Fairy Tail is something I enjoyed very much when I stated it, a nice fantasy world with groups of people, called guilds, where magic rules the world. It was similar to stories I liked at that time, for example One Piece and Bleach, so very popular shonen manga overall. It was like 3 years ago, I was 15 years old and didn't read or knew many other stories about adventures. So I was hooked and read through all available chapters at that point. Then I dropped it for about 2 1/2 years. There was no relation to the content whatsoever, I was simply too impatient at that time and could not wait for one chapter per week. So I thought I would pick it up again in a few months. But I forgot about it over time. Now that I have started reading again, I have a different opinion about Fairy Tail.
Story:
Like I mentioned in the text ealier, I was a bit younger when I read the first half of the manga and was unexperienced about stories in general, so I think I didn't care much about the story. Now that I care about it I have another view about it. To be fair, it is a long running series which commonly looses a bit in this segment simply because it is so long and everytime there are new characters which don't all have the same quality. but this is about the story.
A story that is fun in the first few arcs however gets more and more boring in the following ones. They are not totally bad but if you read so many other fighting manga you sometimes do read the same story only with other characters and a few differences.
Art:
This is in my opinion one of the best parts of Fairy Tail. I really like the art style, which gets better and better over the chapters. It's usally presented in a clear manner, therefore you are able to see the characters even with detailed backgrounds.
Nothing more to say, it is good.
Characters:
A quite weak point of Fairy Tail. The characters get stronger and some are funny etc. but they usally stay the same as they were presented in the beginning. Only a few exceptions, like villiians who realize they did what they did because they lost someone or were treated unfair and then accept they were not. Also some main characters have a bit of progress.
Nevertheless, the reason why these kinds of character development are not that good is that they sometimes are too fast or unplausible. Moreover characters nearly always do what they are created to do, the villian is bad and the hero i kind. The villians sometimes don't seem to have another reason than: I want to destroy everyone, I want to rule the world or I am the strongest. This is too black and white.
And then there is the fan sevice. I have to admit I don't like fan sevice too much. It transforms characters into sex items and makes them less enjoyable because you lose the respect for them. Key story parts with these characters seem so useless and implausible that sometimes a whole chapter is from start to the end boring. For example a female character explains a certain aspect about something and you get so many different angles of her presenting her tits. Then it's like I am speaking directly to the chapter:
Me: "So, ah ok he has this ability and ... oh a porn scene begins!"
Chapter: "No, this is a normal explenation about his ability."
Me: "Ahh you mean with...porn and where is the real story?"
Chapter: "This is the real one my friend, now get the tissues."
Me: "But I don't need to sneeze.."
Chapter: "Do it, JUST DO IT!"
Me: "Hem ...ok next Chapter, oh again..."
It's not like I skip the whole chapter but you know what I mean. It's like a speedrun for me but there are too many obstacles and I get bored.
So ok this section was a little bit too exaggerated and you could all see my flaws in this language but you get my point. Also it's not even exaggerated that it sometimes happens back to back with chapters because Fairy Tail is like the King of fan service.
Enjoyment:
Like I explained in the last paragraph the load of fan service is a huge problem for me and it obviously has affect on the enjoyment too, however I think I wrote enough about it.
What I didn't mention until now is that I also have a problem with all of these cheesy ability names. My theory is I am too old or it is probably about context too. There is, to my knowledge no point where abilities of nearly mages are categorized something like a ranking for abilities. Those "epic" special attacks don't mean anything if there is a good context behind it. Sometimes someone talks about it like "Woooah that and that thing an ancient ability from bla bla bla" but these are mostly explenations we can't value in a sense of strengh. The context is missing and it seems boring.
On the contrary Fairy Tail has sometimes very memorable moments which keep you reading.
I admit I almost only did point out negative things because they stand out this much for me.
Overall:
To my mind Fairy Tail is a very enjoyable manga for young people if you abandon the fact that there is too much fan service. On the other hand I think this is even a positive point for young people for their enjoyment but I don't think it's very appropriate for them.
The older half of the viewers could be unsatisfied but that is not 100% likely only a possibility. Like I pointed out, many of my reasons for disliking the show are to my knowledge quite unique.
If I had to make speculations about these two groups I would give Fairy Tail an 8 if I had to guess the rating of the younger group and a 7 if it was the older group.
I hope nobody is raging about this and thinks about this like it was supposed to be: an opinion.
