Fairy Tail’s poor plot undermines the stellar world-building

Though not one of the shonen Big Three, Fairy Tail is an equally long-running series of epic battles, laughs, and exceptional art and design. However, despite having one of the best world-building in anime, Fairy Tail doesn’t manage to become an iconic series.

Fairy Tail follows the story of an aspiring wizard Lucy Heartfilia who dreams of making it big by joining the kingdom’s best wizard guild, Fairy Tail. However, joining the guild isn’t that easy – or she thought. After a series of events, she doesn’t believe that the guild wizards she so admires would turn out to be such warm-hearted people. 

Perhaps the most significant difference between this series and the ‘Big Three’ is that Fairy Tail is not a show with an overarching narrative direction. It is not a story about a protagonist on a journey to achieve an ultimate objective. Lucy fulfills her dream in Episode 1, and she goes where the show takes her. 

The series has some of the most exciting powers in all of anime. The iconic characters and even strong female characters add more charm to the story. But the best part of Fairy Tail is probably the stellar world that Hiro Mashima has created. And yet, despite that all, the poor plot of the series fails the series in various ways.

Why is Fairy Tail’s world-building so incredible?

Fairy Tail is set in a world that is architecturally similar to the Southern European Renaissance, yet the people dress as if they are from all over the world. The animation does phenomenal work in bringing the manga to life. The main characters live in the kingdom of Fiore, home to many wizard guilds that are all overseen by the Magic Council. 

However, outside of Fiore, there are several more countries that have treasure hunter guilds, alchemist guilds, and so on. It even has a parallel world called Edolas. The various places in the series are explored as the story proceeds. The people use all kinds of magic, including different elements, spatial magic, and even summoning magic. 

The strongest powers, however, are dragonslayer and god slayer magic. Several races also exist, such as giants, exceeds, and even artificially created demons. All of this is incorporated into the story, forming an outline for the plot. 

How does the poor plot ruins the stellar world-building?

Fairy Tail’s biggest flaw is that it focuses too much on the characters and fails to develop Fiore as a whole. The series doesn’t even explore the Alvarez Empire, a place where so many powerful wizards originate from. Viewers surely would’ve loved to see how the Empire with an immortal ruler functioned. Though the outline of Fairy Tail’s world is great, it isn’t as deeply explored as it should be. 

Considering the length and genre of Fairy Tail, the series could have delved much deeper into its world. Instead, the series majorly focuses on battles, characters, and the central theme of “friendship.” While it’s not wrong to focus on these things, the series doesn’t manage to execute it properly. 

Not to mention, each arc has more plot holes than the other. The inconsistent storyline is one major factor in ruining the series as a whole. For example, no one knows what’s the shadow that took over Future Rogue. He also told Natsu that one year later, Gray would kill Frosch. However, Gray absolutely adores the little exceed, so hurting him is out of the question. 

Another problem is the future Lucy, who somehow travels back through the Eclipse Gate — which is also not justified. She comes to save everyone who has already died in her time. However, even after witnessing everyone’s death and the cause of it, it doesn’t make sense that she never found out the true purpose of the gate. 

Various such examples are seen throughout the series. Whether it is unnecessarily objectifying iconic female characters such as Erza or having multiple unanswered questions, Fairy Tail fails the beautiful world-building due to its poor plot. 

Fairy Tail can currently be streamed on Crunchyroll. In the meantime, check out our other TV hubs below:

Attack on Titan Season 4 Part 3 | Bleach Thousand Year Blood War Part 2 | Chainsaw Man Season 2 | BRZRKR movie | Jigokuraku Hell’s Paradise | Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 | Sonic the Hedgehog 3 | Invincible Season 2