By Hiro Mashima. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Del Rey.
I enjoy Fairy Tail. It has fun characters, good action sequences, and an intriguing backstory. This volume wraps up the Guild War arc we’ve had for a few books, and shows Lucy rejecting her father and siding with the Guild. This is probably the strongest scene in the volume, and gives Lucy a nice chance to shine.
In fact, the whole volume is Lucy-dominated, as she also is a big part of the other plot, dealing with fellow Guild Member Loke and why he’s been avoiding Lucy. The answer to that is not quite a surprise, per se, but it’s handled well, and gives us a good idea of what Lucy’s keys are like with the wrong person wielding them.
I’m also fond of the goofy humor in the series. Natsu is, of course, always there for some silliness. But it’s nice to see Erza, a badass warrior maiden who should be a stoic sort, getting involved in pillow fights of destruction and trying to make it on the stage (despite her acting sucking rocks.) It gives us a more human side to her.
In the end, though, Fairy Tail has a couple of big flaws. It’s getting better at avoiding this, but it’s hard to read this manga without the spectre of One Piece over its head. To be fair, this is because they’re both shonen manga with similar tropes, and almost all shonen manga have groups of friends banding together to battle enemies, befriending those enemies, and getting stronger. But there’s still a sense that this is Kodansha’s attempt to get a One Piece of its own. Originality is not part of the draw here. (To be fair, judging by popularity in Japan and the recent anime, Kodansha may have succeeded in getting its own One Piece.)
Another problem I have is with simple memorability. I enjoy Fairy Tail while I read it, but it doesn’t stick with me as much as a One Piece or Negima does. We’re only 9 volumes in, and the character sheet is already unwieldy. Even Negima, with its class of 31 girls, rolled them out a bit more slowly. It can be hard to keep track of everything, and I find myself having to reread the previous volume when a new one comes out to jog my memory.
Still, in the end this is a fun, action-filled manga with lots of humor and fighting, and of course The Power Of Friendship. If you want a typical shonen manga, and not in a derogatory way, Fairy Tail is an excellent purchase.
