Manga Review: Fairy Tail Volume One

[Jason]

Name: Fairy Tail
Volume: One
Mangaka: Hiro Mashima
Serialized in: Weekly Shonen Magazine (Kodansha)
Genre: Shounen, Fantasy
Publisher: Del Rey

I got this to review just after a friend had reviewed it in her journal so I’m hoping not too many of her words end up here, though I have to agree with her about this manga. If you’re offended by the big-boobed scantily dressed shonen female archetype, you can jump ship right here and save yourself time and reading effort. The main character has gravity-defying breasts and a back of iron to hold them and, in spite of that, I still like her.

Fairy Tail opens with the intersection of two young lives, Lucy, a celestial witch who can open gates and enlist the magical aid of celestial beings and Natsu, a young man who’s looking for someone, accompanied by his uh…cat, Happy. I’m not sure what Happy really is, but occasionally he has wings and he talks. He’s also bipedal so…

Lucy finds herself swept away with a gaggle of girls to the side of Salamander, a Fairy Tail Wizard, as hot as his fire magic. Lucy is thrilled because Fairy Tail is the guild she wants most to join (think Hogwart's Houses without the schooling for the guilds). Lucy naturally gets the instant hots for Salamander, at least until Natsu bumbles on the scene, breaking the wizard’s charm’s hold on her.

While Salamander wanders off with his followers, Lucy treats Natsu to lunch, giving us two key details. Natsu is looking for a dragon and Lucy has a healthy worship for the Fairy Tail Guild and is hurt that a Fairy Tail wizard would be as slimy as Salamander. However, these regrets don’t stop Lucy from getting sucked in later that evening by Salamander. After she leaves Natsu to pig out even more on her dime, Lucy is approached by Salamander who invites Lucy onto his yacht for a party. When she doesn’t want to go, he entices her with the promise to get her into Fairy Tail, which is what she wants more than anything else in the world and she’s naïve enough to believe him. Natsu also hears about the party and you can see he knows something is wrong.

Natsu is correct. Salamander is really using his charm spells to lure in girls for a very vile purpose. Natsu arrives in time, with a few secrets of his own; namely he gets motion sickness at the drop of a hat (hey, puking on the enemy might help, you don’t know) and that he’s a real fire wizard from Fairy Tail. In fact Natsu’s powers are really cool. Between Lucy and Natsu’s magic, the fake Salamander stands no chance. Neither does half the town. In fact, Fairy Tail has a bad reputation with the Guild Council for their overkill tactics but then again, they go after the really bad monsters no one else can.

Naturally Natsu takes Lucy to Fairy Tail and many of her illusions are instantly shattered by Natsu picking a massive throw-down fight with the entire guild within seconds. Lucy was picturing refined elegance and she gets Gryffindor on crack. There’s the model Mirajane (whom Lucy idolizes), Loke, the young wizard that every girl’s magazine has on their "Who’s Hot" list, Gray (I like Gray, he keeps ending up naked), Elfman, who’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer and Cana Alberona, she of the hollow leg who can drink a town dry. The free for all continues until Master Marakov inflicts some order on them. Fairy Tail is more the misfit guild but they are very talented. Lucy is brought into the guild without a fuss or testing or, well, anything really.

Natsu gets distracted from the monster hunting job board by a young boy whose wizard father has disappeared. Natsu goes to find him with Lucy’s help, after Happy tells her that it’s personal for Natsu. His father figure, Igneel the dragon (the one he’s looking for), disappeared on Natsu when he was a boy, never to be seen again.

The search leads them up a mountain in a blizzard in spite the fact it’s summer, to find a menacing monkey-thing with a horn on its head. Like the aforementioned friend said in her review, it looks just like the horned gorilla on Star Trek, and yes it does look like Mugato from A Private Little War (Original Trek, yes, I know its name) and it doesn’t help that the thing is a Vulcan. Lucy calls up Taurus to help. Frankly, a horny bull probably isn’t her best celestial being but he is the strongest. Good triumphs naturally.

The volume ends with Lucy renting a house and Natsu making himself at home, giving Lucy a chance to show how a celestial witch makes a contract with her celestial beings and for Natsu to trick her into a high paying artifact recovery job; something that promises Lucy in a maid’s outfit in volume two. Ah, fanservice.

Fairy Tail is cute. It’s fast paced and just plain fun. Sure there’s plenty of fanservice, but honestly that stuff doesn’t bother me much. Natsu and Lucy are fun characters, if excitable. I’d like to see the other Fairy Tail wizards in action. For those who like to know, the special effects are left in place with English translations next to them but not cluttered. I like the art, it’s detailed and expressive and as usual with Del Rey, there are a lot of cultural translation notes. I’m looking forward to volume two.

Reviewer: D. M. Evans
Proofer: Eduardo Menendez
Editor: Jason Punda