Fairy Tail Review

Those that are done raging between anime/manga adaptions feel free to read. Those who still don't understand why books and movies will ever be the same feel free to go away. With that being said, Fairy Tail is easily the best Shounen anime to date! Take this from a non-hardcore shounen fan. Granted, i do enjoy shounen as a casual viewer (despite me seeing over 3000 shounen eps) but I stand by my statement 100%

Sounds a little bit shallow but please let me elaborate. There have been countless shounen anime throughout the decades. Some lasting a few dozen episodes, others spanning 100's of episodes. Ever since Astro Boy, children all over the world have been enjoying cartoons such as these, but they all had one thing in common, countless flaws. If you are watching any of the big three, you know what they are. Long fights, long story arcs, long recaps, long explanations, annoying characters... basically tricks to extend the length of an anime series.

Fairy Tail takes all those ideas and throws them in the trash. You want short, awesome fights that does not last for weeks? Check! You want story arcs that are full of action, comedy, and a little seriousness? You got it! Most importantly, aren't you tired of characters explaining/chanting their fighting moves every time they use it?!?! I'm looking at you Bleach and One Piece~! Fairy Tail takes all the things that makes watching shounen anime great and throws out all the junk that that makes shounen ...well, junk.

In the beginning, it looks like it is an atypical shounen story of a boy/girl trying their best to improve their skills. Although it has that element, it is all about being part of a team. This team is the mages guild called Fairy Tail. A motley crew of mages with their own unique fighting styles, personalities and looks. There are so many characters in this show, one would find it hard not to like 3-5 characters out of the lot. Watching only 22 episodes, and you will be introduced to over 2 dozen members of fairy tail. Even the way they introduce all of their characters and their powers is awesome. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, such is the case here. It's a shoot first, ask questions later style, which how it SHOULD be.

Since that is the case, less time is taken to explain things you already know and actually put toward story and character development. Another amazing feat done by this anime series... episode recaps last LESS THAN 30 seconds! Talk about innovative! I know purists complain that it "doesn't follow the manga to the word!" but really, what manga does? I may sound like a broken record but if you keep an open mind, you can see this series is a cut above the rest. All arcs are told in typical anime fashion, problem arises and the team must stop them. But I'll be damned if you cant get excited seeing all the action and/or comedy that is packed in to a half hour. It will even manage to surprise you in more ways than one! "Kya!" Comes to mind.

With the sheer number of characters, you would think there would not be enough time or story for all of them. But they all get more than enough airtime considering they're not the main four characters. Natsu, Grey, Lucy, and Happy will of course, be the ones being followed the most, but you will see how much everyone else will be in the shot. My personal favorites are Mirajane and Ezra. On the topic of favorites, you will notice there are a large number of A-list seiyuu participating in this anime series as well. You might notice the voices of Ranka Lee, Taiga Aisaka, Izumi Konata, or even Saya Otonashi, are in here. Main or support, the voice cast can not be ignored.

Another thing that can not be ignored is wide screen format and overall high production value of the animation. Usually quality drops after a few episodes, but for an anime style such as this, it lends itself on opportune times to use low quality animation over high quality and for the most part works amazingly well. It sure might look like One Piece at a glance but if you compare the two, the difference is like night and day. It is actually a little more comparable to Soul Eater if i had to put a comparison to it.

I'm not saying this anime is perfect in any way. Theres a little flaws that nit pickers might see like the "reuse" of certain animated scenes namely the incantations. Or how the "quality" drops in a few scenes. But isn't that the case with ALL anime? Those problems I mentioned are so subtle and minuscule you will only notice them if you're looking for things to hate about watching this show. To be honest, from the first two dozen episodes, there is nothing overly bad from watching this shounen anime. I would normally say its bad simply because it is a shounen anime, but this has everything I wanted fixed in watching a shounen anime. I especially love how they can pull "random" (i.e. filler) episodes off of the guild message board and go with it. It almost resembles an RPG in that sense. Happenstance encounters or weird pauses in story arcs to start a different one are rare in this sense. The players are all in their place and we are there to watch everything flow nice and easy. Here's to hoping this will last a few hundred episodes.