Fairy Tail #1-13

Fairy Tail #1-13

Originally released in 2006

Written by Hiro Mashima

Art by Hiro Mashima

I changed things up a bit by picking a manga that isn't in Shonen Jump today.  Humble Bundle sells the Fairy Tail series (among other manga series) in PDF form from time to time, and July 7th is a recurring date in Fairy Tail, so today seemed fitting.

Fairy Tail is a series focusing on the titular guild of chaotic, fun-loving mages, with a particular focus on Lucy (the heroine, a fairly normal girl who is a summoner and the viewpoint character), Natsu (a more traditional shonen hero - he's a big fan of food, friendship, and fire, with his Fire Dragon Slayer magic involving a lot of punching), and Happy. (The series' mascot character - a talking flying blue cat who's also a member of Fairy Tail)

As the series goes on, more characters are added to the main cast, with it ultimately consisting of seven characters. (The number seven comes up a lot) The first signs of that are shown this early on, as by the end of the second volume, the main trio has taken on a mission with two of their fellow guildmates.  One of them is Gray, an ice mage who's Natsu's rival.  He's one of the more normal Fairy Tail mages, aside from his habit of stripping, and used to the sort of craziness that the guild provides, though in my eyes, this leads to him feeling somewhat bland compared to the larger personalities of the rest of his guild.

The other one is Erza, one of the highest-ranking mages in the guild, and someone who scares Natsu and Gray into working together.  Erza's one of the highlights of the series for me; when it comes to shonen manga, I'm used to women getting the short end of the stick. The "shonen" term means "young boys/men", the target audience for the genre, so women rarely get to do much, often serving as the brains of the operation, or healers, or okay fighters but not as good as the men.  Erza avoids all of this, proving to be as good of a fighter as the men (or better - the number of people in the Fairy Tail guild who are stronger than her can be counted on one hand) and just as ridiculous as most of them despite (or because of) her straight-laced nature.

Natsu, Lucy, and Happy go on several missions together once Lucy joins the guild, establishing some key themes in the series (like the importance of friendship, or the bond between parent and child) in the process.  They make for a fun trio, with Lucy providing a grounded look at the shenanigans that the other two get up to and the strange thought processes that they have

.

The series can be unapologetically fan-servicey at times, though the earlier chapters don't reach the extent that later chapters get to.  Still, both genders get in on the fan-service - Lucy's the main source of it, at least early on (Erza tends to prefer wearing plate armour), but Natsu and especially Gray tend to go around bare-chested, so it's not like the men are left out.

Story-wise, it's nothing new, but that makes it work well for people who are getting into manga, much like its contemporaries One Piece and Naruto. (unlike those, Fairy Tail was published in a different magazine)  It was a little odd to go back to these early chapters, given that the character designs have changed more than I realized as the series went on (Happy becomes much cuter looking by the end), but I had a good time with these early chapters.

It's a light-hearted adventure series that focuses on fanservice and the power of friendship, and you generally know what you're going to get when you go into it. It's not the deepest series, but it doesn't try to be, and I like it that way.