Review of Fairy Gone

P.A. works is a studio I have a pretty positive history with. Charlotte, Another, Angel Beats, Canaan. Seems every time I review something of theirs, I like it quite a bit. This time, we're looking at Fairy Gone. An original anime by them from early 2019. Let's take a look and hope for the best. Story: We open to a flashback talking about the end of a war over unification where we see two young girls fleeing their village as it's destroyed. We also hear about fairy soldiers and see a group of them throw down their arms. Cut to the story proper, our heroine, Marlya,considers herself cursed since people always seem to die around her. Obviously, she's one of the girls from the village flashback and she's searching for the other, Veronica. She's acting as a guard at a mafia auction when she meets our hero, Free, a former fairy soldier. After an incident, she joins the organisation Dorothea which investigates illegal uses of faeries and flirts with the organisation Petra. Both Free and Marlya quickly find themselves facing old friends from the past and trying to unravel a plot against the unified government.

There are a couple significant issues with this series. First off, the world building is pretty sub-par. It feels like a lot of it comes through flashbacks that are a bit dull or through exposition that's a bit stilted. The pacing is also a bit awkward. Some major plot points get rushed through while you get flashback sequences and other bits that just drag on quite as bit. The climax is also kind of weak and features some really dumb moments. Like, there's a part where an antagonistic character is walking very slowly towards a gate while a bunch of nameless guards shoot at him and they all miss like they were trained by Cobra. Honestly, the way he moves so slowly and all these dipshits can't be bothered to aim just makes it seem like a parody rather than something we're supposed to take seriously.

I do like the concept of the series. The idea of people being surgically implanted with faeries that basically act as like the Personas from the game franchise of the same name. Those people having a limited place in ordinary society because of the legal status of their personae, I mean faeries. Those are all good ideas that could have been used much better than they are here. The series also does do a somewhat good job of handling the theme of survivor's guilt. Both our main characters have issues with it because they can't help but remember the situations where they lost people and couldn't do anything about it.

Characters:

To be blunt, the only thing that gives the protagonists any real depth is the survivor's guilt theme. You get some indications that they mean for the characters to be something more, but they never really amount to that much. The same isn't true with the antagonists. At least not with Wolfran and Veronica. They both clearly suffered some serious trauma during the war and they're both very clearly working towards something even if the anime says "wait until the next series to find out the full details." It's still evident that P.A. has a plan in place.

The character interactions aren't particularly appealing or that good. I like the dynamic betwixt Marlya and Veronica, it leads to some strong moments. But aside from that, I'm kind of ambivalent towards all of them.

Art:

This is one element where I can give the series full credit. It looks very nice. The action flows well. The characters are distinct. The backgrounds and various objects look good. The personae have very interesting designs. The Fairy Weapons, when they show up, have very nice designs. Looking intricate and decorated without being ostentatious.

Sound:
The actors do really well. Ichinose Kana, Fukuhara Ayaka, Hosoya Yoshimasa, Suwa Ayaka, Sonozaki Mie and the others all give strong performances. The music isn't the best, but the series uses it very well. Ramping it up during big action scenes but keeping it pulled back enough that you can still hear the battle. And they use it very strategically which gives it more impact.

Ho-yay:

There's a little bit betwixt Veronica and Marlya. Klara also talks about the director, Nein, like a girl with a crush. I doubt they'll go in that direction with either of them, but I wouldn't complain if they did.

Areas of Improvement:

1. Build the world more naturally. Exposition has its purpose, but that purpose is, in general, not to provide a short cut so you don't have to really build your world.

2. Those moments that give the characters hints of complexity need to be built on.

3. You can't have a scene where a character walks slowly past a hail of gunfire. Unless that character can turn invisible or they have a shield like Magneto, it doesn't work. I know, you think it looks cool, but it's really dumb.

Final Thoughts:

Fairy Gone could have been a great anime. It had all the parts in place for it. But it's ultimately let down by under-written characters by sub-par world building by poor pacing. And by that exceptionally stupid climax. It's not a good series. It's not a bad series either. It ends up being quite average. Which is why I'm giving it a 5/10.