Fairy Tail

Overview

The Fairy Tail franchised is created by the manga artist, Hiro Mashima. It's a shonen series that incorporates action, adventure, comedy, fantasy, and drama elements. The series began its serialization in August 23, 2006 in Kodansha's Weekly Shonen magazine, and in December 2006, Kodansha published Fairy Tail in tankobon volumes. In October 12, 2009, Fairy Tail premiered as an anime that was co-produced by A-1 Pictures and Satelight and directed by Shinji Ishihara on the network, TV Tokyo.

(See more information about American releases and licensing below manga and anime)

Plot

Fairy Tail focuses on the adventures of the Fairy Tail Guild. In this world guilds are organizations of powerful magic users who take on jobs of a wide variety, anything from rescue missions to finding lost books. The stars of the series are Lucy Heartphilia, a young girl who has dreamed of joining Fairy Tail and has the ability to summon out spirits to fight for her, and Natsu Dragneel, a young man who was is a Dragon Slayer type mage and is capable of controlling fire spells. They are commonly accompanied by the other members of their team, Happy, a winged cat who speaks and was hatched from an egg, Erza Scarlet, the strongest woman in Fairy Tail who has the power to change into any kind of magical armor to give her a wide variety of powers for whatever situation may arise, and Gray Fullbuster, an exhibitionist who serves as Natsu's friendly rival and controls ice spells. These five make up only a very small part of Fairy Tail, but they have formed a team that has quickly gained notoriety around their world.

Characters

Lucy Hearphilia

Lucy is a very upbeat girl who is constantly having bits of bad luck, mostly due to money or due to people crashing into her apartment and refusing to leave. She comes from a very wealthy family, but because of her anger towards her father she ran away to join the guild Fairy Tail. She has the power to summon out Celestial Spirits, powerful magical creatures to fight for her, but she is also very skilled with a whip in combat. Her celestial spirits come in two varieties, Gold Keys and Silver Keys, the gold ones resemble spirits from the Zodiac.

Lucy has also become known around the Fairy Tail Guild for being a bit of a bookworm, but also for her constantly changing set of clothes she wears, which range from the stylish to the just plain bizarre, causing many within the fan community and also within the Fairy Tail series itself to refer to her as a cosplayer.

Natsu Dragneel

Natsu is the fiery hothead of Fairy Tail, pun greatly intended, who also can come across very care free and easy going when he's not on a mission or in a fight. He is typically the hero of the series. He was raised by a dragon named Igneel who taught him how to be a Dragon Slayer. Due to his reputation, he is called the Salamander.

Natsu joined Fairy Tail after Igneel went missing, and he has since then run into other Dragon Slayers who had their dragon masters disappear as well, setting up one of the larger mysteries in the Fairy Tail world. Now with his teammates by his side Natsu is more determined than ever to find his adopted father Igneel, and nothing will stand in his way. Except of course for his one weakness, vehicles. Natsu suffers from Motion Sickness, making him collapse whenever he stands on a moving object.

Manga

Fairy Tail franchise began first as a manga series. The series began its serialization in August 23, 2006 in Kodansha's Weekly Shonen magazine, and in December 2006, Kodansha published Fairy Tail in tankobon volumes.

Licensing

In North America, Del Rey published Fairy Tail in March 2008 with the cooperation of Kodansha.

• Pika Edition (France)
• JBC (Portugal)
• Tong Li Publishing Co., Ltd. (China, Taiwan)

Anime

Fairy Tail (October 12, 2009 - Ongoing)

In October 12, 2009, Fairy Tail premiered as an anime that was co-produced by A-1 Pictures and Satelight and directed by Shinji Ishihara on the network, TV Tokyo. The original concept is from Hiro Mashima.

Prior to licensing, Crunchyroll had aired Fairy Tail simulcasts back in 2009 to audiences outside of Japan.

Licensing For Fairy Tail

Animax Asia licensed the series and dubbed in English for Hong Kong in September 20, 2010, but the series is canceled after its 48th episode due to the lack of time. The series won Animax Asia's Anime of The Year Award.

At the 2011 Sakura-Con, Funimation Entertainment of North America announce its distribution to American audiences. They will release a DVD/Blu Ray box set in Novermber 22, 2011.

Fairy TAil OAD (April 15, 2011 - June 17, 2011)

It has currently 2 episodes.

Licensing of Fairy Tail OAD

It has been aired in Japan, but it has not been aired outside of Japan.

Merchandise

Soundtracks

Original Soundtracks Vol. 1-3

1. Original Soundtrack Vol. 1 contains 36 songs from the anime, and it is composed by Yasuharu Takanashi. Released on January 6, 2010.
2. Original Soundtrack Vol. 2 contains 36 songs and it is composed by Yasuharu Takanashi. Released on July 7, 2010.
3. Original Soundtrack Vol. 3 contains 30 songs and it is released in July 6, 2011.

Character Song Collections Vol. 1-3

1. Natsu and Gray - Released on February 17, 2010. It has 4 songs.
2. Lucy & Happy - Released on March 3, 2010. It has 4 songs.
3. Eternal Fellows - Released on April 27, 2011. It has 7 songs.

Egao no Mahou

1. Egao no Mahou vol. 1 - Natsu, Lucy, and Happy
2. Egao no Mahou vol. 2 - Erza and Gray

Towa no Kizuna - Daisy X Daisy

1. Lisanna's cover is released on Oct. 19, 2011. It is the regular edition.
2. Mirajane's cover is released on Oct. 19, 2011. It is the limited edition.

Themes

Guilds

Guilds in the world of Fairy Tail are Organizations that employ magic users to carry out task. These guilds are overseen by a Magical Council that makes sure all operations of the guild are lawful and do not cause trouble for other guilds. However, if a guild is not recognized by this council for its illegal activities, then it becomes a Dark Guild, which in Fairy Tail are the equivalent of criminal organizations, the most powerful of which is the Balam Alliance, which is made up of three other Dark Guilds. Each guild, whether good or bad, has a symbol that each member has tattooed onto their body.

The Design of the World

These early designs of the Fairy Tail Guild show the influences from early 20th and 19th century architecture.

Fairy Tail is set in the kingdom of Fiore, which is designed to resemble an early twentieth century European city. This can be seen in the slightly modernized Gothic architecture, the canals filling the city, and the common forms of transportation such as carriages and classic looking trains. However this older look is merged with modern fashion, technology, and behaviors and attitudes from the characters themselves. This merger of classic designs with newer hipper themes has earned Fairy Tail much praise. Examples of these mergers would be in the armor's Erza wears, each of which take the look of an armor from around the world and mixes in designs, symbols, or colors that match modern fashion. Another example would be the Celestial Spirits that Lucy summons, these are meant to represent the 12 figures from the Zodiac, but each of them have been redesigned to look like humans in modern settings, for example Cancer the Crab is a hairdresser with dreadlocks and shades.

As for the rest of the world, even though Fiore and most of what has already been seen in Fairy Tail is meant to carry a European influence, references to other nations have been made as well. Natsu and Happy have referenced Ninjas before implying there may be the equivalent of Japan in this world, and two characters ( Alzack Connell and Bisca Mulan) resemble cowboys and are said to be from the West, meaning there may also be the equivalent of America in this world.

Magic in Fairy Tail

An example of Dragon Slayer style magic in use.

Magic is the driving force of civilization in Fairy Tail, with many common objects and machines being either magically enhanced or powered by magic. Because magic is the primary theme in Fairy Tail we see a wide variety of it used, and while most of it is unique to Fairy Tail, clear inspirations from real world myths and magic can be seen, going along with the theme in Fairy Tail of combining aspects of old and new. For example, Cana Alberona fights using magical cards, which are clearly a reference to Tarot cards in that she can use them to read people's futures, however she also has the ability to combine them together in battle to create a wide range of spells, thereby going beyond the real world legends about magic cards to create something new.

Other forms of magic in Fairy Tail include-

The Celestial Spirit Aquarius

• Dragon Slayer Magic - When a person is given the powers similar to that of a dragon, leading to increases strength and additional powers that relate to the elements of magic that dragon possessed.
• Celestial Spirits - These are magical beings living on a different realm of existence, and are capable of being summoned through the use of magic keys and signing a contract with their summoner. You can see the influence from real world legends about summoning creatures in these contracts, and keys have always been associated with myths about magic in the real world.
• Requip Magic - A brand of magic rarely seen in real world mythology, making it quite possibly the most unique magic in Fairy Tail. This magic allows the user to swap out armor, weapons, or other objects for others that they have stored elsewhere.
• Elemental Magic - The elements have always played an important role in magic, and in Fairy Tail it's no exception with characters such as Juvia Loxar and Droy having power over everything from water to plants.

Hiro Mashima

Hiro Mashima is the creator of Fairy Tail and also of Rave Master. Fairy Tail has been compared to Rave Master often in its world and its design, with many similarities between characters. For example one of Lucy's Celestial Spirits is Plue, who was also Haru's guide in Rave Master. And the character Gray is often compared in his design to Musica, as is Lucy to Elie, and the character Gerard was said to be based off Sieg Hart, with the two of them sharing almost identical tattoos and hair.

Hiro Mashima has also carried other themes from his previous works and even parts of his own life into Fairy Tail outside of the similarities to Rave Master. Fairy Tail continues the trend he has had in his works of naming characters after seasons (Natsu meaning Summer), the theme of having a comrade join from an enemy organization after an arc, and on a more humorous note, when asked why the character Gray would often start stripping for no reason, Hiro Mashima answered that he based that off himself as he too once had that bad habit.