Fairy Tail

*minor spoilers ahead
Fairy Tail is truly the embodiment of all shounen clichés mixed into one. It's a hodgepodge mess of incoherent shounen nonsense that makes you truly believe what you read was a "Fairy tale." I've watched/read Bleach, Naruto, One piece, etc, but none come even close to Fairy Tail's extreme use of cliches.

Something that you tend to notice in a lot of shounen manga/action is that "the power of friends" is able to trump all. An extremely overused cliche, but not necessarily a bad one. I can say that One Piece does a great job of having a decent balancing act using this trope. That being said, a lot of shounens (including One Piece) just use it in order have the good guys win. Pretty lame if you ask me, but Fairy Tail truly makes the most use of this trope. If you ask me how many fights were won using the "power of friendship" in the later arcs of Fairy Tail, I'd say it would be around 9/10 or more. It's pretty ridiculous how little your initial power level really is, since you're going to be empowered by some sort of stupid plot device that makes you stronger, or none at all, and the "power of friendship" makes you soar to unbelievable heights of power. As a result, we see "the strongest" of the villains get destroyed by the weakest dragon slayers. Very convenient. You're going to see a lot of villains that are extremely powerful that just lose to seemingly useless characters that end up winning anyway. It makes any fight not suspenseful since you know that some sort of reversal will happen. This also applies to any war or large scale battle. A bunch of overpowered antagonists and villains, and even countries fight the few guilds in Magnolia and somehow, the few guilds in Magnolia win. How? "The power of friendship." Even the concluding fights with a lot of buildup end up just being "Natsu has feelings of friendship" and destroys the strongest villians with invincible armor, unlimited mana, the ultimate magic. Really? The biggest BS I've ever seen is how Natsu and other random characters that aren't too strong defeat very strong villains with little to no backlash, but the "strongest" fairy tail members, like Gildarts and the First, the second whom literally has unlimited mana contribute basically nothing to the plot. it's very funny to see 50 chapters ago, where Gildarts compeltely overwhelms Natsu, and then Natsu 50 chapters later, just beats an opponent Gildarts could have never imagined to beat. In fact, he is heavily challenged by even just defeating some of Zeref's lackeys. The first? From beginning to end, does absolutely nothing which is hilarious, since she should be the strongest (or one of the top at least) mage on the planet, but what do I know?

Another huge problem with Fairy Tail is how convenient everything is for Fairy Tail guildmates. The evil guys are very compliant with them. For how powerful these guys are, they could have held hostages, killed the weak ones, you know, do anything? Instead, they do one versus ones only, and usually are actually at a numbers disadvantage despite the fact that if they grouped together, they would have more numbers. They love separating for no apparent reason. In the end, there are usually a bunch of super evil guys that Fairy Tail miraculously divides and conquers. There is no semblance of strategy or reasoning. Rather than say it's an all out war between countries, it's like people are lining up to fight each other, except the evil guys always willingly fight at a disadvantage. Of course, every other villain is also "good, but went down the wrong path," so they reform, or willingly get defeated. Amazing.

Plus, you might think that the power to become strong comes at a price. You are a little bit right on that one. Sometimes, a person becomes really strong in a fight because they use a forbidden technique that raises their status, but makes them crippled forever or even death, but more often than not, this backlash just negated in some way shape or form. Of course, some people actually become crippled, but it's honestly not much to talk about. Or, let's say someone actually dies or becomes crippled, don't worry some stupid plot device will resuscitate them or revive them in some manner. The power of friendship trumps all!

Characters...You know what, I think that individual story arcs and characters can bring some trope and cliche infested shounen manga to decent levels. natsuno no taizai was one of them. Too bad that unlike natsuno no taizai, Fairy Tail has little to offer in the character department. While there are quite a variety of different characters, there is not much characterization, most have flat personalities. The story arcs that characterize them (and frankly, there ARE a lot) are not very interesting at all. Usually, they involve some stupid sob story with a tragic past. The only interesting characters are like, maybe Erza and Gray??? It's crazy how little I care about a lot of characters due to their lack of anything to be invested into. There sure are a lot of tragic backstories and a lot of different characters, and some of their personalities mgiht not even be very cliche, but ultimately, they're assigned to pet lines because there are too many characters to pass around. Lucy could have been a great character, but her personality and usefulness, as the story goes on, becomes a mere ornament to Natsu. She has no real combat prowess, and her only relevance is Natsu's emotional baggage towards her. Is Lucy as useless as Sakura. Absolutely not, she actually does some good things, but they're not in the fighting sense, but in the form of utility and other things, but just the fact that Lucy doesn't even really use celestial magic to fight at all makes me wonder why she's one of the main characters. She really is, just the damsel in distress that Natsu saves. She ends up not having much of a personality, just attaching to Natsu, and also providing of course, obligatory fan service. Fairy Tail's fanservice is quite excessive to be honest, as well.

The ending is as shounen as it gets. Natsu and his gang beat all the bad guys. Evil guy reforms and repents his mistakes, lives happy life later on.
Overall, a lackluster and terribly made manga with nothing to really sing praises for. The excessive use of "friendship beats all," lack of any sort of progression in power where weak become strong and strong become weak for apparently no reason. Villains that put themselves in terrible positions even though they have more numbers. Terribly crafted characters, especially Lucy. Cliche ridden story with plot devices to make people OP or weak. 99% of villains "reform" or have a "tragic back story" that I don't care at all for.

Last year I started reading it, but didn't get over the 10th chapter. I found it insulting, that my favorite manga/anime (One Piece) got copied. But I couldn't have been more wrong.

2 weeks ago I started reading Fairy Tail again, and I found myself completely dragged into it. Even though there are similarities to One Piece, it's not the same. Yeah, the art is pretty much the same, and you can hear the word "nakama" in every single chapter, and you can also find the weird and unique laughs. But as I see it now, it just indicates that Hiro Mashima looks up to Eiichiro Oda.

The characters have their own personality, their own weird habits and their own humour. You can only love the main characters and pretty much hate the villains. But you also get everything explained as far as why did they make the choices they made. And besides the main characters you get a look into the supporting character's past too.

All in all, I think it's a great manga, and if you like One Piece, you'll definitely like this masterpiece too. But even if you are just a fan of adventure-comedy mangas, this is for you.

(P.S.- You can't emphasise enough the importance of friendship, right?)

Ah.. Fairy Tail.. A series with a lot of ups and downs and alot of controversy post timeskip but a mangaka who shows he loves writing it... Hiro isn't the best story teller nor writer but when he actually gets on a roll he puts out good stuff.


Art(9)

Obviously Hiro's best strong suit is his amazing artwork.. The good thing about it is that it's constantly getting better and more detailed.. Early on in the series he adapted Oda's(who he admires) style but adapted his own and it's been amazing and I can actually see what happens during the fights

Story(7)

Lucy Heartfilia is a celestial Mage who wants to join Fairy Tail.. People get confused on whether Natsu or her is the MC but the story runs through Lucy.. Early on the series goes through what I call "plot arcs" there's a different story for a different arc.. Later on during the story the arcs will connect to the "main story" with a certain black wizard and a very powerful dragon who straight up loathes humanity.. Many of the times Hiro has good concepts and ideas but sometimes it's not well executed

Characters(7)

I thought about this one really hard.. The characters in this series are wacky weird funny and sometimes leave you face palming.. But there is development in this series.. Erza practically is the most developed character in Fairy Tail.. Well if I'm being honest alot of characters have some developed whether huge or small but Natsu.. Oh Natsu..He pretty much stays the same(not behavior wise) but "character wise.. Do I hate Natsu? Of course not I want to see him grow..His nakama speeches are annoying though well that pretty goes for everyone else.. The problem is we barely know ANYTHING about his past but its also to note that Hiro is going to include Natsu's past in the later(including the current one now) arcs so we could finally now what Natsu is about.. So I guess Hiro wanted Natsu's story to be told last since he is connected to major events in the series

Enjoyment (8)

I enjoy and take Fairy Tail for what it is.. A fun and light series with some good characters with mysteries that keep you guessing and speculating.. The fights are fun to watch and easy to see.. Now I will be honest to say it has a lot of downs.. The nakama power ups do get overdone and the writing and story post time skip do take a nosedive in the Grand Magic Games.. But I guess something came over Hiro because the current arc.. Tartaros is one of the best if not the best arc in the series.. A lot of people feel the same and I can see why

= Story =
- Honestly, there isn't really a story. There isn't a solid plot at all. Fairy Tail's 'plot' just goes from one arc to another. Each arc is basically "someone/something/the guild/the world is in danger of Jellal, Phantom Guild, etc. and Fairy Tail (or members of the guild) ALWAYS has something to do with it and so they try to save _________"
Each arc is really nice. So I like the fact that there's not really a solid plot, but a go with flow time of thing. It's rather nice. -

= Art =
- 'As for any of my reviews, art always gets a 10 b/c we probably can't draw better and most of us probably wouldn't be reading a manga where the art is so bad you can't identify who is who.' -

= Character =
- I'm not really sure where I can start with the characters. There isn't really a main character. Some characters show up here and there so each character literally has the same amount of 'screen' time. However, when Lucy is one of the first introduced in the series which made me think she was the main character. A lot of characters that are not introduced in the beginning end up being one of the main characters later in the series. But based on main characters in general, Natsu Dragneel has to be the main MAIN character. Due to the fact that he's one of the first to be introduced and the fact that he's literally the only character that says cheesy lines before beating the shit out of the antagonist. There are other characters who do that too, but Natsu has done it the majority of the time.

With Fairy Tail characters, the development is pretty good considering the fact that there are quite a bit of characters. You know little about some and a lot about others, but in the end you actually care for them all. The connections and conflicts b/n characters is also quite nice. For example, Gajeel and Levy have an indirect relationship and these types of mini side relationships make you want to keep reading to see where all the relationships go. And with Shounen mangas, you have the fans pairing up characters now which shows how well the mangaka did in making the audience connect to the characters. -

= Enjoyment/Overall =
- All in all, the manga is pretty good. I think Fairy Tail is in its final arc now which makes me kinda sad which is something that doesn't happen with Shounen mangas for me. I love the characters and they're also very well drawn. I have also read "Rave Master" which was another manga by Mashima Hiro. So it was rather fun having some similar characters added into Fairy Tail. So I'd be reading and then I'm all, "Oh! _______ is ________ from Rave Master!" So yeah... still enjoying the series. Totally recommended. -

The Fairy tail anime and, its follow up it in 2014 was one of my favourite shonen anime. It got me through a really miserable high school experience in my final year. The ending of the anime was a really interesting cliffhanger. Being the impatient guy that I am I decided to reads volumes 50-63 to know what happens next All I have to say is this, what in the world was Hiro Mashima thinking. There are some spoilers ahed so read at your risk.

Thie first volumes were good Volumes 50-58 were pretty fun, the progression of the story was great, the fairy tail humor that was one of the strongest elements in the anime The artwork was amazing. There were certain elements of the story that were pretty awesome such as the action sequences, plot revelations and, some emotional moments. The story of Mavis and, Zeref was the best part of all the volumes, the execution was handled pretty well for the most part and, I think that it ended the way it should have. Some of the other memorable moments include Gray's battle against Invel,the backstory of Erza and Irene, the origins of dragon slaying magic and the invasion of the Alvarez empire.

However there is a lot to nitpick. Starting off with the biggest issue I have with these final chapters, the ending. Reading volume 63 I could not believe what my eyes were seeing. Everyone who has died miraculously come back to life, none of the romances that have been set up across the show amount to anything, the final battle between Acnologia and, the dragon slayers was the most underwhelming battle in the entire anime. Some characters are not fully utilized which really pissed me off the first that come to mind are Crime Scorciere. The battle between Natsu and, Gray was reminiscent of Batman v Superman in that it was good but, the emotional investment was lacking as it only lasted for a few pages spread across multiple chapters taking away from what could have been awesome.

The Alvarez Empire were exactly what I feared they work be a group of Villans ruled under a monarch seeking world domination like every other Villain in Fairy Tail. Also, can someone please explain to me why Lucy is seemingly the main protagonist of this series, when she does not feel like a main character at all. None of the characters get an appropriate ending in my opinion which sucks because the series has been going on for over ten years and, its like Hiro had no idea how he wanted it to be resolved.

There are so many thing that I would have done differently from volume %9-63. It was extremely disappointing but the earlier volumes were fun to read and the art work was beautiful. Overall Im not very happy with how it turned out but I'm not overly angry. The reason for that is that Fairy Tail gave some great moments but this was borderline awful.

If your looking for an action packed manga with a dose of comedy as well, then I highly recommend Fairy Tail.

Short Summary:
The story looks at the Adventures of Natsu, a fire based mage, and Lucy, a young mage with the goal to join the mage Guild called 'Fairy Tail' which Natsu is from. The encounter each other and after a battle involving another mage, they eventually head back to Fairy Tail where a whirlwind of adventures begins to ensue.

There are a lot of things that makes this manga awesome. The characters for one are great. There are a range of personalties in this series and you will quickly find yourself liking a certain character as they are just so appealing.

The action and fight scenes are really Good. Fairy is the first manga I picked up after Bleach and I really wondered what it would be like to watch an un-animated fight scene, but Fairy Tail has consistently blown me away with the action and art quality.

How can I know comment on the comedy factor. Right from chapter 1 Fairy continues to provide not only action and a good story line but a lot of funny moments which you would not soon forget.

Overall this series is awesome an being new to manga has made me wish I had picked up manga a long time ago. Can't wait for it to get animated.

Highly recommend this!!!!!

Overview: You know those types of manga that everyone hates and if seen defending it will result in a loss of face... well fairy tail is that type of series. Nevertheless as a fan of the Fairy Tail I can see some good in it but the horror of chapter 500 was the final push that was needed for me to express my feelings on fairy tail, the good and the bad.

Story: now, talking about fairy tail plot is kinda silly because well in reality there is no plot progression in fairy tail. Nastu ( oh we will talk about him later) is suppose to be looking for a dragon yet he simply goes on missions and hardly talks about his goal at all. Being a shonen series it's best to have a proactive protagonist since a active protagonist 90% of the time are fun to watch plus . Sadly nasty is a reactive protagonist his goal is not the thing that drives the story it really hurts the series as as a whole. Now as for the story itself it's rather predictable and there a lot and a lot and a lot of asspulls in most fights I understand that friendship is a theme in fairy tail but it abuses it . Berserk was a manga that explored friendship but it never used any nakama power the characters did for it me they were well writen so the friendship felt real. Another problem that hurts the series the most in my opinion is the fact that none of the main characters will die . Now you must be thinking "but deaths don't make a good story" and your right it's totally fine if Hiro does not want to kill characters there are plenty of ways to make a character suffer. The problem is the lengths Hiro will go to prevent a major character from dying he uses asspulls, plot armour, power ups you name it just to get characters out of life and death situations therefore it's impossible to feel any sort of tension since you know that certain characters will make it out alive no matter what the situation and the fan service does not help. Nevertheless, fairy tail is still an enjoyable series I must give Hiro some credit for having the ability to make a predictable and flawed story fun, in my opinion I think that's the reason why fairy tail is popular as well as fan service.

Characters : Although the characters of fairy tail are fun to watch they are unfortunately two dimensional and cliché. As expected I know some people will try and defend them by saying that they do get development, which in reality is right they do so what's the problem.

1) The character development is handled poorly

2) Most of the characters have poor characterization.

3) They go through situations that could be used for character development but they do not change.

Let me give you an example. One character was introduced as a scumbag now this is ok however he didn't have a balance of strengths and weaknesses he was a completely two dimensional and never had any inner conflict with what he was doing, than he gets defeated by our main character ( through asspull ) and then suddenly turns good. This my friends is not character development this is character rewrite we didn't see the character develop it just... well in between the episodes. Even if it was development the fact that he had bad characterization means that the development means nothing character development is bringing out or challenging the things that are already there and he wasn't the only one almost all the characters had the same problem the only good character was zeref the main villain, oh how I wish he was the protagonist. Speaking of the protagonist nastu oh I freaking hate this guy his one of the worst protagonist I've seen in a shonen manga everything I hate in a main character generic, overpowered and never develops , there were plenty of times when I wanted to drop the manga because I couldn't stand, him luckily the side characters are fun to watch so am still on the roller coaster. ( Oh and the villains are the worst! with the exception of zeref. )

Art: If their's one thing that keeps fairy tail afloat (besides fan service ) it's the art. The character designs are great and the fights despite the asspulls are really entertaining man Hiro would be better off being the artist of FT and getting a good writer to write the manga.

Overall: Fairy tail is well... ok it's not complete crap but it's not good other it's average I do kinda think it's overrated and underrrated at the same time if that makes sense. If you just want an easy to take in shonen manga than give it a try but honestly there a lot better shonen manga out there.

Most of these long shounen Manga (Anime) have it rough.
I think that a lot of stories (Manga in particular) always have to go through 3 very important stages throughout its respective running periods.
these stages are:
1- Opening (Buildup)
2- Middle (Execution)
3- End (Ending)
Lets first briefly start breaking down each one of these and define them then lets see how mighty Fairy Tail did in each stage.
Opening:-
this stage includes the plot, story, charatcers, their relationship and the setting of the whole Manga including mysteries, backstories, a goal for every important character,
basically everything you need to have in your head as a mangaka before you start writing!
which means you dont have to really add or change anything else once you have passed this stage because this might lead to potential plot holes and unnecessary contradictions in the story.
when everything is set and ready to go you start advancing to the second stage!

Middle:- This is when things start clearing up. mysteries are revealed, plots executed, everything becomes prepared for that long awaited climax!

End: this is the most critical stage, one bad move and everything will fall apart so expectedly this is also where most writers fail miserably.
as machiavelli said:"A battle that you win cancels any other bad action of yours. In the same way, by losing one, all the good things worked by you before become vain." what does that have to do with anything? well it is quite relevant. also it's always cool to quote cool people like machiavelli.

Now that i'm done defining and breaking down each stage, lets openly talk about how fairy tail did in each one of these.

building up a story or a manga or whatever is not really that hard, you just need a bit of imagination and a bit knowledge because you will have to see where others started and kinda do the same, Fairy Tail did just that. a by the book setting, main character & story.
which is absolutely fine since you dont really have to be so different to be successful specially in the first stage! Building up everything was pretty successful in my opinion, we were provided with exiting arcs & great battles and amazing development in the first hundred chapters or so.

and Since Fairy Tail provided a lot of good build up and we were expecting to witness at least a decent execution of all of that tension and mystery, For me i wasn't disappointed.
Fairy tail didn't fail to impress me with the execution as it was able to add new mysteries right after revealing previous ones and was able to keep me hooked until the very end! until, but as it progressed, disappointment started to mainfest as each arc became weaker and weaker in terms of execution while providing enormous potential at the beginning which leads to a huge letdown as nothing met its expectation.

but the reason why Fairy tail got shut down by a lot of reviewers and fans wasn't because of that, remember that cool quote at the "End" Stage? yeah that.
Fairy tail failed miserably at that stage which resulted in everyone bashing it and giving it a low score, they can't be blamed even if it might be unfair to judge it all by how it ends, but that has been an ironclad rule in judging a tv show or a manga, you can't give something a good score if the ending was awful.

I only wrote this review to remind people of how good fairy tail used to be and that we shouldn't judge it by that ending and give some credit to the first two stages which fairy tail did amazing in. Thats all.

Now finally i'm going to rate all the aspects soundly and give my fair and final judgement on why fairy tail isn't as bad as people make it out to be and also why it is kinda still acceptably bad.

Story: 7

classic story, nothing much to be said here.
One negative thing i might say about the story is how most things are absolutely forgotten along the way, you might find this in other shounen cause its pretty common but that doesn't make it welcomed in my dictionary, natsuu has no idea where the fuck he is going as he doesn't really have any dream to achieve or any status he would want to be like that felxible hat guy or the other ninja retard as everything happening in the story leads to absolutely nothing, he just finds stuff to do along the way which is kinda ridiculous and weakens the essence of the story.

Art: 8

Art was suitable for the atmosphere of the manga, also an amazing talent at drawing erotic female characters so maybe this guy isn't so bad.

Character: 7

most characters are kinda pointless except for the main ones, I think this guy thinks as long as he dedicated an entire arc for a supporting character, they have no right to complain about not having any relevance to the story anymore but whatever.
also fairy tail is keen on following the rule of "if you are a bad guy don't switch sides as you will turn into an utterly useless sidekick for the hero and you wont have any value anymore" for some reason.

Enjoyment: 8

to be honest despite all the bullshit i really enjoyed it and i think anyone can as long as they disregard the few negative irregularities which includes poor conception of time travel, pointless characters, thought projections that have emotions and shit, enormous build up that makes your thing throbs with excitement but ends up disappointing you everytime, a warrior who is able to fight even after getting every nerve of their body destroyed because they love their friends (emotional) i wont say more To avoid anymore spoilers.
so if you are fine with these things i think you will quite enjoy the fairy tail ride as it's not all about logic! You will soon learn how friendship is way more important.

Overall: 7

all the jokes aside, Fairy Tail is quite decent for those who want to see exciting battles, Heartwarming moments, funny characters and most importantly: Fanservice.

It's very hard to rate this manga because I have a more personal love for this series. This series has honestly helped be through rough times in my personal life so it holds a very special place in my heart.

Does the art give off One Piece Vibes? Yes. But the story is very much different and has a variety of main characters. Even minor characters are very lovable.

There are a lot of way too overpowered characters, and certain story elements that don't get explained or deep into later one. But the world is very beautiful, mysterious and full of wonder. If you love your fantasy, this is definitely a read for you.

If you're a One Piece fan, you may not care for it. I only say that cause I have many friends who love One Piece and don't like Fairy Tail and friends who like Fairy Tail and not One Piece. I still recommend trying the series out though, especially for those fantasy lovers out there!

A wise man once said..."To deny Fairy Tail as absolute garbage, is to deny reality itself"

At the risk of this turning into a rant, I will be censoring myself a lot to give a genuine review. This review will contain very minor spoilers as names (except the main character slot) will be withheld because for god know what reason you still want to pick up this manga after everything I said, you won't be spoiled...you have been warned.

Well, well, well...what can I say that hasn't been said about FT? Actually nothing really. FT is what happens when you wrote 1/4 of your manga and then fire all your co-writing staff, go to a nursery and replace good plot with whatever those toddlers vomit on a page and there you have what FT is. Granted for a battle shounen, you shouldn't expect much when it comes story and characters but this just happens to be worse than every battle shounen I've ever watched/read. How did it fall so fast into the shitter that it actually becomes a chore to read it every week? I remember back in the day when a new chapter would come out and I would genuinely feel excited but as time progressed and the quality of work just became worse and worse, you get the feeling of apathy because your hopes and expectations have been shattered time and time again. At least I can praise FT for one thing and that is its unpredictability because it surprises you every time in how much worse it can become with every chapter.

Normally in battle shounen you see the characters train to become better but not here...no, no, no here the give friendship speeches and cringy one liners about emotions and then gain all sorts of asspull power. Battles go something like this

4vs1...villain slaughters them
*cue the friendship speech*
1vs1...badly damaged FT member one-shots
*cue the viewers tears after watching a horrible fight*

If the whole "friendship" power-up always defeats the enemy despite how powerful they may be (even GODS), what's the point of even training to become stronger? They always put so much effort in fighting the enemy, seemingly intensifying the situation they're in, then use the overused, effortless power-up known as "friendship" that ALWAYS ends it. It's not even because they are stronger than their foe. Sometimes the foes power outclasses them completely yet the 'believing in myself' and 'my friends give me power' stick always wins...I'm surprised the series hasn't ended sooner.

The characters are horrible with almost no redeemable ones among them. Character development here somehow makes the character worse, I didn't think it was possible but Hiro did it. This manga features some of the worst characters I've ever come across and the character assassinations that happen to mildly interesting characters, just because of their contact with the main cast is truly shocking. It's like they are all absorbed into the bullshittery of emotion that is the Fairy Tail guild. They lose their individuality and just like a corporate environment, become slaves in a never ending rut just going with the flow of things. At the end it's like the same characters just all wearing different faces until they just become numbers.

The Main Characters

Natsu - Carbon copy/paste of the idiot shounen male lead that thinks with his fist but somehow he's worse because instead of training to become stronger, he just spouts crap about "my friends are my strength" and one shots the opponent even though the foe was winning 99% of the fight...fucking ridiculous.

Lucy - The fanservice character with forced insertion due to her magic type to make her seem more than a massive set of tits in clothes that are clearly way too small for her. If she's not randomly losing clothes, becoming naked or falling on Natsu's face, she would hardly feature. She's not a good character but as far as FT characters go, she's one of the better ones.

Gray - At least something Hiro done right. With his unique Ice Making magic, he can construct objects and combined with his keen intellect, he uses this and strategy to defeat his opponent in a non-bs way. Then kinda murdered the characters progression to make him blend in with the rest of the mind-numbing cast. Hiro does this with a few characters but why would that surprise you...

Erza - The worst character in the series and I'm not even going to go here. I could start an entire website dedicated to my hatred of this character and how appaling she is written..."because she's Erza" oh the cringe.

Happy - Natsu's flying cat that's there to make jokes and eat fish...that's it...no lie.

The manga art also takes a major change in the middle but personally I was fine with it as it made the characters look older than they were before due to a time passing by but still recognizable. Character outlines are also thinner. I think I was one of the few people to actually like the new art as I've only heard backlash on it but meh, you either like it or you don't. It's not like it subtracts or adds much to this terrible story.

The characters don't even look that much different especially the female characters. It's like Hiro just took the same body shape for every female except for Wendy that is treated as a loli for comedic scenes about her big breast envy and a bit of fan-service for those that want that...just horriible and lazy.

The story is a linear set of events that really serve no purpose other than introducing fodder villains for Fairy Tail to bulldoze and the final arc has to be one of the worst things in digital and printed history. Even the final chapter like seriously? You couldn't give the fans a better ending than that after suffering through that mess? I wouldn't print it on toilet paper. Over 500 chapters and 11 years of work, most of it is horrible but I guess the series had to remain true to itself and remain trash to the end...wouldn't want to mess with the Krabby Patty formula now do we?

Personally I've spent 4 years following this series and it was one of the worse things I've read and now I've have nothing more to say except goodbye and good riddance.

This is a review till chapter 415 (somewhat very near the end of the Tartaros arc.

Honestly, I would give the manga a 8 or 9 until chapter 253. Cos after that, the arcs reallly succcck.....

Up until chapter 253, at least the story was more reasonable, and touching, unlike a lot of senseless actions, power-ups, plotholes and missing characters here and there later.

Story:6
Honestly, Fairy Tail is severely lacking in story. It's not that there's no story. Like Bleach, there is a main villain that keeps popping up, indirectly or directly. But in Fairy Tail's case, there are 2, and incredibly, the way they show up and disappear is absurd. The 2 strongest villains in the manga, causing overall less damage than the "regular" cliched "I want to gain power/destroy the world/resurrect the strongest evil power" villains? Yeah, this is the first time I've seen a manga featuring such villains lacking in willpower. Honestly, it is just vexing... at least in One Piece during those circumstances, there would be an explanation behind why some villains just left after completely defeating the protagonists. In Fairy Tail? Nope no way. It's like it is logical for the strongest villains to leave the protagonists after just "defeating" them. Which is rather vague, since the protagonists seem to be stronger after begin injured, more than when they were at the start (in EVERY difficult battle).

Another thing is the MIA and illogical appearances of some characters. Like for example, after chapter 253, some character appears out of no reason, and later disappear as well without reason.

I think one of the most absurd things about the story is how the guilds and dark guilds are associated with each other. For example, 3 guilds in an alliance fight the light guild(s) one by one, out of which, 1 of them fought against a TEMPORARY alliance of light guilds. Interesting right? What the hell is an alliance for if you guys just fight one by one?

Art:9
The art is really good, and the saving grace of this manga. Consistent, clear and the character designs are mostly unique.

Character:5
The quality of the characters is largely debatable. On one hand, most of the characters' personalities are relatively consistent. On the other hand, there are a lot of weird inconsistencies in the appearances and disappearances of minor characters.
And especially with the power-ups of the main characters, and some villains, it is actually quite painful to read all chapters up to 415 in one go. It's like the author forgot what did some minor characters behave like, or even it seems like he forgot they existed.

Another flaw is that some characters which become main characters changed a bit too much. Pretty much like the spell which turns villains goody-goody, but without the spell.

Enjoyment:8
Till 253 it is a 10, then till 415 it is a 6. I think this pretty much sums up the enjoyment level for the manga. It has much to do with the direction of the comedy and fanservice before and after 253.

Overall:7
If shounen, adventure, action and friendship is what you dig for, look no further. Oh yeah, it's rather of a fantasy genre as well, so make sure you enjoy over-the-top power-ups when reading this manga!

P.S. This would be a fantastic example of power creep in games.

Manga about the power of friendship are not exactly rare, and Fairy Tail shows why; they can be really awesome. Following the adventures of the Fairy Tail gang may not offer complex moral dilemmas or intricate mysteries, but it does offer consistent fun and the chance to pump your fist when your favorite character does something extra BA, which is often. Fans of One Piece or the authors previous work Rave Master should definitely check this title out.

Although what Crimmy said may be true about a similarity between Fairy Tail and One Piece, you have to judge a story based on quality rather than originality. If you only read one chapter then how can you be sure that it will continue to stay like One Piece. One Piece became too long for my tastes and it always went off on too many story arcs irrelevant to the plot.

I personally enjoy Rave Master and I am looking forward to reading this manga. The only criticism I have so far after reading 4 chapters is that the characters are drawn very similar to those in Rave Master (Elie and Lucy, Sieg and Sieg Hart and Siegrain) This isn't necessarily that bad because it's like the Rave Master characters are haveing another adventure even though Rave is already done

Not gonna write an emotional review. Going to be as 'to the point' as possible.

You know that nastolgia vibe you get when you revisit an entry level product for like a TV series, food, music, art etc. If it's your first anime/manga you are gonna probably gonna love it. Assuming you don't see through all the BS first, that is.

You'll be drawn in by the fanservice, lack-luster action, and somewhat decent plot and very high potential settup. I used to watch anime on TV like naruto a few myazaki films and other things that might come on but that was when I was very young and couldn't absorb the quality very well so they kinda went over my head. Being as how fairy tail brought me back into the anime world it took me a while to realize the flaws.

1 - Its the same thing over and over. The way he takes down the first villain is gonna seeeeem badass and the hype from that might carry over a bit. You assume he's some badass and that he has a lot to offer. You believe he will GROW! This, however, is not the case. He basically stays the same the whole series and ends fights pretty much the exact same way. Its a worse version of naruto's formula. Naruto goes up against villains that are a threat, the trade blows and damage on both sides, naruto comes up with a plan to outsmart them or utilizes some new technique and ends in a flashy way and throws in a rasengan somewhere. Fairy tail is this minus damage on boths sides, coming up with a plan, using a newly learned and earned teching and opts for natsu just punching the guy in the face. Much worse if it's erza. She'll get badly damage and then shrug it off like it never happen so if everyone Erza faced justed kneeled over and died her terrible character wouldn't change the slightest.

2 - The protagonist(s) are terrible. It is popularly thought that Natsu is the protagonist but apparently it's actually Lucy. Both are horrible characters after the third episode. Lucy turns into a plot device used for nothing other than softcore porn and Natsu, as mentioned before, is just a giant suit of plot armor. He gets powerful for doing nothing more than eating and taking dumps. He never has legit training. Every power he has as the manga progresses is more or less handed to him. But the worst part is he never actually USES them after he gets them. He just wraps his hand in flames and punches them and wins. His powers turn into nothing more than cheap hax the more the series goes on.

3 - Hype and villains. It took me about 5 arcs, it took others a few episodes but sooner or later you'll realize that the hype for most villains is extremely exagerrated. Just look out for it so you can drop it easier. Otherwise you'll be stuck at 300+ chapters and can't really stop because of an internal desire to be a completionist.

4 - Fairy Tail. The guild members cannot die. Not because of any magic or whatnot. The author is, pardon my language, a pussy. The suspense is lost for near death experiences and gets replaced by the desire to see the guild get mutilated. When one person in a series has extremely good luck it could be seen as a character trait. When an entire guild has, its terrible writing.

5 - Relies on shipping when it realizes how repetitive it's been.

(There will be spoilers here so stop if you decide to dive into this mess)

6 - Celestial spirits. These are lame in design and lame in use. The most powerful of them looks like some stupid giant perv (didn't do anything pervy but that's how he looks). The most powerful -set- is wasted because they come into possession of the softcore porn lady so there power is severly bottle-necked cementing her uselessness in the show even more.

7 - Many wasted plot points. The 12 wizard saints become a dissappointment. They don't even show all of them. There were actual GOOD spirits owned by another celestial wizard. Then they became lucy's spirits and thats that.

8 - The ending. The ending alone is reason enough not to watch this. Hands down the most dissappointing thing I have ever seen in my life. THE most powerful villains are defeated as i've described above. No special modes or anything either. Just a punch wrapped in fire.

Story 4/10 - Begining of the manga was great. There is the world full of magic, magicians, guilds and dragons mentioned. Characters backgrounds are unfolded, there is a character development. As story goes, more interesting things are uncovered, a lot of comedy which actually made me laugh. It all made me curious about what will happen next? What is the background of ... ? But ...

Later I noticed something. A lot of repetition. Battles became repetitive with the same outcome. Friendship gave all the power boosts necessary for the plot convenience. But still, I was reading it, hoping for something great to be unfolded, some shocking events, plot twists or whatever. At this point I made peace with all of the repetitiveness, garbage romance and incredibly slow or rushed character development. But later, in the last arc, all my hopes and expectations were crushed. And when I thought I had reached the bottom of the garbage story, I hit yet another bottom, then another one, ... . Just believe me, it was just so bad. Extremely rushed character development, war which tactics had no logic, character powers were random, I couldn't follow power levels of characters, DEATHS (only ones who read last arc will understand), annoying character love pairings garbage drama...oh my..it just was so bad. I would not spoil, it just, you have to read to understand. Actually, last arc started as the one with the best begining, but later... So to sum up, story is somewhere 4/10, because of the repetitiveness, all the plot armour stuff, like power boost ups at the right time, huge amount of fan service (romance/pairings were a joke and sometimes ridiculed the story), character development for some characters stopped at some point, some of the main villains history was ridiculously badly explained, a lot of characters used only for plot convinience and garbage last arc, which damaged the story a lot.

Art 10/10 - Nothing to say here. Battles, characters, explosions, landscapes... Everything is just brilliant. Actually, art is one thing which gave me motivation to finish reading through the last arc.

Characters 4/10. There is character development, but at some point it had stopped or became so slow.. In the last arc, on the other hand, character development was so rushed, I mean extremely rushed. In overall, the main characters usually are enjoyable and fun, although some have extremely thick plot armour (which is why I reconsidered rating 5/10).

Overall 5/10 - It had potential to be a great manga. At the end it did not deliver.

I loved this manga when it first started out. It looked alot like Oda's style so I read it and thought it was superb. As I continued on and on, I realized this manga is almost if not literally a copy of One Piece.
That pissed me off to the point where I don't even want to read it anymore.
Some of the people who didn't like One Piece as much would probably love this manga though, since they wouldn't know the similarities between One Piece and Fairy Tail.
I, struggled to continue reading this. It's really hard for me to control this inner rage I have towards Hiro as he continues to ever so gracefully copy most of Oda's wonderful arcs.
But I do have to admit, Hiro is creative with the designs and characters. But thats probably it, otherwise, it's a replica of One Piece.

Enough about that.

Story :
It has a decent plot that follows a girl name Lucy who wants to be a mage and join Fairy Tail. She meets someone who has the potential to let her join Fairy Tail and that is Natsu. Natsu is this boy with pink hair who has a personality like Luffy's. He fights with flames and loves to eat flames. He got Lucy to join Fairy tail. And as the story goes on, she meets all the other members of fairy tail and go on missions provided by the guild.

Art :
I love the art. It's wonderful in many aspects. The backgrounds and style is pretty good.

Character :
O..my god. The characters are actually quite decent but they srsly follow the formula of the Strawhat pirate personality with a little change this and there but you can obviously see the similarities. Characters are not original what-so-ever, this add to why I dislike Hiro&Fairy Tail.

Enjoyment :
It was actually quite entertaining reading this manga from the beginning. It started off very nice. The rest are quite unique but than yeah, I keep seeing these One Piece deja vu. I enjoyed it's comedy and at the same time, despise it since it is similar to One Piece's. I don't even know why this Hiro guy has to copy that too, I'm pretty sure he has his own style in drawing AND story telling right?!

Overall :
It is good, recommended for all people. But this is just not my cup of tea. As much as I love his other works, this is way too much of a copy to make me like it. How it got so high up in manga ranking is still a mystery to me.

(Note:This manga is still running in weekly shonen magazine)

Fairy tail is one of those shonen manga's that have ideas which sound good on paper, but has terrible execution. One of the problems with this manga, it doesn't have a clear sense of direction with it's story(eg. fairy tail talks about the villains motives and then flashback to why the villain does this, which always tries to make character's have sad backstories..Which aren't sad. If they don't have that, their generic doomsday villains waiting for fairy tail to give them a whooping.) lack of character development in this story, and switch's between having interesting topics and generic one's. My least favorite thing about this manga is...BIG Damn Heroes Moments for those who don't know, it's when character X is about to get killed but doesn't because character Y jumps in to save the character. When this manga does it, Hiro Mashima writes it in the most generic way ever (eg. After Lucy uses up her magic and having one of her celestial spirits key destroyed, she get's approached by more tartarus beings and looks like she's going to get finished off...BUT WAIT Natsu jumps in to save the day.) I don't know why, it's just these moments where I hate fairy tail and want to stop reading but I just can't. After telling you all the bad things of fairy tail it has a few good things, like Good art (after volume 16 for me though), decent fights and having a good shonen arc which is, The Tower Of Heaven arc, Go read it to find out why. This arc has the best development for one of the main character's Erza Scarlet(sure i sound like a hypocrite but...), this is one of the only times where fairy tail doesn't have generic character development. Besides that... fairy tail is very generic, when I first saw this it looked like it could be promising but it quickly fell on to the generic shonen tropes.

YES.
Reading this is definitely worth your time.

I enjoyed it to the fullest. I don't understand the overwhelming and unnecessary blatant hate Fairy Tail seems to get at every corner, but I enjoyed it. That's all I really have to say.
Yes, this anime may not be for everyone, but what anime is, though I acknowledge that there are things wrong with Fairy Tail, though besides that it was a manga that I could read with a cup of coffee at 2 a.m.
No spoilers here.
This manga was a rollercoaster. I fell in love with the characters. The art style. And the story.

First of all one should explain that although the art is, at the very beginning, very similar to that of Eiichiro Oda author of One Piece it should be obvious that the similarity is actually feeble. Mashima's art also gets an outstanding especially for the fact that its evolution and improvement as he got used to the character designs is outstanding not to mention he draws clothes like a fashion designer (at leats in the story) and its a lovely dynamic seeing some change in clothing on characters that would obviously care about that.

Leaving that aside it is important to remember that this story came after Rave Master, another great manga by Mashima which was much darker and pushed the author to try out a more lighthearted story. This created fairy tail which is all about the bonds, friendship but even more so the warmth of a family created, as well as magical adventures concerning these important bonds which are narrated from the point of view of 17 year ol celestial age Lucy Heartfilia, a rookie that gradually improves throughout the story and at a realistic pace in the timespan given. Mashima also introduces numerouscharacters each with their own quirks of which are our protagonists including our main portagonists the destructive fire mage Natsu who literally sweeps Lucy off her feet to her new home, the fairy tail guild, his partner in crim Happy the talking cat?, the exhibionist Gray Fullbuster an ice mage, and the stoic beauty Erza Scarlet.

Their adventures lead them to creating more of these bonds and hopefully the mystery involving the day Natsu's 'special' father dissappearance, with only his scarf as a token before he left will Natsu be able to find him, only Lucy can tell us!

Firstly, I would like to say that Hiro Mashima is an extremely hard-working mangaka that cares very deeply about the reaction of his readers; it is extremely clear that he spends a lot of time on this manga.
Although I love FT with all my heart, I will admit that it is far from perfection. I'm going to write about my positive and negative thoughts on the long-running series:

The characters. I am really attached to them, especially since I have reading (and watching) their interactions, development and growth throughout the series. Without the magic and jobs, they really do seem like a group of close friends that gradually become even closer over time. If I had friends like these, life would be a lot more interesting.
I am definitely one of those people that enjoys a slow-burn relationship (romantic and platonic) and FT sure does have that -- it's a good thing btw.
Some characters are better than others in my view. Mostly due to the OTT plot armor and friendship-speech BS which some characters harbor (think Erza and Natsu). But some characters are fairly relatable like Lucy for instance: she gets knocked down regularly but she always tries her hardest, she is not over-powered and she is usually logical and tactical when it comes to her fights.

It is quite funny and some chapters/omakes made me actually laugh out loud. The art progression is just amazing (seriously, compare chapter 1 to chapter 420) and I adore Mashima's art style. Character designs are alright but what makes them stand out is the motifs or quirks.

Addressing the elephant in the room -- yes, there is a lot of (excessive) fanservice within this manga. Sometimes it can be somewhat off-putting since it can take away from some moments that are supposed to be dramatic. For example during some fights, the girls often lose or rip their clothes or there are a quite a few panty shots which can be a bit annoying. HOWEVER, I must stress that this is, in fact, a SHOUNEN manga and in this genre, it is common to see a lot of fanservice

Overall, I love fairy tail and it will always hold a special place in my heart (especially due to conformation on it ending soon). I hope that more people read it properly and understand that it is GOOD too, it is not just some cringey manga/anime that is trying too hard to be something like One Piece. It has greater meanings and it has really made me a happier person over the years. I sincerely hope that you give it a chance :)