Anime

Consume This: Fairy Tail

(Consume This is just my recommendations of media to watch/read/listen to etc. of things that I’m familiar with.)

Fairy Tail is a manga about wizards, created by the same man who did Rave Master.  If this doesn’t mean anything to you, don’t worry.  I’ll try to get you through it.  I also want to note that this review/preview is based on the first three volumes of the English printing, as that’s all I’ve picked up so far.

I was originally introduced to Rave Master during the anime’s brief run on Cartoon Network.  I was intrigued – though the anime tends to stray a bit into the less intellectual category (it also reminds me a little of One Piece – the anime anyhow), the concept was solid.  I started to read the manga, which is much better.  This really doesn’t have all that much to do with Fairy Tail, except to illustrate how I picked it up in the first place.  I liked Rave Master, so I picked up Fairy Tail when I heard about it – it’s relatively new.

Fairy Tail refers to a guild of wizards in a world populated with lots of wizards.  The intriguing thing about these wizards is that they seem to be a  little different than standard fantasy-style wizards.  I’m sure there is something outside of my normal experience that is similar to these, but the wizards in Fairy Tail all seem to have their own specific powers.  What I mean is, it’s more like the alchemists in Full Metal Alchemist than it is a regular Dungeons & Dragons style wizard.  I feel as if there is something else that I’ve read or watched that I could compare it with, but it’s just outside my recollection.  As for the guild, it is filled with some of the most powerful wizards in this world, but they are also the most unorthodox or unstable.  The guild tends to have a mixed reputation as a result.

Fairy Tail’s main character is a girl named Lucy, who is a summoner.  She tends to be a little scatterbrained, and as a result is not the most powerful character in the story – especially as compared to the other wizards in the guild.  The other main focus of the manga is a wizard named Natsu, the most powerful man in Fairy Tail.  Natsu is a fire wizard, but I don’t want to go too much into his details because his background is a pretty interesting storyline.  Natsu and the other wizards in Fairy Tail are a little bit of a thorn in the side of the other guilds, and an undercurrent of the story is the conflict between Fairy Tail and the other wizards.

The story so far is a bit episodic, and the only overarching storyline that I’ve picked up on so far is the mysterious origins of Natsu.  That isn’t to say that the stories aren’t interesting, because they are – they just conclude pretty quickly.  As for the art, Mashima has a certain style or flair that really grabs me.  His backgrounds are very detailed, and things happen back there without detracting from the main action.  I’ve been able to pick up most of what’s going on in the fight scenes, and they are detailed.  He also references Rave Master quite a bit – one of the characters from it even makes an appearance in Fairy Tail.  One reviewer I’ve read pointed that out as a negative thing; I happen to like it.

I’m hoping they are planning to make an anime adaptation.  I may write a review of Rave Master, though I think I’ll wait until I pick up the rest of the manga volumes – I only have three of those as well.