Fairy Tail

Story Summary: A girl named Lucy is looking around for a magician guild only to meet up with the main Protagonist Natsu, from here he introduces her to the one and only Fairy Tail.

Story (6): I feel like the beginning of the series was great but as it went on you'll see the constant trend of friendship winning over evil and trust me... it gets annoying. Doesn't help that whenever Fairy Tail has a good and simple story going on and then out of no where an unneeded situation is added on just to make the arc it's on extremely convoluted. The best times when I was reading this manga was when the characters had no villains to fight and they just simply converse with each other, had fun, or both really, honestly if the author slowed down on the constantly adding a situation just for the reason of adding a situation and just focus on the slice of life aspect, then this manga would've turn this 6 upside down to a 9. In short, too much multi-tasking, too quick of a pacing, too many asspulls (I'll get to that in a bit), gets a bit too predictable, and way too many revivals (I get to this also).

Art (9): The art looks really good, if you're accustomed to One Piece character models, then it's basically the same for Fairy Tail.

Characters (5): The main cast of characters are well developed and loveable, e.g Natsu, Lucy, Gray, Erza, Grajeel, Happy, Wendy and a few others of the Fairy Tail members but the supporting characters are just... not too developed and there's way too many to count. The antagonists in this story are also not too developed and feels like as soon as they reach a cult status, they get beaten and forgotten about later on. Plus it doesn't help whenever these characters reach a deathly state, they magically get healed or revived later on, and it happens constantly, and that really robs the story of any suspension it had going on. One more thing, there's going to be a lot of characters that are mention but you're going to forget who they are later on.

Enjoyment (7): There were times when I read like 40 chapters in a row whenever it was exciting and there was times when I put the manga down because it got boring. It's a roller coaster of a ride and up til the ending, and it still felt unfinished. This is just an opinion of mine also, but if you're going to put romantic hints all over the manga, then act up on it, and don't just leave the last chapter with no progression whatsoever making those said hints to mean nothing!

Overall (7): I feel as if Fairy Tail had a following manga coming after this to continue the story, I'll read it with no hesitation, but at the moment... it feels unfinished, most of the arcs needed to be tone down because every arc felt as if Fairy Tail lost, it would've mean the end of the world, and so many unanswered questions that are needed to be discuss. At the moment I won't be rereading this, as much as I love Fairy Tail.

Just something I wanted to say, I felt the one special chapter it had in the beginning where it had if Fairy Tail was a school slice of life manga was way more enjoyable to read and felt that special itself should've been the main premise of what Fairy Tail should've been. Trust me it would've been way better than it was as a predictable Shonen.

I suggest to anyone that is thinking about reading this is to go for it, I loved it even though I bashed it for what it is, which is tough love. <3 I would love to read that school slice of life manga one day though if my dreams ever do come true! ~ Shaney A.K.A 69th Street

CONTAIN SPOILERS (AND MINOR FT 100 YEAR QUEST SPOILERS TOO):

Okay, first of all, I just wanna say...

Bruh, wtf was the last two supposedly "boss fights" lmao

Fairy Tail was such a good series, yeah, was (sorry but this had to be said). The fanservice are always too much for me but I can still mangae through. The major problem that I have with FT is the last few arcs, like:

Mashima (the author) dropped the bomb on us that August is the real son of Mavis and Zeref. Like, that was a really surprising plot twist and I was even excited to know what will happen later BUT after a few chapters Mashima just dissolved August like damn, outstanding move. (Zeref & Mavis didn't even know he existed, press F to pay respect bruh, rip)

Another thing would be Lucy rewriting the book of END, which caused her to slowly succumb to darkness since she wasn't supposed to tamper with the book and had to pay the price. I lowkey expected losing an arm or leg cuz she was really struggling but nay, Gray (has been there all the time) just came swooping in last minute be like: "Oh, I have Ice Devil Slayer magic, I forgot. Here, Lucy, lemme help". Yeah, and that's it. Might as well not include all the dramatic build up if Mashima is just gonna brush it off like that I guess???

Honestly, these have so many potential but nooo, Mashima just brushed those off like it was nothing, it made me feel that he was lowkey rushing the story (or maybe just me, idk)

And don't even get me started with the last two boss fight lol. I mean, at least I can understand the Zeref vs. Natsu one, Natsu won. Technically, he was the only one there, fair enough.

But Everyone vs. Acnologia? I'm sorry, I cannot with that one. Natsu, with the power of friendship, single handedly defeated Acnologia. I was like, bruh, isn't he overpowered at this point? Nay, in the 100 year quest, he lost to one of the Dragon Eaters (human). Does that mean the dragon eaters was stronger than Acnologia?? Because they're dragon eaters?? Mashima, I am confused lol.

But then again, I enjoyed the art a lot. Definitely preferred Mashima's new art style more and the way he draws the scenery in FT is as beautiful as always. So, kudos to that.

All in all, I'm just confused with the last few arcs, it just felt like the hype was building so well but was later(in last minute) being brushed away like nothing.

But at least the story still flows, so all in all a 7/10. (Lowkey miss FT though, believe it or not this was actually the first anime series I follow, so yeah)

SOME SPOILERS BELOWWWWWWWW

Although I gave this manga a slightly high score, I was vastly disappointed in the end. (I'll try to keep this brief).

I was really enjoying this series. I just randomly found the anime and watched all of it till the end of Season 2 or the 2014 version. I was so into it, I wanted to continue into the manga. I kept reading, and reading, and I was some what enjoying it.
Expanding the world with the Guild member's new powers, and the introduction of some pretty cool characters wasn't that bad. And then I reached a point where I realized, this really sucks. I enjoyed the series so much in the beginning with arcs that involved the main crew's backstory and such like Gray and Erza. And even after that the plot was getting good. Then the end, was just honestly very bad. There were so many things introduced at the end, and I felt like the series could just keep going on for a while, and then it just ended. They beat Acnologia so easily, and by they I mean Natsu.

I loved the series, but the ending was definitely rushed and horrible. I do look forward to Hiro Mashima's future work and hope to not be as disappointed.

So this is my FT Review, you may not like it but this is what I think about somethings in Fairy Tail, I like the Manga (some parts of)

Story - 3
I give it 3 for simple reasons, Hiro Mashima created a wonderfull word, but coulnd't use it very well, and somethings became so repetitive.
The work has many cliches (not that I do not like them), but they do exaggerate in certain aspects. The exaggerated protagonism is one of the things that makes the script of the work a piece of shit.
Although it has so much shit, this does not stop you from enjoying the work, I think that this power that works has despite having many bad points, to make you like it, is something fantastic.

Art - 9
Nothing to complain about art, Hiro Mashima did a good job on manga art, I liked his drawings.


Character - 10
Characters that are easy to sympathize with, both the main characters and some antagonists, I highlight Happy and Wendy as the kind and easy characters to love in the play, and the Zeref Antagonist, as the most charismatic villain I have ever seen in a play, does not Has no way to end up liking him, even though they are the Chief Villain, at least he looked so.

Enjoyment - 3
I like it, I hate it.
why I give it 3, for one simple Reason, my Profile name is Zeref, now is easy to figure out why I give it 3?
Zeref Dragneel
A badass character, easy to like, Overpower, intelligent. With a dramatic and sad past. And that the history of the work revolved much around him, even before making his appearance in the work.
Hiro had it all, He could have made a masterpiece that would remain in the minds and hearts of all for thousands of years. The wonderful world he created, the incredible characters he created, and a villain who would open the door to an unexplored world in the work, was not at all exploited.
And the worst of it was the end he gave to Zeref Dragneel.
I'm really pissed at the end of Fairy Tail.
The work was already in decline, but I did not expect that it would ruin the vision of my favorite character.
He did not know how to use it, and in the end, it gave a very cliché ending to him.
I am full of anger, and this reflects in my view of the whole work.
I feel like I wasted time and effort following something.
And I know it was not in vain, but I feel like it was.
I did not expect Hiro would do this to Zeref.
I do not care about the rest of the characters (except for Wendy and Happy as the main characters), Zeref was the reason I kept reading the play.
Was the reason that even after disgust behind heartbreak, I did not stop to accompany the work.

Overall - 6
I like it, But the end was not to my liking nor 1%.
Without Zeref , bad end to Zeref.

When I first started with this whole series I was in love. This was one of the first series I had ever read/watched. And I loved every second of it. I continued to love this manga until it reached it's final arc. This series was fantastic until it hit that point, after that it was filled with so many terrible cliches. While everything had been full of nakama powerups none of that seemed as bad as this.
At any rate this series is still enjoyable to read/watch, it's definitely not the worst series out there. I would still recommend this to anyone who likes the feels and a good laugh.

It's 3am by time, but boy do i have a lot of thoughts on fairy tail.

I'm gonna make this as simple as i can.

While the plot can be incredibly cheesy, and the writings a bit of a mess sometimes, and the quality decreases after a few hundred chapters, its a really enjoyable read!

positive aspect is the characters. While not all of them are equally well written, theyre incredibly charming, and the main character, Lucy, is my number 1 favorite character of all time. The powers are interesting as well, and overall the universe is really interesting, and i was even in the tumblr ft fandom for a year or so.

The plot is interesting, and easy to follow. It takes a turn for the darker at one point, but it simply makes it more interesting for a bit, and a overall dynamic story.

Now, here's the bad part. When the writing decreases in quality, it decreases a lot. suddenly natsu is overpowered, there are demons, and while there is a lot of romance in the series, a lot of it is, well.. very badly written (lookin at gray and juvia specifically, but theres also another couple that i wont mention). at the end of ft, it has basically turned into pure shit, and all you're left with is a bunch of wasted potential due to a lazy writer.

Oh, and theres a lot of unnesecary sexualisation of women, even kids! thankfully its only during the last arc or so its prominent and actually noticable, but its still there.

Overall, its enjoyable, but the end of this manga is just a mess, and i didnt even finish it because i was tired of the stuff mashima pulled. the good outweighs the bad, despite all my complaints, but by god is the last arc shitty.

Very Minimal Spoiler

My wife stumbled across Fairy Tail fist, and after hearing her laugh multiple times, and her talking about what I was missing, I joined her in watching Fairy Tail.

The anime focuses on the team of Natsu, Lucy, Gray, Happy, Erza, and Wendy. However, you come to know a great deal about the supporting cast, and often times will find yourself wishing that the story would follow some of the other guild members from time to time since they are well developed, but more would be wonderful.

Overall, Fairy Tail is a shounen that is technically battle focused, but has many comedic elements, and for the older crowd has some really heavy/emotional moments that make you wonder if the young male audience in Japan is more in touch with their feelings. Yes, there is a load of fan service, though frequently is a point of comedy that the character point out... of course some is due to questionable camera positioning, and wardrobe destruction.

I would have rated this show a 9 or 10 if it wasn't for the ending in the manga (not released in the anime...yet). As other reviews have mentioned, the end just fizzles. The potential was there, the set up was doing really well, but in the end, it turned into a very predictable - hippy-esc solution to the problem. It felt rushed, and just didn't satisfy.

My favorite arcs to rewatch are the battle of Fairy Tail, and the Grand Magic games. Still entertaining, and, in the case of the Grand Magic Games, would have been a lovely running event in the series.

Fairy tail

I started reading the manga when I was still "somewhat" liking the series as it paused after the Tournament Arc. I started with the "Tower" Arc which at the time was the first story-relevant arc with Gerard.

There are no deviations from the manga from the anime adaptation, i.e. the adaptation is at least true to the original. I can't say whether this is good or not. Because the manga would need a lot of mending.

If you let yourself through the old chapters, you can clearly see that the Mangaka had kept fan service extremely limited and only used it for minimal jokes with Lucy. He now uses it everywhere to compensate for his mistakes and lack of quality. The same is true with the humor. It's not the comedy of the year, but it had some amusing approaches and scenes at first. What turned out to be a forced rambling until the later Arcs.

The main story of Fairy Tail didn't sound promising from the start. It was this typical "One Goal" cliche, which should symbolize the motivations of the protagonist without any creativity. The fact that Natsu was looking for his father was generally forgotten by the chapters and he only took it up again in the Tartaros Arc, until then he didn't seem to care. The actual background story of Fairy Tail only became apparent towards the finale. Also the background of the antagonists and their motives. Basically, nothing happened until Chapter 400. Only the monotonous fights against opponents were repeated and the process was always the same. And you shouldn't expect positive words, because the finale was completely messed up. It even seemed that his own mangaka hardly felt like it anymore, since he had already been working on his new project on the side.

The drawing style isn't bad, honestly, I liked the drawing style and the presentation. However, it is daunting how unbalanced his creativity is for male and female characters. The men looked mostly individual, especially the antagonists and their shapes. The women, on the other hand, looked like the simplest copy and paste. Only their hairstyles differed.

The characters themselves ended up being a disappointment.
Natsu has never been my favorite, but somehow I could live with him. But the Mangaka decided to treat him like a hollow nut until the end, who gets nothing but aggression and talks about the power of friendship. Gray, on the other hand, was much more of a protagonist. Even if his character had just as little depth of character.
Lucy was the definition of fan service and a failure of a "weak to strong" protagonist. The magic she had learned and obtained was to prove useful later on, but it backfired. She had nothing but fan service.
Erza was by far my favorite at the beginning of the manga. She had a dominant and at the same time nice charisma, a lot of armor, different shapes, and weapons. Her personality was okay too. Now she is just a fan service grenade that is no good, has no personality and wiggles around with her double-D breasts, and is naked for half the screen time.
The remaining supporting characters are not worth mentioning, apart from Gajeel and Gerard. Which two of the most important characters have been in character development. At least the will was there, even if the implementation failed here. Laxus, however, was a disgrace. I don't know what the mangaka was trying to do with him, but his whole existence was built on a bad joke that didn't make any sense. Likewise, his character development was a complete waste of time.

Most of the antagonists all looked interesting and cool, but that was it. They could hardly have been emptier and flatter. According to the scheme, strong and threatening but hollow in terms of content.

The magic in the work disappointed me the most. Fairy Tail built on the magic/fantasy setting from the start. And yet you got to see less creativity here than in 20 minutes of the first Harry Potter film. The characters use magic with no approach or system and then mostly monotonous grits like "Avatar elements" and some small "Esper skills" and that was it. Maybe there is a dragon or a talking cat and tada, the magical world is ready.

I don't even want to start talking about the power of friendship. Especially the Finale Arc with the Zeref / Acnologia fight took the whole thing to an unimaginable level. As if this had already become a One Punch Man parody.


In the end, Fairy Tail is a work that had potential, massive potential. Unfortunately, the creator seemed to be too inexperienced or disinterested.

Story -3
Art -6
Character -3
Enjoyment -4
Overall -3

The start of the story is very promising and enjoyable but after a certain point it just becomes unbearable to read due to how shallow and senseless the characters and the story becomes, it just is bad, at least the art is nice, bad design since most the chars look the same but its drawn well i guess.
it is enjoyable if you can turn off your brain, watch the anime cause at least the openings are good.
very poor usage of romance as well, terrible usage of conflicts, everything is just
resolved with the power of friendship and because the main char is well, the main char, but only some of the time, most times he is as weak as a bug

Hey I ended up writing a longer one, so

tl;dr: if you're looking for something good, don't read fairy tail, if you're just bored and curious, then just read until you get bored, then just drop it, it does not get better afterwards. If you've already read FT, you didn't really like it and you want to pat each other's back about how similar and right our opinions are, then feel free to scroll down, you may also get a small erection.

DISCLAIMER: I swear a lot and there's a lor of irony and sarcasm in this review so yeah don't take me too seriously (the positive sides are mostly genuine tho).
Also I can't be bothered to grammar check this review/spell check it/re read it to see if it even makes sense, so please don't get triggered

Oh Fairy Tail, what a rough run it was. Guys I'm about to write a pretty long one so well, let's get going.

I first got into FT back when I first got into anime, it wasn't a long time ago and back then I was very new to the medium, back then I only knew classic shonen anime like One Piece, DBZ, Naruto and so on, but as a newbie, I got interested into this one character a friend of mine had as a profile picture on facebook, a guy with pink hair, wearing a scarf and with a pretty cool looking tattoo on his shoulder.
So past the cringe of me thinking that he was the main character of this one Bleach anime I heard about a while back, I figured out that it was actually Fairy tail and it already had quite a bunch of episodes already, so as a bored high school student with a lot of time to waste, it all started.

In the beginning, I really liked the series, the cool-steampunky-fantasy world was a cool setting, I had just seen FMAB and felt like this was the shit I wanted, just with a ton more episodes, let's go! What can go wrong?
It was all cool at the start, the guild felt like a really fun place, people were drinking and shouting all the time and it felt like there was a cool chemistry between all these characters, It kinda reminded me of the chemistry in one piece (nowhere near as good of course), but it was something I nonetheless apreciated. Few weeks of bingewatching passed by, I loved the Jellal (I still like calling him Gerard cuz come on) arc, I liked the Grey flashback and I also really enjoyed the Natsu vs Gajeel fight. I wouldn't really mind the ''power of friendship'' asspulls too much, it was annoying, but I just accepted it and went ahead.

It was after some episodes that I ran out of episodes and started reading the manga, bingereading until I reached the end and started reading FT weekly, and that's when the problems with the series started showing up. You see, when you binge read/watch a series, you often tend to miss out details and many instances of narrative failures, which you get to instantly notice and reflect upon while reading weekly, especially if you then check out reviews and opinions in forums/image boards/reddit/whateveryoulike, and that's when the downfall started for me.

I had a very similar experience with bleach and in a way Naruto, all three of these mangas made the one I consider the number one mistake in a battle shonen manga: fucking up the power scaling.
You all probably saw millions of videos where people explain why One Piece and Hunter x Hunter are better written series than the above mentioned ones and a frequent theme is the power scaling problem. While Bleach and Naruto started messing up with it by the end of the series, Fairy tail managed to fuck up right in the beginning (pretty much)!!
Now, power scaling is not everything in battle shonen anime and manga (we'll get to that later), but since battle is in the genre title and since most of the hype is focused on battles, it sets the most basic rules to follow in order to have more enjoyable fights. If you mess that up, you are creating loopholes in your own story, therefore losing all credibility in your fights!

So conclusion number 1: There is absolutely no credibility in FT fights and there's no real tension within the fights, since you already know that your expectations will be totally shat on by the power of friendship and Natsu eating like another element.

The second point I want to bring across is another huge mistake Mashima made, which is not setting up a real goal and the lack of consequences of the events in each arc. What does Natsu wanna do even? Meet up with a dragon? how will he ever need to become stronger or to become a better person to do so? literally the show could have ended at episode 1 with him just chilling and waiting for the chance to meet him (of course this plot line gets closed up by the end in a fashion for which my liking goes beyond how much time you have to waste reading this review so I won't discuss that). What I'm saying is that, just like bleach, the plot doesn't really go anywhere, by chapter like 400 (note that I'm throwing around random numbers, this series is not worth more time researching than all I've wasted reading it) we know pretty much the same about igneel as we knew at chapter 1! How am I supposed to enjoy a bleach-like monster-of-the-week formula translated to a villain-of-the-year without cool swords!!?? Bleach ultimately died because of that and so did FT.
The second part of the same mistake is consequences. I'm not going to explain this too much, cuz I'm sure if you read the whole thing I can see you nodding ''oh yes, consequences, that's right'', and if you haven't read the series yet, just go watch/read something that has real consequences you can feel, like the sbaody/amazon lily/impel down/marineford saga in one piece or FMA , steins gate, death note or anything that's critically acclaimed like that. Basically having established that in FT characters can't die, all enemies become allies and best buds eventually, if the guild is destroyed they can just rebuild it and the world won't explode cuz there's no dragon balls to bring everyone back to life, non of the fights have any tension and most arcs just feel totally useless, kinda like a dragged out one punch man fight but without the satire and the comedy. So it's shit.

So conclusion number 2: The fights are meaningless, there's no positive and/or negative tension driving the plot forward and each arc just feels like the same soup of ideas that get stirred around until they are all eventually funeled through the same conclusion of the power of friendship.

My third point that I wanna make is that 99% of the characters introduced are completely pointless/bland/niche (like that one proprietary screwdriver you used that one time to build that one thing you broke few years back, so now it's been chillin in your toolbox for like 5 years with no use). At the top of my head I can think of like very few characters I really liked: Mistogan, Gerard, Gajeel, Ichiya, the black cat that chills with gajeel, shanks, mira (just cuz that savage demon took me by surprise) and maybe like ultear? Idk iirc but she seemed kinda cool right? Everyone else is either just the copypasta of various different tropes or just nothing at all, like who the fuck is cherya and who even remembers her? Boy why can I instead remember clearly everything about Lt. Fullbody from one piece who only showed up like half a time in the series? Mashima my man your characters suck!

so conclusion 3: Characters are mostly garbage.

Now that I've made 3 conclusions that makes it sound like this is the worst series ever and you may wonder why I'm still giving it a 6, I'll blast you with some more opinions and your question is still not going to be answered, in fact it gets more confusing:

The one thing I HATE the most about FT, the one thing I can't stand at all, is that, even though it had an interesting premise, with a cool fantasy world, with dragon slayers, keys to alternate dimensions, magic circles, an unknown history to learn about and potentially interesting backstory of cool looking characters that could have been interesting, Mshima decides to waste our time focusing more on boobs, stupid shipping and shitty fanservice meant to rise little preteen penises, while totally forgetting that if he wrote an interesting story, he'd probably also get the same amount of reads if not more! Every time a new chapter came out my thoughts were like ''why am I wasting precious time out of my limited lifespan to watch boobs bounce? Is this 545 chapter story really just a pretext for Mashima to achieve his middle school dream of drawing 10k pages of boobs? Is it just like how Andy Warhol drew a dick and sent it to the moon?(check it out btw it's really funny)''. The whole thing felt like a waste of time. For some reason, I swear bleach didn't feel like one, DBZ didn't, Naruto didn't. A manga doesn't have to be perfect to be enjoyable.

So in conclusion, this is why I'm overall giving FT a 6 and not a 1:
FT, having done all the wrong in the world, still has accompanied me through my initial phase of getting into anime and I definitely enjoyed many moments, this series is mostly terrible, but not 100% terrible, there are a lot of cool moments, especially in the beginning when you haven't caught on on what bullshit pillars this series stands on. Some characters do look really cool (call them generic or whatevs, but gerard's tattoo is very *cough* Dragon *cough* badass, natsu's design is not too bad, ichiya is fucking funny, the girls are all pretty much eyecandy (erza looks like makise kurisu which is a plus imo), the exceeds are cute, certain moves like Gerard's or mistgun's, natsu's, shanks', laxus', or the weird guy with runes were cool, certain gags are fucking hilarious, like I rember one with happy and erza when she's heartbroken that got me laughing for days.

Overall I'd like to thank fairy tail for showing me what's wrong in anime and in shonen especially, because of you I get to appreciate one piece even more and I'm so glad you actually concluded in a somewhat less-rushed-than-bleach way.

I hope for the best for Mashima and hopefully all the money you made will be enough to sustain you forever, otherwise if you need more, please just make a decent series next time, there are countless good series, just copy elements from all of them and you'll be fine (the good ones this time tho). JK no disrespect, you've worked hard for 11 years, enjoy life.

Cheers everyone, for the end of another pillar of shonen anime and manga (this one was a pillar of salt, pillar of sand, though), let us all hope that the new generation learns from the mistakes of the old one. But keep this in mind you shonen manga readers and writers: no matter what you believe/do/think, one piece will always be shitting on you from the heights of heaven, where Goda resides.

Peace.

Fairy Tail was just one of those works that had a fantastic premise, but slowly trudged along into the path of another cliche shounen manga.

• Story •

My biggest problem with the story is that there is simply waaaaay too much "nakama power". Frequent shounen readers will get what I'm talking about - in the midst of a difficult, risky battle, at the climactical point where the protagonist is seemingly about to be defeated, the author goes ahead and gives them a power-up without any logical basis on the premise of "I CAN'T LOSE HERE!!!!11!1! I'M GONNA PROTECT MY FRIENDS!!1!1!1!1!!1!1!1!1!1!1", expertly emerging victorious from the fight to go and save said nakama.

Almost every fight includes some variation of this trope. And if it doesn't, it's just an OP fight with the opponent getting one-shotted, thereby showing the protagonist's power.

Another aspect I'm iffy with, sort of related to this, is that most of the 'good guys' do not die. This isn't a problem in itself, and there are many manga that execute this nicely, but Fairy Tail.. ugh. I can't say more, because of spoilers, but it's up to you to decide

As I said, the premise was good. Sure, it's not exactly unique (a lot of other shounen share this type of plot, after all) but it had potential. Magic. Guilds. A decently-built world. It could have been something, but again, any hint of that something was gradually lost as the story progressed.

One last thing that a lot of people complain about - fanservice. Yeah, I guess. It has gratuitous nudity and sexual themes that detracts from the storyline. It wouldn't be much of a problem (or maybe it still would to some) if it wasn't diminishing the plot, but it is.

• Art •

One of the few positive things about this. While the art is nothing special, it certainly is adequate and, in my opinion, well-drawn. Mashima has a distinct art style and I believe it suits the story.

• Character •

Ugh. So, female protagonist: weak, needy eyecandy character that always requires other people's help. Male protagonist: dense, simpleminded, hotheaded, loves to fight, OP. Rival character: dark hair, seemingly colder than the MC, sometimes dark and brooding, admits friendship in the end. Hmm, isn't this starting to sound familiar? (Oh, I don't know - One Piece, Bleach, Naruto, KHR, insert almost any other shounen here.)

So basically, yeah, the characters are just cliched tropes that have been tried and tried again in this world of manga. Character development? Hmm. There's certainly a lot, but I wouldn't call it any different from the normal "bad guy turning good guy", "one of the protagonists' backstory revealed, thereby overcoming the challenge together and strengthening friendship in the process" 'developments' that you see often.

• Enjoyment •

Now, I was rather young when I started Fairy Tail. Around eight or nine, in fact. At that point I was incapable of thinking very much rationally, so suffice it to say that I enjoyed this a lot. I read it again a few times though, and slowly it dawned on me just how much of a trainwreck this actually is.

• Overall •

To summarize, this is an overrated, cliched shounen manga that's filled with nakama power, fanservice, static characters, and various other overrated, cliched shounen tropes. What it's NOT filled with is a good plot, good character development, or just, in general, something enlightening, something more. I don't think I'd really recommend this to anyone, but I guess if you're just looking for mainly fight scenes and a lot of action (and bewbs), you'll be able to get through this without many complaints.

i dont hate it... first time reading it was good..
A nice story... the way its story develop just great...

But then the pacing got to quick... No character development...
Suddenly getting a new power while fighting an enemy who was winning...

The plot have so many holes... The guild master lose to an enemy... but suddenly the main char come and defeat it... I thought the status was that the guild master was stronger??

It was all over the place for me... the plot armor was bullshit... and the story escalated too fast~~

From a fun enjoying manga with lot of emotion... suddenly turned to a manga which was not planned well...

It was seem like the author was in a hurry with the story... like he wanted to finish the story quick?? Why??

Well, how can I start with this review...

Sorry, but this review will have some minor spoilers, you won't even notice then.

Well, Fairy Tail is basically a manga of the genre shounen and ecchi. And that's basically what he has. It has two big plots and some "cool fight scenes".

Story:
  Probably there is no story that can be more predictable than Fairy Tail. If you think for a minute, even if you are only in the opening chapters, you can already understand how the story unfolds. The story is basically focused on a wizard guild called "Fairy Tail", and we can say that by certain arcs of history, the guild as a whole is really the main character, having a certain variety of characters, with different personalities, but in the reality you're mistaken, everyone there is the same. As I said, a guild of "wizards," it means that history will pass in a world where there is some kind of magic system, with rules and things like that to make the world something that can be at least tangible, realistic. But in that case, the main tool of magic has no kind of rule, no kind of empediment, things literally happen because they have to happen. As an example: We have a fight between two characters, one of them has the level of power 10, the other has the level of power 4, however is weakened from other battles, so his level is around 2, but he has a lot more willpower than the level 10 character. He wins. Like a manga about adventure, action, shounen, it does not create a minimal reality nor a logical system that works. A little fight between two characters may not seem very important, but then let's go for a more gigantic example, how about the state of a country? A country that lost a gigantic number of soldiers in a total onslaught, lost its most important and powerful mages, and lost its emperor. This country has lost all its structure, and what happened to it? NOBODY CARES. We just have to forget about it and remember that all the main characters were happy in the end. Seriously, even the villain (who from villain had nothing, he had been cursed to kill those he loved who were around him) who theoretically would have died appears at the end, without any explanation. It really should be all the power of friendship.

1/10

Art:
Nothing to complain about the art of this manga, it manages to keep up with the gigantic number of chapters that exist (by the way, how do these long series mangakas keep up? Seriously, it's very difficult). My only irritation is the ecchi style she has, but I can accept this because there is a lot of ecchi in the Japanese market, and a success with this is not so improbable.

6/10

Character:
There are a wide variety of characters in Fairy Tail, but most have the same base - I like my family, my friends, my guild, but I'm mean to the others, until I get punched with a fire and start to be equal to the Fairy Tail guild. No character has a personality other than this, only a five-minute fight can change the whole character from being a villain and almost killing his relatives and out of nowhere save them and die. But neither must have died, nobody dies in that shit, they all come back.

1/10

Enjoyment:
  I think it gave you to understand that it was not very good, it is not. I laughed at every chapter that went from the mediocrity that this manga is, and I forced myself to go to the end just to see if I was wrong, but sadly, i was not.

2/10

Overall:

2/10

And I think that's it.

Why i even read this till the end... i should have stopped.

Forgive me, this is my first review, but I'm gonna try it.

Fairy Tail was one of the first mangas I decided to read. I got hooked on the anime in when I was in high school. A lot of people complain about the plot and how repetitive it was, but I personally enjoyed it and didn't get too bored. Most series have that heroic idiot saves the day against powerful enemy.

The first few chapters were similar to the anime, slow and hard to get into. After I finally was able to get into it I really enjoyed the series. I really enjoyed Erza, Gray, Gajeel, and many others. I did feel like the two main characters, Natsu and Lucy were not as detailed in personality and history despite being main characters. Other characters had complex background stories and complex relationships, at least more so than those two. The story held my attention and at times made me emotional but this changed after the grand magic games arc.

The story had a lot of potential at this point! There were so many options in romance, friendship, and thrilling fights. Unfortunately, it seemed very rushed. The story was a lot of new details and everything about it was just way too fast paced. Honestly, I know Mashima released that he was creating a new manga series and I felt that he rushed the ending of Fairy Tail to start a new series. I was actually pissed when it ended. It was a huge disappointment, abruptly ending without tying the last few threads in. There was way too much implied but never really developed. No confirmation on relationships, guild state, or pretty much anything else.

Overall I enjoyed the manga originally, but was disappointed by the end. Somehow, the anime was better than the manga, which I rarely say.

Fairy tail is your average battle shonen. Its problem is that after a while its gets painfully boring. All the arcs are the same:
1) new OP enemies appear
2) Main cast is unable to face them
3) Deus ex machina/old enemy turned friend appears/Power up based on power of friendship appears
4) Victory until the next (identical arc>)

I know this is the main formula for all battle shonen manga but Hiro Mashima does nothing to mask it and keep the interest high.
On the character's side, the initial design is interesting, but there is almost no evolution or growth at all for the main cast and even when you think there is some change, then you see the very same character who should have been changed acting exactly like he did at the start.
All in all, as a no-brainer action work, it does its job but it pales in comparison to other manga.

The main reason I like this manga is the latest arc: Alvarez Empire.

This arc just makes it so worth it to read so many manga chapters/watch so many episodes. It explains so much from the past arcs, which made the beginning of Fairy Tail go on... and on.. and on....
But now I understand what Hiro Mashima was trying to do. Show off details in the smallest way and explain it later. Chapter 465 was probably what got me REALLY going. The fangirling was just too much hue.

What I don't like about it? WAY too long. This is the pattern: Plot->Little break->Plot. I'm sure anyone would just drop the manga right away if it just kept going on and on. So.. ye.

Overall, 10/10.

Fairy Tail Is The Best Manga I Have Ever Read.
The Art Is Outstanding and the music in the anime is brilliant.
The character design is epic but there a some tiny problems but they dont
stop me from reading the lovely story.
I love the characteristics of all the main characters and their traits and
personalitys fit their style. The characters are memorable and lovable.
My favourite characters are Natsu, Erza, Zeref, Lucy and then Gray.

Hiro Mashima did an excellent job and I Love his other manga Rave Master.
I have finished the anime.Out of all the Dragons Igneel is my favourite and Igneels Death Made me cry but the show was excellent and well made. I Basiclly Loved all of the Openings.

I Think This manga will appeal to anyone who enjoys fantasy.
10/10

I remember watching the anime ever since I was in highschool. After caught up in the anime, I immediately read the manga and it was epic. I teared up while reading the last page of the manga because it was my first manga. Now for my review:

Dunno if it will be one of the greatest manga of all time or not but it has an interesting plot from beginning to end. Character development, action and comedy is good to keep us entertained. The story is not so fresh, you may find other similar plot to other manga. The manga is good to read for magic genre fans and to those who can't wait for the anime coming in 2018.

Hiro Mashima is a great storyteller. He can make likeable characters from enemies which in my opinion not much manga creator or artist can do that. I hope he can make a sequel to this amazing manga.

Good bye Fairy Tail universe. It has been a fun ride.

Fairy tail was been my favorite anime, I watched it from when it started airing.
• Let me say this if you want to watch fairy tail, drop it at the end of tenroujima arc, that would feel like a far superior ending the series than its real ending. Or you could stop at season 1.
• This review is for both manga and anime
• The first season of fairy tail is actually really good. [ the phantom guild arc, oracion seis arc, tenrou arc were actually good arse shounen arcs.

• From season 2 onwards it is full of ecchi fan service [gets out of hand] and the power of friendship, which season 1 also has but from S2 onwards it gets out of hands
• S3 or the final season is mostly a single arc, the spriggan 12 arc – which is one of the absolute trash arc in shounen, it is a war between two kingdom arc [perfect for an ending] but the way it was written or played out makes me think why did I watch or read it to end, cause nothing which kept me to watch it resolved at the end or is done by cheap and laziest way. The final arc is the epitome of the power of friendship where every win is through that. There were some fake deaths which after a while become really annoying and felt like power levels in this is trashier than DRAGON BALL [I mainly meant DBS].

• Story 5 Mediocre
It had its glory in the previous season, but season 3 is complete joke compared to the first season.

• Art 6 Fair
The art in the anime is so low budget. S1 art was somewhat better, form s2 onwards they added some kind of brightness filter, and s3 we have fight scenes done on a PowerPoint.

• Sound 10 Outstanding
Takanashi’s osts drive the show. I still love the music in this anime.

• Character 7 Good
There are some good characters with developments, but I don’t think their growth mattered at the end of the show, so if you don’t watch the ending or at least the final few episodes I think they are really good characters. I mentioning some characters like ERZA, JELLAL, GAJEEL, GRAY. Among them ERZA become a trash character at the last arcs, instead for every arc, hiro finds a way to relate what’s happening to LUCY, and have some fan service for no reason from her.
• Enjoyment 6 Fair
The enjoyment I had on this show decreased considerably as the series progressed.
• Overall 6

(just for the record, this is a slight alteration of my anime review)

Ah, gotta love the masses and their love for mediocrity. Fairy Tail (FT) is from the pilot chapter/episode an average shonen series and yet it is loved by many for being just that. I guess rehashing notions from Naruto or One Piece can make a success out of anything. Because just like those shonens, FT has superpowers, adventure and a big cast of colourful and eccentric characters that occasionally get focused upon and fleshed out. Nothing we haven’t seen before but, hey, if it worked before why wouldn’t it work again?

It is hard to analyze or criticize anything in this show without feeling like I am just stating the obvious or just describing a different shonen. For to be honest, there is approximately zero innovation in this work and it just walks upon the path others paved before it. It can work alright but it will never stand out on its own; it will forever be just a rehash of already established formulas that have been attributed to others at least a decade earlier. Oh well, I might as well make some further analysis just for the heck of it.

- The art is ok for its genre but the setting lacks characterization. It doesn’t seem to stand out from the lot like others do, which again makes it hard to be remembered in the long run. There is no theme in the FT world and it passes by as a generic fantasy realm. The character figures are again nothing memorable; most are almost counterparts of people from other shonens, so again it has a problem being remembered for anything.
- Another thing that annoyed me is how they placed as cameo Plue, a creature from the same mangaka’s earlier work titled Rave Master. Now what did that manage to accomplish other than annoying the average fan? Rave Master was a completely generic, aimless, boring, and incomplete series and you can easily see they are reusing the same character archetypes from there. Is that their way of telling us even clearer that they are rehashing other works INCLUDING their own? That sounds really tasteless to me. I hear he was placed there to please the fans of Rave Master but I don’t believe that. Who still likes that boredrome?

The story is completely generic stuff and easily the weakest part of the show. It plays out like some MMO game, where you join a guild and take seemingly irrelevant to one another missions, while at the same time leaving a few openings for character colorization and world-building. It all plays out quite childishly and there isn’t even an objective for anyone in this show; they just take missions and hope to find something that interests them in the process. For example, we know Natsu is looking for a dragon but did he actually look for him? No, he is just fooling around in his guild and takes part in whatever mission comes along.

The scenario ends up driving the characters and not the other way around; and even that happens in a bad way since the heroes are not actively doing anything. They just fool around until a villain or a mission appear out of nowhere (no foreshadowing at all) and just decide to take part in the whole thing for money or to save some girl. That makes the protagonist and his gang completely boring since they have no goals in life to go for without some world threat standing in the way. Heck, they would probably be sleeping all day long if they had no obstacles.

Although many story elements lead to character immersion, that still makes the plot being predictable early on, with no interesting plot twists or memorable events. Some character’s past is revealed, some old enemies of him appear, some sinister plan of mass destruction takes place, and then the heroes storm in and win with the power of friendship. Thank you very much; I have seen it all before and in a more mature form.

The cast is eventually the meat of the show, since the plot is mostly about somebody’s past creating problems in the present. This way you feel like everything is revolving around them and that they are not irrelevant to the main problem of each arc. Some of them count as cool and developed to pay attention to but don’t try to find unoriginal characters because you will be disappointed. They are all following a rather typical demeanour but at least they do it right to the most part. There is variety in personalities and powers and most have a rather basic but sufficient backdrop to work with. And don’t expect for any drastic character development either, since most of whatever the character learn and seem to wizen them in one arc, it is immediately forgotten in the next. It always was about the power of friendship. To hell with strategy, planning ahead, or even paying attention to your injuries. Just storm in and win against all odds with the almighty POWER OF FRIENDSHIP! I MUST PROTECT MY FRIENDS! FRIENDSHIP MAGICALLY HEALS MY GRAVE WOUNDS! FRIENDSHIP BRINGS EVEN THE DEAD BACK TO LIFE!

So let me make clear that the series is aimed at younger teens; even younger than the target audience for Naruto or Bleach. There is a lot of silliness (more than the usual) and violence is really basic and mostly bloodless. Plus, no show which aims to be a bit serious would have a mascot in the form of a cheery blue flying cat named… Happy. So be warned that it is very hard to be excited when everything looks so easy going and silly; the boldest thing going around them is the fan service around the girls and even that is completely basic.

So is it a good show? No, but it’s a good time killer if your expectations are low and you are not older than 15 with prior experience to other famous shonen. I doubt it will leave any mark in anime history or be remembered as anything more than a rehash of other works. It does it right but at the same time it lacks the unique feeling every show that aims to be loved needs. It is indeed nothing but a fairy tale; shallow and for little kids who still tolerate the power of friendship is the most awesome thing ever. But it can be enjoyable just for that.