best of its kind only comparable to Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood.
If you haven't watched those showa, get to them, if you did and you aren't willing to invest in 700+ episodes of One Piece then FAIRY TAIL is a must watch and you're sure to like it if u had any pleasure watching, say, Naruto or Bleach as it's likely ... better although everything depends on personal taste.
It takes place in a magical world like any other with the FIRED-UP (natsu) protagonist the COOL-EMO rival (grey) and the ANNOYING protag/narrator (lucy), seems dumb? well, the highpoint of the series is the camaraderie in the wizard guild Fairy Tail with its 20ish main members and their challenges and individual growths.
The character development is great but the guild's development is awesome and makes you feel like you want to be a part of it and join their battles.
It's also surprisingly very funny, and every character has his/her own shine that add to the series' completion. Even the villains and rival guilds don't go to waste, with every character quirk milked for all it's worth.
Unfortunately the fight scenes are weaker then the average long running shounen and the clear-cut story arcs sometimes stand out as being a "WTF just happened" moments, and the arcs are sometimes quite repetitive. I actually made a YouTube video FAIRY TAIL ABRIDGED IN A NUT-SHELL it's a minute and a half long and basically sums up most of the story arcs.
And as a final note: There are epic, heart wrenching and badass scenes backed up with some of the greatest anime music of all time that will make you laugh, cry and scream with conviction.
If you've watched the classics and you know your taste FAIRY TAIL is definitely a solid recommendation for you (I'd catch it before it becomes One Piece length and you lose your chance XD).

Fairy Tail is one of those animes that start off really well but then turns to.. err... shit. Or at least borderline shit I should say?

What first attracted me to Fairy Tail was it's lightheartedness, humor, cool action, decent plot, and cool adventures. Watching it was very entertaining.

But after awhile, everything became predictable. The humor is still there, but the plot and fighting scenes turned childish. Without those two elements, the whole series practically fell apart and it felt as if everything in this series had NO REAL MEANING to it. Every battle is won with the "power of friendship." No one dies. ... Everything always works out fine and no one is harmed. Same characters always win. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. That is Fairy Tail. There are a bunch of rage-inducing moments that I have watched in this series.

But in all honestly, had the series ended before the Oracion Seis Arc, I would have given it a 10.

To begin with, I don't usually watch action-packed and long animes because it's just too time consuming and I'm not a great fan of fights but when i watched Fairy Tail, i began to question myself about my tastes.

Okay to begin with, I find the story plot of fairy tail, very unique and original. Unlike Harry Potter and other fanatsy based animes, they don't use wands for once! Like you just get so sick and tired of wands after a while. Anyways, the plot is excellent because it has comedy, action, fantasy, a tad of romance which is a very good combo. So 10/10 for ... that.

Second of all the characters are all different and have a wide range of personalities. I would say, even the antagonists of the story are very well portrayed. It's easy to make you hate the villan but in Fairy Tail, you will come to sympathise or even begin to like (like me) the villans. All of the characters in the story have some kind of tragic past which just peaks your interest. So i would say the characters are described much in depth. (10/10)

Another wonderful thing about Fairy Tail is the character design. They all look stunning because most of the guys are hot (including the villans) but the down side is that the girls look pretty average. However, their outfits are quite nice and it usually changes every season or so (at least for one character). The most spectacular thing about the art are the backgrounds. They just look beautiful. (10/10)

Okay, the best thing i think which makes Fairy Tail stand out is their OST. Their background music always fits the scene and is very catchy. Everytime i listen to their battle theme music, it just makes my blood boil and it just feels so epic and cool. Fairy Tail has one of the best and most unforgettable OSTs out their. Though the downfall is that the opening and ending themesongs aren't that great.

Anyways, Fairy Tail is by far the best anime I've watched. It doesn't lose to Bleach, Naruto or KHR who all have heaps of filler eps. FAIRY TAIL DOESN'T HAVE FILLER EPS! So a great anime, with great music and great plot. My final word: A must watch.

The story is ok, the characters are fun, and the soundtrack is amazingly unique and celtic-inspired.

However, the art and animation are so awful it completely ruins my enjoyment of what would otherwise be a solid 7. Animation quality throughout runs about the same quality as a Bleach or Naruto filler episode. The characters are flat and lifeless, stock animations are reused for special moves, the action is stiff and wooden. It's clear that they aren't putting much effort into this.

Save yourself some time and just read the manga instead.

So fairy tail's anime has come to a sudden end and thus i find myself with the urge to give out my thoughts on this series. i hope you enjoy it! and i hope you understand that my English is not the best and what i'm saying is merely an educated opinion ^^ also all of my review should be spoiler free.

Story: 6/10
The story is driven by arcs and its structured so each of them features a big boss. the reasons i gave a 6 are: weak development and consistency.

weak development comes into play when i think back to when i started the series. ... 175 episodes have passed and if you look back to the start how much has the character changed? what about what events have changed drastically the plot? for a 175 episodes, not enough in my opinion.

consistency comes into play when i think about all the things they make up. some spells look so overpowered and end up being weak later on. (rune magic for example) there are many spells that feel that they are just there because the author wanted to create this type of scenario rather than being consistent.

Art: 9/10
No complains here but still not my favorite. The animation is well done and the art has a good style to it.

Sound: 10/10
One of the best soundtracks i have heard in a while. they are many memorable songs and they really give an awesome mood to the show. definitely one of the reasons that made me stick to the show.


Character: 7/10
characters are fine. they is little development in the 175 episodes that i have watched as i said before. however this is not a big deal. my biggest complain about character is that they are over ridiculed. by this i mean they tend to exaggerate certain ridicule characteristics like Natsu's inability to ride vehicles or gray stripping (and everybody overreacting to it). i mean they are fun and all it just that sometimes it is too extreme.

Enjoyment: 8/10
my main problem is that often a very serious and epic mood is broken by a bad placed joke (the scene cut animation also help in this). don't get me wrong i really enjoy comedy i just think that placing comedy in the middle of the climax is really mood breaking. other than that the series was pretty enjoyable. i have to admit that i watched some of it fast forwarding some parts because of redundancy but that was ok.

overall: 7/10
A series that you can enjoy but not a masterpiece at all or something i will put in my favorite list.

I have currently watched all of the Fairy Tail episodes that have come out to this date. 165.

Fairy Tail has a ton of potential but it just loses it! The story becomes repetitive and the characters do not develop! You don't see them training hard enough, even with the 2 year time-skip. The comedy is getting less and the fan service more.

You can obviously see the anime pushing between pairings. To me, that's not something I like.

Unlike most top anime's, the endings are always predictable. Natsu mentions Nakama and suddently gains plot armor, wins and that's that. He is shown to be ... able to defeat anyone, even when it doesn't make sense how he could defeat him. After the battle, he doesn't develop nor does anyone give him recognition for what he has done. One of the worst parts for me is that he has no goal. Luffy want's to be the Pirate King, Naruto the Hokage. What is you're goal Natsu? Nothing. With no goal or actual aim for the show, it might remain longer, but with no development.

P.S He only mentiones finding Igneel, which bothers me a lot, since he doesn't even care about his REAL parents.

Story : 6/10
Art : 8/10
Sound : 9/10 (Music is nice BTW)
Character : 4/10
Enjoyment : 7/10

Over all : 6/10