Review of Fairy Gone

I remembered watching bits of this back in 2019. I might've finished it all except the second half of the series. Might've been because I wouldn't know better what this anime had in store. I mean, the concept is cool and the premise sounds promising. But when you're able to give this a watch, it was technically a disappointment. From P. A. Works, too, of all places, since they'd made some good anime. Well, I guess every company has their share of stinkers in their permanent record, if you ask me. So this is the first half ofthe entire series as this is labeled as the first cour before we get to the second half.
The story revolves around this young woman named Marlya Noel, who was a survivor of her village being massacred by a man named Ray Dawn now working with the Biaklay Mafia family. We learn more about her being the child of disaster from her parents dying on the day she was born to seeing the man who raised her die while training her about survival. One spark of hope is a woman named Veronica Thorn, who was also a survivor of the Suna village massacre yet she'd disappeared from Marlya's life after the massacre had happened. We now cut to Marlya as a young woman, doing a mission with the family at a black market auction, coincidentally had found Veronica in the vicinity, as she had stolen a page of the Black Fairy Tome while causing chaos in the auction house. In the process of it all with an ex-soldier from the Unification War named Free Underbar, she gets possessed by a fairy known as Ash Cloud, and was now offered to work with an organization that Free is working with called Dorothea. With that said, Marlya goes on missions with Free and some others she befriends with a goal in mind to find Veronica again as well as stopping an upcoming war.
It seems simple enough, right? The story, unfortunately, is all over the place. Not only Marlya being with Dorothea to go on missions whether with Free or someone else, she takes it as an opportunity to look into every corner to find Veronica. This anime has loads of plots, if you ask me. One of them does bring Free Underbar, who's goal is finding one of his former comrades named Wolfran Row, who'd fought alongside him during the Unification War until Wolfran left the army since his wife and daughter were killed during the war and became a terrorist alongside the Arcame Mafia. So we see bits of Wolfran working alongside the Arcame Mafia selling illegal arms as well as fighting another family yet he's gone for the second half of the first cour. We have Veronica selling the pages of the Black Fairy Tome to this character named Damian Carme of the organization called Albastora while seeking revenge against Ray Dawn for burning down her village yet before the second half of the first cour, she moves on out of the plot. You also have this businesswoman named Bitter Sweet who is working against Dorothea while seeing the Black Fairy Tome yet helped them at one time because her motto is "working" with anyone who's aligned with her goals, yet after her work is finished, she's gone for the second half of the first cour. Then you see Ray Dawn, who was one of the known Duke's back during the Unification War yet we don't know much about this guy during the first half of the first cour until he shows up in the second half of it. Then you have this band of mercenaries led by a former soldier of the Unification War called Beevee Liscar who now becomes an agent of war while stealing this fairy weapon that was on a train that Dorothea were assigned to protect it even when it was a fake, accordingly. Beevee doesn't show up until the last few episodes of the first cour.
I could keep going with this, but you would already know one of the problems that this anime has. They do brief on what Dorothea had assigned, yet minor details like the fairy weapons aren't explained too well. The pacing just feels jittery as we go back to anyone outside of Dorothea when it feels more like filler when there wasn't too much explained like why Ray Dawn burned the village or Veronica explaining to Marlya on why when they'd encountered a couple of times. Wolfran and Free would fight one another more than explain why Wolfran had left the army even when we, the viewer, had seen it before he went off on his own. The other issue is that the characters are barely seen when they are important, too. Veronica and Wolfran are the perfect examples of that since they were with Malya and Free's lives. With Ray Dawn, we've only seen a few glimpses of him yet we don't get to know him too much until like the last few episodes. The second cour might explain better, maybe. Then there are times we see these guys who would use a whistle that commands these artificial fairy soldiers to act maliciously while not listening to their creators, yet that group were microscopically explained. Does get annoying when you have what I would call extra content messing with the story even more when some important aspects needed to be centered more to keep you in interest. If you want a story that has a small group of soldiers who have combat experience along with the power of fairies go into various missions, that's fine, but you have to make the story interesting. The story itself just wasn't interesting as it's messy. The script doesn't do the characters, as well as their voice actors, whether you're watching this in Japanese or English, any favors, however.
What I do appreciate this anime is the concept of it all. Using fairies like personas from the Persona games or like any of the Shin Megami Tensei franchise is kinda genius, if I have to be one hundred percent honest. Having to do so just to bring in flavor text of the setting is what caught my attention and wanting to like this anime. I know some folks don't like the CG animation used for them. To me, they look fine. Not the best on the CG animation, yet there are CG animation that looks worse than such. The movement on such does feel a little better than the CG animation from Studio Mir, if I were to compare both of their works. Even to say that there are CG animation that are much worse out there than both what Studio Mir and P. A. Works have been used. The action sequences are a hit and miss when you have bad times like Marlya missing most of her shots when she was trained by the man who raised her or seeing those artificial fairy knights, if I recall what they were known as, fight a little finicky. Yet when it comes to close quarters, they work really well. Even with how the fairies were used to assist both friend and foe keeps the battle on its feet. Again, not the best, but at the least the combat is on screen as the anime goes on.
Yeah, from how this review goes, Fairy Gone was a mess. I have seen worse anime out there. This was just a messy anime to begin with because of how the story is structured. Not to mention that the characters are just forgettable when their personality is just one-noted. The concept and the combat is what kept the anime going. Actually, to be honest, the opening of the anime was good, yet the rest of the music score just feels out of place with the anime itself. Maybe I might have a change of heart once I check out the second cour. For now, this was one of those moments when a Fairy was truly Gone, under the lost pages of the past. With that said, I'm gonna give the first half of the anime three and a half Malya staring at a loose fairy before entering her heart out of ten. 3.5/10.