Fairy Tail is the second series created by Hiro Mashima, the creator of Rave Master, a well known anime. Lets get a couple things straight before we dive in. Fairy Tail was originally a comedy manga with action scenes in it and it was NEVER planned to go past a certain point. The ONLY reason it became a full fledged battle Shounen series is because fans seriously requested the continuation of the series past its initial end point, the Fighting Festival arc or the Battle of Fairy Tail arc.
In my opinion Fairy Tail is an overly original magic series having a pink haired boy looking for a dragon accompanied by harmless yet hilarious talking blue cat companion. The story capitalizes on a single shounen plot device throughout the series, "The Power of Friendship". This plot device is a double edged sword for the series. It is its core strength and it is the main reason fans fall out of love with it. "The Power of Friendship" is basically a level boosting plot armor that the writer uses to get the main characters out of near unwinnable situations and at the beginning of the series, I have to admit, it is used at least once an arc. Some people call that lazy writing and I somewhat agree and understand where they are coming from but like I said in the beginning this was originally a comedy series with action scenes so I apologize if the writing isn't overly comprehensive and well written. Another double edged sword of the series is the female cast. The female cast consists mostly of beautiful busted women with perfect anatomical bodies but with strong personalities and abilities. In my opinion people find this to be lazy writing because the women are basically "perfect" but that is far from the truth.
The series starts off with a mysterous pink haired boy looking for his father, a dragon, when they have all disappeared off the face of the Earth for at least 100+ years and ends up meeting a young beautiful but wondering woman who wants to join the strongest magical guild in the country, Fairy Tail. It turns out the young boy is apart of said guild and when the two have a quick misadventure together he drags her along with him back to the guild so she can join. The rest of the initial series goes about introducing the main and supporting cast, giving each of the main cast, except for Natsu, the main male character, a character development story arc, and at the end gives the entire guild a development arc that brings all of the initial story together I would say rather amazingly. Between the perfect first anime opening, the inspiring soundtrack, the colorful cast of characters and unexpected strong female leads this anime deserves respect. It has been compared to the Big 3, which are Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece, but unlike the Big 3 has a strong and prominent female cast early or more so than the Big 3 ever could early on in their series. Erza Scarlet and Mirajane Strauss alone could easily main most female characters from the Big 3 but that is an opinion and is debatable to most. All boss battles at the end of an arc are done by Natsu and "The Power of Friendship" is the go to plot device used to "cheaply" finish the fight. I can agree that sequence of events gets repetitive in the first 51-54 episodes but once again this series was never meant to go past that point and was only developing characters and the guild mainly, not the battle system itself as much.
Lets get past the initial duration of the series. After the Fighting Festival arc, the system of big bad guys is introduced setting up at least 3 more arcs for 3 organizations that Fairy Tail will most likely come into contact with are introduced. but spans for 7 more arcs not including 3 filler arcs which are alright at best. In these 7 arcs, new characters are introduced, the world is built upon drastically but not comprehensively, the main cast and supporting cast are throughly developed and the initial main plot point, finding the dragon father is the side plot eclipsed by a lurking evil known only as The Black Wizard Zeref, which nobody can sightly understand until the middle of the story. There is massive foreshadowing but none of the foreshadowing even comes half circle until the middle of the story. Natsu is still the one to finish off the boss of the arc but to compensate or make up for this the writer creates a myriad of abnormally strong characters in each arc that everybody can get a piece of and have their time to shine even the initially weak characters. "The Power of Friendship" plot device is still used but in my opinion is developed to a point where is doesn't feel cheap anymore. It evolves as the story does into "The Power of Feelings". Let me explain what I mean.
In the beginning Natsu would get a power boost for feeling angry that his friends were disrespected or got hurt beyond belief but as the story goes on his friends are a source of strength like a support system. Very similar to the emotional support system Naruto has from his friends in Naruto. How whenever he loses contorl of the Nine-Tails in Part 1 he uses his bonds from his friendships to find strength to control the beast. The cast are basically family because they all have nobody else but each other. They all have been abandoned or lost loved ones young so their friends are everything to them. As someone who grew up as an only child and treated as an outsider by family I understand the importance and power of friendship. Without my friends, I wouldn't be half the man I am today and that may sound cheesy or mushy or corny but its fact. I was given strength by their belief in me to do the right thing and be the right kind of person with no judgement and no expectations. Throughout the story you see this theme of friendship and inspiration used and it drives the story without feeling cheap or corny. To most people though that is "corny" and I get that because most people have families that care about them and they are not alone whether its their mom, dad, uncle, aunt, or cousins they have someone there so the thought of friends inspiring you to be something more like a family seems cartoonish. It is a sad reality that I have accepted but doesn't bring down the quality of this anime.
The fight scenes are not super intricate but they are action packed and paced well. For a magic anime, it is the first anime that I saw is creative in what kind of magic exists in this world due to its comedic origins. Nearly everybody in the main guild plus a handful of others from the other guilds get a backstory, screen time, and character development. Either emotionally, physically, or both. The anime openings are overall ok at best except for 3. The anime endings deserve the true glory. Fairy Tail like all shounens around that time has a time skip and from the timeskip starts a tournament arc. The tournament arc is where most people fans fell off due to the nature of the anime after the timeskip.
Overall this part of the Fairy Tail anime is a mix of comedy, action, small to medium world building and good fights with interesting magic. Anybody with a love for magic based stories will watch at least this part of the anime and like it without much complaint. Those who do complain, in my opinion, complain for subjective reasons with no real support for their complaints as you can clearly see in the review section. This anime was never meant to get past the 1st mile but it did and ended up being compared to the Big 3 which is not something animes were back when this came out. It deserves a 3 episode watch at least
