Title: Fairy Tail
Encompasses: Collections 1 and 2
Published by: Madman Entertainment (Australia/New Zealand), Funimation (North America)
Based on: Manga series written and illustrated by Hiro Mashima
Genre: Action, Adventure, Comedy and Fantasy
Audio: English and Japanese Dubs
Subtitles: English
Aspect Ratio: 1080p High Definition (16:9) SD Remaster
Runtime: 600 Minutes
Classification: M (Collection 1) and PG (Collection 2)
Cost: $59.95 per Volume
Special Thanks: Madman Entertainment for kindly providing me with a copy of this title for review
I was introduced to the Fairy Tail series in a bit of a different way than usual, well before Madman Entertainment picked up the distribution rights for the ANZ Region. All the way back in April/May 2011 for the years first Supanova events, Siren Visual (Another anime distributor in Australia) announced that they were to begin distributing titles as simulcasts, which prompted the response from a few to question why they hadn’t licensed series such as this – leading to debates which someone on the Madman Forums referred to as the “Siren Wars”. A few months later Madman themselves announced that they had picked up the license and after those events I thought… that despite I am not one to usually take up series of excessive episode lengths, I would like to see how it unfolded through the first couple of volumes at least. Did it pay off? Well read on to find out in my review of Fairy Tail Collections 1 and 2!
Collection 1 Synopsis
Across the Fiore kingdom, wizards join guilds and make their pay by filling magical needs—but one guild has a reputation as the roughest, rowdiest, most dangerous of all: Fairy Tail! When four young Fairy Tail members unite, their bond is forged by a power found in neither muscle nor magic and grows stronger with every mission. Whatever you do, don’t mess with these friends or you’ll get a taste of Natsu’s flaming fist or Gray’s ice hammer, suffer a painful blow from one of Lucy’s celestial spirits or catch the edge of Erza’s mighty blade! Whether they’re stopping demons from devastating the world or wrestling in the mess hall, this mystical team manages to inflict as much damage to their rivals as they do to the surrounding area!
Collection 2 Synopsis
In the Kingdom of Fiore, powerful wizards make their living by joining magical guilds and contracting out their services to become “wizards for hire.” Harnessing the forces of Dragon Fire, Ice, Weaponry, and the Zodiac, four young wizards of the infamous guild Fairy Tail team up to seek their fortunes. Growing stronger with every mission, they travel the countryside helping people and battling rival guilds, but with personalities as different as their magic skills, this team may end up doing more damage than good.
Encompassing the first twenty-four episodes of the season, a total of four and a half official arcs were included over the course and worked out that each collection had a primary arc to it, followed by a couple of mini-arcs and the beginning of the next major arc. I don’t have much experience in the genre, having never really watched series such as One Piece, Naruto or Dragon Ball Z – but going from what I have watched it does not necessarily extend the genre past the moments of action, world-saving and squabbles between “friends”. While it is nothing genre defining so far, I will admit I never really found myself bored at what was presented, and even content that could potentially be seen as filler didn’t feel tacked on and had some relevance to developing the characters.
The series primarily focuses on five main characters – with three in particular being present throughout the entirety and the other two being added as the series progresses. The main character is Natsu – your typical hero with the power to control fire and the “act first think later attitude”… he doesn’t recieve all that much in terms of character development throughout the collections but is one of the more interesting characters to watch. The second main character is a new recruit to the Fairy Tail guild is Lucy, a summoner who is a polar opposite to Natsu in that she is more hesitant and logical about her actions but still ends up getting dragged along with Natsu’s ideas. The other three main characters include a flying cat “Happy” who is easily the most enjoyable character of the show, Gray who is the only character to recieve reasonable character development (Which was simple but well thought out given the context) and Erza – one of the more powerful members of the guild.
The first couple of arcs (Macao and Daybreak) focus on developing Natsu, Lucy and Happy as they meet up and do a few normal quests together. There is nothing all that complex about taking down criminals or destroying books, but it does give some incite on the characters individual personalities and showcasing what the series has on offer. From there, each of the collections have a primary arc while also continuing into further arcs. For the first collection, this is the Lullaby Arc, which introduces the other two main characters – Erza and Gray as they seek to stop the world from being destroyed by an ancient evil artifact while for the second collection it is the Galuna Island arc where they take a high level quest which takes them to a cursed island – and the past of Gray is revealed. The Phantom Lord arc also begins in the second collection but only the first four out of the nine. Overall, the episodes are once again simple in concept and with the exception of Gray, only sparingly stopping to develop the characters but for the most part they do suit the genre and are very rarely dull.
Along with the concepts and development of this “World of Swords and Sorcery”, I have to admit I was pretty satisfied even if it would not top my anime favorites list by any means. At the very least, whereas I have given up on many similar series in 24-episodes, I actually do have an inkling to continue on and see where this series goes for at least the next few episodes.
The anime is released in both DVD and Blu-ray collections at the same price within Australia, and if you do own a Blu-ray machine then I can happily recommend the Blu-ray edition – for which this review is based on. While especially in the action, some of the animation ideas are overused, the actual designs of the entire series is intended to be bright, colourful and detailed for which all three criteria are sufficiently met. Character designs are distinctive and it is pretty easy to differentiate between characters while also working along with their quirks (Over-the-top Astrological summons as well are a plus). The studios A-1 Pictures and Satelight have done a good job with the series so far, but it does leave me to question if given this series is so far over 100 episodes, if the same level of quality will continue throughout or if it will drop over time.
The issue with the music is not the quality but instead would have benefited from a greater variety of tracks. Most noticeable was the rather quick change of music tracks, which seems to change every collections worth of episode. Over the two collections, we were treated to two opening sequences – Snow Fairy by FUNKIST and S.O.W. Sense of Wonder by Idoling!!!, both of which feature songs aimed more towards the pop (For the first, more pop/rock) genre and feature good quality animations. On the other hand, the two ending sequences Kanpeki gu~no ne by Watarirouka Hashiri Tai and Tsuioku Merry-Go-Round by onelifecrew had simple but bright and vibrant animation alongside a decent musical backing.
The English Dub for this show gets a thumbs up in my book, however listening to the Japanese dub included as well, both do a satisfying job at representing each of the individual characters. Todd Haberkorn brings a more generic sounding hero style to Natsu. While I used the word “generic” as it was with The Tower of Druaga, he was very enjoyable to listen to and suited the more pumped-up attitude of Natsu very well, both in and out of battle. The praise is not limited to just him however, with a majority of the cast also reaching that level of enthusiasm, with special notes going to Tia Ballard (Kusano – Sekirei) as Happy and Newton Pittman (Yutaka “Panties” Itazu – Eden of the East) as Gray.
In terms of extra content…. they offer a selection of commentaries for selected episodes over both collections, textless openings and endings for both sets and trailers for a number of Funimation Entertainment anime releases (Madman Entertainment releases for the DVD release – although most should pertain to each other).
Overall, I must applaud this series, even if it is just for the fact it is encouraging me to contemplate watching it past this second volume (Unless it is split up into series, a series must be very good if I can get motivated to watch past the 30 episode mark – which is in a way a good means of identifying a good series eh?). While it doesn’t toe the line of being an “excellent” series as of yet, its multiple arcs proved to be enjoyable to watch and has a sizable character cast which leaves them with a lot to work with. As of this post there have been something along the lines of 123 episodes aired in Japan – so I will be interested to see if they can continue this same level of quality throughout them all. Look forward to a review of Collection 3 next month when it is released by Madman Entertainment!
Final Score
Storyline / Character Development: B
Design: B
Music/Voice Acting: B
Personal Preference: B
Extra Content: B-
Overall Score: B
