So instead, let us talk about Fairy Tail on its own merits. “It’s like One Piece, but not as good,” is just about the most assinine comment any critic of manga could make.
So to bring up the similarities between Fairy Tail and One Piece is to shut down critical thought.
LUCY MANGA FAIRY TAIL SERIES
Sure Fairy Tail’s art had some similarities to the art of One Piece, at a time, but anyone comparing the art of the two series now wouldn’t be able to see the similarities.Īnd really, if a series is similar to another series you love, and it actually has some skill put into it, is that such a bad thing? I try to judge manga on their own merits and flaws, and not on what they may or may not resemble.
I have to admit that I’ve been a bit perplexed by all the accusations of Fairy Tail ripping One Piece off. The price per volume did not appeal to me though (this was when volumes of Viz’s shonen jump imprint went for eight dollars), and I put it aside until later. Originally I was attracted to Fairy Tail because the art kind of reminded me of One Piece. It’s only a few pages long, and a good showcase of the kind of humor readers can expect from the series. There’s a short special at the end of the volume, where Lucy, Happy, and Natsu take a job to catch some flying fish. After she agrees, Lucy sees the bounty note, and realizes that Natsu and Happy asked her to team up with them because they needed a blonde to dress up as a maid to get an in with the Duke. The volume ends with Natsu, Happy, and Lucy taking a job to steal a book from Duke Everlue. They beat the Vulcan, which turns out to have possessed Macao’s body, and return home with their guild mate. Lucy follows him, and the two discover that Macao was injured while exterminating a plague of body taking over monsters known as Vulcans. Makarov tells him not to worry about it, but Natsu disagrees, and goes looking for his guild mate. Romeo, the son of a guild member, Macao, comes in and asks the guild master, Makarov, if his father had returned from his mission yet. As a fight breaks out among the guild members, she comments on how much fun it looks like. When they arrive at Fairy Tail, Lucy finds that the place is inhabited mostly by eccentric lunatics. He grabs Lucy and when she protests he asks her if she wants to join Fairy Tail. Natsu, the real Salamander, beats the fake and his men, before making a run for it when the guards arrive. Natsu reveals that he’s a member of Fairy Tail and that he’s never seen this “Salamander.” Lucy uses her stellar spirit magic to beach the boat, and once they are on solid ground Natsu is able to take care of Salamander. Happy flies in and save Lucy, revealing that both he and Natsu are wizards. Natsu’s badass entrance is ruined when his motion sickness gets the better of him. Before Lucy can be taken, Natsu bursts through the ship ceiling, having heard that Salamander of Fairy Tail was there. Later on his ship, Salamander reveals that he has been using magic to seduce women onto his ship, with the intent of selling them into slavery. Lucy later runs into the mage Salamander, a member of Fairy Tail, who tells her he can help her into the guild. Lucy explains how the mage world works to Natsu, who tells her that he’s looking for a dragon.
Volume one starts with Lucy, a young mage, who wants to join the mage guild, Fairy Tail, meeting Natsu, and his cat Happy. But for now it’s time to go back to where it all start, the manga. After all, a while back the anime was my flagship review series, and it will be again once I get off my lazy butt. Since I’m a few volumes behind on Fairy Tail I decided to start it off with this series. At first the idea was to not buy any new manga until I’d reviewed ALL the manga I own, but some of the issues I own are out of order, so I will need to buy the first few volumes to get around to reviewing them. I swore to myself that I would not buy any new manga in the series I collect, until I’ve reviewed every single volume in the series I own. So, taking a leaf out of a friend’s book, I’m going to start my manga reviewing career off by reviewing at least one volume a day.
Since I want to be as much, if not more, of a manga reviewer as an anime reviewer, I’ve had to decide to actually start reviewing manga.