It's silly, it's stupid, and GOD I love it so.
Among the ridiculously popular animoos that were featured by cosplayers at Anime Expo was Fairy Tail, an anime that was originally a manga written by Hiro Mashima. I'll admit that I had a sort of soft spot for Mashima's work, since the first manga I ever really followed was Rave Master, a sort of futuristic sword and sorcery story about some chosen one kid who saves the world after bunches of hardship and a lot of people dying. It was kind of silly, a lot of it was pretty stupid, but it was a whole lot of fun.
So when I saw stuff that clearly looked like his art style on other people's merchandise, I was naturally intrigued. Then, when I found out that there was an anime for a Hiro Mashima manga that was actually doing well, I couldn't resist and I saw the first episode. I admit that I loved it when I saw it, but because I have credibility to maintain, I ought to look at it with a more discerning, critical eye.
We start off with an opening title sequence and WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!
AN INTRODUCTORY NARRATION THAT ESTABLISHES THE UNIVERSE AND ACTUALLY EXPLAINS THE PREMISE FOR THE AUDIENCE? THE AUDIENCE IS ACTUALLY GETTING CLUED IN TO WHAT HAPPENS IN THIS WORLD AND HOW THINGS WORK?! I THOUGHT THAT THESE DAYS, AN ANIME HAD TO LEAVE YOU COMPLETELY IN THE DARK AND NEVER EXPLAIN ANYTHING! HOLY FUGGITY SHIT!
So the opening narration establishes the setting, a neutral country called Fiore where magic is not only a fact of life, but common enough to be a commodity to be traded. People who use magic are Mages, and Mages form Guilds, which are essentially employment agencies for Magical Talent. Of these Guilds, one of the most legendary is Fairy Tail. It's a bit of a shame that we get just told this in the first few seconds, but hey, I'll take it over not having any idea what's going on.
We really start at a train station in a fishing town called Hargeon (HOLY SHIT I HAVE A SENSE OF PLACE), where we meet some of our protagonists, Natsu, a dude with bizarre pink hair, a big, open coat and a scarf, and Happy, a blue cat. Happy informs Natsu that they're at the town, but Natsu looks ready to puke, and that he'll never take the train again. This is Natsu's hardcore weaksauce weakness– when he's on any form of artificial transportation, he immediately becomes motion sick. On a train, on a car, on a ship, on anything that's not a living being, once it starts moving, he's ready to blow chunks. The conductor asks if he's okay, with Happy responding that he always gets like this.
Later on, Happy tells Natsu to get up, that, if the information they got is correct, they might find someone called "The Salamander" in the town, though while he's expounding on this, the train departs, carrying Natsu on board for what will no doubt be one hell of a puke fest, Happy leaving him behind.
I'll give the anime this– Happy acts more like a real cat than most anime cat-people do.
We then cut to Lucy, who, if you've read Rave Master, looks suspiciously familiar.
Now I'm confused.
Yeah, if you're familiar with any of Hiro Mashima's work, these characters are all going to look frighteningly similar to each other. Commentary on the conventions of anime style or simple laziness? YOU MAKE THE CALL!
She goes into a magic shop to see what kinds of magical items she can buy, but she finds the selection unimpressive. This is owed to the fact that, since Hargeon is a Fishing Town, they don't usually get a lot of traffic from mages, mostly tourists. She finds a Celestial Spirit Key– Lucy is basically a Summoner Mage, and uses these keys to open up "Gates" to summon creatures to do her bidding. She tries to negotiate a discount with the shopkeeper for the Nicolas Key, and unsuccessfully tries to use her sex appeal to get him to comply. Outside, she complains about only being able to get a small discount. This is going to be repeated throughout the show– Lucy's sex appeal, despite her appearance, being either completely ineffective or virtually nonexistent.
You know, I'm starting to lean toward the "Commentary on the conventions of anime style" explanation for how a lot of this show works.
When she leaves, she catches sight of a random gathering of fangirls who are screaming nonrelevant praise and flirtations at a guy who claims to be called the Salamander.
Meanwhile, Natsu ends up hearing the same crowd and starts to close in on them, hoping that the Salamander is a dragon named Igneel, who's his mentor and surrogate father.
Lucy starts feeling inexplicably attracted to the so-called Salamander, though Natsu barges in, and in doing so seems to break a spell, also incurring the ire of the fangirls.
Salamander McDouche flies off and invites the entire crowd to a party on his party boat.
Lucy decides that she should thank Natsu for helping her out, and we add yet another shonen trope that Lucy reacts to like a sensible person to– SLOPPY AND IMMENSELY INDULGENT EATING.
Shock at the sight? Check. The fact that it's getting everywhere? Check. The cost involved? Check, please.
Of course, she makes sure to express her gratitude, revealing that Salamander McDouche had been mesmerizing her with a Charm Spell, and Natsu barging in actually broke its effects on her.
Oh, thank God, a universe where rapey magic is illegal!
Lucy then goes into how guilds work, which was already mentioned in the opening title sequence, and how she wants to end up joining Fairy Tail, and that the popular guilds are usually the ones that are the hardest to get into. She kind of brushes it off, realizing that she doesn't really know if Natsu and Happy are wizards, and thus all the wizard talk may be gobbledygook. She doesn't bother to ask.
It's at this point that Natsu and Happy tell Lucy about trying to find Igneel, who they point out is a Fire Dragon, and that they were here investigating the Salamander person. Lucy, naturally, asks the right question.
They express greater gratitude for what she did, and then she goes off to town. Eventually, it's revealed that Salamander McDouche has been looking for her!
He says he's here to invite her to his boat party. After rightfully calling him a creep, he mentions that he's heard that she wants to join Fairy Tail, and he, Salamander McDouche, who claims to be from Fairy Tail, can put in the good word for her with their Guild Master and get her in. Suddenly, Lucy does a 180.
Huh. Suddenly, her appeal took a teensy bit of a nosedive.
Anywho, Natsu is on a balcony when he overhears some of the Fangirls talking about Salamander McDouche's party, and that they heard he's a Fairy Tail wizard. Natsu seems concerned about this and looks on at the party boat of Douchery, though is ready to puke at the mere sight of a moving ship.
To be fair, I'd react the same way to a douche with a Party Boat.
So we cut to the party boat and Salamander McDouche is trying to lay the moves on Lucy and, with yet another animoo trope, Lucy reacts in perhaps the best way.
It turns out the shady asshat was trying to put her to sleep with magic during this whole really creepy rapey scene, and that now, he's collecting girls to sell as merchandise, forever cementing him as a complete, and total scumbag.
God DAMN what a 2-dimensionally evil douchebag! Still, if the other animoos where this sort of thing happens are any indication, he may get his comeuppance at any minute now.
While we wait, Lucy tries to make use of her Celestial Spirit Keys to summon something cool, but Salamander McDouchebag takes her keys from her! Since they're soulbound, though, he can't use them, so he tosses them off the ship.
A few seconds later, Natsu crashes through the ceiling! Hey, the comeuppance is he–
Wait, the ship's still moving. False alarm.
Luckily, Happy's here to get Lucy out of danger! Yay!
Too bad for Natsu, though.
Happy and Lucy fall into the water not far from the ship, in which Lucy, by a really bizarre stroke of luck, finds her Key Ring. It's at this point that we see her summon her first Celestial Spirit, which we learn are connected to the Western Zodiac Constellations.
Lucy asks her to use her water powers to bring the ship back to the shore, which she does...
... Evidently accidentally.
Not wanting to put up with Lucy anymore, she fucks off and leaves, making sure to rub in that she's going to be on vacation with her boyfriend. Her boyfriend. Her boyfriend.
Now that the ship isn't moving, Natsu's no longer subject to his bizarre motion sickness! Yay! And now he gets up to call Salamander McDouchebag on claiming to be a Fairy Tail wizard with a shocking revelation!
Take my word for it, he does open his mouth. Just poor screenshot timing.
Natsu, the dude who can barely handle being on a boat, was a Fairy Tail wizard the whole time! What a shocking twist for anyone who didn't watch the intro song (Seriously, Fairy Tail has this real problem with causing spoilers in its intro songs)! Later on, a dude lets it slip that Salamander McDouche's real name was Bora, and Happy fills us in with some backstory.
So the two guilds we hear about are named after body parts of mythical creatures. Huh. Weird.
He then proceeds to continue calling him out... Probably in the dumbest way.
What kind of good guy would pretend to be in your guild? If he was a good guy, wouldn't he be improving your reputation? I think you really do care if he's a bad guy or a good guy. I feel like this particular attempt at badassery really fell flat.
Bora McDouche (still keeping the last name) then decides to use Fire Magic to incinerate Natsu, but a few moments later, it's basically shown that this is utterly useless as Natsu eats the fire.
Then shoots it right back at him in a Breath Weapon.
So what the hell was that? Apparently it's Dragon Slayer Magic, pretty old and pretty powerful magic of which Natsu is one of the only users. Uh-oh. We have a speshul snowflaek.
Taught Dragon-Killing Magic by a Dragon, huh? How'd Igneel feel about that?
Bora continues to try to kill Natsu with fire, though following in the tradition of the Chicken Men of Krankor from Prince of Space, he keeps doing it despite clearly seeing that it does not work. On top of being 2-dimensionally evil, he's pretty stupid, too.
Omnomnomnomnom.
Natsu, having eaten the hell out of his fire, then uses his super awesome finishing move to Fire Punch the everliving shit out of the douchebag to put him out of our misery.
And so, having defeated the 2-dimensionally evil bad guy, Natsu (who has been revealed to be the real Salamander of Fairy Tail) has caused massive of amounts of property damage, which thankfully has not gone unnoticed by this universe.
The military police is on its way, and Natsu suddenly panics at the sight of them coming by and grabs Lucy, running away and promising that, if they evade the authorities, he'll help her join his guild. Yay!
Property Damage and Resisting Arrest! Yay!
This anime is really silly and stupid. We've got this speshul snowflaek who has the one of the silliest weakness of all, we have this manipulative woman who for some reason cannot attract the eyes of any men other than sexual offenders, a cat who acts like a cat, and a stupid, 2-dimensional villain who gets his ass handed to him. There are some times that even the main characters just seem either dumb or sometimes possess truly loathsome qualities.
But honestly, I feel like this is all in good fun. The characters are memorable (and they'll certainly expand on this later), the action is fun, the humor is great, being metatextual enough that the characters are just aware of what's going on, but not irritatingly metatextual to the point that you get sick of it. The characters are aware that the creepy stuff is creepy, point it out, and the really, unbelievably douchey asshole gets a really good comeuppance in the form of a really satisfying, fiery rocket punch to the face. Honestly, I enjoyed it, warts and all.
Guess I'll have to come back to this later when I'm feeling kind of down from the other stuff I review. Timere Defectum, everybody!
Fairy Tail and Rave Master belong to Hiro Mashima. Charizard belongs to Nintendo.
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