Review of Fairy Tail
To start off, I want to say this: I love Fairy Tail. It was the second anime I'd ever watched (after Naruto), and what really drew me into anime. The art is lovely, and the animation remains pretty good throughout. The backstory arcs--Galuna, Phantom Lord, and Tower of Heaven--were really engaging and interesting. It wasn't really until after the timeskip that things started going kind of funky, although the dragon part of the Grand Magic Games was pretty cool too. That said, I'm not blind to its faults. First off, Juvia. Or, more specifically Gruvia, which the show hints *pretty* heavily at. I know this might offendthe Gruvia fans out there, but this ship ... no, just no. Juvia is crazy stalker-fangirl, who tries to feed Gray love potions and has various Gray-themed items (like that body pillow)--in all honesty, anyone who thinks that this is a healthy relationship seriously has some issues. In the real world, Juvia's behavior would probably be grounds for a restraining order. It's sad that "fangirl" is really Juvia's defining characterization, because the few times she isn't fangirling or acting like some obsessive stalker, she seems like she would've made an interesting character.
Second--plot. In the later arcs especially, the plot seems to just boil down to: 1) Fairy Tail fails to defeat enemy. 2) NAKAMA, friendship, Yay! 3) Defeats enemy. 4) Rinse and Repeat. The story plot just really isn't interesting, unfortunately, because the Fairy Tail world has so much potential.
Third, powers. The characters really don't have consistent powers. This especially can be seen in Erza's case--her magic makes absolutely no sense, and follows none of the other guidelines for magic. If you think about it, she's not really very magical at all--most of the "magic" attacks come from her armor. And yet she defeats here strongest magical opponents with nothing but a sword? Also, where does she even get her armor from? Following requip magic's logic, they must be items stored in her requip dimension. But if they're items, she must've gotten them from somewhere, and it's hard to believe that she managed to find that many rare and powerful armors--or the fact that no one else is using or used them. Plus, every single time her armor breaks or is damaged, we see it later, perfectly fine and in mint condition. Which, what? Does she have an auto-repair for magic items or something? As if that isn't bad enough, the show continuously just throws out more armors for Erza whenever she needs a powerup, without showing how she even got that armor, or indeed why she never used it before in dire situations. Like, that random armor she equipped to defeat Minerva with in the GMG. Another instance of inconsistent powers is the whole second-origin thing. It was definitely a cop-out, but what's worse is that it doesn't make sense. We see that Laxus, Gajeel, and the rest of the GMG crew (outside of Natsu's group, of course) didn't unlock their second origin, yet they still seemed to be on par with Team Natsu after the three months of training. So does that mean that unlocking your second origin is only worth three months of training? Plus, Erza's was apparently unlocked the whole time, so she didn't get the miraculous boost Natsu and co got, yet she didn't seem any weaker than her opponents, who'd been training for seven years. Which means that she is on par with post-second origin Natsu and co, which would mean that she had the magic power of Fairy Tail AFTER the time skip even in the early arcs. And yet Natsu was able to defeat opponents she couldn't. So, again, inconsistent strength.
...This review is way longer than I meant for it to be. Oops. Still, despite all its flaws, I do recommend Fairy Tail, especially the first couple arcs.