All Lucy ever wanted to do was to join a super cool wizard’s guild like the one she read about in magazines—namely, the Fairy Tail Guild. She soon runs afoul of a charming (literally) wizard in a port town who claims to be Salamander, one of the premier members of Fairy Tail. At the same time, she also meets a strange guy named Natsu and his even stranger talking cat, Happy. Natsu is also in town searching for Salamander, but not in the namesake sense. He’s looking for Igneel, a dragon (an actual salamander) who raised him. Soon after, it comes about that the Salamander in town is not the Salamander and is actually a slave trader. Natsu and Happy come to Lucy’s rescue and it turns out that Natsu is the real Salamander of Fairy Tail. And is also responsible for a good deal of property damage when he’s attempting to “help” people. And thus, Lucy’s initiation into the dealings of Fairy Tail start out with a bang.
Most of the first season is character introduction and revolving around Lucy getting into the swing of being a Fairy Tail wizard. Natsu and Happy attach themselves to her, finding a handy team member as well as a fun new friend. (And probably someone to pay the exorbitant cost of their lunches.) It’s not too long that their little team expands to include Erza Scarlet and Natsu’s eternal rival, Gray. Really, that’s just a small sampling of the varied and entertaining characters in the series. I’m particularly fond of the guild master; but, then, I like unexpectedly scary things. Fairy Tail has a cast every bit as eclectic and fun as One Piece, so there’s bound to be someone for every flavor of viewer to latch onto and love.
Fairy Tail follows a similar formula to such shonen hits as One Piece, Bleach and Naruto in that it spends a small chunk of initial episodes simply introducing characters and some modest episodic action sequences before it settles down into discernible story arcs. There’s usually a fair balance of comedic relief and action so that it doesn’t get bogged down too hard with tedious filler or drawn out fights like some of those shows, however. (Side-eyeing you, Bleach and Naruto.) In fact, the cast has such diversity and well-developed character personalities and backstories that the action in the series actually tends to take a back seat, which isn’t a bad thing at all. Not only that, but the story arcs generally aren’t long enough to get too dull and leave viewers wondering if the heroes will ever just beat the bad guys and move on.
The voice acting on both the original Japanese and the US dub are fairly spot on and fitting to the characters. This is always a plus because sometimes my old eyes get lazy and I don’t want to have to read subtitles. The animation is stellar for the most part, but sometimes the CGI effects during battles can seem a bit jarring and doesn’t mesh as well as a normal drawn effect would. But, then again, sometimes they add just that necessary bit of flare to the magic attacks being fired off, so it works out overall. Also, the animation itself remains pretty true to Hiro Mashima’s manga.
Overall, this is a highly entertaining series to jump into. It does have sectioned story arcs, but once you get familiar enough with the characters it can be easy to jump in at any point and you quickly pick up on what’s going down. There is, as with all such series, a bit of fan service (Erza Scarlet is literally a battle-ready Barbie doll) in terms of lots of female characters with notable curves and sometimes skimpy outfits, but it’s not tiresome and doesn’t really get touted as a main attraction in the series. There’s lots of action and comedy, with a pinch of drama here and there as you learn more about the members of Fairy Tail. Funimation currently has eight volumes of Fairy Tail released in four 2-disc sets for a modest price ranging between $25-30 depending on where you buy from and whether or not you get straight DVDs or the DVD/Blu-Ray combo packs (which is more economical). I can safely say that this anime is worth every penny spent and lends itself well to watching more than once, which is something most long-running series of this nature can’t say.