Fairy Tail: Final Series

Contains spoilers. Not that anything could sour this anime more than merely watching it, but hey. The vast majority of the western anime community is made up of kids, teenagers, and college kids, and as the medium becomes more and more mainstream, that bell curve keeps centering around lower and lower ages. Many within this community of young people have grown up with anime and can reminisce about shows like Naruto, One Piece, or Bleach which have been influential for as long as they can remember, teenagers on the older side can still remember their own era’s shows like Pokemon or Dragon Ball, and now the newest generation of children growing up with anime have faces like My Hero Academia and Mob Psycho 100 to grow up with themselves. I don’t have any of that. I’m seasoned enough for even the rose tinted glasses of nostalgia to loose their effects, since a good ninety percent of anime I can remember watching with few late 90s exceptions the likes of Outlaw Star and Cowboy Bebop rerunning on TV have been viewed through my eyes as they are now. I can’t ride on nostalgia and fond memories I don’t have, but I can ride on lies. Fairy Tail came and settled into my life of extreme clinical depression and violent self-harming, intently suicidal tendencies in a roller coaster of fashions. Watching something so vapid and kiddish began by simply making me feel even dumber and even lonelier by getting into a show aimed at an audience nearly half my age, but after getting along with my streak of nihilism at the time, it soon became my single favorite show ever made, seriously. Just hearing Natsu and Lucy autistically screaming about the power of friendship ad nauseam was enough to lift my spirits, no matter how hollow those feelings were. No matter how little sense it all made, I truly did come to love Fairy Tail and the cast of characters therein. I’d always rated it lowly as I do currently, but never would I deny how genuinely I adored it despite its countless flaws, lacks, and offenses. No matter how many victories they won without a shred of logic, no matter how many times villainous motivations would break and birth new allies apropos of nothing, and no matter how many times they’d tease a romance only to never make a single iota of progress for hundreds of episodes, I always left the viewing with life in my eyes, because at the end of the day, everyone was a friend and friendship was magic. In my real life, “friendship” stands only as a childish dream my insomnia never permitted me to relish in, but if I remembered the Fairy Tail necklace I was wearing hidden under my formal attire, I could keep going, if only for one more day. During Fairy Tail’s first hiatus, A-1 Pictures had made it crystal clear they would be picking the series back up in 2014, and they did exactly that, but when the next break came in 2016, they gave no indication of it coming back, much to my dismay. I was horrified by the idea of losing this lovable guild of friends who I cared for more than my own family, so when the manga announced its plans to end, and the production committee behind it announced they would fund its final season set to adapt the rest of the manga, I was absolutely overjoyed. After all, I was finally getting to see my friends again. As the Fall 2018 season approached, and they started airing promotional videos, I was kind of taken aback. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, I knew how technically bad Fairy Tail was. Be it the terrible animation, overuse of still frames and speed lines, endless off-model character artwork, a totally nonsensical script, infinite plot holes, egregious filler arcs, or the brain numbing pacing, I was always more than willing to say, “Yeah, but I still love it.” That being said, watching these promotional videos was the first time I noticed Fairy Tail was the only show I did this for. Anyone whose seen my profile knows how painstakingly critical I am, and the single bad show I refused to drop was Fairy Tail. Since I refuse to watch low quality anime, the time Fairy Tail was on break was enough time for me to completely forget what it was like to sit through a bad show. I know I’m coming off as sarcastic, but I’m being completely serious. I simply forgot what it was like to watch a poorly produced, poorly written, poorly paced, poorly directed, poorly acted, generically scored show without dropping it nigh instantly, and trying to get back into it was an unforgiving, brutal challenge. I knew I should’ve just left well enough alone and trying to watch the final season would do nothing but expose all my blissfully ignorant yet recently made fond memories…but I did it anyway. Whilst all those happy memories were, indeed, trampled into ruin exactly as I thought they would be, I’ve come to argue the degree to which they were was not entirely my own fault. After all, even after forgetting the feeling of watching a bad show, if Fairy Tail had returned exactly as it was when it left, then all I could really say was touché. And for the zero people still reading, I suppose this is where the “review” actually starts… Fairy Tail: Final Series is unquestionably among the worst pieces of so-called entertainment I’ve ever committed the sin to consume, and I’m going to do my absolute best at selling you on this horrendous reality as fast as possible, because I want to be here doing this just about as much as the corporatized, probably zombified staff wanted to produce it. To start, I’ll acknowledge the elephant in the room: who in the fuck cares? No matter what argument I propose and no matter the eloquence or logic with which I do so, who the hell cares if a shitty series no one respected anyway went from bad to worse? FANS! All the dumbfuck fans, LIKE ME, no matter how stupid we are for already liking a bad show, have the right to be angry when that standard which we’ve grown entitled to gets even worse. And, holy SHIT, did it get worse or what?! The animation went from poor and lacking to outright non-existent. Entire minutes, literal complete minutes were spent just panning over everyone’s face any time the slightest movement was made, any time someone said anything even remotely emotional, and any time the screenwriter knew they couldn’t animate the action and had to instead show people flatly reacting to it. The sound design went from repetitive and boring to straight up inaccurate. Gunshots used the same sound effect as doors closing, and Natsu getting comically slapped by Lucy was the same sound effect used when someone literally slammed into the ground after falling out of the damn sky. It’s a complete and total joke no fan of the series could laugh at. The directing went from stock and amateur to inexcusably dishonest. As mentioned, whenever the budget would run out and they couldn’t animate an impact, they would awkwardly hard-cut to someone else’s still face reacting to it. This was the case with action scenes, obviously, but also in fucking DIALOGUE SCENES! IS IT REALLY THAT HARD TO ANIMATE THREE FUCKING FRACTIONS OF AN ALREADY STILL SURROUNDING FRAME FOR SOMEONE’S MOUTH TO OPEN AND CLOSE?!?!?! The pacing went from purposefully slow to drag out the series for as long as possible to breakneck rapid fire speed because now all they wanted to do was finish the damn thing since the cash cow apparently became infertile. Remember the big tease Gray was going to kill Frosh? Got retconned; forget about the Rouge from the future and all the plot lines tied to his actions. Remember how Zeref was a legendary black wizard known even outside of Fiore? Got retconned; apparently he’s so poorly known, he can be the king of an entire foreign nation, merely under a different name, without ANYONE outside the country being aware of this fact. Remember the big bad Emperors of Ishgar who were hyped up to be greater than all the Wizard Saints? Got retconned; they all go down at the same time at the hands of some random guy who's owned barely four minute…

The FINAL SEASON...until the 100 Year Quest gets adapted... No but seriously for a "final season", Fairy Tail really brought their all or more or less Hiro Mashima amalgamated all his loose plotlines (especially with the deal with Zeref and Acnologia) not only to a grand final war but to resolve the MANY MANY characters plot threads it gave us and the majority of it...succeeded. LA had been and still was a huge fan of Fairy Tail, Fairy Tail brought LA into the shounen genre and though Fairy Tail did abuse the entire "nakama" arc finales as an asspull let alone it's "no one dies" attitude and to this end makes Natsu has immense plot armour and one-shots every main arc villain in the series, all these flaws bar one or two get given some context and actual reasoning to, the exception being the "nakama" BUT LA even has a defense for that (to a certain extent) and that is..well Fairy Tail was ALWAYS about nakama or family, heck Fairy Tail was always about camaraderie even in the worst of times and most of the characters centred on family one way or another, Lucy with her father, Cana and Gildarts, Natsu and Igneel, Gray and Ur and Wendy with the guild itself. Yes Fairy Tail had some problems be it it's filler arcs or the flaws LA mentioned above but man this final season remedied ALOT of the problems it had. With this being the culmination to the final battles against Zeref and Acnologia, the character development and the lore intertwining things to make sense was all there. For character development the main players gets the most screentime, expanded both on the world building and lore of Fairy Tail to ties things together, everything from why the Year 777 was soo important, Lucy's mother, the Dragon Slayers themselves, Zeref and his conflict and war with Mavis and how Acnologia came to be. It's all covered here. If anything the main characters who get the most screentime and development became Natsu, Zeref, Mavis, Acnologia, Erza, Wendy, Gray and Lucy though LA thought that Lucy once again took the fanservicey status and her backstory was more towards her family line than her as a character came into play but nonetheless she was a central player...mainly helping Natsu in all this but still. The battles were crazy to say the least, mainly because of Zeref's Elite commanders, being mages of ABSURD magical strength and having them pitted against not only Fairy Tail themselves but EVERY guild (including the main dark guilds who have turned over a new leaf giving THEM redemption as well as well as minor development as well). But most of the battles were interesting in how the character overcome it as...well Natsu was focused on Zeref, it gave the rest of the cast a chance to shine MAINLY Erza, Gray, Wendy and Gajeel. YES...sometimes they used nakama power but....ummmm...it's cool ok. The animation done by A-1 Pictures, Bridge and Cloverworks...well the animation was toned and alot sharper, the fighting and battles scenes were much more fluid and intense and because of the tone, the character designs and quirky and exotic as they were were crisper and much sharper than before, since this was a collaboration between three studios, LA can see the animation was consistently great (aside from the rare derps) because of it and considering the animation was consistent for 51 episodes and still the final few episodes were greatly detailed and batshit cazy in terms of battles...well what else woul LA say but bravo A-1 Pictures, Bridge and Cloverworks! The voice cast was utterly HUGE so LA will go by the simple standouts or MVP's...for LA they were Mamiko not as Mavis, Akira Ishida as Zeref, Tetsuya Kakihara as Natsu, Sayaka Ohara as Erza, Yuuichi Nakamura as Gray, aya Hirano as Lucy, Satomi Sato as Wendy, Rie Kugimiya as Happy, Kousuke Toriumi as Acnologia, Takako Honda as Eileen Belserion, Manami Numakura as Brandish, Saori Hayami as Kagura, Show Hayami as Ichiya (yes really) and Kana Hanazawa as Zera, seriously a damn great voice cast if LA could go on this section would be HUGE. Fairy Tail: Final Series is nothing but a great send off to the series, as it just ties everything up from 10 years of Fairy Tail anime, sure in a bit of shaking ways especially considering the nakama power activating time to time but like LA said, it's kinda what Fairy Tail embodies time and again and Fairy Tail just wraps everything in a crescendo. LA had and always will be a fan of Fairy Tail even when it was in it's lowest moments and in a time when Fairy Tail was looked down upon, LA always stick by it and wanted to get better and with this Final Season it did. Fairy Tail was LA's first shounen anime and be it the annoying filler arcs, Natsu's plot armour, Lucy's unneeded fanservice and of course the nakama eleventh hour superpower but even with all that this Final Season did it's job and ended the way it wanted too and by god, did it go out great. Here's to Fairy Tail and a close to Zeref and Acnologia as the Big Bads of the series... E.N.D

Fairy Tail, Fairy Tail. What can the world do without you? From its original run back in August 2006 to July 2017, the fantasy adventure has been dubbed as a popular franchise that became famous for its “friendship” theme. It’s become so well-known that the words “friends” has become synonymous with the franchise itself. Now, we finally have the conclusion of this long-running fantasy adventure. The final season initially had mixed reception so seeing this been translated into anime form would also generate some degree of trepidation. I approached this final season with some optimism as a voice told me it would be a proper sendoff of the show but far from a masterpiece. From the first few episodes, It reintroduced the main characters we are so familiar with – Natsu, Happy, Lucy, Erza, Gray. The Fairy Tail guild itself is no longer the same as we remember. But surely enough, the final season begins to slowly reintroduce the other familiar cast ranging from Wendy, Gajeel, Laxus, Levy, and among many others. Perhaps most noticeable is the reintroduction of Zeref, a powerful dark wizard who has been an integral part of Fairy Tail’s expansive plot. Now, he’s a character with a purpose and takes on the role of an emperor with his own personal empire. The final season covers the Alvarez Empire arc that concludes the series. Looking back now, Zeref has been a complex character since his introduction. Now that he is in command of an empire, Zeref developed a more strategic and cunning mind who seeks to achieve his ambitions. The previous season also covered a side series (Fairy Tail Zero) that chronicled his relationship between Zeref and Mavis. The importance of their relationship carries an emotional degree that fully reaches its apex at the final stages of the season. To me, it’s a type of long-term development that actually works effective in terms of story writing. But from the start, we also have to realize the conflict Natsu and his friends to has to deal with now. From the Alvarez Empire, the Sparggan 12 serves as an elite unit of powerful wizards under Zeref. They consist of some of the most powerful adversaries Fairy Tail has ever encountered. From the arrogant sand mage Ajeel to god-like entities such as God Serena and August, there’s no doubt we’ll see the guild struggling to overcome these obstacles. Others such as Brandish and Irene has their own complex relationships with certain characters. I’m not going to spoil but it’s let’s just say that they are important to the overall tone of the season. Unfortunately, a decent portion of Sparrgan 12 are easily forgettable such as Jacob, Neihart, Bloodman, and Wall Eehto. I honestly forgot some of these characters and had to look them up again. Others such as Larcade and Invel has somewhat important roles in the show but honestly are overshadowed by powerful mainstays like Zeref. Collectively, they are a unique group of individuals that brings a thrilling sensation to the final arc. Individually, some just lacks presence on their own and suffers from stardom. Fairy Tail’s own members has their many spotlights although most of it is carried by the usual suspects. Of course, Natsu and Lucy play significant roles in determining the outcome of the arc. This is especially shown through Natsu’s complex relationship with Zeref. In one particular episode, we also get an important revelation about their origins. In the meantime, the final season also hopes to elicit character emotions beyond just the usual friendship gimmicks. Don’t expect much romance outside of Zeref and Mavis though. At this point, it’s pretty much established that Fairy Tail values its character connections more important than anything. As a guild, Fairy Tail has always been known for developing connections between its cast and forging bonds that lasts seemingly forever. From a storytelling perspective, it’s hardly unique as friendship themes have always been a part of many action adventures. It’s just that Fairy Tail amplifies its friendship context more than the usual. To me, it’s oversaturated and seemingly forced down our throats. Sure, it’s an important context of the show but when you’ve watched over 200 episodes of this, it gets pretty damn redundant, no? With 51 episodes, Fairy Tail final season does hit the sweet spot for concluding this anime. It doesn’t rely much on fillers to do the storytelling in this case and is actually quite faithful to the manga. The previous seasons had numerous filler episodes that can be a chore to get through. Some of those fillers were genuinely enjoyable while others had an entire arc of shallow writing. The final season gets straight to the point and commits most of its time on bringing out what the fans wants to actually see. The first half builds on the main plot while the second half executes what it establishes and ultimately brings together its conclusion. I’m not going to lie though. The final season is pretty much aimed at fans who really wants to see how this anime franchise wraps up. Chance are, some people just wants to finish the show and be done with the franchise for good. Others really wants to see the best of what Fairy Tail can offer. Personally, that part was long and done from the first seasons. The final season at best is a definitive end of the main story saga and as its worst is lazy writing that continues to use recycled ideas. However, I will give a credit where it’s due and that’s for Hiro Mashima’s work consistency. Being able to finish the manga from the start to finish with his weekly schedule is almost inhuman. When writing the script and storyboarding, I’d imagine he planned out well ahead of time. The mangaka is a madman when it comes to his speed of working. Why do I mention this? It’s because Fairy Tail’s art style has a cartoony look but can be deceptively complex at times to watch. Both the anime and manga also consist a lot of character emotions during important moments. Fairy Tail has been known for a lot of crying times and this final season is no pushover with those scenes. Emotions are drawn out by the main themes of the show and connects the characters together. A-1 Pictures return with their staff with a similar look to the previous seasons. And of course, any longtime fan will know Fairy Tail has fan service. It has lot of fan service, sometimes which can be dramatically distracting. There’s even jokes about the fan service itself with characters like Lucy being a main culprit. Gray taking his clothes off is also a running gag that melts Juvia’s little heart. The anime is over. This is the final season and I doubt we’ll see another Fairy Tail anime for a long time. If Hiro Hashima’s other works like Eden’s Zero or Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest ever gets adaptations, I’d imagine it to be much shorter than what we’ve seen here. The final season indeed concludes the long running Fairy Tail main saga that started between a fiery salamander and a blonde mage. And if you want to give it a chance, the ball is in your court.

I don't write reviews, nor do I plan to start. However I'm just here to say that this is by far one of the worst and laziest seasons of a show that I've ever seen. Anyone who legitimately thinks this show is good should automatically be assumed to have terrible taste (which would be the correct assumption); You should never listen to another anime opinion from them again. Even for **Fairy Tail** (which hasn't even been good since around episode 60), this is bad. The "animation" (if it can even be considered that) is literally just still shot after still shot along with incredibly rough art. In terms of the writing: this arc took two characters that have been built up for almost the entire show and completely throws all the potential they had right out the window. Every character is retarded and just worse versions of themselves then they were in previous arcs. I'm not going to go on because I do not care enough about this dogshit. TL;DR what I'm trying to say is that Fairy tail is terrible and isn't worth the watch.

I enjoyed the previous seasons, but not this one. I believe the major reason wasn't that they made any bad decisions with the story, but it is the fact that they didn't change anything at all. It could also be the result of abusing the shounen loop of "get beaten up, remember your friends, stand up, and beat your way out". This is Fairy Tail in a nutshell. You will see nothing more than that. So just before watching the final season; I sort of knew what I was going to see, but I still finished it just because I don't like to drop series and unfortunately everything went as expected.

The first 2 seasons were fine but not the best. But this final season is so random, it's like they ran out of ideas and kept putting whatever comes to their mind. Too many characters and too many meaningless twists that will make your brain hurt. At one point I stopped reading the subtitle because it is pointless, just fights and cliches of deriving your power from your friends. I was hopping to see more development on the romantic side of the story, but the magakas decided to keep it silly and cringe-worthy, the ending is bad and not interesting at all. I had to finish it because I started watching it in 2012 and that is the only reason.

This anime taught me not to be an idiot who watches anime to the end for a "challenge" or "achievement" sake, even if said anime is bad. Nonsensical "story" paired with awful unchanging characters, repetitive and drawn out fights with cheaply animated abilities (art in general very simplistic) made watching this as very unpleasant proccess. Nobody dies, nobody does training, there no comprehensive system for abilities, there no sense of mystery or adventure. No proper world building either. No friendship or romance. Whole anime is a sequence of stretched out and repetitive battles with unimaginative abilities connected to each other with overabundance of "fan service" and boring humour. I could go on and on about how bad this anime is, but in other reviews on MAL this written in more elaborate way than my (don't forget to check them out) I wrote this review not for ratings, but out of sheer need to relieve bit painful memories caused by seeing this anime as completed in my list and to warn other people not to make the same mistake as I did - watching this anime. (Copy of my review for previous entries, since none of problems were fixed)

The Fairy Tail anime was a high octane, light-hearted, genuine shounen anime. Through this simple premise with the epic & emotional music, I was looking forward to the following seasons. Maybe the animation could have been a bit grittier or the dialogue less repetitive, but my main concern is the lack in the complexity regarding the world. The flare and charm, no matter how much the first and the story as a whole, the final season did not met my expectations nor did it surpasses its predecessors. Never would I say the final season is bad, only that it could have been much better.

I read somewhere here that Fairy Tail could've been great but Hiro Mashima can't write a good story, and somehow it clicked because it is how I feel about fairy tail summed up in one sentence. I started to watch fairy tail for the way it made me feel, somehow Natsu being a knucklehead and quarreling about everything made me feel cozy inside, somehow the gray days seemed more colorful with a red haired Erza and a blue haired Jellal, and you try to overlook all the major flaws or you keep hoping that maybe some day it will get better, that maybe the story will reach the potential it has, and then one day you find yourself finishing the last episode and you realize there is no tomorrow to put your hopes into. I remember how many times I hoped for some Jellal screen time, I never got it but still there was a tiny litle part of me that continued to hope that some day maybe I'd get to see Jellal preferably in a situation where he doesn't humiliate himself. Needless to say that my wish was granted just as much as my other wishes for Fairy Tail. After witnessing Juvia beg Gray for over a decade didn't we at least deserve to know if she succeeded. Couldn't we see Jellal gain forgiveness or did we deserve to remember him always in self loath.do we have to wonder forever if there was someone that captured Laxus heart or is it up to us to imagine him with whomever we want. The worst of it is that this time around fairy tail is over and we have to lay judgement, there is tomorrow to hide behind, no glimmer of hope that something might come to pass. So as I so the last episode I wasn't disappointed, because one can get disappointed only if one expects something which I have long since not done with fairy tail. I feel just a bit amazed to see how low can they fall. Fairy Tail had everything to be a great show except someone to write it well. So now I will remember Fairy tail as a natsu that never got to grow no matter the years, as someone that slayed dragons but failed to confess his feelings. A Juvia that fought in vain for the love of someone that never even bothered to explain how he felt. A Jellal that never got to confess his feelings even though he damn well knew he was loved back. I could've forgiven fairy tail for all the things that didn't make sense if at least what was hinted over and over again would come to pass. I don't want to make my own assumptions I want to see it with my own eyes but apparently I will not. Bye bye Fairy Tail. If only you had been written by someone who knew what he was doing

Hello so this is the first time I wrote a review here and I'm doing it beacuse I really disliked how this anime ended. I've been following Fairy Tail since it's begining and it was a commitment for me to finish it, if it weren't, I would have dropped it. So this is supposed to be the finale, with the strongest enemies and the worst situations. It is expected for a finale to hace epic moments and some characters being gone forever, but that doesen't work for Fairy Tail right. Ok so I come from the Naruto and One Piece generation, I am already tired when anime ends battles because of the friendship power. This has become abusive in this season. If it wasn't friendship, then an amazingly stupid reason make the superpowerfull enemy to be beaten. Like, seariously, I expected better. In my opinion Mashima created characters that he couldn't manage. With characters as Dimaria and Briandish, they could have won the war in a second (not to mention August and Irene, who were shown as a fearful enemy and, well.), but they failed because they weren't taken seriously by its own creator. Let me tell you that I am really disappointed at how lame this anime ended. I didn't expected too much tho, but, really, so shameful. I am angry because, as I said, it has been a commitment and I spent hours and hours at watching this anime and reading this manga and, well, that's how it ends. The final chapter is also very poor... Just an excuse to show you the ships the anime has ended with, as if we didn't knew already. That's not a way to end the story of those relationships. I didn't care that much for that aspect to be honest, but I found it shameful anyway. To sum up, I really need to stop commiting myself into things I don't enjoy.

The conclusion of the Fairy Tail series felt lackluster compared to its predecessors, Fairy Tail (2009 and 2014). The built-up to the final villain of the series was greatly portrayed as a solid villain and had some actual hype to it. However, the goal for the villain was kind of poorly written. The other big baddie had an actual reason and I could understand where the villain was coming from, but the OG villain of the show was written as "bad to be bad." However, this was not my only complaint. Some of the animation scenes were reused (a lot) and some scenes were stretched out to make the episode hit that time mark, or it felt that way. To be clear, this review is made by an all-time fan of Fairy Tail. It is my favorite anime, despite it having this ending and having some bad moments, but it is still one of my favorites to this day. All in all, the show still gave me the feeling from its previous series but it was supposed to be so much more and it was kind of a letdown. I can only recommend people watch this to get the full ending of the series, but if you read manga, just read the manga.

Never thought I'd ever say this, but I'm gonna miss Fairy Tail, SO MUCH. I got SO attached to the show with time. It took me a little less than 6 months to finish it. I had no reason to watch fairy tail but I still did. I did not even like it at first. But I kept watching. It's a bad habit. I never drop an anime once I start watching. The character design was SO good tho. Mashima sensei designed so many characters with distinct personalities. The supporting characters got so much screen time. Other than these 2 reasons, it's brilliant ost is another reason Fairy Tail was such a good watch for me. Fairy Tail's ost has become one of my personal fave of all time. The 'power of friendship and love' thing was overused but it's a 2000s shounen so it's acceptable. I also didn't understand why they introduced Raven Tail when it had no role later. Sometimes I got bored and increased the speed. But I still watched all the OVAs movies and 'fillers'. There was excessive fanservice sometimes but it didn't spoil the show it was rather funny. Fairy Tail was a long journey. There were many flaws but it was a nice ending imo. The idea behind Fairy Tail's name is so cute xD (just wanted to mention this). I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. People who wanna watch a cute, long, funny, less-logical adventure anime will love it. Spoilers ahead-- Natsu and gang's 100 year quest, Cheerful Makarov, Zeref and Mavis lovers once again - that's all I needed in the end. I wanted to see Plue once in the end. I also wanted to see more Erza X Jellal and Happy X Charle but it's okay T~T Who knows someday I might rewatch it? It'll be fun watching it again after some years. Fairy Tail will always remain as a happy memory in my heart. Aye sirrr!! ƪ(˘⌣˘)ʃ

I would be lying if I said I wasn't a total fan of the Fairy Tail series, however, the final series was very underwhelming, and it really hurts to say that. To start off, I genuinely did like where the story wanted to go, but the execution of it was poor. You would expect that fighting against the big bad strong people would come at a cost or some kind of repercussion in order to beat them, but you are wrong. A lot of the "repercussions" are fake, they happen, but they get fixed later on in the anime. Like for example: in order to win a fight, said character has to sacrifice their power to win. But oh, they get this power back later in the anime. This happened multiple times in the anime, especially in the final series and it destroys, what is supposed to be, an emotional moment. Also the fact that they literally reused an "OMG" moment from the first season doesn't help either. (If you don't know what I mean, I am talking about Gray.) Coming to the art, I don't have a problem with the artstyle in this show, however the animations were poor and didn't feel magical to me. For example: A powerful attack is just some rainbow-glowing thing. Yeah... doesn't really do it for me. For an anime that's about magic and fighting, they really could've done much better in my opinion. The fanservice is okay-ish, but gotten worse over the years. (How many times did we see Lucy censored-nude?) I've always loved the voice acting and the music of Fairy Tail, so there is not much to say here. I enjoyed the beginning of the final series, but the more I watched, the more my enjoyment went down tbh. I am hoping the 100 Year Quest will be better in terms of writing and animations.

Fairy Tail: Final Series is a very special anime because although many of the characters follow conventional Shonen tropes there is also an underlying story to their past and reasoning behind their actions. This final season brings in a new antagonist in the form the New Alvarez Empire which serves as a way to bring all the characters from other guilds and places to defend their home. Each character in the show is finishing their final character arc such as Lucy who meets Brandish a distant friend/ family member as well as learning her family’s history through 400 years. As well as finishing of the characters arcs the series fills in many gaps left by the previous seasons such as Acnologia and Zeref’s backgrounds and the creation of dragon slayer magic. All in all I think that Fairy Tail: Final Series contributes great world building to the Fairy Tail franchise and a richer sense of history to the narrative. Although I can find many positives about the final series of Fairy Tail there are still many negatives such as the weak battles which consist mostly of the Friendships solves everything cliches or the mostly unnecessary fan service expressed throughout the show.

I had heard the rumours, but I chose to not heed the warnings, just how bad could the final season of Fairy Tail be? The short answer is absolute trash. If you have seen the other two seasons of Fairy Tail, you may as well just stop there, don't succumb yourself to this. Please. Story 3/10: It is Fairy Tail, if you are expecting a fully fleshed out completely sensical story you are wasting your time. Even going into this final season with this knowledge I was blown away by how low the standard had dropped. The biggest issue I have with the story is when something crazy happens or someone comes up with a plan, idea or theory, literally nobody questions it and just accepts it as fact. For example, in a certain fight scene the characters attempt to defeat the enemy by trapping him in a time rift. Nobody questions the existence of a time rift, how it works or if it would even work against the enemy. Another example of this is when certain characters disappear, someone has a premonition about where these characters might be and everyone just accepts this as fact. Nobody bothers to offer alternate theories. The other issue I had with the story was Zeref's motives for why he was doing what he was doing was incredibly logical and made perfect sense. I don't really understand why anyone was even trying to stop him as if his plan succeeded then essentially all of the issues within the Fairy Tail universe would be resolved. In fact stopping Zeref creates more problems than it solves. I won't go into details as it is a spoiler, but there is this one scene were Zeref is incredibly close to doing something, but then he suddenly stops doing it to do something else. Art 2/10: The art is alright. I was debating whether or not to give it a 1. What I want to criticise is not so much the art per se, but the way the actual anime was directed. The funky thing about Fairy Tail is particularity in this third season is the director does not understand comedy. Randomly in the middle of scenes that should have an emotional impact or should be action intense are ruined by a random art direction to make the characters Chibi and throwing in some random gag that is not funny in the slightest which then goes on to serve to ruin the entire atmosphere they were working to build. The other awful thing the director does is have incredibly drawn out sequences. Instead of directing a fast paced action scene with high tension like Mob Psycho 100, the director uses long drawn out shots that make it impossible to generate any sense of exhilaration. The camera will randomly pan over someones face for an extended period of time in the middle of battle or the character will have an long dialogue sequence while he is attacking with just a moving background. Worst of all is the sequencing of the action scenes. There are no grand epic battles like season 1 or 2, it is only ever one side over powers the other for about ten seconds, they have some lengthy dialogue and then all of a sudden the good guys wreck the enemy. There is no tension or sense that the good guys have a chance of losing. Even worse is when they make a dramatic sequence out of characters deaths only to say a few episodes later 'lol guess what they didn't die hahahaah.' Sound 1/10: Don't get me wrong, the soundtracks for Fairy Tail are fantastic. Each of the individual tracks are brilliant and suiting to the universe. The opening and ending songs are very catchy and upbeat. So why is it that I give the sound a 1? The reason the sound sucked is because of how it was used. The editor randomly switches between tracks of different moods and tempos that really throw you off. For example, they might pick an appropriate battle theme and then mid-way through the battle theme switch to another piece that has more 'hopeless feel' to it. The problem is that the music does all of the thinking for you. The sound directing would have been far more effective if they left certain sections of the anime without music all together or at least faded out soundtracks before jumping to another one. I can excuse the poor visual directing, but coupled with terrible sound directing just made the third season of Fairy Tail at points almost unwatchable. Character 6/10: There are far too many characters in Fairy Tail. I literally don't even remember half of them. But nonetheless most of the characters are fun besides the ones that are either purposely designed or are only inserted for the sake of fan service (which there are a lot of). It is amazing how easily characters get away with sexual harassment in this universe. But yes, the main Fairy Tail crew are fun and are well developed. The only character that could have been developed better is probably Acnologia. Each of the other Fairy Tail villains have fleshed out motives for why they are doing what they are doing which makes them seem realistic. This was attempted with Acnologia, but wasn't properly fleshed out. One other point I wanted to make is that they randomly give Lucy upgraded celestial powers that are still just as useless as her regular celestial magic. A pointless character development Enjoyment 4/10: There was the odd moment in the final season of Fairy Tail was quite good. Whether it be a concept, a character, or something else. But overall due to the technical aspects of the anime, my overall enjoyment was limited. If the director was more competent then this anime could have had some very impactful action sequences and emotional dialogue. Overall 3/10: The final season of Fairy Tail fails to capture the magic of the first few arcs of season one. I absolutely adored the beginning, Natsu going on quests, meeting interesting characters with well choreographed action scenes, but never taking itself too seriously. Much like all other long-running series, as it drags on, the story becomes more focused, the characters become more and more over-powered, gradually it loses its charm. I really wanted to enjoy the ending for Fairy Tail. The actual ending itself is a satisfying conclusion, but the arc leading up to that point leaves much to be desired. You can be the judge. Watch this final season, but just don't come crying back to me to tell me that I was right and you regret your decision because I very much do. Locking myself into an entire year, waiting a week for each episode only to put it off because I found something better to watch, but then coming back to it out of obligation.

This review will contain some spoilers about Fairy Tail (2014) and the final series itself!! I remember the day, where I started watching the very first season of Fairy Tail back in 2012 and how I was totally in love with it. Fairy Tail is my gateway Anime and when a second season was announced for 2014, I was so excited to finally be able to continue where the first season ended. Now when “Fairy Tail: Final Series” got announced, I was both happy and sad. Yes, another season is always nice to have, but this also meant the franchise is going to end. However, right now as of typing this review, I kinda wished we didn’t get this “Final Series” at all. Story: 7/10 Fairy Tail’s story has always been a hate it or love it kind of thing. The guild runs into enemies who are a lot stronger, gets beaten, to get back up and beat them by the power of friendship, on most occasions. Either you like it or not, the final series is no different in that regard. During this series we got some interesting reveals and backstories, which really answered some questions for me after the first 2 seasons. The story starts straight after the Fairy Tail guild had been disbanded after their battle with Tartaros (Fairy Tail 2014), with Lucy, Natsu and Happy searching for the scattered guild members who all had joined other guilds, to rebuild what Fairy Tail once was. All leading up to their final battle against Zeref/Acnologia. The conclusion of these battles left me a bit unsatisfied. With the introduction of the Spriggan 12, we have had the toughest group ever for the Fairy Tail guild to handle. The defeat of some of these Spriggan 12 was actually alright and I have not much to complain about that. The main issue is the defeat of the biggest antagonist of Fairy Tail, Acnologia, due to the power of friendship. I was never really against this “power of friendship”, but I feel like I was robbed of a really good battle that would have been fitting for a conclusion. Art/Animation: 4/10 The Final Series biggest issue. Fairy Tail 2014 gave us a slightly different art, which for me was quite a nice upgrade from the first season. The Final series doesn’t change that at all. Which is not a problem. The problem is the Animation. A1-Pictures/Cloverworks really butchered this. Fairy tail has always had many still images for their action scenes, but the final series really takes the cake, with barely animated fight scenes and guild members shown as silhouettes behind the main character. It’s so lazy animated. Eventho some scenes do look better than others I am still so utterly disappointed at what the Studio(s) have given us. To me personally, it’s not worthy for a Shounen Anime as big as Fairy Tail. Sound: 9/10 Always have loved the soundtracks and still do. Voice acting was as great as to be expected. This season had some really nice songs for their Openings and Endings. Solid job done here! No complaints from me. Characters: 10/10 This was kinda the reason I kept watching, I love all these characters so much. Don’t expect too much development though. Enjoyment: 5/10 As much as I love the characters and sound, my enjoyment was so much less than previous seasons. Mainly due to the lack of Animation and quality of the Art, that I started to realise.. It wouldn’t have hurt to wait another year or two to get an adaptation that is worthy for a conclusion. Overall: 6/10 I have never been a critical person, especially when it came to my favorite Anime Series, but this adaptation for me, was a huge disappointment. Rating it a 6/10 is me being generous, cause the love for the franchise is and will always be there.

It's been almost a year since I've seen Fairy Tail, but I just saw it and it made me angry so. I've seen hot steamy piles of garbage festering on a pile of road-kill more appealing than this show. Fairy Tail was one of my first anime back when I was like 12 or something and the first season was okay back then. Anyway, normally when your final season comes up, you want to make it big. You want to make it awesome and blow the living socks off of everybody. The Fairy Tail staff decided: "Eh... No one's going to pay attention anyway." And thus this lazy piece of junk was made. In short, if you watched the first couple of episodes of the first Fairy Tail and then watched the final episode of this show. Nothing changed. Absolutely nothing. No character relationships were further developed. No character arcs really changed the character. Any developments that were in place were abandoned in a matter of seconds. All of the super powerful wizards we established in the first two seasons are weak. Pathetic really. Anything big that happens here is rendered pointless a few episode later. That's it for characters. Nothing happens. On a side note., do you remember that one character back in the first couple of episodes in season one? The guild member that would always say "I'll take a job tomorrow!" Me neither. But he's back for his second appearance in the final episode. Hope you're excited to see him. As for the animation, it's not really there. You might as well draw some fan art of each scene and you might get more frames than they did. Every shot was the same slow panning shot of any one character and their blank expression reacting to something that was lame and didn't really matter. Fights might be a punch and the rest is some useless dialogue about something obvious and a lot of standing still. The only reason I didn't give this crap a 1 is mostly because it didn't make me want to bleach my eyes and wipe my memory. It also didn't do anything that made me question humanity so... That's good I guess. You get 1 point for not making me want to wipe humanity off the face of the Earth. Anyway. If, like me, you've watched too much of Fairy Tail to stop now and you decide that you have to watch this show, as my final effort to save you from 51 episodes of nothing let me tell you this. No spoilers, I promise. Think about the show for a minute. Like actually just think about the whole show and the story up until now. Now imagine the ending. You're right. That's the ending, whatever you imagined is the ending. Whatever ending you just imagined is probably superior to what the Final Season has in store. Take that ending and make it your personal ending. Otherwise you'll be disappointed and sad. I hope this helped whoever reads this. Please don't make the mistake of watching this show. It's not funny, it's irritating and boring.

----THIS REVIEW CONTAINS VERY LESS SPOILERS IN SOME PLACE-----------. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK In the land of Fiore, where magical happenings are a part of everyday life, we meet Lucy Heartfilia, an up-and-coming celestial mage. She is in search of the guild known as Fairy Tale, the most popular and destructive guild in all of the land. However, for better or worse, she happens to me Natsu Dragneel. Natsu not only saves her from a scamming wizard, but is also one of the members of said guild. With an open invitation and a thirst for adventure, Lucy gladly follows him to his guild he calls home. With the gleaming thought that a new journey was opening right before her, she sets out to create new memories and make new friends! Fairy Tail is a true Shonen: packed with action, comedy, numerous adventures, unbreakable friendships and a knack for getting into trouble anywhere they go. Fairy Tail is one of the funniest animes I have watched and Happy (the blue cat) is the best, he is funny, loving & just straight up makes Fairy Tail better to watch. Fairy Tail starts off very slow and the main character progression happens in season 2+. Lucy gets her story first where you find out. Lucy Character Progression Spoiler Lucy is a celestial wizard who joins Fairy Tail and you find out about her mother who passed away and her father who is a very wealthy business owner. Lucys dad never pays Lucy any attention and only care about money, at first. Fairy Tail has so much fighting that its hard to sometimes keep track of when a character will be serious in a fight or just be playing with there opponents. Sadly most of the fights in Fairy Tail felt rushed to me. Either the fights will go off on other people fighting who you don’t care about or they will only be maybe 2 minutes long. Don’t get me wrong some of the fight are very OP and amazing but sadly it just didn’t feel like a Goku vs really anyone fight. There was never any way to really tell if Natsu was taking a fight serious or there would be moments when Natsu would beat a crazy powerful enemy one fight then be beat by a weaker enemy the next. Overall I started really liking Fairy Tail in the Tenrou Island ARC & again in the Grand Magic Games ARC! Towards the end when they started explaining Natsu’s story is when I completely fell in love with the anime, at this point Natsu is extremely strong, Lucy is OP, Erza is practically a god at this point. But really Fairy Tail is not a bad anime, there are people out there who think that there are alot of better animes out there but if you have time try it out and see how you like it.

review for all 3 seasons I just finished fairy tail and wanted to share some points concerning the anime. I've always had battle shounen as my favorite genre, and always try to give new ones a try, however, I kept pushing fairy tail back for a long time, mostly because of the horrible reviews it got. To be honest, I felt like a big portion of the reviews it got were exaggerated. The anime is really enjoyable and the characters are lovable, with some really good twists along with the plot. Yes it had a heavy plot armor and a few cringe moments, but I mean that's nothing new for shonen types and it doesn't get too much in the way of enjoyment. Fanservice is definitely heavier than usual, but again I think it's something that can be easily overlooked, and even enjoyable in a few cases. Just wanted to let this out there because I feel like sometimes people will just hate for no reason or for the trend. I don't mean to attack anyone, of course, everyone will have differences in opinion but this is mostly directed to people who like me, might have been hesitant to even give it a shot after trying all the supposedly great and popular shonen and being afraid it might not meet the hype, I'd say definitely give the first few eps a chance. Overall enjoyement : 8.5/ 10

For a final series of an anime, the Fairy Tail Final Series doesn't seem like it is its conclusion. Stating the obvious, the Alvarez Arc is the toughest of all the sets of opponents that the Fairy Tail guild has ever encountered. It's massive, overwhelming, and most invincible. It seemed like the author was like, "Alright, since it's the final series, let's give it all, make everyone overpowered." They maximized the power potential of each characters but the storyline, it's still mediocre as ever. The cyclical pattern is still evident. It still runs where the antagonists appear with tremendous and destructible power, and the fairies will fight back but then the foes will storytell their back stories first, so as the soon they will be defeated, the audience will be drawn attached to the characters as they will feel sorry for them. Nonetheless, they managed to expand the length of the series upon revolving the battle chances of one character to another. For instance, Erza who was able to defeat Ajeel, Neinhart, and Lady Irene. However, just like other Fairy Tail members, they are partnered with some other side characters as they will resolve the remaining scars from their own history. Like Erza, who remedied her past with Jellal and Kagura, and also Lady Irene. This is how this arc will differ from the other previous arcs, as it is established tougher and almost impregnable, it will take two to three people to achieve victory. The Final Series is a power performance. This invincible aspect of the opponents will make you bite onto the series as you hold on to the question, "How will they pass through them? Or could they?" Personally, I would not deny that the battle scenes still interested me, I even rewatch from time to time the battle of Lady Irene against Wendy and Erza, because Wendy is best girl. Moreover, discussing how it concluded, most animes choose a certain path, either will it be emotional or excellence (for great animes, they manage to consist both of these options). The Fairy Tail, at least for me, chose the path of the emotional. No, it will not cater a tear-jerker moment, but it will emotionally invoke your attachment and catharsis that it invested within you. It will remind you of that principle that this series held on from the very beginning of the series, and it is the bond and friendship. Some audience hated it, but Mashima consistently showed us what was his reason in creating the series. He remained faithful that this series is about this relationship of family and camaraderie until the final battle of the entire Magnolia. You might not agree with this, but his faithfulness despite the amount of criticisms, for me, is commendable. Overall, it was not as remarkable on how an anime should conclude, although I am completely aware about the presence of 100 Year Quest manga, but for a great series alone to reach its denouement, it was not concluded as magnificent to call it GOAT for a long-running series. I might have exemplified its mediocrity but I still enjoyed the series in general. The roller coaster emotion was a great experience, and the characters are truly memorable and outstanding on their own. Fairy Tail, you have been a great friend.