OP Sequence

OP: 「Snow fairy」 by FUNKIST
Watch the OP!: Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Streaming ▼

Summary:

The kingdom of Fiore exists in a world of magic with wizards and magic guilds. In the port of Hargeon, a wizard named Lucy has just finished some magic shopping when she comes across a crowd of girls gathered around a wizard who calls himself Salamander. She’s at first attracted to him like all the other girls, but when a different guy suddenly bursts through the crowd because he mistook this Salamander for someone else, Lucy comes back to her senses. She realizes that Salamander had cast a charm spell on everyone, and to thank Natsu, the guy who helped free her from it, she treats him and his pet Happy to lunch. In the process she reveals her desire to join a guild and learns that Natsu is searching for a dragon named Igneel. After they part ways, Lucy reads in a magazine about the latest exploits of the guild Fairy Tail, and, in wondering how to join them, she’s overheard by Salamander. He claims to be part of Fairy Tail and offers her the chance to join if she comes to the party on his ship.

Lucy goes, but once there, she realizes that Salamander is trying to use Sleep magic to knock her out. When she resists, his thugs show up, and Salamander reveals that he’s in the business of kidnapping and selling women. He throws away Lucy’s Gate Keys to prevent her from using her summoning magic, but fortunately for her, Natsu and Happy arrive because they had heard the rumors about Salamander being in Fairy Tail. Happy flies Lucy away, but after the time limit on Happy’s wings run out, they both fall into the ocean. Luckily, Lucy is able to retrieve her Gate Keys from the ocean floor. She uses them to summon Aquarius and then has the spirit use her powers to push the ship back to port. Being back on solid land means that Natsu no longer suffers from motion sickness, and he’s finally able to properly confront Salamander about being in Fairy Tail. Natsu knows that Salamander is a fraud because Natsu himself is a Fairy Tail wizard, and what’s more, he’s able to use a slew of ancient anti-dragon magic techniques, like the ability to consume fire. He’s thus able to make short work of this fraud, but in the process he destroys much of the port, and he’s forced to run from the authorities. However, he drags Lucy with him because she wanted to join Fairy Tail.

ED Sequence

ED: 「完璧ぐ~のね」 (Kanpeki Gu~no ne) by 渡り廊下走り隊 (Watarirouka Hashiritai)
Watch the ED!: Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Streaming ▼

My reactions to the opening and endings songs here were basically “meh”. The OP at least felt appropriate for a shounen action series like this, but the ED sounded it was sung by a bunch of pre-teen girls (not quite true but close enough) who were trying too hard to sound cute.

 

This first episode ended up being about what I expected based on having read the manga and seen the promo videos for the show. I think the best way to describe it is as mostly average. It was a fairly entertaining introduction to the premise with some action, comedy, and promising characters (particularly Natsu), and the production quality was decent, but nothing to call home about. Obviously, as you can see above, it wasn’t that bad, but you’d think that a combination of A-1 Pictures and Satelight could have pulled off something a bit more impressive, especially for a first episode.

The worst part of the episode for me was how Kugimiya Rie voiced Happy. That’s probably her most annoying voice and similar to how she sounded in Saki. It was so bad that I didn’t even mind Hirano Aya‘s voicing of Lucy, which was probably what I was most apprehensive about coming into the series. It’s definitely going to take a lot of getting used to if I’m going to continue watching this. And on that note, I am tentatively planning on continuing with FAIRY TAIL, partly because I liked what I read of the manga, and partly because there’s no other Monday shows that interest me. Like I said in the fall preview though, the caveat of course is that this is the type of shounen series that can drag on forever, so that interest can go away quickly if there’s too much boring filler-esque material.

75 Comments

  1. Woot 1st~
    Generally I really dislike Rie’s voice (Shana, Taiga) but I think it works decently as a cat.
    Natsu’s voice wasn’t what I was expecting but after a bit I got used to it.

    The other thing that I liked about the first episode is that even though they cut out some of the fight scene from the manga, they got through it to Lucy getting pulled by Natsu running off to Fairy Tail. I was dreading that the episode was just going to end right when the fight starts making the series start right off with a drag. Which is what I felt from 07-Ghost.

    koager
  2. Pretty much by the book copy of the manga, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I am looking forward to this series, if it follows the manga closely it should have a good amount of humor and action.

    So Very Odd
  3. This 1st episode was ok, although I’m not a big fan of the dragon appearing in the background every time Natsu uses his powers, and character design-wise I still prefer the manga’s a lot more, this is just from my POV of course. Voice-wise just like it was mentioned above Happy’s and lucy’s are gonna be a little hard getting used to.

    Wiru BK-201
  4. YEa I would have loved Luffy’s voice in Natsu. I didn’t mind Happy and Lucy’s voice as much, it was Natsu’s voice that I thought was off.

    Nevertheless, I Love the manga, so I’ll love the series. Looking forward to Erza Scarlet!!!

    Titania Fan
  5. Lol at the opening, they place Plue from Rave into the opening sequence but i read some of the manga and didn’t see plue there as a character, did they put him here in the anime? I hope the anime will lead to a finish in this series because i was pissed that i bought the whole box set for Rave anime and it didn’t finish and didn’t announce any more episode afterwards 🙁

  6. A decent episode since a-1 pictures have make a high quality animation like True Tears and considering they are spending the budget for this series wisely, I’m sure they put it into the fight scenes and climax episodes.

    Again I hope no filler episodes and it shouldn’t suffer the same fate as RAVE.

    I miss Plue, Hope ellie/lucy summon him some time.

    arigatou
  7. OK, this is a perfect example of an episode starting off fuckin shitty & ending awesome. The animation doesn’t really bothers me but I can’t seem to watch the other anime that features this style. Maybe Its because the seiyu for those other anime are terrible.

    I’m also not a fan of comparing anime & manga. A great or shitty manga won’t necessarily equate to those results in the anime. However, I thought the manga was way too childish & if Natsu’s voice was childish to boot I would have snuff’d this in the trash. There’s over 400 episodes of One Piece for those folks who want that with this animation style, of which I can proudly say I’ve watched NONE. I also never watched Soul Eater either, sad but true. But I do have it saved somewhere. Maybe this anime will turn me on to this style enough for me to watch SE – but I’ll still never touch OP, ever 😛

    Megas
  8. Watarirouka Hashiritai has crappy voices. In general, Team B is kinda “meh”. >>; If they had Kashiwagi Yuki in there, everything would change.

    The ED is cute though. Wayy too shoujo, but cute.

    Kiseki
  9. OHH WOW!! LUFFY AND THE GANG!!!……ooops.. i mean NATSU!! and friends. Ohhh that NAMI and her dream to write stuff…ooop’s…. i mean that LUCY and her dream to write stuff what a CARD!! well i sure hope NATSU GETS TO BECOME THE PIRATE KING!!!

    BROOKLYN otaku
  10. This could of been so much better starting off… Oh well i still think this will be worth watching once the action starts heating up, i hope . This series has so much potential and if they just follow the manga closely and animate fight scenes with hi quality you really cant fail.

    Jin
  11. I really liked this 1st episode. I also liked the way she played Happy. Its amazing how many characters this girl plays. Shana, Louise from Zero No Tsukaima, Nemu and Karin on Bleach, and tons more. I also was wondering if the same people that make Fairy Tail anime also make Naruto Shippuden? Some of Lucy’s facial features and mannerisms were dead on perfect for Sakura.

    Splash
  12. Erm…for people who keep saying Luffy/One Piece…Get it right.
    Fairy Tail is by Hiro Mashima, who did Grove Adventure Rave
    One Piece is by Eiichiro Oda
    Two different people.
    On the surface their styles may seem similar due to coming from the same generation following Akira Toriyama but differences between them can be seen when truly compared

    koager
  13. urgh, the beginning song felt like the singer had no idea what he was doing. If it was supposed to fit in with the whole “omg-ee fairy taillllll”, it just fell flat.

    the ending song was too shoujo-esque. It went with the same flow as Rave’s ending songs where Elie was featured most of the time, so I get the whole Lucy being there. But the songs? I would so prefer an Elie Rave version compared to this.

    core
  14. @ koager

    You probably don’t understand us. We know that One Piece and Fairy Tail are by two different authors but the thing is that I see a lot of resemblance between Luffy and Natsu so that’s why we were hoping that Natsu was voiced by the person who voiced Natsu. If it wasn’t we would not mind either.

    Silver
  15. I’ve never read the original Fairy Tail, but after watching the first episode I have to say that I do enjoy it. It’s funny, it’s quirky, and it’s highly unexpected. And it’s not the usual fan service anime, it was actually about the story itself unlike the recent anime which all feature hot springs episodes for boosted DVD sales.

    Abd Al-Azrad
  16. Saying Luffy’s voice for Natsu is fine as that’s the impression you would get from what they would sound like since their character personalities are somewhat similar. Having seen the first season of One Piece in Chinese that’s what I somewhat thought of, too, with some variations. My first impression of Natsu was that he sounds a bit too mature. Probably especially as after looking through the VAs I noticed that Tetsuya Kakihara is Mercutio in RomeoxJuliet.
    My “…..” was more meant towards other post(s) that I saw when I quickly scanned through. Or it might’ve been on another forum that carried through in my memory, oh well.

    I’m wondering how this series will go. The manga is still ongoing and there doesn’t seem anywhere close to drawing a conclusion yet. There are arcs but I haven’t really seen a huge overarching plot yet, there are some hints at things going on outside of the current arc but so far nothing really big yet; it is all tying together, but there is still quite a ways to go. If anything goes wrong in the anime they can simply add in a lot of fillers if they wished…”yay let’s all do more jobs!”

    koager
  17. Eh, not that impressed by this first episode. Maybe the One Piece style is throwing me off, but so far, I don’t think I’ll be picking this anime up unless some interesting plot is revealed or something =/

    invAZN
  18. Freya at 12:42 am on October 13th, 2009

    Meh I would watch this show regardless how bad the VA is….but stupid Crunchyroll licensed it. Crunchyroll sucks balls.

    I interpreted your comment as “OMG, we has to pay for subs?!!! omgwtfbbq!?!!?!”

  19. ok to clear things up. Rave Master and Fairy Tail are both done by manga artist or w/e Hiro Mashima. The “drill dude,” Plue, is somewhat his mascot, like Pandaman to Oda and the guy with the Gas mask for Akira Toriyama. So basically he threw Plue in Rave master and Fairy Tail.

    ShinigamiJr.
  20. omg… i expected something great… but the quality of the animation is even worse than the first season of one piece, or so i remember… i really hope it’s getting better in this aspect, because i just love the manga.
    another bad point would be the op/ed… like been said, it was just “meh”…

    Nightflame
  21. Everyone has summed it up, average episode really.
    Saying that, the likes of One Piece, Naruto and Bleach all started out the same; sucky animation, cheesy one-off bad guy etc.
    Hopefully this will follow their tradition of getting better with each episode.
    As for the VA’s, I loved them, especially Aya as Lucy. Just gave the character so much life. Didn’t like that fake Salamander guy though with the ‘Engrish’ attack names.
    Anyway, it’s not what everyone expected, but it’s one to keep an eye on.

    blinx01
  22. it was okay… but the animation production was kinda crap, like the manga’s first chapter was really good and so I found it interesting cause the drawings were really good.

    But if the animation is going to be bad then no one is going to watch it.

    Overall its alrite but it could be better.

    Zero
  23. It’s too similar to OP. However, they are two different mangakas so yeah.

    Natsu’s voice isn’t what I expected. Hirano Aya as Lucy is meh. Happy sucks. I’m not happy about him at all. Expecting more awesomeness, even though

    Show Spoiler ▼

    kkkkkkkkk
  24. Freya at 5:21 am on October 13th, 2009
    @Neo_NMO
    Yeah basically. Free anime ftw.

    I responded to a similar remark in my 11eyes post, but thought I’d repost it here since this is more recent.

    Objectively speaking, at $5 a month, it’s less than you’d expect to pay for a specialty cable TV channel (which it basically is), plus it gives money back to the anime industry in Japan. This of course doesn’t even take into account the time/money spent to get proper subtitles out in a timely manner (often within 24 hours of airing in Japan).

    While I’m sure everyone appreciates the efforts of the fansub community, it’s hard to say that donating to them (often in tens to hundreds of dollars at a time) is getting your money to those who actually deserve it. Keep in mind that this is in light of a struggling anime industry right now. If it goes under, that means no more anime for anyone.

    That said, I’m not trying to be “pro-Crunchyroll” here or anything. I’m just trying to find out why people hate the service they’re providing so much, especially when it’s free if you’re willing to wait a week. I don’t think the argument, “but I can get a bootleg copy for free” holds a lot of weight. The video game industry is no different. You can just as easily download copied games for free for various systems/handhelds, but then do you hate on the stores that sell the real games and take a cut of the profits?

    At anime conventions, some fansubbers claimed that they do what they do because there are no good alternatives for fans — paid or otherwise. Technically, now there is one but some people aren’t willing to pay for it, even though it’s like $0.17/day. However, you’ll probably notice that a lot of fansub groups won’t bother with shows that are simulcasted because it’s redundant, meaning that they acknowledge there’s an alternative out there for you.

    Just some food for thought.

  25. you really didnt like happy’s voice? i thot it was a good and a change from the everyday girly voices that all sound the same in different animes. its similar to her voice from gintama and its supposed to be child like which i think fits happy very well its just not cute or feminine and i think thats fine. however i felt that lucy’s voice didnt fit her role very well but ive never let someones voice stop me from watching an anime and im excited for the battles that ive seen in the manga so im going to continue to follow this one

    sean
  26. @koager
    Yeah you’re right, OP and FT are made by different authors, however, the difference between the FT manga and Anime is extremely obvious. First is the kind of drawing, I prefer manga one, secondly, the anime was made thinking in Yu-GI-OH… a bullshit piece of ass full of shit and loaded of fuck anime for kids.

    FT just died last night and you know it.

    Greegga
  27. the episode wasn’t bad, but it could have been better.
    I think we’re all in agreement; Happy’s voice sucked. I also think they’re playing too much on his cuteness factor. I didn’t really think of him as a cute type. i liked him a lot more in the manga. let’s just hope that the other eps turn out to be better.

    Ruddor
  28. Happy’s proportions in the manga were totally different. Bigger head and smaller limbs. It was done on purpose to enhance the cuteness and the impossibility of his existence. Now he looks like a kitten version of Tom from Tom & Jerry. And I don’t even want to start on my disappointment with the animation and charac design. Oh man I was so looking forward to this but now I’m probably going to drop it.

    SOSAnimeBoy
  29. I felt that Tetsuya Kakihara voice exactly fit Natsu and it also reminded me of Simon from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. But I felt that Rie Kugimiya voice also exactly fit the cute Happy since its a cheerful talking cat

    Dearka Elsman
  30. I love all the people that bitch and complain about the minutest details in an anime and say they are gonna give them up because the voice is slightly off from what they expected or the characters head was too big and its different from tyhe manga. But next week they are back with more negative comments. If you dont like something stop watching it and go find something you like. I love watching anime and seeing as I dont pay for it I figure “its all good” and watch the ones I like and don’t watch the ones I dont like (I dropped Miracle Train and White Album after watching the 1st one of each in this new season).

    Splash
  31. I really don’t see what everyone’s problem with the seiyū is. She wasn’t horribly bad or anything. And in regards to how she sounds, her voice was somewhat realistic rather than try and sound like a 9 year old with sex appeal (aka 70% of female anime characters) or a 30 year old in a young girl’s body (aka the other 29%). Maybe you should listen to someone that age talk for a few minutes.

    But the style isn’t really all that different from the original manga, and the first episode follows the first chapter faithfully, and the only thing changed beyond small dialogue edits is the omission of the wraparound scene involving (what looks like) a mage’s council.

    Design is similar in concept, though with small changes. If you think the changes are glaring, all you’re doing is being an elitist prick about it. Things like Lucy’s regular clothing, and a couple details here and there might be edited a little. And why the hell not? People love Dragon Ball Z, but it still featured a few altered character designs that deviated from the manga. Same with Bleach and Naruto, not everything is 100% the same.

    But it’s also only episode one. If you’re gonna drop something based on episode one, then maybe it’s for the best, because you obviously don’t appreciate it. Honestly, should the artists have bought stencils or something just to draw things exactly the same to appease you? Get over yourselves.

    Abd Al-Azrad
  32. I won’t leave it at bad remarks just yet because I still have high hopes for the series-particularly when it starts reaching the important big battles. The voices are not at all bad, probably will get easier to adjust to after a while too, and the opening I thought was actually a good way to open the show too. All in all I’m just glad that this epic series has got it’s foot in the spotlight now.

    Hal

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