manga: Fairy Tail Vol 1
Jun. 5th, 2008 06:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meganbmooreThis is a slightly hard one to try to explain. It has a very strong D&D feel to it, and is built around magic guilds where members are hired for special jobs. The titular guild, Fairy Tail, has a reputation for trouble. If one of them isn’t wreaking towns while saving them, then another is forgetting his clothes and stealing underwear from a laundry line, or another is hitting on everything in sight that’s nominally female, or another is drinking every cask of beer in town that she can find.
Our main (so far) characters, Lucy and Natsu, meet when they kinda-sorta-pretty-much bring down a slave ring. Natsu is the one who causes a lot of property destruction, and was apparently raised to be a dragonslayer by a dragon, who disappeared one day. He’s accompanied by Happy, a talking cat who sometimes grows wings. Lucy is a rather shallow, but sweet and big-hearted young wizard who wants to join Fairy Tail, and becomes part of Natsu and Happy’s team. Unlike Natsu, who has a very hands on fighting style, Lucy summons creatures from other dimensions to do the fighting for her. I’m not sure about that, yet, but it does suit her personality, and I can’t help but think it’s better than the shounen heroines who are set-up to be fighters but always get pushed to the sidelines. The other members of Fairy Tale have only had a few pages each. There’s Grey, who comes across as a badass but seems to actually be a space cadet, and always forgets his clothes and asks people if he can borrow theirs. Then there’s Loke, who acts like a smooth ladies’ man, but appears to be a complete dork. And then there’s Cana, who seems to be able to break buildings over people’s heads, but so far has most just drunk a lot. And various others whose names I didn’t catch. The whole group seems to have the normal shounen “we show our friendship by always fighting and trying to outdo each other, but we’ll kill anyone else who tries” thing.
As is typical with shounen, not a whole lot happened this volume, just several random adventures after the leads were introduced, but it was very fun. And, somehow, rather cute.
Our main (so far) characters, Lucy and Natsu, meet when they kinda-sorta-pretty-much bring down a slave ring. Natsu is the one who causes a lot of property destruction, and was apparently raised to be a dragonslayer by a dragon, who disappeared one day. He’s accompanied by Happy, a talking cat who sometimes grows wings. Lucy is a rather shallow, but sweet and big-hearted young wizard who wants to join Fairy Tail, and becomes part of Natsu and Happy’s team. Unlike Natsu, who has a very hands on fighting style, Lucy summons creatures from other dimensions to do the fighting for her. I’m not sure about that, yet, but it does suit her personality, and I can’t help but think it’s better than the shounen heroines who are set-up to be fighters but always get pushed to the sidelines. The other members of Fairy Tale have only had a few pages each. There’s Grey, who comes across as a badass but seems to actually be a space cadet, and always forgets his clothes and asks people if he can borrow theirs. Then there’s Loke, who acts like a smooth ladies’ man, but appears to be a complete dork. And then there’s Cana, who seems to be able to break buildings over people’s heads, but so far has most just drunk a lot. And various others whose names I didn’t catch. The whole group seems to have the normal shounen “we show our friendship by always fighting and trying to outdo each other, but we’ll kill anyone else who tries” thing.
As is typical with shounen, not a whole lot happened this volume, just several random adventures after the leads were introduced, but it was very fun. And, somehow, rather cute.