FAIRY TAIL / First Impressions

OP13 Sequence

OP13: 「breakthrough」 by GOING UNDER GROUND

「剣咬の虎（セイバートゥース）」 (Seibaatuusu)
“Sabertooth”

FAIRY TAIL enters a new season (4th one) and a new arc, a canon one to be more specific. This is the second time the anime and the manga (with only ~50 chapters apart) are on the same arc. While I am a bit worried, I’m also super excited.

While it is a new arc, we were still given a chance to properly say “good bye” to Zentopia with a party à la FAIRY TAIL – noisy, cheerful, and generous. It was a good move by the writers to dedicate the first half of this episode to the Legion Corps not only because it was an amusing A-part, but also because it served well as a transitional moment for us. I’m not a big fan of diving head first into arcs, mostly because I really appreciate the characters in FAIRY TAIL and I love to see them having fun. The party itself showed us another side of the Legion Corps now that they’ve changed. Samuel and Lily’s battle was joyful instead of being filled with hatred, Hughes realized that she can make friends, Coco admitted she doesn’t hate cats, Sugarboy got his spicy message from Gray, Gatman will build up the destroyed cities, Byro showed us he can smile creepily, and Dan… was just being Dan. We also found out who Michelle Lobster really is and why Lapointe used her. No one was left out in the end. All’s well that ends well!

Having said that, we’re now on a new arc called “The Grand Magic Games” – the title itself was briefly mentioned in the preview and it’s also splattered all over the new opening sequence. I like the new opening; it’s a fun song and it suits the sequence. The ending one is better though. We have Mavis walking from one arc to another with a very beautiful song playing in the background. I’m sure I’ve said this before but I love almost every FAIRY TAIL ending with a few exceptions.

Seven years is a long time and many things have happened while FAIRY TAIL slowly broke down and reached the bottom spot on the guild rankings’ list. There is a new, guild in town called Sabertooth and it happens to be a strong one. Like FAIRY TAIL, they also have dragon slayers. Meet Sting Eucliffe (Sakurai Takahiro), a blond young man who appears to have been a fan of Natsu. With him he has an Exceed called Lector (Yajima Akiko) – a very sturdy male cat. We also have Rogue Cheney (Suzumura Kenichi), a gloomy guy who used to be a fan of Gajeel. Like Sting, he also has an Exceed – Frosch (Koorogi Satomi), a female (I think, but I’m not sure) cat that looks like a frog. Given the way these two dragons handled the soldiers’ (from a dark guild) approach, we can clearly see that they’re no good, plus we know that they come from the guild which happens to be the currently strongest one in Fiore (they took on a dark guild on their own)….

Now that these two guys who appear to think that they’ve surpassed their idols are in the center of attention, it’s quite obvious that we’ll have them facing the dragons of FAIRY TAIL, namely the two they used to look up to. Based on the opening sequence, we can assume that the guilds will have a showdown in the Grand Magic Games. I’m a bit surprised to see everyone wearing purple outfits (I thought they were wearing something dark blue or black), but it’ll be easy to get used to that because we have many episodes ahead of us.

This episode is the beginning of FAIRY TAIL’s 4th season, or 4th anime year to be more specific, so I guess the anime will run another year for now which I think is great but I do smell fillers or dragged out battles up ahead, but I don’t mind that as long as everything is done well.

Aside from the devastating news that FAIRY TAIL has been surpassed by every guild in Fiore, everything else was quite joyous. Maybe it’s because of Natsu’s amazing attitude? I find it very admirable that he sees this situation as a challenge rather than bad news. Optimistic people are so lovable, especially in anime (yes, I’m a Natsu fangirl and I’m not afraid to admit it).

On to the more serious part of the episode where we have Makarov revealing the ultimate secret of his guild to Gildarts who is going to be the new master of FAIRY TAIL! Beneath the guild’s old building lies a secret room where the masters’ shared secret can be found – Lumen Histoire. It’s hard to say what it is now but it’s definitely going to be something big. Having said that, it looks like we’re up for some action next week when Natsu is going to practice his magic before the games begin.

Moete kitazou!

Full-length shots: 1, 6, 12, 17, 18, 20, 29, 30, 32

New eyecatch: A-part, B-part

 

ED13 Sequence

ED13: 「キミがくれたもの」 (Kimi ga Kureta Mono) by 工藤 静香 (Shizuka Kudou)

Preview

31 Comments

  3. Thanks Stereoman for you post.

    Can’t wait till we see everyone again and back in the action. Hopefully we get to see some good and extended battles happening against people.

    Shadiic
    Reply

  5. I hope the anime team will be careful in not overtaking the manga athough I would assume, they’ll add some filler in between like they did in the tenrou island, with Lisanna, Levy, Fried, Elfman vs the remainer of the Grimore Hearts.
    Also, its cute that Satomi Koorogi is playing Frocsh. That won’t be her only role as a small cat if you familar with Chi sweet home.

    Rzerox21xx
    Reply

  6. I’m wondering if this site will review another Weekly Shounen Magazine that is getting a anime adaption. Code Breaker. it’s going to premiere today. and it’s Akimine Kamijyo second long manga that getting a anime adaptation, the first being Samurai Deeper Kyo(the manga is great but the anime sucks). Much like Hiro Mashima first long manga got adapated which is Rave and now Fairy Tail. Hopefully like Fairy Tail, Code Breaker will have a good adapation. The director of the anime is Yasuhiro Irie who did Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. so that seem like a good sign.

    Rzerox21xx
    Reply

  7. Fairy Tail have tendercity to warp an arc with a party. We have Tenroujima, Edolas, Oracion Seis, Fantasia, Tower of Heaven, and Galuna Island. The only one that doesn’t have party as a closure is Phantom Lord arc because the guild is destroyed and Lulaby arc. Again Fairy Tail opening is full of spoiler. Show Spoiler ▼

    Neo
    Reply

    1. The Big 4 (Naruto/Bleach/One Piece/Fairy Tail) are always full of spoilers in their OP – drives me nuts sometimes. However, Fairy Tail is generally the worst when it comes to OP spoilers. They pretty much show all the characters involved, who the villains are, the fight match-ups, new techniques that will be used in said fights, a portion of the fight(s) themselves, the locations that are important, and usually a hint at a major plot point that will occur during the arc.

      If I can say anything about it, I’ll just say that I’m impressed they can fit all that in a 1:30 OP.

      7godeohs
      Reply

  8. Finally the Anime of the new Arc has arrived and I couldn’t be happier than I am for the new season. By the way guys like I mentioned
    before that there is a new anime that will premier tomorrow and it is called MAGI, I’ve read some of the manga and I think it might be
    pretty cool, if it is then we can welcome a new manga/anime into the our list of favourite manga/anime.

    K C M
    Reply

    1. I think it’s the other way round, Sting has always looked up to Natsu ( although Rogue also looked up to Natsu ) while Rogue was Gajeel’s
      apprentice . It’s pretty much verified in the Manga too.

      K C M
      Reply

  11. “Now that these two guys who appear to think that they’ve surpassed their idols are in the center of attention, it’s quite obvious that we’ll have them facing the dragons of FAIRY TAIL, namely the two they used to look up to. Based on the opening sequence, we can assume that the guilds will have a showdown in the Grand Magic Games.”

    I’m sorry but it must be hard for you, Stereoman, to write a blog post without having the urge to spoil. I mean, this summary is quite “awkward” (for a lack of better word) to read, since usually your FT posts are full of commentaries and descriptions whereas this one sounds like a play by play commentary. (You sound like me writing an English exam summary on the GCSE)

    Anyways, I’m surprised too that their outfits are purple. I thought they were blue. I can’t wait for this arc to start! Prolonging isn’t necessarily a bad thing since they prolonged some fights in the Tenroujima arc too (completely redoing Erza vs Juvia and Lisanna/Gray and Loke vs Mest and Wendy from scratch [both are which an awesome fight!], which was an awesome battle; though Fried and Bixlow vs Lucy and Cana is a bad case since they completely re-did the whole battle )

    FT is not the type of anime to have fillers INSIDE the arc unlike Naruto, so I’m not too worried.

    underMebius
    Reply

  12. Watching the ep made me remember an inconsistency that I felt back when I read the manga.
    Sting and Rogue are dragon slayers Show Spoiler ▼

    . Sting gestures to how tall he was 7 years ago when the FT people disappeared. He was pretty small. Unless he’s the same age as Natsu but was just tiny and had a sudden growth spurt within the 7 years to look as young as Natsu is from not aging 7 year, it’s pretty clear that he is younger than Natsu. When the dragons disappeared Natsu was super tiny, probably not into a double digit age yet. If Sting is younger than Natsu and a dragon slayer, he would have to have been a toddler when so and that is just ridiculous. Wtf?

    koager
    Reply

  14. I was wondering if the animators will do something like One Piece’s 1:1 chapter:episode ratio, but based on upcoming episode titles they’re not. For now it’s a 2:1 chapter:episode ratio. That will have to change later on, probably during the Games themselves. Several of the competitions and most of the battles can be dragged out very easily. Some of the battles were glossed over entirely, so that can eat up a lot more time in the anime.

    Rose
    Reply

    1. Why a smile? But I do see that the opening did turned kind of quiet in the middle becoming a little inconsistent, but I think the beginning of it brings back good memories of Fairytail’s adventures and shannigans. Both the opening and ending are awesome.

      Dualash
      Reply

  18. Well about time that the other dragon-slayers showed up. Before long there will be that long-awaited dragon arc to look towards. The opening sure brought a big smile for me when I saw that Mystogan is coming back – woot! I’m getting fired up for this season.

    random viewer
    Reply

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