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Review: Fairy Tail, Vol. 05

Fairy Tail, Vol. 05 Fairy Tail, Vol. 05 by Hiro Mashima
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I can no longer think of this series or each volume in terms of "good" or "bad", for the work of Hiro Mashima has transcended any and all labels that could possibly be comprehended by the human psyche. By which I mean ayy lmao this is a series you just gotta read for fun, man. And that's what I'm doing, I'm having a good time reading through this series. It helps a lot that these are supersonically fast reads, consistently clocking in at 1 hour and 30 minutes, even when I really take my time and look at the art.

Speaking of art: I think it's pretty good? Comparatively, I mean. A lot of times, especially with weekly/long running series like this one, the art can get pretty lazy. One series that comes to mind is Yu Yu Hakusho. The art is usually pretty decent but you definitely notice when the author starts cutting corners on certain panels. But with Fairy Tail, literally every panel is on the same level, art-wise. I appreciate that a lot. Of course, Mashima has assistants helping him out, and I don't know if the mentioned manga's author had such help. Also, Fairy Tail was still new at this time (having just reached one year) so they might not have had the chance to be lazy yet. We'll see! But at this point I'm quite satisfied with the quality of the art. As an extra note: Mashima draws a lot of good funny faces, which is not something I remember noticing in the anime, but something I notice and like a lot in the manga.

Speaking of the manga, I'll mark on something about the volumes. These volumes have the most bonus content of any series I've ever read; Comic, graphic novel, manga, novel, or otherwise. It's pretty rad. In this volume we got a fricken colouring book page (although I'd argue that the whole manga could be a colouring book), two pages of fan art with accompanying comments from the author, a Q & A section, a rad Mashima-personality-filled afterward, and a few pages preview from the next volume.
"FT still has a long way to go!! We'll go for at least three years!!" -Hiro Mashima
Lmao this series sure passed it's goal. Thinkin' a little small there, Mashima.

Jesus Christ that's so much extra stuff, AND THAT'S NOT ALL!!

The English edition of this adds EVEN MORE extra content, if you can believe it!! It has this whole Translation Notes section that explains some colloquialisms and other Japanese culture tidbits that a Western reader might not have understood while reading. It even teaches you about honorifics, if you don't know about those. It's just so nice and thoughtful to have, and I appreciate it a lot. Especially since I've never seen this done on any other manga, so the translator is just plain going out of their way to help out the reader. You can even get some of the translator's personality in the explanations, and it's all so very nice.

As we all know, as of the previous volume I had switched to using my library's e-book collection to read this series. And I am sure this is something you must know since of course you've been following my Fairy Tail Re-Watch-Read from the very beginning, with eyes wide and your butt perched at the edge of your seat, eagerly awaiting the next installment in this riveting saga. I finished reading volume 4 two days ago, and as of then volume 6 was signed out to someone already. I was ready to wait a couple weeks for their lending period to be up (as none of those cretins who use my library ever bother returning books early) but when I went today to put myself on the list, I saw--huzzah! It was returned! And so the saga will continue even sooner than planned. Thank you, masked and unknown fellow library-Fairy Tail reader, for not being a filthy book hogging cretin like the rest of them.


Click to read all of my Fairy Tail Reviews:
Volumes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

View all my reviews
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