Happy Monday BaddaBing BaddaBlog readers! Before we begin and on a quick side note, apparently sex does sell. Saturday’s post had the most views since this blog began way back in August. If you missed it and want to see what all the fuss is about, you can check it out right here. Alright, with that out of the way it’s time to talk about one of the most popular and greatest manga/anime in both Japan and the entire world. This post will be all about Hiro Mashima’s Fairy Tail.

There’s a lot that makes this series great, so buckle up. Fairy Tail (yes, its actually spelled that way because….badass) is a Shonen anime and manga series that was first released in 2006, shortly after Mashima-san finished his previous work Rave Master (a bit on that right here if you’re interested, and you should be). Fairy Tail takes many of the elements that were present in Rave and refines them. FT focuses on a group of friends that act as a surrogate family and the adventures that they go on. There is definitely an overarching plot, but the story arcs are pretty definite, with elements or events from each of those separate arcs coming back into the story much later. It does not seem like it at first, but Fairy Tail does a great job of alluding to both past and previous events and building the world the story resides in through them.

Fairy Tail also does a great job of making you love the characters in it, especially the main protagonists Natsu and Lucy. At the beginning of the story, Natsu is a fire mage who is searching for his missing father, the fire dragon Igneel. Lucy is an upcoming mage who is interested in joining the mage guild that Natsu is a part of, Fairy Tail. The two quickly become fast friends and, as the story goes on, their friendship may or may not be becoming less platonic.

That is actually another great aspect of FT, it’s written in such a way that nearly any of the characters could have romantic feelings for any other character. The Fairy Tail fandom loves this aspect of the series. Seriously, if you google any combination of characters you’re guaranteed to find some kind of fan art depicting them being romantically involved. Mashima-san knows that the fans love this love polygon, and has even referenced it numerous times withing the series, as show above.

Another thing that Mashima-san includes in his work that fans love is fan service. Oh, boy is there a lot of fan service.

I would include more pictures, but I’m a little T&A’d out after the last post. While this may seem like blatant over sexualization of characters (whether or not that is good or bad or either I’ll leave to you to decide), this fan service is generally done for humerus effect. Mashima-san has also acknowledged that he sometimes over uses fan service in the panels below, which I think are hilarious. (Remember that manga is read from right to left.)

All and all, I would say that Fairy Tail’s success derives from the fact that it feels like a manga/anime written by and for manga/anime fans. Mashima-san is very in tune with his audience and manages to incorporate story elements that they love into FT without ever compromising his creative vision of the work. After more than 450 chapters, Fairy Tail still feels fresh and exciting with what seems like years of build up about to come to fruition right around the corner. If your a fan of anime/manga, I cannot recommend Fairy Tail enough. I personally prefer to read the series, but any kind of Fairy Tail in your life is an awesome kind.

That just about does it for this latest installment of Manga (And Also Anime) Monday. If you enjoyed it please leave a comment down below. If you are all caught up and would like to gush about it with me, leave a comment or get in contact with me and we can totally nerd out! As always, if you want to stay up to date with 4B, you can subscribe in the upper right tab via your email. Alternatively, you can keep track of this blog by liking the official BaddaBing BaddaBlog Facebook Page, or by following me, @LucasDeRuyter, on Twitter. I hope you guys like this post and that you have a great week.

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