Fairy Tail 2 - Reviews

 The plot

Was okay but the fanservice was out of place. It was like: plot.fanservice.plot. If there's going to be fanservice,at least try to incorporate it into the plot. The current filler arc mainly lowered the score.The plot had so much potential but it was used the wrong way. Some things were funny. The things that further lowered the score was the fact that they re-used scenes and the opening. Also, the pacing on one particular episode was VERY slow. I might be going on hiatus until the filler arc is done. 

The animation

was good...for the first few episodes. After a few, it's like the studio stopped caring and it was like I was flipping through a stop motion picture book. Also, there were moments when the character designs screwed up and the characters didn't look like themselves in that shot. 

The music

The first two openings: Very good, loved the song and animation. The recent one: Not only did the song not fit the show, but the sequencing was WAY too generic. And at least the other openings contained good footage of the show. 

Characters:

Not much to say. Basic shounen characters. 

Overall: It's okay without the filler. I recommend it for people who've just come off of mainstream stuff.

The first season of Fairy Tail definetely left people wanting more, and the second season certainly delivered! Even though the manga seems to be a bit better than the anime at times, there isn't anything outstanding that I can shake my head at. Although, during the time when they were churning out episodes quite quickly, you can tell that the quality of the animation suffered.

But, now that the Tartaros Arc is winding down, things have gotten back to normal (animation-wise). The characters are all stellar, and I especially admire Wendy, Romeo, and Asuka's growth throughout the series. Having read all of the manga, I find myself being clued in to all of the Natsu/Zeref tension right away, so that's a plus. Lucy's growth so far has been astronomical, as she seems to have transformed from a whining, crying weakling into a bad-ass celestial wizard.

Ah, and the ships! We're beginning to see the Gajevy ship come into play more often (if you haven't read the manga and are into the pairing, I suggest you read it...), and we all know that the Nalu ship has been there for awhile.

Overall, I'd reccommend this anime to just about everyone who admires watching anime. It deserves a solid 8/10 in my opinion.

This show is the best way i can spend my Sunday. So many characters anybody can relate to, But lets be honest we all watch for the Dragon Slayers!!!!!!

facebook.com/pages/Dragon-Slayers/

Origanly I was reluctant to watch Fairy Tail, but my friend made me and it was amazing. I love the characters and the sory and how they make the characters stories truly makes me cry when they almost die. I highly recomend this anime even if you don't like it at first glance. It had me at the first episode! The music is very nice and I can listen to them all on relpay. Just when you think you know who your favorite character is, they give you a tearful story of backround then they're your new favorite. Again this is my #1 anime and you need to at least give it a shot.

Fairy Tail is so large they had to divide it into two "series" and then list the episode numbers as if they never did so.

But I digress.

I loved Fairy Tail when it first came out.  I felt that it wasn't a one-man show for a shounen manga/anime (though, Natsu does often fight the "bosses", there were exceptions such as the Galuna Arc), and that everyone was just as strong as the protagonist...and some members of the guild were even stronger.

Yea, there were still some fanservice moments, but it really wasn't that bad.

Then, Series Two (2014) comes out, and the entire thing crashed and burned.

Story

I can't really say much without revealing major spoilers, but much of the earlier arcs have been boiling down to what we see in Series Two.  Unlike most shounen anime which have very specific arcs, Fairy Tail's arcs are all interconnected even if they don't appear to be at first.

Season Two picks up after the events of Tenrou Island, and a seven year time-skip where the protagonists on Tenrou had been frozen in time for those seven years.

Not too long after they return to the guild, it launches straight into the Grand Magic Games arc, which takes up a HUGE portion of the storyline (in both chapters and episodes).

There are some minor little tidbits in between, but the two major arcs so far in Series Two are the Grand Magic Games and Tartaros.

The Grand Magic Games arc...this is the second half, but I'd still rate it a 6/10.  A big problem with this arc is it just took way too long.  I understand that they're throwing dozens upon dozens of characters in there, from ones we know the best (the Fairy Tail mages) to other guilds we've been introduced to in the past (such as Lamia Scale and Blue Pegasus), to new guilds we've never heard of before.

However, this arc just took far too long to get to the main plot, and the animation was hodepodge at best.  Some scenes which were wrapped up in one or two chapters in the manga took about three episodes because of how much the episodes constantly jumped around.

The amount of fanservice grew to the point of gaining the label of "ecchi".  I don't watch ecchi, so the only things  I have to compare it to are Negima and Ranma, which are the only two which come close in terms of fan service.  And let me tell you...Fairy Tail can now sit "proudly" on the same level of lewdness as Negima does in all its "age 16+ and shrinkwrapped" glory...perhaps it even surpasses Negima.

Lucy and Erza kept getting their clothing torn, and other female characters were also being stripped.

This got even worse in the Tartaros arc, where in the manga, Erza was stripped naked when she was chained up and captured.  The anime at least put a shirt on her, but that doesn't excuse what it is and what the female characters have become.

That leads me to the Tartaros arc, which I want to rate higher (and would for the manga), but the anime version of it gets a 7/10.  This arc had the potential to be excellent, and introduced concepts that the entire series had been building to the entire time. 

HOWEVER...

Once again, the animation was done poorly.  I was most looking forward to Gray's battle in the Tartaros arc, but the emotional intensity wasn't as profound as it usually is for the animation, and it kept being interrupted every so often by what the others are doing, which broke the tension.

Now, if they had animated it so that those events occurred perhaps at the start of each episode during that emotionally heavy fight, then it would have at least been better.  Rather, they decided to interrupt all the drama and tension for comic relief with a talking mushroom.

NO.

I'd rate the manga version of the arc higher, perhaps an 8.5 out of 10, but I can't go higher than 7/10 for the animated version.

The Tartaros arc was excellent in terms of story, but really just brought up more questions than it answered.

Characters

We see a lot of character growth, particularly in the Tartaros arc.  Unfortunately, it's overshadowed by the bursts of comic relief and fanservice thrown into the episodes.

Jellal makes appearances, and at one point recruits some new members to his guild (not going to say who so as not to spoil anything).

While this took one or two chapters in the manga, the fight was divided up between about three episodes in the anime (I stopped counting after the second one detailing about three minutes of the fight), and only lasted for a few minutes each time.

Gray has a huge moment of character growth in the Tartaros arc, but again, it doesn't feel as meaningful because of the constant interruptions to the drama.

Overall

Fairy Tail has become a joke of poorly timed tension-breakers, no fix to the lack of blood or any sort of "realism" to deadly fights, and female characters turned into nothing but fanservice...yes, even badass character Erza has been reduced to a pornstar. 

If you're a feminist, this is not the series for you.  As good as it is, the increased fanservice was what turned me off from it for a good while before I finally came back to see if they changed it (I stopped shortly into the Grand Magic Games, and picked it up again after Tartaros).

It got worse, not better.

It's frustrating to see this happen, and to have to go through three or four episodes to finish a fight which took one or two chapters in the manga.

The pacing is also very poor; the Grand Magic Games were all over the place in terms of the fights, since there were multiple fights happening at the same time (and towards the end, the plot as well).  I felt it was a little too much on the multitasking side in the manga, and the anime made it ten times worse.

The first Series could make me cry; between the music and how the dramatic tension was built up and shown, some episodes would have me bawling.

There's only one episode in Series Two which does that, and that's the conclusion of the Grand Magic Games with Ultear's character.

Gray's battle in the Tartaros arc brought a few tears to my eyes in the manga, but did absolutely nothing to me in the anime because of how poorly it was animated; even the music couldn't pull back the dramatic tension which was interrupted far too many times.

This season just doesn't have the emotional impact the first season did, even for the high-tension scenes.  The manga chapter "413 days", for example, was highly emotional and nearly made me cry (until the humorous ending), but the anime just butchered what we were supposed to get out of it with poor animation quality, too many gags covering the sad story of the episode, and no tension with the music.

To put it bluntly:  The quality has dropped, and too much is happening at once which makes the scenes jump all over the place.  While this also occurs in the manga, it's not as spread out as the anime is, so it's less noticeable.  The only reason I gave the animation a "4" instead of a "3" is because the events and lines are still crisp.

Also, they still failed to make any sort of realism to the battles.  There's still no blood at all even though characters get sliced by swords, impaled by lasers, etc.

There's also a high increase in ecchi moments (though they do at least lessen the ecchi impact in the animation as opposed to the manga where I was wondering if I was still reading Fairy Tail or if someone had linked it to porn), even down to freaking tentacle porn with Erza in the Tartaros arc. 

I'm sorry, but why does an enemy have to strip their prisoner completely to torture them or throw them in a holding cell?

The voice actors do pull through and do an excellent job in conveying the emotions and intensity of the situations, as well as helping their characters, but it feels like the rest of the anime is working against them (animation and music).

SLIGHT SPOILERS:  There is also no explanation yet as to the true relation between Zeref and Acnologia (ie - why Zeref has been trying to get others to take him down rather than do it himself, etc...though, due to what happened on Tenrou Island, there is a possibility of Zeref's magic not working on Dragons.  This is only speculation on my part, however, and should not be considered an official explanation at all). 

For that and more, I had to dock points from the story/plot when I realized just how poorly things are explained.  The manga appears to be approaching "end game", and the anime isn't too far behind with the conclusion of this season...yet, there are no explanations as to motives for some of the questions which have been around since Tenrou Island.

It's a good time-killer, but I'd suggest reading the manga over the anime at this point...and even the manga fails to explain quite a few key points in the plot.