Synopsis
Cute girl wizard Lucy wants to join the Fairy Tail, a club for the most powerful wizards. But instead, her ambitions land her in the clutches of a gang of unsavoury pirates led by a devious magician. Her only hope is Natsu, a strange boy she happens to meet on her travels. Natsu’s not your typical hero–he gets motion sickness, eats like a pig, and his best friend is a talking cat. With friends like this, is Lucy better off with her enemies?
Synopsis
Beautiful celestial wizard Lucy has teamed up with the crazy fire wizard Natsu and his bizarre flying cat, Happy. Their job: to steal a book from the notorious Duke Everlue. But the eccentric Everlue has killed wizards before, and Lucy’s team is walking right into his death trap!
My Thoughts
The Fairy Tail wizards guild is where everyone with magical tendencies would like to end up, and Lucy is no exception. She dreams of one day being a part of this group. But as amazing as the Fairy Tail guild is, they also have a pretty bad reputation – they seem to be the type that gets a job done with no thought as to the destruction they may cause along the way. They also seem to be a very party and fun oriented bunch.
Volume 1 introduces the reader to three main characters, Lucy, Natsu and Happy. Lucy is a sorceress who uses the magic of her Gate Keys to summon magical spirits. It appears that many of the better Gate Keys call to creatures which are related to star signs. Natsu is a very powerful wizard, raised by a dragon, he has the ability to gain nourishment from eating fire, which also allows him to expel flames from any part of his body. Happy is Natsu’s feline side-kick, his magical talent lets him grow wings that make him able to fly.
Each of these characters have their own particular personality, Lucy acts sort of spoiled, but not in a snobby way, she is very self-confident and likes to think she can get by on her looks alone, even though she seems smart. Natsu is just strange, he is obviously powerful and he loves to fight, and eat, but he cannot travel on any sort of transport without getting sea/car-sick. His background is pretty vague so far, but it’s clear there’s something special about him. Happy is just what his name suggests, an all-around good cat, he provides lots of comical asides.
After reading Volume 1, I was very curious to see where this series was heading. I enjoyed the characters and the basic idea, so I picked up Volume 2. Even though it does introduce more characters and furthers the story, there was just something I wasn’t getting. Maybe if I were to read a few more volumes I would enjoy myself more, but at this point I’m going to set Fairy Tail aside. My only concrete complaint about the series was certain aspects of the illustrations, at points in the story when characters are feeling different emotions there entire persona is drawn differently. The majority of the time they appear as they are portrayed on the covers, but at other times they become cartoonish or sketched looking. This bothers me. I like artistic continuity in my manga.
About The Author
Hiro Mashima is a Japanese manga artist most known for his manga Groove Adventure Rave, published by Kodansha's Weekly Shonen Magazine, from 1999 to 2005. The series was later adapted into an anime. However, the anime adaption was cancelled before it could complete the series. In 2003, he collected some of his one-shot titles in two volumes: Mashima-en- Vol.1 & 2. Those stories include, among others, Cocona, "Xmas Hearts" and "Fairy Tail", a sort of prototype for his last work. In 2006, he began his current ongoing series, Fairy Tail, serialized in Kodansha's Weekly Shonen Magazine. He also published the one-shot manga Monster Soul during the same year.
| Title: | Fairy Tale Volume 1 & 2 |
| Author: | Hiro Mashima |
| Book Genre: | Manga (Japanese) |
| Book Type: | Trade Paperback 208 pages |
| Publisher: | Del Ray |
| Publication Date: | March 2008 |
Fairy Tail Volume 2 @ The Written World
© 2008-2010 Joanne Mosher of The Book Zombie. All rights reserved.
4 comments:
I am all about artistic continuity too.
I agree with your thoughts. I read book two to get some info about book one, but I still feel like there is stuff missing. I was going to read on in the series, but I don't really feel a huge rush to do so.
Hmmm...between you and Kailana, I think I'll try some other Manga before this one.
I loved your blog. Thank you.
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