Review of Fairy Tail

Let me start out by saying that I started Fairy Tail with the highest hopes. It was during the peak of the original Big Three's Naruto and Bleach that Fairy Tail came out, at first looking like a contender to take one of their spots as their series drew to a close. But as the story went on, the plot began to slip, and Fairy Tail fell into a trend of tropes that completely ruined the series quality to me. The first trope and the most obvious: the plot armor called the power of friendship. Now, in most Shonen, the power of friendship is avery common concept. the protagonist goes out of his way to let their friends know that they are there for them, their friend gets some mushy backstory on how their friends changed their lives, ect. Now this isn't a problem... if done right. In One Piece, Luffy makes a small declaration of what he's willing to do for his friends, but doesn't tack on a big speech about how much they're his power. He proves it with his actions. The only time he did do it was during the Arlong arc, and after that it was obvious to the readers why.

In Fairy Tail, the author felt the need to remind the readers that friendship is magic EVERY SINGLE FIGHT. This might sound like an exaggeration, and to some extent it is, but I kid you not that when you examine or watch the more important battles of Fairy Tail, you will definitely hear about how much friendship has brought them this far. It was fine at first, but then it became a huge continuing trend of the series that you just can't help but roll your eyes at. Which means your eyes will be pretty much rolling on the floor by the time you get to the end point of this anime.

The next trope taken way too far: the fanservice. Now, fanservice can be fun, admittedly, if dolled out in moderation with a Shonen series like this. One Piece has been pretty guilty of it as well. But the problem is that the fanservice in Fairy Tail is FAR too evident and completely distracting as the story goes on. Even during major conflicts, fanservice can literally swoop in and ruin a great fight that's going on. Lucy, the main female protagonist of the story, is the poor victim of this trope as well as another main character Erza. I get it, they're both hot and fans want to see them looking suggestive. But when you display them in such a way that I can pretty much consider the amount of fanservice to a HAREM ANIME, you know something is wrong.

One of the worst moments of fanservice I've ever seen from the series (minor spoilers ahead) was when Natsu, the protagonist, is duking it out with a dragon. The fight is intense and he's playing things smart. But then, out of nowhere, Lucy comes flying in, butt naked and screaming, and crashes into Natsu and abruptly ends the fight by sending him to another part of the city. This goes on for several panels and it's just *sigh* its bad. No self respecting Shonen battle series should be resorting to such tactics to end a fight that the main character isn't winning. It's dumb, lazy and overall annoying.

Now, does the story itself make up for this? Not at all. The plot itself is pretty weak. Some of the earlier arcs were a lot more fun, but the later arcs just started to drop in quality alongside the increase of fanservice and friendship speeches. Even setting those two huge problems aside, the plot of Fairy Tail and overall cast wasn't strong enough to keep me that interested. This could be the problem with most long running anime just running out of steam no doubt, but even then it wasn't as long lived as something like Naruto or Bleach, both of which were at least decent up to a certain point in time for me that far outlived Fairy Tail.

The cast was a fun bunch when I first came across the series, but the problem was as it kept going it felt like they were repeating the same exact lines and interactions as the story progressed. Natsu was never that interesting but I thought he was fun. But with his lack of growth and his sole focus of friendship and fighting, you get pretty bored with it all. The series had many chances to elaborate on the characters more and expand on what makes them fun, but wastes it most of the time with dumb tropes. In comparison to Luffy, people often think that he's no better. But time and time again, Oda shows off how Luffy is with each member of his crew and that he can be fun by using tropes differently each time. Natsu 90% of the time is constantly fighting with Gray or another member of his guild, showing little in the way of actual character interaction. I'm fine with keeping a character consistent, but taking it to the level of never learning much more about a character outside of arcs because of the one trope you made for them is lazy.

The music I would say was the best part of the anime, if anything. The bagpipes and concurrent themes of the story were always pretty good. The animation wasn't bad either, usually consistent. Those two things are at least the stronger points of Fairy Tail. Not that either is particularly special when compared to its competition. But hey, have to give credit where credit is due.

So in the end, Fairy Tail is one of my greatest disappointments as a series as a whole. Something that I had the highest hopes for completely fell in quality. I wouldn't recommend it at all on this basis, to be honest. If you're looking for dumb fun without any attention to story or plot, then give it a shot. But if you're like me and want consistent story telling and a long adventure with good characters, don't bother with Fairy Tail. It fools you into thinking it is that, only to take a nose dive into the ocean off a cliff.