Hello, ladies and gentlemen. This is ChaosJumper and he does stuff because he wants to! Sorry for the lack of cartoon reviews, to take away the excuse of college, I've just became lazy and am finding reason(s) to stay motivated and finding ways to stop procrastinating (and as you've noticed, the battle isn't going well for me). Today, this is a review that is going to be…a bit different from the average cartoon review because today I am reviewing a manga. This is a review for the popular series Fairy Tail (the manga and not the anime). Instead of talking about the art style first and then the story a bit later on, I am going to talk about each arc, add my full opinion on each one and a certain moment that I may like from each arc. Finally, I will make an overall review of the characters, storytelling, art style, and other pros and cons to give my overall rating (Which I may change my rating system for personal reasons) This will also be a longer-than-average review because I am discussing everything in each arc and I am a bit long winded when it comes to these. I may find ways to improve this style of writing, but until then it is going to be a talk about what is happening moment by moment and discussing that moment and why I like/dislike it. Now, with that out of the way, lets get into this review, beginning with the first chapter and the first mission known as The Macao Arc.

This is the basic beginning of fairy tail + the first arc our three main characters go. Before actually beginning the story, we get a few pages of the Magic Counsel with Seig talking about how boring it is to be a part of the counsel as they begin to talk about the “Idiots of Fairy tail”. This, at least for me, indicates the ridiculousness the series is going to have if people as big as the Magic Counsel are talking about them before we are introduced to the guild itself. We next get to the main part of the series rolling with…Natsu’s motion sickness and his cat, Happy, walking off the train without him. That’s rather different, but I don’t mind it; shows Natsu’s main issue off the bat that he cannot take riding a vehicle, not to mention I had a good laugh out of it. Next, we get Lucy ordering a set of keys, which we learn later on in this chapter, is essential to her magical abilities, and stops for a man who gets all the girls, the Salamander. Really, he’s a nobody because we never see him again, but for this chapter 1 of the series, he’s good enough. What’s weird is the fact that Lucy’s heart paces for this guy she just meets, as though they were met for each other; however, every other girl comes towards this man as though he was a big star. Then, we have Natsu coming towards this man, thinking that he is someone he knows. We learn that Natsu came to this city, looking for the Salamander, thinking that it was someone he calls Igneel. Not seeing that this man is the Igneel Natsu was looking for, he just leaves as the girls try to beat him up for simply leaving and ignoring this guy. This Salamander, tells the ladies to stop and leaves. Lucy takes Natsu and Happy out to eat and he tells her what his objective is; to look for a DRAGON known as Igneel. Lucy using her logic, she tell him that there wouldn’t be something that big in this city without anyone noticing it. A nice comedic moment because both Happy and Natsu has that “Ohh, now you mention it…” expression that is priceless. Later on we get the Salamander, from earlier, manipulating Lucy into joining his guild, Fairy Tail. Because she wants to join this guild, and possibly due to a sort of charm magic that attracts the opposite sex, she accepts his invitation. Excited, she dresses herself up and goes on a boat to what she believes is the Fairy tail guild. We get a short moment with Natsu realizing this with a slightly confused expression on his face, as though he’s heard of this guild before. Then, when we pan back to Lucy, we figure out that…

…and she is forced on the ship with the Salamander and his henchmen. The make a point to take her keys and throw them in the ocean before imprinting her like a cow, still making her convinced in the fact that this is the Fairy Tail guild. Before she become a cow, Natsu jumps in and unfortunately forgot that he gets vehicle motion sickness. Kind of off, but I can understand why he would do this when reading the chapter in its entirety. Happy, who is able to fly now, grabs Lucy and gets off the ship only to drain all of his magical power and falls down into the ocean. This gives Lucy the chance to get the keys out of the ocean and use an ability that I personally like; the ability to summon other creatures from a different realm, mainly the Celestial Realm. Why I like this is because Lucy is barrowing power rather than having it all for herself, which makes a more interesting character and ability; however, its who she summons that becomes the problem that is quite humorous. She summons the constellation, Aqaurious, in the form of a mermaid. Pissed off that she was thrown into the ocean, Aquarious first tells Lucy that she will kill her master if she does it again and, to have a final kick in the balls, uses her ability to create a tidal wave with Lucy caught in the cross fire, taking her out as well as bring the ship back to the port. Again, a good idea to utilize the ability to barrow creature’s abilities rather than having them for yourself; it allows the character to have a developing bond more than a “I have power so I win” scenario. Now, with the ship basically demolished and most importantly stopped by the tidal wave, Natsu is able stand on both of his feet without feeling nauseous and takes on the Salamander. At this fight occurs we have Natsu proclaiming that he is from Fairy Tail and says that he has never seen this man before. This kind of brings up a more important reason why Natsu came, besides saving Lucy; the honor of his guild. Natsu seems to be that character who cares for his guild honor and bashes anyone that tries to dishonor it, team mate or not. A good character trait, especially for a character we have to see most of the time. Net, we have as well as getting a take on his true abilities; flame manipulation and flame consumption. Natsu, unlike other mages, is able to eat fire, his primary element, like food to give him strength in the middle of battle as well as being able to create flames through his mouth, something that mages could seemingly do simply through their hands and possibly their feet. Then, we get a statement from one of the men saying that Natsu is the actual salamander rather than this poser as Natsu spews out flames from his lungs. Happy explains that this ability is given through a Dragon Slayer; a person trained under a dragon to learn its ways as Lucy points out how weird it is to be taught by a dragon to learn this magic with Happy, like before, having the same “Ohh, now you mention it” expression (again, priceless). Next, we get something a bit funnier; Natsu beating up all of the men as he destroys everything in sight, showing his stubbornness in battle and Lucy pointing out that he is overdoing it. Finally, we get a few knights coming in to take care of this issue Natsu is making as he runs off with Lucy, saying that she should join Fairy Tail with her accepting the invitation. We then pan back to the Magic Counsel a day or two later talking about the events at the port, with Seig defending Natsu’s ridiculous decision and saying to let it go as well as how much he likes this guild due to their ludicrous methods as we end the first chapter with a two page spread of the guild’s headquarters.

While not the best beginner to a series, it was still entertaining I must say. It has some good fights, some humorous moments and a good introduction to the three characters and how ridiculous everything is going to be from now on, ending the first chapter of Fairy Tail.

Next, we get into the introduction of key characters that we will possibly get to know later on. We first get Mirajane transforming into one of the mage’s wives to make a joke about how flirtatious he is before we have a big fight, which Natsu starts due to a misunderstanding of one of the member’s parts, and we are introduced to Gray Fullbuster wearing only his underwear in front of everyone. Next, we have a woman drinking a big barrel of alcohol that we later learn is named Cana Alberona and then we get Elfman, declaring to “Fight with your fists to show your manhood!”And “MEN SHOULD FIGHTS WITH THEIR FISTS!” as he is punched out of the way by Gray and Natsu. Net, we get the womanizer Loke who is doing his job to womanize every woman he sees and joins the fight. Finally, before chaos truly comes to the guild’s HQ, we have the guild lead Marakov, who we first believe is a giant and later figure out that he is a tiny old man. He stops the guild to talk about all of destruction that they have brung to every place each guild member has gone to and how much this can come to hurt them thought the Magical Counsel. Then, he burns all of the notes he was given about each of the problems the guild members have caused ands says to screw the guild and not fear the guild because their spirits should not weaken due to the fear of some higher order members as they cry in glee and excitement. This whole segment is a great introduction to the chaos we learned that the guild can bring from last chapter as well as showing their reasoning for their chaotic method; their spirit and will to do whatever they think is right to complete a mission. This isn’t a militant guild to follow the ways of the Magical Counsel but a guild with a more free spirited view on their life and magic which I can get along with. Later on, we have Natsu looking for a mission as a young boy, named Romeo, cries away from the guild, after punching Marakov in the face, for his father, Macao, not coming back home from a mission after three days of accepting it. Natsu decides the mission he takes on as he punches a mission he rejects through the board and pats Romeo's head without saying a word, with the expression that says "everything will be alright because he’s going to go out to bring your father back home." This is later explained that Natsu also has a father issue, with his father being the dragon that he was looking for in the first chapter, Igneel. We also learn from Mirajane that the father dragon leaves on an unknown day leaving his human son on his own as well as saying that she suffers a similar suffering. This gives the motivation from Natsu to help out a child in need of his father who hasn’t been seen since he accepted the mission. To be honest, I do like this motivation that Natsu’s father left him and the fact that this doesn’t feel too last limit since this is still the beginning of the series, but this just bring up a few questions; what happened to his original parents, if he did have original parents and how was he able to find the guild after the dragon left him all alone. I don’t mind that they don’t bring these things up, but they do come to mind when something like this occurs. As we go into the mission with Happy and Lucy coming for the ride, the team is set in the middle of a snow infested mountain; possibly where the father lies defeated or worse. Natsu, not needing a jacket, walks out of the cold area, yelling for Macao as Lucy summons a grandfather clock type of celestial spirit to go into to stay warm as, suddenly, a giant gorilla known as a Vulcan (I’m not kidding) comes in and takes Lucy for his own…pleasure, for a lack of a better term. Then, we get an action set piece between Natsu and the gorilla creature with Lucy’s celestial spirit disappearing and forcing her to take the offensive to summon the constellation Torus; a large bull with an axe that is also perverted and only defends Lucy because of her breasts (And feminism marches on). In the end, it is discovered that one of the Vulcan Macao fought against possessed him and forced himself into a state of becoming one for a certain period of time with Natsu being the one to “knock some sense into him”. We would then discover that the fight that Macao had with the apes gave him a beating that seemed to be near fatal and Natsu, the character he is, uses his fire magic to burn an opened wound before it became infectious. This, once again, shows Natsu entitlement to the guild; thinking though any means to help a guild member in need, showing that he is a character that will fight for the sake of his friends more than fighting for the sake of being an idiot, even though intellect doesn’t seem to be his strong suit. We then figure out that the father did all of this to give his son more of a reason to respect him since he isn't the guild master or have a high classed profile and when he meet his son, Romeo, and ends the arc with these words: "When those brats tease you next time, ask them if their old man can defeat 19 monsters by himself." I do like this bit of pathos because it does allow characters to develop more than it forces characters to fight each other for the sake of the world. Its a mission that was important for the father because he wanted to make a stronger relationship with his son, which is a good sign of character and shows more of a reason to beat up some monsters rather than "I'm tough and I just want to beat stuff up" While I do think the reason why should have been explained a bit earlier, I still enjoyed it because it did feel real and allowing an audience to relate to secondary characters rather than focusing on the main characters all the time.

Overall, this was a good introduction to the Fairy Tail series. As I said before, this is a good introduction to the chaos of Fairy Tail and a possible mission-of-the-arc deal where we get some character to ride along with Lucy, Natsu and Happy, go through the mission and allow a type of development for these characters to make it more character driven than action driven or, better yet, a mixture of both action and character development. To go with my rating system, I give it a high Good to almost a Great while the system of Tyrocast I give this intro a Soild B. Its enjoyable, has a couple of good laughs and good action sequences while still not being the greatest thing since sliced bread. Please comment for typos I've made and I will fix them ASAP. This is Chaos Jumper, trying to find ways to stop procrastinating...

Fairy Tail is a series owned by Hiro Mashiro and published through Weekly Shonen Magazine (Not Jump, there is a difference) and the pictures I uploaded were from the Fairy Tail Wikipedia.

Star Wars; Return of the Jedi is owned by Lucusarts entertainment

Also, as a P.S & use of selfish advertising, I am working on a series based on what we know about the Fairy Tail lore + some things I will add in for possible future events. I finished the two part pilot and working on continuing the series. Read it if you have the chance and give me your thoughts (Positive or Negative)

1: http://qianlong-artist.deviantart.com/art/A-story-based-on-Fairy-Ta...

2: http://qianlong-artist.deviantart.com/#/d4o5q1f