So how many people out there want to admit that being a fairy just may be the most awesome thing ever? I’ll assume very few people raised their hands. Well what if I told you that one of these fairies was raised by a dragon and can eat fire? If that doesn’t raise an eyebrow for you then I can’t help you. Fairy Tail is a work by Hiro Mashima who is also known for another popular series known as Rave Master. Since 2009 Fairy Tail has taken the shounen world by storm, in what was originally planned to be a 48 episode series has just recently released its 125th episode; and thank God for that popularity. So lets take a quick look at what the series has to offer us:

Story:

Our story begins in the harbor city of Hargeon, where we witness two travelers a pink haired man who seems to be suffering from severe travel sickness and his talking blue cat companion. Feel animey enough for you yet? Lets check on them later though as now we see a young blonde woman named Lucy attempting to buy some magical items in a shop. In this world magic is bought and sold to anyone, for various uses as well. Lucy is disappointed by his selections though and explains she is looking for a specific item know as a celestial gate key. The shopkeeper is surprised by her rare request and shows her the only key he has in stock, and to Lucy happiness its one she has been looking for. After attempting to seduce the shopkeeper for a lower price, emphasis on try, Lucy leaves the shop to discover a large crowd on the port. The crowd is all women who are groveling at the charms of a man who calls himself the salamander. Strangely, Lucy too begins too feel overly infatuated out of nowhere, almost magically; wink wink hint hint. Just as she was about to approach the salamander the mysterious pink haired man and talking blue cat burst in on the scene shouting to speak with the salamander. This occurrence seemed to break the trance Lucy was in. However after being greeted by this cliche pretty boy he realizes this is not the salamander he was looking for. The salamander and his groupies were not amused by the pink haired man’s interruption but he disregards it and tells all the women present he is having a party on a boat later and everyone should come.

Having figured out that the man claiming to be the salamander was actually using an illegal charm spell to sway the girls to his whim, Lucy thanks the pink haired stranger and offers to by him lunch; she probably should of retracted that offer after seeing how much he ate. It is revealed that the pink haired man is name Natsu and his cat companion is Happy. Lucy gushes to them about how her dream is to be a full fledged wizard one day which means joining a guild, but she soon shuts herself up thinking shes boring them. She then asks who exactly was the salamander they were looking for, and much to her surprise Natsu says the salamander they were looking for is actually a fire dragon named Igneel. While that salamander in town clearly was not a dragon Lucy points out to them why they thought an actual dragon would be in the middle of town anyways; this thought just now dawns on Natsu and Happy. However Lucy is still grateful for them saving her from earlier and pays for their food.

Later on we find Lucy talking to herself in the park and we learn that she actually has a guild in mind she wants to join, you guessed it Fairy Tail. Suddenly the salamander from earlier jumps out of the bushes having just overheard her wish. He tells her that he is actually a member of Fairy Tail and would be happy to introduce her to the guild if she would accompany him to the party he’s throwing later. While Lucy is disgusted by the fact this man was using magic to lure women she was too excited by the promise of seeing Fairy Tail. We now shift to Natsu and Happy who are looking out the harbor discussing their disappointment in not seeing Igneel. Just then Natsu overhears some passing women about how this salamander is a famous wizard of Fairy Tail, this upsets Natsu for some reason; wink wink hint hint.

On the ship Lucy is being treated to a rather creepy display of seduction but she bears with it in order to achieve her goal of joining Fairy Tail. However the party hosts have other plans in mind, as Lucy discovers they attempted to drug her in order to sell her and the other women as merchandise. Lucy reaches for her keys in an effort to fight back, but the salamander reacts taking her keys and dropping them in the ocean, Just as all hope seemed lost Natsu bursts in through ships ceiling in a heroic manner. Which he then proceeds to immediately get travel sick completely ruining his heroic image. Lucy wonders how Natsu was able to get her when she looks up and sees that Happy just isn’t a normal everyday talking blue cat, no, why he has wings and can fly! So Happy swooshes in to take Lucy to safety but turns out hes just as lame at this hero bit as Natsu was, as he uses up all his magic power causing him and Lucy to plunge into the ocean. However fortune shines down on them as now Lucy is reunited with her magic gate keys, and after some fancy anime theatrics Lucy uses a golden key to summon the water bearer, Aquarius. But it turns out that Lucy is also very bad at saving the day, as Aquarius is quite reluctant to take orders from her after losing her key. So Aquarius charges up a huge tidal wave to wash the ship ashore, oh and Lucy and Happy as well; seriously can’t any of them get this hero role down?

Well lame rescues aside, the ship is now on land which means Natsu is no longer sea sick and back to full strength. Natsu then proceeds to lecture the salamander and his crew, not about pretending to be the salamander, or about charming and kidnapping girls, but about claiming to be a member of Fairy Tail. Natsu then removes his coat and to Lucy’s surprise reveals a tattooed emblem of Fairy Tail on his right arm. Well now the fake salamander, now revealed to be a criminal named Bora, gets nervous and attacks Natsu with a large fire spell. Lucy is stunned by this and attempts to help Natsu but Happy urges her to stay put. Suddenly a call from the explosion is heard exclaiming “this tastes bad” and Natsu is revealed to be sucking up and eating all the fire like soup through a straw.

Happy explains that fire won’t work on Natsu, as he is a very special type of wizard known as a dragon slayer who utilizes powerful magic to mimic and counter dragon attacks. However instead of being taught this powerful magic to use against dragons, Natsu was actually taught by a dragon, namely Igneel. After showing a tremendous display of power Natsu defeats Bora and his gang; while leveling half the harbor as well, awful at this hero thing. This causes the town to unleash the militia to deal with this threat and Natsu exclaims that hes overdone it again. He rushes to Lucy telling her to come with him, as she wanted to see Fairy Tail, shocked speechless Lucy just nods in excitement at finally meeting a real Fairy Tail wizard and the three run off into the night being chased by the militia.

Characters:

Now Fairy Tail has so many characters that are worthy of being reviewed so it’s a bit of an injustice to only focus on the characters from the first episode when hardly anyone has been introduced. So instead I have chosen two characters to highlight that I have been dying to discuss:

Originality:

Like I said the creator also wrote another popular series called Rave Master and you know full well he did when watching Fairy Tail. Mashima uses many different elements from Rave Master as just little tidbits of cameo throughout Fairy Tail, even as far as replanting an established character into a new universe. Personally I loved Rave Master and it unfortunately ended short, but can you imagine my surprise when I find a new work by the same author that carries on all the old elements I loved? I was thrilled! But even when looking at Fairy Tail as a separate piece of work it has its own originality. The Fairy Tail universe is like one giant MMORPG with multitudes of guilds and wizards running around the place. The magic powers characters possess also deserve praise, I certainly never seen someone capable of getting nourishment from fire or a wizard who is able to shift between armors and weapons in the blink of an eye. So really people if you are a straight up shounen fan in anime there is absolutely no reason not to love Fairy Tail, check it out now.

My resources for this article were:

• The series Fairy Tail by Hiro Mashima
• Snow Fairy by Funkist
• Fairy Tail main theme