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Fairy Tail was the first anime I ever watched, recommended to me by a friend who was very enthusiastic about the show. When I first watched, I have to admit that I greatly enjoyed it; however, as I delved deeper into the world of anime, I had to admit that, whilst it makes a good anime for beginners, it actually has a lot of flaws.

STORY: The start of Fairy Tail has a lot of potential in terms of story, with us introduced to a teenage girl named Lucy who manages to fulfil her dream of joining a prestigious wizard guild when she meets a ... boy named Natsu on her travels. However, after a while the story begins to become repetitive and predictable; Natsu and his friends are made aware of some bad guys, travel off to fight them, usually get beaten badly before rising and defeating them again due to nothing more than strong feelings of comradery and friendship. Now, I have nothing against a little bit of friendship being used as a motivator, but Fairy Tail definitely overuses this perk which, for an anime with over two hundred episodes and over ten story arcs, only makes it drag on a bit. I ended up struggling to watch it near the end, knowing at this point that the protagonists would be victorious no matter how unrealistic the odds were. This aside, the story contains a balanced mix of comedic scenes, touching and emotional scenes, battles, a bit of romance and even some fanservice; in other words, a nice little blend of what you might find in many other anime which, yet again, makes it good for beginners who don't understand yet how annoying plot armour is. STORY: 5 / 10

ART: Again, as a beginner to anime I was clueless as to what made a good animation when I started watching Fairy Tail. Overall, however, the animation is quite good, with fluid movements, vivid colours and is particularly good in fight scenes, with all the movement and the special effects from the various magic used by the characters. Near the end, it became slightly poorer with the colours being far plainer and less enjoyable, but for such a long-running show the animation is fairly good. ART: 6 / 10

SOUND: By far one of the anime's strong points. The soundtrack of Fairy Tail uses a mixture of upbeat, Celtic-Style music during the motivational fight scenes, and some more calming, beautiful music during the sad, emotional moments which certainly enhances what's going on. I find the soundtrack to be very independently listenable and even enjoyed learning to play some of it on the violin. As well as this, the English dub of Fairy Tail is of excellent quality, although there is something to be said about the amount of yelling done in the fight scenes (there's too much). SOUND: 8 / 10

CHARACTER: By far one of the anime's weaker points. Some of the characters are quite well developed; we see Lucy turn from a weak and inexperienced person to a strong, independent woman. We see Gajeel turn from an antagonist with no sense of comradeship to a proud - albeit slightly dorky - member of Fairy Tail. We see Wendy turn from a weak, sheltered young girl with little confidence to a brave, confident young woman. However, one of the only characters who receive little to no character development is the main protagonist Natsu Dragneel. At the start, he is a cocky and feisty young man who constantly picks fights with his comrades but will burn anyone who threatens them to ash. As the end, he is still a cocky and feisty young man who constantly picks fights with his comrades but will burn anyone who threatens them to ash. Throughout the series, nothing really challenges him and, despite having been described at the start of the show as being nowhere near Fairy Tail's strongest wizards, each arc ends with him defeating the main boss with only feelings about his friends, no real help or support from them. This should not be enough to enable him to fight villains he was told he wouldn't stand a chance against. But still, all of his comrades state that the guild would be nothing without him, even though it has many members who are stronger. As for Fairy Tail's antagonists, they are very stereotypical and hard to empathise with; all of them are confident and sadistic people who don't care for their supposed comrades and, whilst they are always portrayed as incredibly strong, they lose to the main characters due to their heavy plot armour (which, for those who don't know, is when a character survives unsurvivable situations for no plausible reason other than that they are important to the plot). CHARACTER: 3 / 7

ENJOYMENT: Again, I enjoyed the series the first time but quickly got bored with it from then on. The emotional scenes really weren't as tear-worthy as I'd been promised and I eventually stopped enjoying the fights due to their repetitive and predictable nature. ENJOYMENT: 4 / 10

Overall, this anime has both strength and flaws like any other, but the flaws are quite prominent which makes Fairy Tail really only good for your first / one of your first anime. It started off with a lot of potential, but eventually overwhelmed its stay with the story not really progressing, only repeating itself.