An Honest Retrospective on Fairy Tail from a Lifelong Fan

Hello everyone and welcome to our shelter! 🙂 Today, I’m not the one doing the writing! I’m just here to introduce you to the great and lovely Aniblogger Scheiguy the Storytella, or as I still call him, Jack Scheibelein! I’m thrilled (and honored) to have the opportunity to have such a post in this little place! If you like what you read, don’t forget to follow their own blog, Animated Observations. Let me tell you if you do, you are in for a treat! Moreover, if you are into poetry, then you need to check their other blog, Solidly Liquid, where Jack uploads his original work featuring both poetry and short stories!

But, I’ve taken more than enough time from you! Here’s Jack’s ups and downs towards Fairy Tail through their life, a show that is going to end after being on air during a decade!

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It was recently announced on the show’s official twitter account that the beloved Shonen action series Fairy Tail will soon be coming to an end. The tweet confirmed that the last episode of the series would be 328, and with episode 321 having just released, that means the series as a little less than two months until its finale. This year, on October 12th, will mark a decade since the show’s release, and since the show will also be ending this year, I think its time to honestly grapple with my feelings on the show.

The Past

I started my journey into anime back in 2012, when I was just a middle schooler, and one of the first shows I came across during that time, alongside FMA and Bleach, was Fairy Tail. As a middle school kid with not much else to do, aside from playing Mario Kart on my Nintendo DS, I did what any other person does with an anime they like and binged it all in about a week. At the time, the show had about 130 or so episodes, and after I finished them all I continued watching the series weekly up until it stopped around 175. After the series returned, roughly a year and a half, it was still my favorite series of all time, and I continued watching it. 

However, around this time, I had just gotten into high school, and a lot of my tastes were starting to change. They became more storytelling focused, and I craved shows that went a little deeper. I fell in love with FMA again, but I also found myself being attracted to shows such as Oregairu, Future Diary, No Game No Life. After finding a myriad of great shows to watch, and experiencing the medium even further, my opinion of Fairy Tail began to wain a little bit. 

After a bit of a falling out of anime during the end of my Freshman year and the beginning of my Sophmore year, I discovered even more great series, including Spice and Wolf, Psycho-Pass, and especially my current all-time favorite Sangatsu no Lion, my opinion of Fairy Tail was at an all-time low. Even adjacent a lot of the other modern Shonen series such as Hunter X Hunter and My Hero Academia, the show as a whole did not look great. It was at this point that I stopped keeping up with the series as religiously as I did. 

The Present

Fast forward to the present. I am now currently caught up to the series and have even watched both of the show’s two movies as well. Despite it sounding like I think the show is bad, my feelings are a little more complicated than that. On the one hand, there are a lot of things that keep it from being better, such as the continually uninspired animation which makes the show a lot harder to watch. Every episode feels like there is less and less movement, which is saying something considering the medium of anime as a whole. 

There is also the soundtrack that feels stale to the point of no longer being exciting. I remember when I first watched the series and I would always get excited when the show’s main theme kicked in, signally the time for an awesome fight. However, the show’s soundtrack has barely changed in the last ten years, and it is hard to get pumped when the music has been the same for that long. Not to mention that when the soundtrack does change in the slightest, chances are that the additions are likely just remixes of the show’s main theme.

Still, despite having a lot of problems, I will stick for Fairy Tail, just a little bit. For me, the nostalgia hits just a little too hard, in the same way that many complained about various Naruto’s newer arcs but still decided to finish the show anyway. However, even ignoring the nostalgia, the show has plenty of great moments. Take for example one of the show’s first major arcs, where Natsu and the others in Fairy Tail assist Wendy in investigating Cait Shelter. The arc not only ended up introducing Wendy as a character and later as a member of Fairy Tail but also laid out quite brilliantly one of the show’s core themes, that family does not have do be blood-related. 

Overall, my feelings on Fairy Tail are this: the show as a whole is just ok. I cannot in good faith argue that the show is anything more than that. However, I still like the show a lot, and consider in my top ten personal favorite shows. I have been watching it for a long time. Almost a third of my life, to be exact, and I will finish it. I want to see it through to the end.