Ranking Every Story Arc of "Fairy Tail"! (Season One)

you know ever since I first started watching anime there's been one show that everyone has been asking me to watch a show that is a modern day Masterpiece by a lot of people's standards a show that is so good that even years after its release people are still talking about it one of the rare shows that is good both dubbed and subbed a master class in Story characters World building and plot all wrapped up in a fun energetic brilliantly animated package a show you all know it starts with an F yes I am of course talking about Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood ah see I tricked you but you feel real stupid now but for real both Full Metal Alchemist and fairy tale are both shows that I watched recently for the first time well I didn't watch all of fairy tale because yikes but I did manage to finish the first season recently and I really wanted to talk about it I was originally gonna talk about Fullmetal Alchemist because I like that more than fairy tale right now but everybody's talking about Fullmetal Alchemist and everybody knows how good it is so I wouldn't really have anything to add to the conversation it's kind of like an Arcane situation again if you'd like to see a video one of my greed is the best character in the entire show then definitely let me know because that's the only really interesting thing I could talk about but back to fairy tale while I was originally thinking of doing like a whole season review for the first season going into it completely blind because yeah I went into this show completely blind and not knowing anything about the manga the anime or what anybody thinks about it I came up with a much better idea and that was to rank all of the multi-episode arcs in season one and since I don't know anything about the manga I'm only going to be going off of how this show presents its multi-episode arcs and that kind of leads into the definition which is that it has to be a storyline that goes over multiple episodes I do like a lot of the one-off sort of Filler episodes like the body swap one or the one where they go into play but those ones don't really have a lot of impact to the story so I don't really want to talk about them and since ranking videos are hot I figure I might as well get a bunch of people mad by putting an order to list in order of their favorite storylines as I go along I'm gonna try to do a good job of explaining what I actually thought about the show what are its pros it's cons it's characters it's world it's storyline overall I'll try and explain how I think about all of that because that's the biggest impacting factor in how I rank all of the arcs in fact the way that the arcs play out like which ones I like and which ones I don't like are kind of indicative of what I like about the show and what I don't like about the show so you'll get a good sense for that on how I rank them in terms of how I think about the show as a whole that's the real reason why I decided to do it in this sort of weird format just because I felt like the multi-episode arcs are really where the show shines and I discern all lot of importance from them since that's where a lot of the good character work and the good overarching multi-episode stories come from you can think of these arcs as the real meat and potatoes of the first season and that's why I'm ranking them because to me they are the most important part of the first season just to reiterate the rules in case I wasn't clear last time each one of these arcs has to be multi-episode which means they have to be two or more episodes that contain one storyline so some of the Filler episodes like the body swapping one or the pilot don't count I do like these episodes but the multi-episode arcs are really where a lot of the characters a world and story shine and so while these other Little Adventures are fun they're not really what makes the show so special so let's get started with the worst Arc in all of fairy tales [Laughter] the Phantom heart Arc [ __ ] sucks Frank what the hell are you doing man I'm the trash man now I don't know what the general consensus is among fairy tale fans but when we got to the phantomlord arc this is when a lot of the cracks started to show in my opinion everything that fairy tale can do wrong in its storytelling is all present here a bad emotional hook the worst villains in the series and subpar action plus it has the most bafflingly strange story structure pacing and character decisions that make you literally feel like you're having whiplash tonight [Music] not quite my tempo take again [Music] [Music] why do you suppose I just hurled a chair at your head Neiman but we'll start with the good because there is some good things to be had in this Arc for one I really like that this expanded a lot of Lucy's backstory spoiler for later in the list but she's probably my favorite character of the main cast so getting to see a lot of her backstory and where she came from was nice plus this Arc introduced us to Juvia who's one of my favorite characters so far and I can't wait to see what they do with her later on I really like her Redemption Arc throughout it and I like a lot of her characterization especially this early on and not to mention this is where we get to see her meeting gray for the first time which is one of the best relationships in the show are you jealous he was inside of me and not you put your neck away there are other little things that I like like I like seeing some of the side characters get development like the uh Christopher sabot monster man and also seeing Mira Go full Lucy disguise and then have that fool it was kind of interesting I really like Mirajane especially what they do with her later on and seeing her do more I guess was just kind of interesting I don't know I'm looking for anything here there are little moments here and there I like seeing Ursa get knocked out early on I mean that's just something that's good for the pacing because it's an immediate knockdown for the main Heroes which means now the deck is stacked against them I don't know if that's kind of just a cool thing to raise tension and I also like that we get to see little hints of Loki's backstory throughout it that's about it though so um let's get to the bad number one I mentioned this earlier but this is probably the worst part of this Arc and what really makes it stick out as being the worst is just that the pacing and overall story structure is all over the place and you could say it's kind of unexpected so maybe that's interesting but it's not unexpected in a good way where what you expected is bad and so not getting what you expected feels good it's to the point that what you expect just makes sense and then when it doesn't happen it just looks weird alright I I hope you got what I was talking about that was that was a really weird way to say it for an example just look at Natsu's fight versus the Airbender guy this fight was set up for a long time in the arc not only with the fact that this was a member of the element 4 but also the fact that this was the guy who took down the master which means there's some tension there with Natsu andu was also set up that this was the most powerful member of the element 4 which means that our main character has to take him on in an epic fight oh okay so not only does this fight end in a hilariously unceremonious fashion but also he gets taken down by urza who was previously set up to be knocked out now it will be one thing if it was clearly established early on that urza had woken up and was on her way because then there would actually be tension there because we as the audience have the information that she's going to save him and there's this constant idea of oh is she gonna make it in time and so there's that tension and then when she finally does save him then it's a big payoff and it's a big heroic moment on your left but as it stands it just feels a really cheap because again it had been previously established that urza was knocked out which I had praised earlier on because that was a good choice to make it seem harder for the heroes to win but then she just shows up anyway and that's not even mentioning how easily she dispatches this guy like I know Erza is like one of the strongest characters in the show and she should be able to beat this guy but there should be a struggle there I mean that's how fights work there should be a struggle back and forth between good and evil until good wins No Lie when I saw this happen I thought it had to be a trick I was like oh it's Mira Mira's pretending to be urza so that she can scare this guy but then he's gonna see right through it and then her and Natsu are gonna have to take him on but then it ended up just being Erza which felt very underwhelming like I know you need to get to Natsu versus gajile and urza versus Jose but if you're gonna do that why spend so much time setting up the element for and this guy in particular as it stands he kind of just feels like a useless character which he really shouldn't since he almost [ __ ] killed the master like he's a much more menacing threatening interesting and more important villain than gajeel at this point oh yeah just a quick side note I [ __ ] hate gajeel [Music] yeah you remember how I mentioned there are really bad villains in this Arc gajeel is the worst of it he's supposed to be like the main villain who's the big rival to Natsu and this cool dragon slayer but he's just so [ __ ] one-dimensional like they really went for the most cartoonish of cartoonish super villains it's even to the point that when he captures Lucy they can't just have him wait for Natsu no they have to have scenes of him beating her up for fun and you want this guy to be redeemed later now don't get me wrong I do love me some over-the-top hammy villains we'll get to some later but as it stands in the story The Phantom Lord Guild seems like there should be more on a similar level to fairy tale I mean they're also a professional Guild they're not like a dark Guild to my knowledge or anything like they should be more reasonable and understanding and they should also have a more clear hero complex like you know they always say the best villains think they're Heroes I fail to see how any of these guys think that they're Heroes which also makes the World building kind of weird because what Guild just has a bunch of [ __ ] in it like yeah they can be a bit of a tough Guild or whatever and you can establish that they're kind of harsh but are we really supposed to believe that every single person in this Guild is perfectly okay with committing domestic terrorism and mass murder oh yeah that also brings up a another little thing about the World building how um how are they allowed to just March a giant doomsday device all the way to this city and try and destroy it and have the magic Council on everybody just just allow that to happen and never intervene like yeah they do punish them after the fact but like at no point does anybody from the magic Council show up and be like hey this is this is wrong this is literally domestic terrorism we should probably try and stop this now it would be a completely other thing if this was pre-set up in the universe that in this world Wizards are so powerful and crazy that there's no real governing body to control them the feudal war that they have between guilds just kind of goes unregulated because well who the hell is going to stop them if I could talk about kill a kill for a second because I'd love any opportunity to talk about kill a kill one of my favorite things in that universe is how they clearly set up that the kirayuans are so powerful that they can literally do whatever they want Satsuki can go around and kick students around and basically physically harass them and she's gonna go unpunished because her family is so rich and Powerful that they run the entire city because you know that's literally part of the whole anti-establishment themes of the show but in this show we've clearly established that there is a governing body of wizards and there's like a government regulated wizard police force to stop stuff like this because well how else would they stop the dark guilds but I I guess they just forgot let's move on from the problematic World building this Arc sets up and move on to the really weird emotional core that this Arc tries to put in place I do like that at the core of this Arc is the story of the fairy tale guild not wanting to give up Lucy just because I believe in Lucy Heartfilia Supremacy so whenever she's at the center of any story I'm gonna like it but she doesn't really do much over the course of this Arc even though she's a major player in the motives of both sides of this weird war that's going on like you'd think that since you spent a good majority of this whole Arc just kind of getting carted around between fairy tale and Phantom alert that there'd be a big moment at the end where she stands up for herself and I don't know maybe does something like taking out gajeel huh [Music] [Music] and This Moment's kind of perfect because you're set up for this great moment where they're fighting Natsu and I know that Natsu should be the one to stop gajeel that should be important but Lucy can use her brings to outsmart him and maybe [Music] foreign [Music] is by having her spirit misunderstand what she said so then he's just able to create an explosion rather than oh I don't know maybe having Lucy just figure it out on her own since she's clearly established to be the most straightforward and rational thinker in fairy tale like that's her defining character trait is that she's the most rational and straightforward thinker in the show she comes up with all of the best plans and is kind of the brains of the operation think anime's Roman Pierce from The Fast and Furious see that's what makes it so sweet because it's the place that they least expect us to hit them from hey Mia you better hide your baby oil I'm just playing you better hide that big ass forehead I was just joking what's the significance of taking this moment away from Lucy and giving it to her celestial spirit and this all just comes back to that really weird pacing thing I was talking about earlier because that is most present in the fights yeah sure most of the fights here are manageable but they all suffer from the biggest problem that you can ever have with any of these fights which is just that they don't feel tense most of that is really just that there's this weird approach to fights that seems to Value quantity over quality like rather than having one clear goal that is established in the very beginning like oh I don't know stopping the Giant Cannon that's gonna blow up the city instead we have like a string of mini goals we have to hit that all don't really feel relevant and because we have to hit them so fast that means they never stay around long enough to truly feel suspenseful like we have to stop the cannon that Natsu does in like one episode okay well now I don't need to care about that then we have to stop the element four that are all dispatched in one fight okay well now I don't have to care about that and then Josie just shows up and is like I'll do it myself in his fight with urz is pretty okay for a little bit until the master just shows up and is like die die die die die then congratulations the day is saved let's all go back home honestly I just I I want to stop talking about this Arc I could get really in depth about all the little intricacies that really piss me off about this Arc but I just want to move on the only memorable thing to come from The Phantom Lord Arc is that it gave us Juvia and I guess gagil will probably be important later so maybe there's that it says that a cute maid will do anything for you the Daybreak Arc is entirely filler now I don't necessarily say that as a Bad Thing per se this is the first official Arc of the show since the first two episodes are Standalone stories so I don't really include them but this one is two episodes that follow the same plot so I'm including it but this is a really big technicality because this really does feel like a bunch of Filler episodes none of the characters we meet here come back later with the exception of Virgo I guess but she doesn't even come back in this Arc she joins the team in the next one none of our main characters have any emotional core to this other than the fact that they're trying to do a job and I guess Lucy kind of cares about it because we learned that she idolizes the author that they're looking for his book and so I guess there's some sort of emotional core there but it's not really built into her character and while I say there is no emotional core I mean there's none for our main characters the story of this author and his son who have this complex relationship and then he writes this book communicate to him the whole deer cobby thing is just pretty heartfelt and pretty interesting I mean I don't really care about these characters because they don't matter but I guess that's kind of interesting I do actually like the villain quite a bit because uh yeah you remember how I was talking earlier about how some villains can be super over the top and evil and Unapologetic but kind of fun this guy's a perfect example of that he is absolutely insane and unhinged in a menace to society and I love him for it he's got no backstory I should care about he's got no internal conflict so why should I care about any of that just just look at him do funny stuff and I do love the expectations of version of setting him up as this really pervy guy and you know we're gonna have to get Lucy in this sexy made outfit and we're gonna build up to this really crash joke about over sexualizing her only to reveal that he doesn't like her because he's only attracted to really ugly people that's actually a pretty good joke and a good bit of expectation so a version and also it kind of makes us hate him because well I mean who's not going to be attracted to Lucy because I mean I mean goddamn I mean I mean God damn other than that there's not much else to say you really feel the loss of this in the character Department because well like I mentioned before the main characters don't really have a stake in the plot and also there's only three of them right now are main cast only consist of Natsu Lucy and Happy who really can't carry a show like this on their own yeah fortnite we bout to get down oh yeah now we're getting to that good [ __ ] in case it wasn't obvious I didn't really enjoy the last two arcs that much but that all changes right now because it's time to talk about the Battle of fairy tale Arc now despite this technically being my third least favorite Arc of the show this is not a bad Arc by any stretch of the imagination the gap between the Daybreak Arc and this Arc is astronomical this one actually gives us fun fights cool character moments a great overarching plot fun villains and great little moments all throughout it plus it finally has the one thing I have been waiting to talk about and that's the emotional core spending an entire season of a show all developing these little characters in fairy tale and getting to know them and then spending time with this sort of surrogate family and then seeing them all have to fight each other is really emotional and I think it's done very well even if it is blazed through pretty fast to get to the really important fights and moments a lot of the side characters don't get their moment to shine necessarily some do and those moments are definitely the best moments in the entire Arc and I'll definitely get to them a little later but some of the side characters just kind of show up and then are gone even some of the main characters like gray get disposed of comically fast because of how many characters we have to juggle in this one Arc so while I respect them for going for this big massive character Arc with all of the main characters and all of the side characters of The Guild all having to fight each other and this big Avengers end game style moment at the very end of the season I don't think it works as well as they wanted it to nevertheless it still has a very good overarching plot that affects all of our main characters to varying degrees this is very clearly meant to be Natsu's Ark since him gajeel and Laxus are all the principal players in the Battle of fairy tale and I like that we're getting an arc for him but spoilers for later I guess I'm not a big fan of Natsu I know he's probably gonna get more development later but at this point in the story even though I think he's an entertaining character he just hasn't had a lot of development up to this point he usually serves as a funny little companion to the other characters who are going through actual emotional stuff during their arcs like urza or gray or Lucy or literally anybody else he doesn't really feel like your standard Shonen protagonist which I hope they'll do more with later but at the moment he kind of doesn't really have anything else to fill up his character with I am excited to see a lot of what they do with him later and I did like a lot of what he did in this Arc I mean he even made me like gajeel if you could believe that yeah I know I just said that I kind of hate gajeel but if I can ignore where he came from he's actually kind of an interesting and fun character in this article like yeah he was pretty one-dimensional beforehand but if you're gonna redeem a villain you kind of have to make them more interesting which they do here which I don't know if they were just forced to do but I mean it still works he's got a little moments all throughout the kind of endear medium too like like I like when he catches the lightning rod at the end I I like that he just stays inside and tries to eat metal because he doesn't care about anybody I even like the little flashback we got with him and Levy which is um kind of awkward given the thing and yeah well I said that I went into this blind a little ways into it I did learn about the fact that these two are apparently gonna like get married or something later which has got to be really awkward when people ask them how they met all throughout this Arc in fact there are several little moments that I just enjoy like I like the moment where Juvia takes the blast to protect her friends because she doesn't want to hurt her you know that's just that's just cute like I don't need a reason to like that seeing a mirror Go full she devil on freed was also really cool because as I said before I really liked Mira Jane and I knew that they were building up to something with her but I definitely wasn't expecting this as I stated before I believe in Lucy Heartfilia Supremacy so seeing her get to take on one of the Thunder Legion was really cool overall this Arc is just full of really cool moments I even like a lot of what they do with the characters initially I didn't like loxes very much since he kind of falls into the overly cartoonish super villain territory but I quickly realized that that wasn't lazy writing that was actually part of his character like he's a very irrational and stupid kid who's making a very big mistake stake in what he's doing and the show actively calls him out multiple times for this it's not like say Jose where they try and make you think that this is a manipulative chess master with 12 different backup plans who's secretly a genius only to reveal that he's just an angry idiot with no idea what he's doing instead they paint Laxus in a much more realistic light like there's no version of the story where he comes out on top even if he got what he wanted number one I almost guarantee you the magic Council would have several questions for him about how he's endangering other people's lives and secondly what does he get he just runs a guild full of people who hate him or he kicks everybody out and then he runs a guild full of nobody when I first watched this Arc I originally thought that this was a big problem of it that loxus's plan makes no sense but upon thinking about it more I realize that's part of it the part that's supposed to show that he really isn't fit to lead anybody because he's not thinking about any of this they even make it a big point of having freed call him out multiple times for what he's doing and how they should really just stop but loxus isn't thinking rationally so he just barks orders at them yeah upon thinking about it more I think loxus is actually one of my favorite characters he's obviously not a hero but he still has a lot of depth to him you see the thing about this show is that the Hero characters tend to be the only ones that really get development as I demonstrated beforehand there are not a lot of very interesting villains and since this is not a very morally ambiguous show you're either pure evil or you're a hero a lot of the heroes are interesting well developed and well-written characters but some of the villains kind of get swept to the side thankfully loxus isn't like that he has some actual moral ambiguity to him he has an internal conflict and he's a lot more interesting than [ __ ] King Bradley over here God is nothing more than a construct created by man to inspire fear and promote order I do think his soft Redemption was a little rushed yeah he still gets punished and everything but I don't know the way that it ends is kind of a little bit too upbeat and happy that's one of the things about all these arcs they all end on like a really happy note when I kind of wish that you know we could get some more of that depressing stuff the Battle of fairy tale is just a really fun Arc it's got really cool moments there's some inconsistent character stuff here and I'm not a big fan of Natsu yet that's very important I'm not a big fan of him yet I know he's probably gonna get better later but like right now I'm not a big fan of him so that's that's why I'm kind of putting this this a little bit lower even though I do like it I do really like it in conclusion we get to see Lucy in a cheerleader outfit so it's instantly the best Arc in the show moving on money [Music] [Music] you know what maybe I'm crazy but the lullaby Arc was actually like really good I don't know how hot of a take this is gonna be but the first official Arc of the show is actually one of my favorites this Arc establishes a lot of what I like about the show going forward most namely it gets the full crew of Natsu Lucy gray happy and Erza all together and they all go on an adventure which is probably my favorite part of the show I always like having a consistent nice group of characters all together in action adventure shows like this and all of them really play off each other really well most namely urza this is when she's introduced and I understand why she's a fan favorite character now she really completes the group when you think about it I mean you have Natsu and Gray Who are the budding Shonen Rivals you have happy who's the comic relief Lucy is the every man audience surrogate character and then urza is the silent Stoke badass I also just really like the plot of this Arc getting to see a dark Guild in action really fleshes out the world and it's just really cool to see in general and the fact that the villains are a dark Guild means that it removes the plot hole of the villains needing a reason to kill the heroes I touched on this briefly when we talked about the Phantom Lord Arc but one of my biggest problems with that Arc was that the villains kind of felt too evil like phantomlord is an official Guild that was created by the magic Council I'm assuming and it's clearly stated to have normal rational people in it because that's where Juvia came from but at no point is it ever brought into question that everybody in phantomlord is trying to kill basically everybody in this city if you were to say that they were a dark Guild like the gay build in this Arc then it makes sense because they're evil and what they're doing is illegal but if you establish that they are an official Guild that just feels kind of weird alright I'll shut up about Phantom Lord and get back to the ark that I actually like I like a lot of the the plot here it's really cool there's some twists and turns the whole lullaby thing with the flute is a little bit mcguffiny but I don't know I think it works fine as I said before I like a lot of the World building it's fun to get to see a dark Guild and get to see that perspective of magic in the world it's also fun to get to see little things like this car that can apparently drive by using someone's magical energy or is this a welcome addition to the group as I said before she only gets better from here in fact and just as a quick little aside this Arc is something I personally really like with urza it's one of my secret writing Kinks that I really like it when a show or movie or whatever can talk a lot about a character being something and then immediately show you that person doing it this is one of of the reasons why even though I don't think his character is good throughout the whole series I really like Poe Dameron in the force awakens because they very clearly tell you oh he's the best pilot in the resistance and then they show him doing that [Music] there was a lot of build up over the course of this series about how coolers it is and how she's the most powerful person in the guild and how Natsu and Gray are terrified of her and then we immediately see why in fact everyone gets their own little moments to shine over the course of this Arc gray gets to take down the henchmen guy Lucy gets to use a Virgo to get everybody out of the wind Vortex Natsu has his awesome fight with Aragorn oh yeah and eragore what a sick villain this guy is Peak can't be Shonen villain like he literally just wants to kill people that's it that's his whole motivation like how do you [ __ ] with that he literally just wants to kill people and blames all the Masters for taking that away from him he's got Cool Wind magic I like his VA I like his Scythe I I don't know he just tickles my lizard brain and as I said before his fight with Natsu is really cool because it's paced like an actual fight yeah even some of the arcs that I do like definitely suffer from the pacing problem that permeated the entirety of the Phantom Lord Arc thankfully I'm happy to say that the Ola by Arc isn't one of them Natsu vs aragor is probably the only fight I can think of in the entire first season that feels the most like a typical Shonen fight there's no moral ambiguity no internal conflict and a constant back and forth flow between good and evil women I know it feels a little weird to praise the show for just doing something that's kind of normal but I don't know I I just really like this cliche sure the ending is a little weird with the flute coming to life and then turning into a weird final boss that's like instantly defeated I think it would have been better to have the climax be the conversation that the master has with kagayama I mean I just think that's a really good scene overall kageyama is actually a really interesting character and I would have liked to have seen more of him plus this scene also clearly establishes the central character trait of the master which is his ability to always empathize with any young Wizard or at least that's what his character should have been yeah if I can just make a personal note here real quick I don't like Master Makarov that much no I'm sure he'll probably get better with time but right now he kind of just feels like a plot device like I know they're going for this sort of Master brochie effect of making this kooky old man who's actually secretly the super strong badass but I don't think it works as well as they'd hoped It suffers from the class Professor X problem where you have a character who's so strong that they can solve any problems so you always have to find a really weird way to get them out of the story both phantomlord and the Battle of fairy tale suffer from this problem it's a little bit more acceptable in the Battle of fairy tale because loxus would know how to trap him and it's actually kind of an interesting way to trap him but then it just kind of devolves into he has a heart attack and almost dies but there's no tension here because I know he's not gonna die so why are you trying to make me think he's gonna die but it's at least more acceptable than just saying he got his soul sucked up by Gabe Newell over here he's about to get his soul sucked I really like his characterization here in fact I like the characterization of all of the Masters I really like building characters on irony so it's really fun to see them make these weird kooky characters and show that they're actually really smart and understanding until they just decided to make him the big Angry wizard guy which is kind of sad [Music] [Applause] now I bet a lot of you were thinking Tower Of Heaven was gonna be my number one while I don't know much about the fan Community I'm willing to bet this one is very popular among fans mostly because it deals a lot with urza who's probably the most popular character in the entire show and while number three is nothing to scoff at I feel like I should probably explain why this isn't number one honestly it's really just because it has the trademark fairy tale problems that you see in almost every Arc the Trinity Raven are actually really cool villains that get disposed of in one episode all of jalal's forces and all of Erza's friends are not that interesting of characters and unless you're a part of the main hero group you're really not going to get any character development in this Arc and that really sucks the most for Jalal he had the potential to be a really interesting villain complete with a cool VA power system design and motivation and that's without even mentioning the depthful relationship he has with urza on 4 fortunately none of this matters because they go for the classic Marvel approach of making your main villain a good guy who's just being corrupted by some dark force and this single decision ruins a lot more of the show than you think like personally I really like this one scene between Jalal and Erza when the Canon's about to blow up the whole Tower and they just have one silent little moment where they just Embrace each other accepting that they're gonna die but if they're gonna die they want to be together it shows the layers to their relationship and really goes a long way in humanizing Jalal but then they gotta pull the Twist on us and reveal that this was just all acting on his part and it was all part of his master plan and he was just manipulating her and that beautiful tender little moment between two complicated characters with a complicated relationship yeah that doesn't matter anymore quickly went from being a potentially interesting villain with an interesting relationship with one of our main characters to being just another guy Natsu's gonna punch in the face said punching is really cool granted but I mean I kind of would have preferred something a little more smaller scale for something that was this personal ah yes and that nicely leads into the first thing that I want to talk about on the positive side and that's the action ah yes you might have noticed that I uh I haven't really talked about the action for this show and that's mostly because I think it's just okay there's nothing really wrong with it I think it's fine I think it's pretty good in some cases but as somebody who was raised on Demon Slayer yeah this just isn't gonna cut it I will however say that the Tower of Heaven Arc has the best action of the first season everybody gets their own little moment to shine urza gets to fight the katana girl and then go fight Jalal gray and Natsu get to fight the bird guy and then Lucy gets to save Juvia from the guy who who turned Juvia into my childhood fetish and then Natsu gets to fight Jalal at the very end in this really cool action scene that carries a lot of personal weight for both him Jalal and Erza them trying to do a uh fake out death on urza is a little weird and feels kind of selfish but I mean I guess if you want to that that can work the way that I would describe the Tower of Heaven Arc is that it's the most consistently fairy tale Arc of fairy tale it has all the problems we're used to seeing by now like underwritten villains a kind of weird emotional core weirdly paced scenes and pretty bad side characters but it does have all of the positives I've come to expect pretty decent but emotionally gripping action scenes good character work nice light World building and it provides a thorough deconstruction of one of our main characters allowing them to take the spotlight and for us to learn a lot more about them yeah it's not amazing or anything but it's the most consistently fairy tale everything that I've come to expect from the show I get here both the good and the bad forgive me Lord for I have sinned but I just really liked Gray's island arc much like how I expect Tower Of Heaven to be the fan favorite orc of season one I expect the galuna island arc to be the least favored one and all that's because it deals with my boy gray real quick I'm just gonna throw this on the screen and not elaborate so you can get my opinion on how I feel about all of the main characters much like how I really like Lucy it's kind of obvious that I like gray a bit and a lot of that is because of the development he gets in this Arc his backstory is really compelling his rivalry with Leon is fully fleshed out and I like how they don't make him a fully heroic character especially in the flashbacks like Leon is just right gray is responsible for killing or when we started to see more of his past I kind of rolled my eyes because I thought it was just going to be another typical Shonen story of the master and the two apprentices who become Rivals and one of them is very nice and kind-hearted and is loved by their master and the other one is more dark and edgy and selfish and clearly evil but this Trope gets complete completely flipped on its head as gray is the one who's acting selfishly throughout the backstory he doesn't care about anything else other than getting revenge on deliora which is a Fool's errand as he's just a kid there is no world in which him going after Delhi Aura is a good decision and that's what directly results in or having to stop him and her death now while that might seem like a bad thing as it makes gray look like a selfish entitled kid I think it's actually a very good decision since it allows us to see how far gray has come from that point all of this is brilliantly showcased by one line from Leone foreign this lion is the complete antithesis of what this entire Ark is about about the fact that Leon has not changed in Gray has granted his mistakes didn't result in their Master getting killed but it's that act that allows gray to grow up gray learns from his mistakes and becomes a better person whereas Leone is stuck in the past and can't move on from his childish goals oh yeah I should probably talk about Leon seeing as how he's the best villain in the first season sure he might seem like your typical power hungry evil Shonen villain the one who sacrificed their mortal connections and all of their emotions for True power just to Huff more and more of that sweet motivation but what really makes Leon Stand Out is how he views himself and his goals Leon obviously wants to be the strongest wizard in the world and the most powerful person but how he videos about doing it is very strange and yet very relatable rather than searching the world for all of its secret dark arts and becoming a dark wizard instead he finds one person that is considered the strongest in their area and then he seeks to surpass them he clearly thinks about life as a hierarchy as in him and gray are under or and if he surpasses or he will be at his strongest and yet what he fails to see is that the world is a big place and there are so many other people that can teach him so many other things and that there are so many other people that can surpass him in so many other ways his short-sightedness forces him to Tunnel Vision on the one thing he thinks he can control which is how to surpass his own Master as we can obviously tell this is a Fool's errand as beating deliora doesn't really do anything for him as he's already been defeated but Leon doesn't really care about practicality all he wants to do is find a way to boost his own ego which is indescribably relatable no matter what Endeavor you try and pursue there's always going to be people who are better than you there are always going to be people who know things that you don't and there's always going to be more for you to learn and when you really sit down and think about that it can sometimes feel very depressing no matter what it is you're trying to learn no matter what skills you want to gain no matter what you're trying to do it's always going to be little bits that you forget it feels like you're trying to climb a mountain only to get to the top and realize that there's 50 more Mountains for you to climb you can have two approaches to this you can either tunnel vision in on yourself and your own goals and trying to find some way to boost your own ego by having little achievements that you deem as being the most important like what Leone does or you can enjoy the experience as it goes along make new friends find new achievements treat the journey like a journey like what gray does oh sorry if that got a real uh real preachy there at the end I uh I just really like the relationship between gray and Leon in this Arc beyond that amazing little story the rest of the arc is fine there's not really much else to talk about seeing as how the rest of the characters don't get a lot of development I mean Natsu Lucy or is that happy they don't really have anything to do with the story outside of the fact that oh yeah we're just going on a quest again but I don't know I mean this is about gray and he gets a lot of development here so they can they can kind of be pushed to the side for this one they'll they'll have their times later the action's fine as usual once again the villains aren't that interesting and they kind of just go away all of Leon's henchmen kind of just show up and then are gone but here it's a little more forgiving since Leon is the really interesting one and I want to see more of him so if you get rid of these guys so that we could have more time with him I'm I'm happy about that and it also cannot be understated how great of an ending this Arc has [Music] not only do I love ending on a line but just just the idea that maybe Leon can come back maybe even in his own show fills me with so much excitement I know that he is going to come back in the later Seasons but man him having his own show with his own Journey would be so cool in conclusion gray gets his own little demon harms so uh 10 out of 10 is the perfect dark if didn't possibly have missed it I am Loki of Asgard and I am burdened with glorious purpose you know I really thought I knew what fairy tale was a relatively laid back show with not a lot of moral ambiguity a fun fantasy world with cute characters and a fun little plot a story with next to no subtlety in its messages and whose only dramas brought to life through quirky little action scenes a show that knows exactly what it is and isn't trying to be anything more I really didn't think fairy tale would have the power to really make me feel something and then this happened ah so yeah this is the Lucian Loki Arc and why it's the best Arc in all of fairy tale it's honestly very simple why this one's the best it's just because it doesn't feel like the rest of the arcs and I don't mean that in that stupid Reddit way of oh fairy tale only makes bad arcs and this one's good so it doesn't feel like the rest of them what I mean is that by this point in the story I really thought I got the formula fairy tale is not a very complex show with not a lot to say it has fun characters cool world cool action but not much else it knows exactly what it is and doesn't try and go above and beyond to tell a super complex story it doesn't take itself too seriously I mean how can you really hate it but the Lucy and Loki art gave us something I didn't expect and that's real personal emotional drama drama that isn't punctuated by needing to have an action scene or needing to make a joke drama that's subtly explored by a character's actions and feelings and drama that doesn't overly ham-fisted or shoved down the throats of the viewers so much of this Arc just feels so much more real than everything else like as real as you can get in a fantasy anime with Wizards nevertheless the point I'm just trying to make here is that the drama is just really good I probably could have just said that and saved us all some time I imagine halfway through this video you might have been able to guess that this was gonna be my favorite based on the fact that as I've stated multiple times before I believe in Lucy Heartfilia Supremacy in this Arc basically just exists to validate that part of my opinion Lucy is amazing throughout this Arc she has everything that I love beforehand and I particularly like how we get to see how compassionate she is Loki wasn't somebody that she knew very well but once she learns what happened to him you see this different side of her a side of her that's been subtly hinted throughout the course of the entire show and that's how amazing of a Celestial wizard she really is she has genuine empathy for all of her spirits and it's something that we actually get to see over the course of the story it's not like we're just constantly told that oh she's so nice to her spirit words no we see her fight with them we see their complicated relationships all throughout all of the previous arcs and it all culminates in this beautiful moment of Lucy putting on display just what it is she brings to the team and just why it is she's the best character in the whole show and that's her empathy and this is all perfectly juxtaposed with Loki's backstory now I will admit Karen is a bit of a bad antagonist just because again you got a kind of cartoonish super villain over here but through Loki's actions we get to see that they actually do have a bit of a complicated relationship I like that when she dies Loki isn't happy he's genuinely distraught because you can tell that under all the abuse that she put them through they were actually friends and that's just one of the subtle little things about Loki's character that I like another great thing is that this thoroughly explains why he is such a ladies man and it's because he's trying to emulate Karen her being a bit of a black widow might seem like an insignificant joke on the surface but I actually think it's a very big Clue Into why Loki is the way that he is because when he became a real person and lost the celestial world all he could think to do was emulate the person that he'd seen the most and this is what I really mean when I to say that it doesn't feel like fairy tale this level of subtlety in the characters in their interactions is just something that I wasn't used to seeing at this point I wasn't convinced that the show could convey any of these kind of emotions or any of this backstory without just saying it and I definitely wasn't convinced that the show could deliver an emotionally gripping character-driven climax that didn't revolve around two characters punching each other but here we are sure maybe you can say that Loki got over his grief and his guilt too fast and yeah I can agree to that most of that I just blame on the fact that the writers felt they probably needed to get to the Tower of Heaven Arc much faster because after all that one is so much more important than this stupid little Arc if you were to ask me though I would much rather prefer to see a Broken guilt-written Man learn to forgive himself with the help of his blonde-haired pure-hearted and deeply empathetic GF then watching Natsu just beat up a bad guy but hey that's just me whoa way there what is this outro yeah I just wanted to pop in here real quick at the end you know editing note not scripted to ask please please if you like this video please consider subscribing and liking and doing all that kind of stuff I hate asking but this video took so long to make I put so much effort into it and I would really like to just feel like that effort wasn't for nothing you know I've been working on this video since around the middle of October and I write I produce I edit all of these videos myself and I don't do it for any profit and I'm doing it mostly for fun and just feedback of any kind is really helpful it just makes me feel nice knowing that somebody cares and does another quick side note I tend to stream on Twitch now too I did a little run for Pokemon Scarlet I'm doing one right now for Persona 4 Golden because I love the Persona series I'll try and let people know when I'm streaming over there but if you ever want to check it out I recommend you can I don't know and if you made it this far thanks for watching it it really does mean a lot to me

Channel: Persephone

Views: 18,647

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Id: zu2tBsMeqdE

Length: 50min 10sec (3010 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 16 2022