FAIRY TAIL / First Impressions

Summary:

Sometime after the battle with Eisenwald and the flute, Makarov, Lucy, Natsu, Gray, and Erza get lost in the Web Valley. They’re starving when they finally come across a village, but it’s deserted despite signs of recent activity. Erza finds some odd lines on the ground stretching across town, and eventually the town transforms into a bunch of monsters. She and Makarov figure out that this is a dark guild’s village and that the village dabbled in forbidden magic. Regardless, Erza, Gray, and Natsu are able to defeat some of the monsters and even try to eat them as food. The monsters keep coming though, and when the magic circle under them activates again, it’s Makarov who steps in to save everyone. He also returns the members of the dark guild back to normal and gets them to repent.

Preview

This was an alright episode, but it felt rather unimportant since it was a one-shot without any real ramifications. The only thing I really learned from it was that Makarov is indeed powerful enough to be Fairy Tail’s guild master, however they didn’t really even show him in action. They just referred to what he did after the fact with only a brief flashback, and that was a bit unsatisfying to watch. The whole dark guild thing got glossed over really quickly too. To their credit, I guess they did show a lot of Natsu, Gray, and Erza action, including Erza’s cooking outfit. The rest of the episode about mushrooms and hunger also had its share of amusing moments, but I didn’t find it to be anything good enough to carry the episode. Fortunately, the preview makes next week look promising with Natsu challenging Erza, and hopefully they’ll be able to animate it without using too much stock footage.

41 Comments

  2. This has become painful to watch. The star power of the voice cast doesn’t compensate for the shoddy production values. I’m going to have to be one of those people that says “the manga is way better”. Even though this episode was filler, I’m referring to the whole show so far.

    p0ltergeist
    Reply

  5. I agree. I just hope that they atleast up the age audience when it comes to the more serious parts concerning character development or with Lucy’s battles.

    I say magic circles and extremely long spell casting’s benefit is to make the episode longer at the cost of some of the audience interest and I fall into this category.

    Cherubium
    Reply

  10. It’s total filler, so the comment that “the manga made it look better” is from somebody who hasn’t read the manga >_>

    So far, Fairy Tail’s had 2 filler-ish things (this, and the episode where they run into Kageyama the first time in the forest). Otherwise, it’s been more or less in line with what the manga was doing (at a pretty respectable clip as well). I assume the filler will be better later when some more characters are introduced, as the cast is fairly limited at the moment.

    But yeah, so far, it’s been underwhelming. The animation has been “meh” with fanservice cut out (First ep with Lucy, she didn’t even unzip her shirt…) and a loooot of stock footage. I guess since it’s going to be a long running 100+ episode series, they’re dragging some things out a bit. The show isn’t really going to pick up until the Demon Island arc anyways.

    K.K.
    Reply

  12. @Cherubium
    “I say magic circles and extremely long spell casting’s benefit is to make the episode longer at the cost of some of the audience interest and I fall into this category.”
    Agreed. In the manga, literally everything goes ‘poof’ with clouds instead. Where are these symbols coming from? I rage a lot everytime they pop out now. And to think I used to love magic symbols so much T_T

    This was a COMPLETE. FILLER. ARGH. The only connection to the manga is that omake of one of the manga volumes where they went mushroom hunting and talking about how Natsu always gets the good gags [lol, sprouting mushrooms] but the only ones present were: Natsu, Lucy, Happy. So I guess they derived it from there, but still…… totally stripped my Erza of what is to come ;_; GAHHHHHHH
    And the animation and repetition, DIE. DIE. DIE. Do the manga justice and animate fights properly. So many still shots I’d might as well just reread the whole manga 50 times and it’ll still be better. It focuses on comedy more than what FT manga is SUPPOSED to be. GAR and awesome and way better than this I’m watching…

    Rei
    Reply

  13. They’re definitely going about the fillers in the wrong way. The main thing FT has going for it is its strong and dynamic core cast. If it’s got to be fillers, I think the filler should definitely by more centered on the side members of Fairy Tail, like the two gunslinger members in the first screenshot. The Core Cast is not at all in need of extra material since there’s already an abundance of great original material to work with.

    All the stock and stills are really starting to get to me. Even watching Stock in GSD was more interesting than this.

    Ragna
    Reply

  18. Don’t know where all the hate is coming from.
    The manga is nothing special. The only thing the anime has done wrong is not animate the battles to a respectable quality. Too much stock footage (so lame when a dragon appears behind Natsu’s attacks) and lots of still, panning images.
    You’d think that with the studio involved, we’d see higher quality animation, but then I guess you only need to look back at the first seasons of other shonen shows like One Piece, Naruto and Bleach to see that all these 100+ ep shows start off with a low budget and only pick up once they gain enough popularity to warrent a higher budget.
    Fairy Tail certainly has the makings to be one of those shows, but it’s just a matter of them being creative to best make use of their budget and keep people interested.

    blinx01
    Reply

  22. wth? No naked Erza in the apron ! She has to learn from the other girls you wear your apron nekid even if the food still alive, ask Lala! 🙂

    I guess I’m not a hard core fan of this series. Is this a 100+ plus series? I just like Happy jokes and Lucy growing to fit in the guild. Guess I have to pick up the manga. The fights aren’t serious for me, they are so over powered that make no sense to create full footage.

    Island Esper
    Reply

  24. It’s a shame, too many times has Omni said that it’s been an alright, okay, lacking, or just not bad but not good either episode. I don’t like Fairy Tail but I was really hoping to see what the Satelight and A-1 Picture studio could do with such a show that held great potential for action and fantasy settings. Since I don’t read Fairy Tail I can’t tell if there’s a lot of plot for them to work with but already resorting to fillers is a bad omen and might hint that they are planning to drag this show out. They even insert filler into random spots and end episodes weirdly. Tread carefully Omni.

    prox
    Reply

  27. I agree with all of you! This anime just ruined it for me.. The manga presented the story much much better!
    Some of the things I don’t like:
    – The background music. Sometimes I feel that the music doesn’t fit the mood.
    – Magic casting,and symbols.. just unnecessary!
    – Characters voices, specially Natsu.
    – The background music.. again!

    Also, I would like it if they slipped some ecchi.

    Tumpty
    Reply

  30. First thing I thought to myself was: “Wtf, filler? It’s only episode 9.” I mean come on now, filler at the 9th episode, that’s just disheartening. The manga created a nice mix of comedy and action, so far the anime was been decent but nothing that makes one think, “I gotta watch this series.” They could have done a better job of the anime.

    So Very Odd
    Reply

  34. @UnknownVoice
    I don’t think it’s a matter of naivety, it’s a matter of hope. A small amount of filler is expected if the show is 52 episodes but never this early or this bad. This filler has been introduced too early and is affecting newcomers to the series especially since the actual plot is a little meh for some people already. This is also a bad sign that they might try to drag the show out to a 100+ episodes and the smart thing would be to not do such a thing, it’ll ruin the series. Imagine FMA being 100+ episodes or Air Gear.

    prox
    Reply

  37. This is going to become one of those billion episode animes isn’t it?? I would actually start to watch it if they just cut the stupid action scenes and magic circles, because stock footage is annoying to watch repetitively. Just like transformation sequences, they’re just a waste of space. Everyone, go and read the manga. (ps chap 163- OMG ERZAxJERALD FOREVER *bawls*)

    QnTiria
    Reply

  40. To all those people complaining about manga being better and all, why don’t you stop reading the manga and just watch the show then if you keep bashing the show for “not as good as manga crap” then you wouldn’t have to be whining pigs. For me watching the series is much more enjoyable than reading lifeless pages, I’d rather see my fairy adventure with moving animated character’s voiced with real people and with that comes the sense of comedy of the cast, Manga can’t bring out that in the story.

    Exia
    Reply

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