Fairy Tail, Vol. 1 [Paperback]

Hiro Mashima (Author, Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 25, 2008

THE WICKED SIDE OF WIZARDRY

Cute girl wizard Lucy wants to join the Fairy Tail, a club for the most powerful wizards. But instead, her ambitions land her in the clutches of a gang of unsavory pirates led by a devious magician. Her only hope is Natsu, a strange boy she happens to meet on her travels. Natsu’s not your typical hero–he gets motion sickness, eats like a pig, and his best friend is a talking cat. With friends like this, is Lucy better off with her enemies?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Mashima (Rave Master) is back with a brand new series about the juvenile delinquents of wizardry and magic, set in a mythical world of small towns, steam engines and horse-drawn carts, where magic is mainstream, young wizards follow glossy magazines that profile popular wizard guilds and everyone has hidden magical abilities. Fire-eating wizard Natsu initiates young and sexy Lucy, a celestial wizard, into his oddball guild, Fairy Tail. Soon we meet the womanizing Loke; the ice wizard Gray Fullbuster, who is often found wandering around in just his boxers; and the heavy-drinking Cana, who is never far from a barrel of wine. It's goofy fun and playful troublemaking—minus any sort of criminal element. Mashima sets a careful balance between showing the Fairy Tail wizards' troublemaking mentality while still establishing that the heart of each wizard is the heart of a hero. With a violence that harks back to the Looney Tunes where all combatants suffer heavy blows but always come out alive, albeit with some scratches, the story is more akin to Bugs Bunny than Harry Potter. But fans of both will be pleasantly entertained. The first two volumes of this series are being released simultaneously. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal

Grade 7 Up–Lucy is a wizard who's looking to join the Fairy Tail Guild, which is famous for its members' out-of-control antics. When she meets Natsu, she never imagines that he's really Salamander of Fairy Tail. He spends much of his time as an ordinary guy who suffers from severe motion sickness in trains, boats, and even horse-drawn carriages. But when he taps into his magical abilities, he turns into an awesome fighter who uses fire to vanquish his enemies. By the end of the first volume, Lucy has joined the guild as well as Natsu and his flying cat as a team member. In the second volume, the team steals a magical book from the evil Duke Everlue and joins forces with Erza Scarlet to fight a guild that plans to use death-curse magic. Lucy and Natsu are the central figures in a large cast of characters, many of whom have unique abilities. Readers never see Erza's special skills in action, but it's clear that they involve lots of blood. The beings summoned by Lucy from the celestial spirit world are often temperamental and sometimes politically incorrect. The humor is often jaw-droppingly funny, meaning that the characters' jaws drop so low and so often that they look like something out of a Tex Avery cartoon. The illustrations are lively and keep the stories moving briskly. Each volume is filled with magic and humor and ends with a suspenseful cliff-hanger that will draw readers into the rest of the series.–Andrea Lipinski, New York Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 13 and up
  
• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey (March 25, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345501330
• ISBN-13: 978-0345501332
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.7 x 7.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #85,727 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fairy Tail Magic, April 4, 2008

By 

Tim Lasiuta "Comic Fan 42" (Red Deer, Alberta) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fairy Tail, Vol. 1 (Paperback)

Fairy Tail I and II

Every now ant then, you have to mix things up. At the Fairy Tail Guild, the fire eating Natsu initiates Lucy, a young wizard, into an oddball mix of accomplished practishoners. Womanizers, a scarcely clad ice wizard, a heavy drinker, and a world inhabited by magic powers towns and shops.

If you have ever read Myth Inc, then you will appreciate the dry humor, the offbeat magicians and battles, and the guild that bands together no matter how bizarre their circumstance. The best summary of the Fairy Guild is a description of what happened to them. From page 106 to 111, the council is upset at the Fairy Tail Guild. Sure, they seduced the grand-daughter of the senior council member, drank 15 kegs, charged expenses to the entertainment, destroyed 7 homes. But what happens in magic, stays there, right? According to Makarov, the master of the Fairy Tail Guild. "Magic isn't some miracle...if you spend time worrying about what those in authority think of you, your magic will never advance...Follow the path you truly believe in!!!"

I almost expected to see Yosamite Sam step out from behind Makarov. He has the moustache, the same temper, and the same stature. Perhaps the WB style art is more of the appeal than we would care to admit.

Two volumes are being released at the same time. Enjoy Manga that doesn't take itself seriously.

Fairy Tail I and II, the third is due out soon.

[...]

Tim Lasiuta

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very easy series to get into if you want something light and fun, November 24, 2009

By 

GraphicNovelReporter.com (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Fairy Tail, Vol. 1 (Paperback)

Seventeen-year-old Lucy is a buxom blonde with a sweet face and an attitude to match. She's also a celestial wizard. She has the power to summon creatures from other realms with the use of gate keys. To most people, this would sound extraordinary, but in the land of Fiore, wizards are just as common as merchants and teachers. They even align themselves with guilds to keep employed.

Like any normal teen wizard, Lucy is ready to make her way in the world. She dreams of joining the Fairy Tail guild, a group of powerful wizards that she has been reading about in magazines. She just needs to figure out how to get in.

Her ambition to join gets her in deep water (literally), but a fortunate chance meeting with the fire wizard Natsu, a boy with flaming hair and a scarf that resemble scales, opens the door to get her foot inside Fairy Tail. Now if only the place was as cool as it appeared in the magazines.. . .

The Fairy Tail guild is filled with powerful wizards, certainly, but they they're also a scruffy bunch of drunkards, playboys, nudists, and brawlers. Even Natsu isn't much of a prince. He eats fire as well as anything else within arms' reach. Plus, he gets motion sickness and goes overboard when he gets in a fight. Most of the Magic Council members, the governing body that moderates the guilds, think Fairy Tail is full of idiots. Their antics tend to rack up bills, destroy property, and generally annoy the public. Still, they're good guys and take great pride in their name. Despite the shock from the reality check, Lucy is ecstatic to get her chance to join the guild and show them what she's got.

Fairy Tail is a popular series in the manga underground, and now it has finally made its way to North American bookshelves with the recent translation from Del Rey. The manga offers a wide cast of lovable characters, each with his or her own unique set of skills. This is pretty common in other large cast series where everyone needs their own gimmick to stand out.

This series is definitely for the Naruto/Bleach crowd, but unlike those two popular shounen (boys) titles, Fairy Tail appeals to both boys and girls. Yes, Mashima's female characters do seem to have "magically enhanced" breasts, which can be a bit distracting considering the youth-centric story. Seriously, almost every screen of Lucy could read: "Oh, look, my boobs!" But hey, it's forgivable. The art is consistent, strong, and well suited to the story.

Despite the disjointed feel of the dialogue, Fairy Tail is overall very charming and will appeal to a wide audience. It has magically inclined teens with a ragtag cast of characters, each unique in both powers and flaws. It is a very easy series to get into if you want something light and fun.

-- Courtney Kraft

5.0 out of 5 stars Slow start, to A great Series!, January 6, 2012

By 

James Pinkston "Waring King" (Victorville, CA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Fairy Tail, Vol. 1 (Paperback)

This isn't the most noteworthy of the volumes because the first couple of chapters is mostly playing around and character introduction, but I'm read up to a high chapter and I can say that as the volumes go on it just seems to get better and better with: some romance, cute characters, character progression, strong male characters and female characters.
This is only some of it, but the summary would be the introduction of the magician natsu and his first friend. They meet up, become a team after joining the guild Fairy Tail and get ready to start their first mission (for money, of course).