Fairy Tail

There doesn't exist a low enough number to express my feelings toward this show. Maybe using Euler's I would be able to formulate just how horrible this series is. It defies reason and sense for a series so mediocre to simultaneously be so bad. I read Rave Master and liked it. I liked this series. Then I realized, there is absolutely no worth in reading this. It actively destroys your rubric of good and bad. Either everything will be good from now on or everything will be dyed in disappointment.
What is so wrong with this series? Simple. It makes you hope, expect better things from the author and the art. It has potential to be good and is good at hyping up every reader, but it never delivers. No logic, no reason, no consistency , no well-written characters, no attempts to take any risks at all. Not a single moment lands. Not a single hint of originality. Predictable would put it lightly. By the first chapter you realize what the series will be. It doesn't matter how strong the villains seem, the height of suspense, or the seemingly interesting concepts and mythology. It will all be resolved in the stupidest, most anti-climactic way possible. This series was designed to disappoint without fail. Pure bait. Don't get your hopes up because the moment you do, your spirit will be crushed. It's worse than the time you were trapped inside a car without air conditioning in the desert and thought you were about to get help before you realized that it was just a mirage. It's the crushing heartbreak of realizing that the girl you like confessing to you was just a prank. It's thinking you're reading something good, when you're not. It's the worst kind of mediocre. That's all I can describe this manga is. Save your time, avoid this series. Don't make the same mistakes as I have.

I liked this manga because the plot is intriguing and the characters are well-developed. Also, there are a lot of good quotes and themes in Fairy Tail. I would recommend this to both experienced manga-readers and beginners. Its entertaining, but also has some sad parts. The mood changes a lot and sometimes it's funny, sometimes serious, sometimes crazy, sometimes sad, and sometimes just plain weird. There are also some hilarious OVA's, which stands for Original Video Animation, and they are sort of like extras. It's also an anime, which is pretty good, too, but which one you watch/read depends on your own personal preferences. But overall, it is a great manga (and anime!) that anyone would enjoy.

As I write this, the series just ended. It does sadden me to know that it's over but, I found the series a wonderful one. It helped me through hard moments and it always gave you a laugh for some reason.

I recommend it surely. I give the story a 9/10, art 10/10, characters 9/10, and enjoyment 10/10. I overall enjoyed the story. I didn't like the ending as much as I hope I would of.

I wish Luck to Hiro Mashima whenever he starts a new manga series. He might base it off fairy tail or it could be brand new, Either way I am really happy and excited about this. The last chapter did get to me

So another long running shounen comes to an end.

"The power of friendship rules all" - Mashima seems to have taken this line quite seriously.
When I first watched the fairy tail anime, I found it very enjoyable. This was amongst my first 5-10 animes so I might be a little biased about it so I didn't get all the hate against FT. So what if characters dont die, so what if they use a little "Nakama power". For me, it was really fun to watch.
Upto the tartorus arc, it was brilliant. Characters may have seemed to always win but it was nothing too ridiculus. The buildup and mysteries regarding the dragons, Zeref and Acnologia was really good and to me it was second to only one piece in that aspect.

(The next part contains some spoilers)
I started reading the manga after the 2014 anime finished i.e. after the tartorus arc. For me, fairy tail started going downhill from there. The buildups to the fights were awesome as always and they introduced some really over powered characters that had us wondering how Natsu and Co. would defeat these guys. But when the fights started, I thought - "why mashima? why are yoiu ruining such a good buildup?". All that buildup about E.N.D. whose apperance was not even for single chapter, those overbearing springans just to be defeated by the likes of wendy and cana, characters dying and then coming back in the next few chapters, and specially the endings of my two most favourite characters, Zeref and Acnologia. I mean come on man, it would have been acceptable if Natsu got a new dragon or demon transformation to defeat those two, but man ..

Okay, enough complains. I had originally rated this 9 and had planned to drop it to 7 or something, but the last chapter... it made me remember why I like fairy tail. So I just dropped it to 8. It really was a enjoyable watch/read. Even though I know the last arc is bad, I am still excited about the 2018 anime.

It's funny to talk about Fairy Tail, because, what in the middle of the series, became one of the most interesting and enjoyable shonens (even with the monstruous fanservices), it later became one of the most clichéd and exagerated mangas around. And I mean, today, it has embraced, if not all, most of the clichés that exist today...

I believe everyone may be aware of the plot, in general, so, I'll skip to the main points of my review:

Story:

Hiro Mashima knows very well how to estabilish a good plot, with various mysteries for you to wonder, etc. The problem is in the development of it. Most of them, end up as silly explanations, or things too logical, that leaves you wondering "So, that was all this was?". I won't lie, the plot still holds a lot of interesting points. But I don't know what to expect of them from now on...

Art:

Very good. At least in this, Mashima knows how to make it right, with nice and well-done drawings, reminiscent of a better quality One Piece.

Character:

OMG, this is where he is great to crap everything up. Let's start by the protagonist, Natsu.

He feels like a copy of Luffy, but, as another reviewer said, a more arrogant and cocky one. He acts imaturely through the entire series, and hasn't grown up an inch psicologically. Mashima makes him receives some good lessons from people more mature than him, but he spits on everything, and makes Natsu forget everything, acting again, as the same old cocky innocent kid, who believes he can just press on, that he will defeat the boss. And the worst: HE DOES IT! Mashima has developed escapisms to give the good guys the victory (and to him, mainly) through the use of absurd Deus Ex Machina, and THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP. Oh, come on, who does he think we are? 5 year-old childs? What makes me more impressed, is that there are people who find his explanations solid.

And that's not even the beginning. There is Lucy, the cute and dumb female protagonist, who is a contradiction herself: she is regarded as one of the most smart members of Fairy Tail guild, and has got miraculous powers every time, but acts dumb in almost every battle, always needing to be helped by the others (mainly Natsu, again).

There is also Erza, the tsundere of the main team, and Mashima's muse. Really, she is the second most-protected character of the manga, behind just Natsu, and is able to pull the most equally absurd victories, with, again, THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP.

There is Gray, that's the rival of Natsu. And coincidentally, uses ice magic. But he ends up almost as a random character, as Mashima usually tends to give more focus on the three right up there. And, finally, there are tons of secondary characters, who, in the most funny way, end up being more interesting than the main characters. But Mashima almost don't give a damn, as he tends to illuminate them little, always giving the bigger actions for the great ones Erza and Natsu.

People may find that I'm overreacting. I won't lie again, there are nice secondary characters moments and battles, but that is all you will get from them.

Enjoyment:

In the beginning, you will have some fun, with the dumb adventures of Natsu and company, and, when it enters a certain arc, you will feel the pain and vengeance they will look to inflict on their adversaries (in what I call the best of the manga, till now). But, after this, if you do not like this Deus Ex Machina and friendship excuses for the good guys victory, you will start to feel unfazed, angered about every next impossible victory they pull out, and will even come to a point, where you will be cheering for the bad guys, to give them a good kick in the ass.

But, as I said, if you read it without any compromise or need for anything serious or plausible, you won't get as frustrated as I got.

Overall:

What began as a promising series, had one great arc, that created great expectations for me, in relation to the series, entered in what I could call the "Shyalaman effect" (which I believe film lovers will understand better than anyone): slowly went downhill with the story, focusing more on brainless battles, and exagerated use of plot and shonen escapisms, to make it move on. And I don't really know how it will end, but I can say I feel quite displeased to imagine...

I Advice every and anyone. DO NOT BOTHER with this series. I gave three weeks of on and off reading for this series. I got through 200 chapters, I've earned the right to judge this series.

It was recommended to me through several friends whom could be quoted with:

1) "You like Onepiece right you'll love this manga than"
2) "This might be the best shonen of the past 5 years"
3) "Erza is the best female role I've ever seen"
4) "Possibly one of the greatest starting arcs"

All of what my friends said were wrong. Upon Grey's development arc I quickly found a hatred for the main characters. Within 40 chapters I already lost count to how many times Lucy is used for fan service, and nothing else (Besides getting stomped and cries). Her legit reason of being written into the story is to be fan service. Something that Hiro Mashima himself admits through several character's commenting on this.

Natsu is by far the worse male protagonist I've seen too date. His first victory in the series is bullying a grunt whom Lucy could even defeat. (Please note, Lucy is PATHETIC). His second victory is won via anime physics. Which leads to the formula he uses to secure every kill afterwards. The infamous 'Nakama-punch' This punch is his closed fist chock full of the love he holds for his friends. This punch ALWAYS comes directly after some deus ex power-up. His goal since childhood is to find the dragon he calls father.. a goal he has done nothing about for 10+ years of his life, and for more than 140 chapters into the series. He literally doenst even look... He waits to be told a lead... Not only is that lazy but thats a horrible son. The only thing i even liked about Natsu was how ignorant a weakness he has. Which I won't ruin. It got me to laugh a couple times.

Erza Overrated Scarlet. Is an amazingly missed opportunity for Hiro Mashima's first good female role. "We don't die for our friends, we live for them." That is Erza quote before her character arc... were not on just one attemp. But several she tries to sacrifice her own life for her friends..... Hiro Mashima has written a female role as ignorant and deus ex as Natsu. She's basically Natsu..but smarter....

I've only written about three characters and im already mad again so I"ll just leave on this. Hiro Mashima doesnt respect women at all. He has yet to write a woman as something more than chattle. Overall this series is a 4/10. It isnt worth the read or the three weeks time spent on it. The only characters I ended up caring for are Grey, Gajeel, and Laxus.. dat it

I first started Fairy Tail because all my friends were like: "You love One Piece, you'll LOVE this!" I thought it would be a rip-off of my favorite series and went into it with very low expectations. However, only a few chapters in, my attitude changed significantly!

This series is reasonably new so the story is only just started, however what there is so far is great! A lot is still open and YET TO HAPPEN and I find myself excited to find out what happens next. The jokes are original and don't get stale and the overall tone of the series is a very fun one.

Each character you come into contact with is unique and interesting. Most of them have a quirk that will have you laughing. There's the chronic-stripper Gray and the motion-sickness prone Natsu. Not to forget Elfman who practically walks around spouting Chuck Norris quotes. This series has strong female characters and wonderful male characters! And let's not forget the token animal characters.

I love the art style. It's clean and the characters have very distinct facial expressions. At first glance, it looks like a One Piece rip-off. While the styles are very similar, you will be soon to realize that the art styles are very different!

The tone of this series is light-hearted and hilarious. Like all series, it has its serious moments that are very well done. I'd sit here and tell you all about the series but I think you should see for yourself! It's worth giving a shot!

From the brilliance of Hiro Mashima, who made Groove Adventure Rave [known in the states as Rave Master, which does sound cooler][Review to be done in the next couple of weeks, I'm only halfway through it], we have Fairy Tail [No, thats not a mispelling]- the story about a guild of mage users.

Title: Fairy Tail
Mangaka: Hiro Mashima
Length: As of my posting, 98 chapters in 11 volumes.
Rating: 8/10

Summary: Welcome to a world, populated by mages. A person, even if he can practice magic, is only recognized as a mage if he joins a mage guild, all of which are governed by the Mages Council.

One of the strongest of these guilds is Fairy Tail - a guild that is known to cause mass destruction during their assignments. They have several powerful mages, of which our protagonist, Dragonil Natsu, is one.

Natsu is a mage who uses the dragon slayer magic. He was taught by a dragon, who raised him from when he was young. His magic is that of fire - by consuming it, he can regain strength and heal wounds. He can make it appear in any part of his body, using a mixture of hand to hand combat and magic to fight, which gave him the nickname Salamander. However, the dragon that taught him, disappeared one day, on the seventh day of the seventh month in the year XX77, without a trace.

There are more dragon slayers, of which we've only seen one so far. They all can do the same as Natsu, but each is with a different element. Their dragons all disappeared also.

Natsu takes on assignments with his team, who is consisted of Heartphillia Lucy, a stellar spirit magic user, Fullbuster Gray, an ice user who is also a nimpho-maniac, Scarlet Erza, an Ex-Quipping fighter, and Happy, a talking and flying blue cat.

Hints at a general plot have started to appear, but as for now the arcs are mostly dependant of each other.

Analysis: Its a fun manga to read. The fights are good, even if at first they are all really short. The magic is the most interesting part of the entire deal however - the mangaka comes up with new ways for them to be used alot of times. Its really interesting.

Its also a funny manga. Theres a wide range of characters, and the scenes where they're inside the guild [Which is basically a gigantic bar with a bulletin board], are always a blast to read.

I only have two complaints so far - the first is that each of the plots has to do with the background of one character. Always. Without fail. There have only been 34 exception, each of them spanning a very short amount of chapters. While it is good to explore the characters past, considering that there are only 98 chapters out, I feel like more should be done with the full plot of the manga by now, instead of just the character's pasts. Granted, in some arcs, it plays a minor role [such as the one explaining Lucy's past], but it still annoying. However, the awesomeo fights in those arcs more than make up for it.

The second is the magic. Although I said that I like the magic the best out of anything, I feel like its too loosely defined. Throughout the entire thing they talk about magic power and such, but we're not taught what it is. The closest explination for any of the magics has been about the stellar spirits, but theres still alot of holes there.

Characters:

Dragonil Natsu: Nicknamed the salamander, he fights with fire. He can create it from any part of the body, and can eat it to replenish himself. He's a very fun loving person, who will do almost anything to get a laugh. He's also a very carefree person, with a quick temper. His dragon was Igneel, from whom he inherited the nickname Salamander from. He's constantly on the lookout for clues as to where Igneel disappeared to. His fatal weakness is a very strong case of motion sickness - if he's on a moving vehicle, he gets very sick and can't do anything.

Heartphillia Lucy: Natsu's first teammate. She's a person who joined Fairy Tail at the beginning of the manga series - and as such, she's the only one sane in the entire guild. Over time she gets used to it. She uses Stellar Spirits, whom once you find the keys for, you create a contract with. Afterwards, you can summon them using the key.

Quick Note about her Stellar Spirits - they all have distinctive personalities, which can make them hard to control sometimes. However, one of them makes a cameo appearance from Groove Adventure Rave. A cookie to whoever figures it out.

Fullbuster Gray: Natsu's rival, at the start. Whenever they meet, they always have an argument, and can only be shut up by two people - Lucy, and Erza [who had to beat them up in order to do so]. He's a nympho-maniac, who doesn't realize when he's undressing. Its a result of his training to learn how to use ice alchemy. He joins the team later on after being forced by Erza, and now does it full time.

Scarlet Erza: One of the strongest in Fairy Tail, she is an Ex-Quipper - a form of magic that can equip and dequip armor and weapons very quickly. She always wears armor, can switches quite often to suit the needs - whether its flame resistant armor when battleing Natsu, or a fancy dress when going to the casino [Didn't know that that was classified as armor ... But oh well]. She's one of the only mages that fights fully physically, hardly ustilizing magic in her attacks. She's a very tempermental girl, and has a rather large temper. As a result she is respected, at first through fear, then through power.

Happy: Natsu's ever-present companion, he's a talking blue cat. That can grow wings.

Need I say more?

Makarov: He's the master of Fairy Tail, and one of the 10 Great Holy Mages. He uses his magic to expand parts of his body to fight - whether making his arm super long to stop someone from moving, or growing to the size of a giant for general all purpose smashing.

There are more characters, but I needn't name them now.

Its a good manga to read, and releases are frequent. The reason I gave it an 8 is because, like I said, I would like to see more of a general plot, instead of just exploring character backgrounds.

Review taken from animeruwelz, check my profile out for more info

Intriguing plot. Unique and original world. Well developed characters. Amazingly epic and suspensful battles.

Fairy Tail is none of these. When I was first introduced to this manga, it sounded like it knew where it was going. It seemed to have a plot, interesting secrets and mysteries. So far the biggest mystery to me is how Natsu isn't the Guildmaster of Fairy Tail as well as the strongest of the Ten Wizard Saints. As I sat reading chapter after chapter, I watched how characters 10 times stronger than Natsu were defeated by apparently overpowered foes, only for Natsu to stand up, eat some random flame, and beat said foe because, hey, I'm the main character.
Additionally, the same happens to the at first like-able Erza. I wanted to like her, her magic was interesting and she seemed like a fun character. But her nakama power-boosts are just too overwhelming and all the Deus Ex Machina thrown around her are just too much, extremely apparent in later chapters.

Worst of all, I know that Mashima is actually capable of making good battles and interesting characters. This story actually DOES HAVE some good characters who have more realistic battle outcomes. Yet, for some reason, he decides to leave them aside and laugh at how weak they are in comparison to his godly main characters.

To finalize my hate for the main characters, we should analyze Lucy, the MC that exists for the soul purpose of fanservice. Constant, never ending fanservice. I remember a chapter in which Natsu and Grey see Lucy naked (again) and don't react, saying the novelty is over because they've seen her naked plenty of times. I was thinking around the same lines. It's just plain annoying seeing in how many ways Mashima can remove Lucy's clothes.

What else can I say about this manga? Well, the fact that no good guys ever die is always annoying, even though that just seems to be the norm for shounen anyway, with very few exceptions. Also, that the plot never seems to advance anywhere (which brings me to wonder if it even had one to start with or if I was just being trolled into believing it did as I read on) is just plain annoying.
And as I have said quite a few times, I hate how the battles don't hold any type of suspense. We all know that Natsu is gonna win, and all the good guys will survive, something that completely pulls out of the story and makes me think I'm wasting my time when I'm reading battles.


....if anyone read this entire rant, I commend thee, thank you for reading. You can agree with me or not, it's just my opinion, I'm just pointing out that I believe this series to be completely overrated, not to say it's just plain awful, and I would just not bother.
If you really want to read an epic shounen, read Naruto, One Piece or Bleach. And don't ever compare Fairy Tail to them. They aren't the greatest series, but they are the top three Shounen, and with reason, and Fairy Tail only wishes it was half as good as any of them.

As Fairy Tail ends, I would like to give thanks to Fairy Tail, my first anime and manga that led made me start to watch anime and read manga. I would like to thank Mashima for this work. Now onto the review.

When Fairy Tail started, it wielded the sense of wonder and mystery in a land of magic and mages. The world was quickly established, the first page of the first chapter immediately introduces the Magic Council then weaves into Natsu in Hargeon Town into meeting Lucy while it establishes the world in the background. Mages, guilds, magic council, finding draconic fathers and it quickly establishes the protagonists Natsu and Lucy, which are interesting characters. When Lucy joins the guild, we are introduced to a plethora of characters. We are also introduced to Gray and Erza which are gonna be part of the main crew. In the early arcs of Fairy Tail, Mashima showcases his talent in worldbuilding and character development.

Although, it follows the monster of the week formula for the first few arcs things change as we get to the Phantom Lord arc, one of the best arcs in the series. In my opinion, the series had its best arc in the Tower of Heaven. In this arc which focuses on Erza and her tragic past, I can already see the overarching story of Fairy Tail. We get some references to Zeref back in the early arcs like Lullaby and Galuna but the Tower of Heaven seemingly establishes itself as the arc that will start the main story. The Tower of Heaven is my favorite arc of the whole series because of the great characterization and development of Erza and the seemingly Aizen tier plan of Jellal. One thing I really appreciate in this arc is the symbolism of Erza's armor as the symbol of her hiding her insecurities and protecting herself from other people but when she fought Jellal she does not don her armor that symbolizes that she is not afraid and hide anymore of her past and her insecurities.

After the Tower of Heaven, things began to change. The Laxus and gang arc was pretty decent, it lets other characters to shine. My first major complaint of the whole series was the revelation of Mystogan's identity because it just doesn't make sense since it kind of lessens the impact of the last arc. Move on to Oracion Seis arc, where the cracks began to show. We are introduced to a few new characters, some more interesting than the others. Oracion Seis was kind of a decent arc but nothing really stands out. Jellal's "revival" is really redundant. Edolas arc's premise is ridiculous, the plot seems out of place in the context of the story, but it was a decent arc. At this point of the story, Fairy Tail stagnated, it did not live to the heights of the early arcs and it's turning into a formulaic shonen. Enter Tenrou arc, the S-Class trials, the entrance of Zeref into the story, Tenrou invigorated my interest in the series. The actual arc is still formulaic but it's a significant improvement of Oracion Seis and Edolas.

Fairy Tail had a timeskip, in accordance to the Shonen Scriptures. When 7 years have passed a lot changed, and Fairy Tail once again captures the sense of wonder and mystery that prevailed the early arcs. We got a tournament arc for a change and behind the curtain, a conspiracy unveiling. Things are getting interesting. But in the end, it was a huge letdown. The arc had a great hook but it didn't have a climax that deserve its buildup. The power levels doesn't even make sense anymore at that point. Tartarus arc is decent enough but it's not really enough. This is fault of bad characterization. Especially Natsu's character despite being the lead has stagnated throughout the series. Natsu is just not interesting enough to be a protagonist. He doesn't have depth and virtually no development. Natsu spouting words of friendship and flaming punches gets really old and it does not change even in the final arc.

Speaking of the final arc, it's where everything goes wrong. Alvarez Empire came out of nowhere and we got 12 characters that can easily defeat Saint-level characters. The whole arc is just a mess. The arc is supposed to be a war arc but it does not feel like one because there are no long term consequences. Deaths are reduced to cheap plot device and not used in a meaningful way and what's worse is that they are faked. Deaths in the arc doesn't hold any semblance of emotion. The power levels have been more wacked in this arc. The introduction of plot points that are unnecessary and boring, including "Why has His Majesty' son not loved?", Irene and Erza, Lacarde's existence, Anna and Neo Eclipse. The Spriggans are unmemorable considering they are the strongest mages in the series, some where just easily defeated. Chapter 536 was just a big slap in the face as Natsu defeats a guy who possess infinite magic and can instantly kill you in one simple fire punch and the hype completely collapse around Acnologia as he was conveniently defeated by something that is doesn't even exist in the series 10 chapters before.

Fairy Tail had a great start and great potential for worldbuilding. It just began to lose its sense of direction and stagnated. As the series continues, Mashima is just lost on what to do with the story and the characters. Battles are not suspenseful because there are no consequences. Some characters are over utilized, underutilized, or mishandled completely. Mashima should take time in exploring the world he created and develop his characters. In the end, Fairy Tail failed to build upon its solid foundation and was the cause of its downfall of quality.

i must apologizing for every hardcore fans of fairy tail because what i will write, but i must say this. fairy tail is boring , unintersting and weird manga.

i will tell my reason why i write a fairy tail as a boring , unintersting and weird manga:
1. fairy tail is very repetitive manga. between one arc to another arc there is no diferences always same. first, the arc will open with some story or you may say an opening story then came story when MC and his friends must battle with a bad guy when the first battle occur MC and his friends will be defeated by the bad guy. after the first defeated, mc and his friend will chalenge against the bad guy but this time mc and his friend success beating the bad guy. although not every arc contain this story line but this story line almost happen on every arc in fairy tail. example: lullaby arc, Galuna Island arc, phantom arc, and etc.
2. fairy tail is very weird manga. there ar many weirdness in fairy tail,
first weirdness: in every arc when mc and his friends overwhelmed by great power of bad guy and then they are defeated. then like i write above, mc and his friends challenge again the bad guy and this time they win. what make me annoyed is how came without preperation, training and battle strategy. only rely on what many reader describe as "nakama power-up" suddenly mc and his friends become so powerful that they can beat the bad guy who in first story the bad guy is describe and potrayed by mangaka have very - very powerful power. example: erza and azuma battle, zancrow vs natsu, shadow roque vs natsu, etc.
3. second weirdnesss: in prologue of Oración Seis arc mangaka potrayed ballam alliance as very-very powerfull dark guild. made of 3 most strongest dark guild in fairy tail world. and even though it wrote as alliance, the alliance it self is nothing more than a non-aggression pact. logically it means all member of ballam alliance must have equal power, then natsu who have already defeated cobra and guild master Oración Seis zero should have been able to face of one on one zancrow, ultear, or other member of ballam alliance. but the reality in manga spoke difeferent, each of mc face of new enemies from balam alliance, mc always lose at first. that is very-very weird.
3. third weirdness: why tartarus must made of alliance with some organization that weaker than them. like i said logically all member of ballam alliance must have equal power if they must made a non-aggression pact. but from story in manga we can coclude that tartarus is strong because fairy tail must use power of all members of fairy tail plus member of other guild to take it down, then grimoire heart is weaker than tartaros cause fairy tail only need 16 member of fairy tail to beat grimoire heart, and Oración Seis is weaker than grimoire heart cause only need 16 member alliance guild (7 member of fairy tail, 7 member other guild, 1 prisioner & 1 Oración Seis defected member) to beat it. then what is point of ballam alliance made with power like in manga, tartarus can easily deastroy or forced the other 2 member of ballam alliance to work for them.
4. fairy tail main character is unintersting, annoying and undeveloped, for me i'm very - very annoyed by MC. the mc always doing something reckles, and it looks like he never think if he is doing something. mc always think that he is the strongest man in the world, and he always think that he can always doing something alone. when he is fighting with someone who stronger than him and lose, the mc realize that he can't win the battle alone. like when mc and hades fighting, but after battle end mc came back to his previous personality. i see mc as a man who do not learn from his mistakes, and he always make same mistake.

i still have high hope for this manga, i hope hiro mashima as mangaka wants to listen criticism from all manga fans in internet and use the criticism as refference to fix and make fairy tail became better manga.

Fairy Tail is an exciting manga to read, and overall it's great. I joined the FT club late on and so read lots of chapters in quick succession towards the beginning; now i read a chapter every time it comes out. At first I was completely hooked, and couldn't stop reading (basically how I caught up) but now, although it is still pretty awesome, I feel that the story drags slightly and is harder to follow. However overall, Fairy Tail is a definite recommendation if you would like to witness some EPIC BATTLES.

Yeah, you guys are right...a replica of One Piece, ne?

At first, Fairy Tail's nothing to me. It's like another typical shounen type. But not until my friend recommended it to me. She mentioned it's different than typical shounen adventure types. When I gave it a try, it was actually great! The art may not be the type otakus will be attracted to, but it's worth the time to read it. And the emblems are cool! Natsu may resemble Monkey D. Luffy of One Piece, but ignore that fact. It's worth the shot!

Unlike most of the fans that are crazy over Fairy Tail , I prefer to maintain neutral about it because I don't take the series seriously if the author does not. Do not read on if you will get pissed by criticism of this series because I will be harsh.


Disclaimer : All of this are my personal opinion and is not intended to offend anyone by any means.

Story : 5/10

If I have to compare the story to another series, I would probably have to compare it to something like Bleach - an endless repetition of storyline which starts off fresh then it starts to go downhill. Why ? You may ask , the story simply revolves around an arc each with each fairy tail member and there's little to none plot progression of the main plot which is for the main protagonist , Natsu, to find his 'father' Igneel.

True that developing of the guild members are important which I would not argue that some of the stories were tear-wrecking. The main problem faced with the story was , the freaking plot armour. I would touch on that in the enjoyment section which would be arguably long because it sums up what I think of this series.

Art : 6/10

The art is pleasing to the eyes but one could not help but notice the similarities between Fairy Tail and One Piece. Lucy X Nami , Gildarts X Shanks ? One would have to think whether Fairy Tail is a rip off of One Piece which it isn't fortunately. According to the author , he says that he's inspired by the creator of Dragonball which was the same case as Eiichiro Oda , the creator of One Piece which may explain the similar art style.

Other than the artstyles , the fights are drawn pretty neatly and one could easily discern what's happening. But the main highlight of it's art is probably the fanservice that everyone seems to love. Don't get me wrong , I like it too but there's a limit to everything and Fairy Tail is stepping over it's boundaries with the fanservice.

I will just take Lucy as an example. She started off as a mage trainee that can use keys to summon up creatures from the horoscope. Great! That's pretty darn original I would say , then three hundred chapters later. Her only use ? Fanservice , dang girl! Yeah. She's literally useless aside from showing ass and tits. Sorry Lucy fanboys and girls. It's the truth. She had been reduced to this state over a span of hundreds of chapters. Don't even get me started on what happened to Erza in the recent arc.

Character : 6/10

This is the thing that I like about Fairy Tail. The cast is huge and each character are given personalities and a backstory. What else could you ask for , right ? Oh , it would be a shame if none of these characters don't/barely get any screentime :(

Perhaps it's because that the cast is too huge that Hiiro Mashima cannot cover all of them , but most of the characters are literally transparent as glass , only to offer one liners here and there to prove of their existence. Meanwhile , focusing on the already over-developed characters like Gray and such. Don't get me wrong but I do know that they are the main cast of Fairy Tail but I honestly think that there should be times for other character to shine instead of the five (Natsu,Erza,Lucy(tits),Gajeel and Gray). I do appreciate the tiny bits of Elfman and Laxus , and of course the bad ass Mirajane.

Maybe Hiiro does know of this problem and he comes up with cover arts to 'introduce' and explain each character which is a good point and I applaud him for doing so. Well done.

Enjoyment : 4/10

*sigh*

This is going to be a very lengthy rant but do bear with me. I enjoyed the first half of the manga like really. I do remember my experience of reading almost 200 chapters in about 3 days or so. But afterwards , it just goes downhill. It looked as though as the author had stopped putting in effort in the story any more but rather , he's just doing it for the sake of doing it. The plot armour of the cast gets thicker and thicker as each arc pass and Natsu would get a ridiculous DBZ power-up each time he's faced with an opponent that's stronger than him.

Here's a scenario to explain :

Natsu encounters A.
A flats him easily.
Fairy Tail confronts A.
Fairy Tail loses.
Because of nakama power , Natsu wins.

This gets repetitive after awhile and Erza's convenient new armour that fit with the antagonist's power each arc doesn't help much as well. I would have gave it a higher rating if it was just that. At most it would had became a 6/10 but in the recent arcs , I seriously wanted to fly to Japan to check whether Hiiro is on drugs while drawing.

The first dragon excluding acnologia that we come across (future rogue) revealed its power and guess what. After all the hype , his power is to rid humans of clothes. Convenient way to put in more fanservice right ? And.. Lucy(tits) happens to be there and yay! More tits! *rub off nosebleed*

This is one of the main problems with the current Fairy Tail. It's action used to weigh more than its fanservice but now , it seems as though the role is reversed. Another example would be the most recent arc where Erza and Mirajane are confined. I think I do not need to elaborate about them but I would definitely hate to see Erza , one of the strongest female mage , to become like Lucy. I'm done ranting about the fanservice part.

Another problem with the current series like I said before, is that Hiiro appears to no longer take the series seriously any longer. In the most recent arc (again. Notice how none of the old arcs have such flaws) , Afro-Happy. That was supposed to be an explosion that could probably erase off the entire town right ? Oh cool , what better way to downplay the new strong antagonist power by having a flying cat get rid of the explosion by 'sacrificing himself' ? Oh yeah , to make it even better. Let's not kill the cat too , because the explosion is meant to destroy buildings , not fucking cats. Let's just give him a new hairdo.

/end sarcasm exe.

You know what I mean ? *sigh*

Overall : 5/10

This used to be a great series and the series of event that led it's downfall to a train wreck was definitely unfortunate. I can only hope that Hiiro would start to take his manga seriously again and write some good stuff and not the current Service Tail.

I do apologise if I have offended any of you in this post because I'm really disappointed of witnessing a great series falling into ruins.

Oh Fairy Tail, You could have been good, you had so, so much potential in you, but here you are, going out with barely a yelp.

Where did it go wrong Hiro? You had an immensly popular manga at your disposal to really give all your readers a satisfying manga to reread over and over again. You had the chance to make Fairy Tail something really, really great . But you wasted the opportunity. You have thrown it away by being stubborn to the end.

Of course, I'm not saying this out of no reason. There are a lot of good reasons as to why many readers, including me, were sooooo disappointed at how the manga turned out. However, there is one main reason that has been the biggest downfall to Fairy Tail, and that is the formula.

You see, Fairy Tail only ever has the same formula for every single one of its arcs. Meet Enemy, Fight, Get beaten up, .... activate Friendship power and win. That's it. That is the one and ONLY formula Hiro relies on to create each and every arcs. It's so ridiculous to the point that, in the later arcs, everyone could predict the outcome of the fight so easily. "Fairy Tail will win, Fairy Tail will not lose a single member because Natsu and co. will activate their bullshit asspull to overcome the enemy every single fight." This asspull was somehow most present in the damn FINAL ARC. Meet strong enemies, Fight but get pushed back a bit, then a random speech about family, friends, guild... then win. It's unbelievable how the "hyped" fights were all ended this way. This, this right here is what truly killed Fairy Tail.

There are other reasons as well. The characters were too linear and undeveloped throughout the entire story. Although some of them did seem to get development, particularly Gray, it got nullified towards the end of the story as they just became the same, dumb characters they once were. Almost all of them did have potential to become better to even great characters, but nearly all remained too same, and too much of an annoyance throughout the end.
The plot holes are also very much evident. I can't count the number of times a Fairy Tail guild member had an intense fight and just walked the injury off afterwards like nothing. Characters like Erza, Natsu, Gray... they should be out, they should have been unable to move so easily after the "intense" fights. But of course they are able to run around just minutes/chapters after.

Convenient plot devices like some bullshit returns and lame deux ex machinas did not help cover plot holes either. Oh, and did I mention that there are basically no deaths in the story? This should really have gone with the formula part I wrote, but the fact that almost every characters just come back alive or not die after "fatal" blows is infuriating. Hiro, you could have created some quite powerful moments through some deaths, all the while developing characters, but you chose to bring them back just a couple chapters later... sigh...

Another brief thing I want to bring up is the fanservice. Now, I don't mind a bit of fanservice at all, but Fairy Tail has fanservices all over the place, even in places they do not belong at all. Normal, everyday life will have some kind of fanservice and of course, the supposedly "toughest fight of their lives" will have some kind of fanservice. It really gets ridiculous and just makes light of any kind of situation, even though when the tone is supposed to be darker. *cough, Grand Magic Games, cough*

All right, so is there anything good? Anything?

First, there is the art which is very attractive to many people, including me. The character designs are pretty good, the background is nice and detailed, and overall, although a bit similar to One Piece, the art maintains a clean yet detailed complement to the series. Just unfortunate that the nice character designs didn't equal good characters in the end.

There was one particular arc that actually stood out in the midst of mediocre and bad arcs. And that was the 2nd to last (or 3rd to last if you count the Avatar arc) of the series. Without spoiling it too much, the Tartarus arc is without a doubt the best arc of the series. Contrary to just about every other arc, Tartarus actually has some emotion in it. Not only that, it brings some really surprising revelations the fans were asking for years, along with newer powerups for some characters. It still follows much of the same formula as the rest of the series, but there's no doubt that this was the arc I've enjoyed the most.

Chapterwise, The earlier chapters did give some entertainment and couple chapters midway through the story were pretty fun. Also, the last chapter turned out to be fairy good, at least better than the ending in bleach and Naruto.

That's it really. I was going to give this a higher score had the Final arc been as good as the Tartarus arc, but it was an epic failure, one of the worst in the series. I don't really recommend this series to anyone anymore, especially after the travesty that was the Final Arc. So please, if you want to save some time by not reading through something that will infuriate and disappoint you, please step away.
Actually, just go onto youtube and find the music scores for Fairy Tail. The music score is undeniably great, and most of them are worth listening to at least once. Which makes it even more shame as it was wasted on this.

Good job Hiro Mashima. Good job on throwing away a potentially great manga.

I should start by apologizing to all hardcore fans and lovers of “Fairy Tail”, for I am going to be extremely critic in this review (maybe a bit too much).

In “Fairy Tail” we find ourselves in a completely new universe, where magic and fantasy set the rules. Here, in this universe, there live dragons, flying cats and talking monkeys, as many other mystical creatures. We see powerful mages who can control elements such as fire or ice; others who can control their shadow and some who can even “swim” on the ground. There are also another group of mages who call themselves celestial wizards, and whose power resides in summoning mythical creatures with the help of some special keys, called Gate Keys.

It is in the middle of this fantastic world that we meet Lucy, a cute seventeen year old blond girl (and a celestial wizard), whose ultimate dream is to join “Fairy Tail”, one of the most powerful and well known guilds in the whole Fairy Tail Universe.

The story begins when she meets Natsu, a young boy with spiked hair that like her, wins his live as a mage. Natsu is accompanied by a small winged cat and his lifetime companion, Happy. Lucy gets to know that this young mage Natsu is in fact a member of the Fairy Tail and a very powerful fire mage known as “Salamander”. For her great happiness she is invited by him to join them. At the guild she meets a lot of other mages as well as many strange characters. She learns about Natsu’s search for Igneel (a powerful fire dragon), as well as many aspects of Natsu’s past. After this, the story evolves into a series of little adventures and dozens of magic battles.

The plot itself is very poor, there is almost no development and we just have to read adventure after adventure for about 100 chapters, with no progress at all. The fights aren’t also very impressing. But what really misses in “Fairy Tail” besides the poor plot, are the characters.

Natsu is just another Luffy; but a more arrogant and cocky one (which can sometimes be extremely annoying). Lucy plays the role of the girl, who follows the protagonist on shounen series, “hot-blooded” (screaming and weeping all the time), innocent, cute but stupid. Erza is the typical “tsundere” character, harsh on the outside but kind on the inside.

I could keep on like this and describe all the characters, just to show how typical and predicable they are but I would like move to another topic.

Just to show another example of total cliché, we just have to look at the rivalry between Gray and Natsu. We have already thousands of such rivalries in other comics, like the one form Naruto and Sasuke or Soul and Black Star.

But then again, we’re talking about a shounen manga…

This is the main problem of shounen comics; they all apply a similar structure and make use of many identical elements. But they almost every time, manage to arouse the reader’s interest by presenting an interesting plot, a nice animation, great fighting scenes or even grasp the reader’s laugh with a funny sequence. Fairy Tail may contain for most people, all this elements, but it lacks in something where all other successful series of the type succeeded. I’m talking about a very important aspect, the originality!!!

The artist simply picked up all that is cliché, and put it together to form “Fairy Tail”, forgetting to craft something original, which I, as a reader, expected to see from the beginning.

Hiro Mashima did a great job coming up with such a marvelous world of fantasy, but he failed on its presentation.

For the past 20 years, fighting shounen manga/anime have been the most popular and prominent series in the medium. They are what is most closely associated with manga and anime, and most are presumed to be Dragon Ball rip-offs . Fairy Tail is arguably the most infamous example of a generic, long-running shounen series, heavily due to it's fan service, the reactive nature of its protagonists and the lack of tension due to the limited amount of of meaningful conflict. However, while many of these accusations may be true, there are many bright spots about this series.

The story is set in a medieval-ish fantasy where some people can do completely random magic and everyone else is a backdrop. Like One Piece, this setting has the potential to work favourably on some levels, as antagonists can have some very creative powers resulting in unpredictable battle sequences. However, as our hero Natsu's abilities are more variable than Ash's Pikachu's, allowing him to scorch an entire city to the ground one moment and lose to a little girl the next, these battles rarely present the possibility of him losing. The supporting cast, however, have much more interesting battles, with the earlier ones in the series being highly inventive through sheer innovation, regardless of the lack of tension. With many earlier arcs containing imaginative fights and ending on interesting twists, Fairy Tail gets off to a relatively healthy start. However, this inventiveness is worn down over time, as both Mashima and the audience inevitably grow tired of trying to enjoy the story. It's a shame the series is as long as it is, because the beginning has a lot in its favour.

Natsu is a poor main character, having negligible development and encouraging brash, impulsive and occasionally sadistic behaviour. Some of the supporting characters are interesting, such as Gray and Erza, whose character motivations and attitudes are explained early, yet it becomes apparent quite early that Hiro Mashima didn't do much planning for the others, hence most of the tertiary characters have their backstories pulled out of a hat with no foreshadowing or subtlety. Nearly every character is used for fan service, with some moments that could have been intense suffering due to poor angles and ridiculous character designs. They never descend to the level of some of One Piece's characters, as there are far fewer, but they can come close. Lucy, one of the main characters, has become one of the biggest jokes in recent anime, though the hate isn't entirely warranted. She's a simple character, yet full of compassion and support (fan service aside), and at least Mashima can make her relatively likeable most of the time. She knows when to make sacrifices and, given the audience of the manga can be as young as 10, displays some admirable character traits. She grows in strength and, unlike Natsu, becomes a stronger character.

The art of Fairy Tail is clean and consistent, which is a meritorious accomplishment for a weekly shounen. Unfortunately, most of the panels are filled with blank space, displaying a rather disappointing lack of effort in the character designs, and this problem only worsens as the series continues. The main characters' proportions took time to become consistent, as the writer didn't seem to be immediately sure of how they should look (Happy being the most obvious example), but Natsu, Lucy, Gray and Erza are mostly drawn to a satisfying quality. The action, with this being a fighting shounen, is the high point. They're crisp and detailed, with the character movements being easy to follow and punches seeming impactful, even if the don't actually do have any impact on their opponent. The over-utilisation of the two-page format does become bothersome, with nearly every chapter using this at least once, but this isn't too big of a deal.

Overall, in spite of some significant flaws, Fairy Tail knows what it is, embracing it's silly, happy-go-lucky nature rather than trying to be dark and grim just for the sake of it (*cough* DeadmanWonderland *cough*), resulting in a manga that will keep you entertained if you go into it knowing that it doesn't raise the bar. It has some interesting characters, above-average art and is entertaining for a young audience.

When you first get into Fairy Tail, you obviously expect that Hiro Mashima will expand that intriguing world he has created, make interesting characters, mix up some nice comedy and battles and you will have a pretty well-done One Piece copy. Not quite there.

One manga that had immense potential is nowadays one of the worst manga to follow, and I don't know why I am still doing it.

Well, let's start. Mashima shows us what appears to be the story of Natsu, a mage that controls fire that wants to be reunited with his father Dragneel, a dragon. The big problem is that this objective is never moving the plot. The protagonist's dream is ABSOLUTELY IRRELEVANT! Different from OP or Naruto, where the main character's objectives actually matter and make the plot move forward, this does not happen here. Not only that, but Mashima also makes tons of useless chapters just to make us feel touched, and that end up not affecting anything at all. Anything about the plot of Fairy Tail is bellow pathetic.

His art is quite decent, but not anything that stands out, and is quite generic

Mashima's characters are incredibly shallow, with the only one with some kind of development being Erza. All the rest has nothing. Natsu has become my most hated main character of all time. He's annoying, ridiculous and just bad. Lucy exists for the sole purpose of being the fanservice girl, and Gray the fanservice boy. Wendy is the loli that Mashima threw in the story for no reason. Bad antagonists with lack of reason make this even worse.

Last but not least. Despite all these obvious flaws, FT used to be enjoyable. However, as the time passed, jokes stopped being funny, the main cast's fights became "hey, I win because I'm the character, despite the fact that you're 10000000000x times stronger than I am" all the time, and it stopped being enjoyable at all.

Fairy Tail is not a manga worth reading at all. If you are thinking about reading it, stop at this moment and go read One Piece or whatever, because you should avoid this manga

How can I describe Fairy Tail ?
To me, this manga is like a moutain : with ups and downs.

I began to read FT just after I finished Rave, so it was a long time ago. At the beginning, the story seemed good : Natsu was stupid like a lot of shonen heroes, but not too annoying ; Lucy was cute but not totally helpless (and she was a beginner). The plot promised a quest and mysteries but, a few years after, I can't help but think that I wasted my time reading this story.

First of all : there is NO PLOT ! The author himself says in his manga that he improvises since volume 8/10. How can there be a plot, let alone a good one ?
I know that in a lot of shonens, plots are really random but look at Naruto : Kishimoto improvises a lot of things, but we know where the story is going. In FT, there is no such thing.

Secondly : the characters. Natsu IS more and more annoying with each passing chapter (and believe me, it cost me a lot to write that, since I really like him). He wins almost ALL his battles without any kind of logic (except the first ones).
And Lucy... Lucy, after a few chapter, became an "helpless princess who wait for her prince in shining armor (aka Natsu)" and "miss fanservice". Why did she have to be a weak girl? She was a good character at the beginning.
And I do not speak of Erza, Gray, Luxus.... They were interesting at the beginning too but now...

Anyway, this manga disappoint me and I object strongly to those who said that FT is "like One Piece". You can't compare One Piece, which had a plot and good characters, to this disappointment.

A replica of One Piece? Seems like it
Worth reading? Yes

Fairy Tail undertakes another fantasy setting. I have always been skeptic of fantasy anime's as most of them is always obscure, and prone to be uninteresting as the story progresses. But that mistake isnt repeated here in Fairy Tail as Hiro Mashima performs excellent on making his own fantasy world out of thin air.

In this manga, all sorts of mages roam about the world. Some of them even bond together and form a guild that takes requests from people in exchange for money, there are even such guilds that are "dark", who are not among the law-abiding. Fairy Tail is among the hundred of guilds out there. But unlike the general they, to quote their master" do what you think is right". Yes, they do what they believe they should be doing, all for the sake of just finishing a job. Whether its wrecking a house to turning a whole town into a scrapyard, it doesnt matter for them, as long as they get the job done.

Fairy Tail tells the story of Dragonil Natsu, a Fire Mage who was raised by an ancient fire-breathing dragon. and his newfound friend Lucy, a Spirit Mage who's pretty much new on the world of guilds. Together they and the rest of the members of the Fairy Tail guild goes through all sorts of adventures.

At first glance, it may sound lame because of how it follows the monster-of-the-week formula. And yes it does. But dont let that stop you from reading this. Sure it is pretty much follows a shounen formula. But to my surprise, the plot twists were variable. I am constantly impressed on how detailed the arcs were. They start out as something terribly cliche then suddenly turn out to something unexpected. Furthermore, each character is connected to each other and each of their past is no exception either. I love how every character is significant to further progress the story.

The art during action scenes is very impressive. It is comprehensive. You can understand what is happening to the characters and around them. At some climactic parts, I even got around to get my Ipod to listen to some One Piece Soundtrack while I was reading. Surprisingly, the music pays off. It gave a better atmosphere and it invigorated me. Another plus is it doesnt fill the panels with unnecessary captions. But it never forgets to show the reaction of each character in the scene. And most of those reactions are just plain humorous. And each character design is likable, as every male boasts their six-packs and every female shows their cleavage.

Fairy Tail will not fail to deliver its action packed, slapstick comedy to its readers.
If that sounds good to you then dont you even dare to miss out on Fairy Tail.