Fairy Tail Collection 5   Starring (voice): Aya Hirano, Tetsuya Kakihara, Akira Ishida, Daisuke Kishio and Daisuke Namikawa Distributor: Manga Entertainment RRP: £29.99 MANG3151 Certificate: PG Release Date: 02 December 2013

Lucy runs away from home to join Fairy Tail, an anarchic guild of wizards, having met and been rescued by Natsu Dragneel. Together with the other members they embark on adventures...

Fairy Tail: Part 5 (2011) is a shonen anime show aimed at young males. The story started as a manga written and illustrated by Hiro Mashima. The anime show was directed by Shinji Ishihara from scripts by Masashi Sogo.

The two disc DVD set contains episodes 49 – 60 which is the first part of season two and the relationships within the Guild have been well fleshed out. Natsu is a chip off the old Naruto block as a young easy living young man who is always getting into trouble, when he is not challenging his brother to see who the best is.

The new season’s stories are only loosely connected, being more stand alone in flavour. There is an arc involving the introduction of evil wizards out to steal magic, which means that Fairy Tail has to form alliances with other guilds. Of course, the show is shonen, so pick things off a list that will appeal to a young Japanese audience without straying into the area of hentai. At worst there is a little amount of fan service to titillate the palettes of young males.

The animation is adequate, certainly not the best produced, but its bright and simple designs get the job done. The look is somewhat like Bleach, but not so slick and with a lot more attempts at zany visual humour. It tries to balance the action with the comedy and for the most part this works well, but you do get the feeling that some of this stuff is just here for laughs and filling.

There is a commentary for episodes 49 and 58, it’s not bad and if you’re a fan of the show there are a few gems here to pick up. You also get the textless opening and closing sequences and the English trailer. The picture is fine, although you’re soon aware of whole chunks of animation where only a few elements are in motion. You get the option’s for either the 5.1 English dub or the original 2.0 Japanese audio track, either is as silly as the other.

It really depends what you want from an anime, sure it’s fun and fluffy, but on the downside there is little here that has not been seen before and in better shows.

6

Charles Packer