Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. It’s movie time again and this week we’re going be looking at Fairy Tail. A little back story about this series; for those of you who don’t know Fairy Tail is a manga written by Hiro Mashima the same guy who wrote the Rave Master series. After Rave Master was finished Hiro said he found the story sentimental and sad so he decided to create a new story that would be a lot of fun for everyone to read; and to be honest it shows. You can just tell from the story that Hiro is having so much fun writing this manga, he even says in an interview that he based some of the characters, their traits and humor off of people he’s known in life and his assistants. The story centers around a young girl named Lucy who joins the famous wizard guild Fairy Tail who are always getting into trouble because of their rowdy members. In the guild she teams up with a dragon slayer named Natsu the trouble child of Fairy Tail, an ice mage named Grey who is an exhibitionist, and a swordswoman named Erza along with a talking flying cat named Happy. In the story the team goes on missions and adventures with other guild members to earn money and keep their world safe. The series got started in 2006 and while it had a slow start it quickly became popular, earning itself an anime in 2009 which is scheduled to end this week and winning multiple awards for its writing, characters, and story. Even I’m a fan of the series, next to One Piece and The World God Only Knows, Fairy Tail is my favorite manga out there. In fact, if I’m being really honest I actually think Fairy Tail is a better story than Naruto and Bleach and deserves to stand alongside the Big 3 (or the Big 5 as I like to call it but that’s a talk for another time). Today, in honor of the anime ending we’re going be looking at Fairy Tail’s movie the Phoenix Priestess. Released in theaters in August 2012 and finally getting a sub version this past month, the Phoenix Priestess marks Fairy Tail’s first motion picture. There have been a lot of mixed reviews about it, some say it was good, some say it was bad and others say it was underwhelming. What are my thoughts about it? Well let’s take a look at Fairy Tail: The Phoenix Priestess.
So our story begins with a ceremony going on at night until the Spartans arrive and start killing everyone in sight (tonight we dine in Hell). They kill everyone but two of them teleport to safety, an old man who I assume is the leader and our main protagonist of the movie a girl named Éclair voiced by Aya Endo (Matsu from Sekirei and Rosalie from FMA: Brotherhood). Shortly after teleporting to a safe location the old man dies from multiple spear wounds in his back and tells Éclair to run. She does what she’s told but faints shortly after running (clearly she doesn’t get out much). Also, a cool thing about this opening is that there’s no dialogue going on, all we see is animation and music which I like, it reminds me of those shorts you see at the beginning of Pixar movies, they just let you watch it and have you piece together what’s going on. We then cut to our main characters of the series who are joined by Wendy another dragon slayer and her flying cat Carla. These two also become main characters in the series but they don’t make an appearance and join the team until the 5th arc of the manga. There on an island looking for a guy named Geese the leader of a group of bandits; they enter the city and are quickly ambushed by the bandits. They all split up and make quick work of them and eventually find Geese who escape from them so they don’t get the reward and the mayor fires them for destroying half the city (well at least you have an excuse to remodel the city now).
They return to their hometown where Lucy sees Éclair collapse in the street who is traveling with Tweety’s big headed cousin Momon. Also for fans of the show I’m not sure if this movie takes place before or after the 7 year time skip, I mean the 2nd building of the guild is still there but the remaining guild members outside the main cast appear in their 7 years later appearance (way to spoil the current arc movie). While this is going on a guy named Kriem voiced by Koki Miyata (Kōta Tsuchiya “Muttsulini” from Baka and Test) who is the prince of the kingdom of Veronica has one half of a powerful stone known as the Phoenix Stone and has hired the dark guild Carbuncle to track down Éclair and retrieve the other half of the Phoenix Stone which she has in her possession. Why? Because the 400th anniversary of the kingdom is soon and he wants to combine the Phoenix Stone to show everyone in the country how awesome he is (reminds me of Gary Oak from the 1st season of Pokemon). Lucy takes Éclair back to the guild where they feed her and she begins to head out with Momon to the Boundary Forest to find a guy name Kalard (*Kenobi impression* you must go to the Dangobah system, there you meet Yoda the jedi who trained me) but Lucy and the gang decide to travel with her since the forest has been known to be dangerous.
On the journey it gets revealed that Éclair has amnesia and also a dislike for mages so she really doesn’t open up to the gang that much and acts quite distant and emotionless (kinda reminds me of the guys who were forced to watch Twilight. Poor souls wanted to be left alone to process how a movie could be so bad). They arrive at a city before reaching the Boundary Forest where everyone goes off and do their own thing. Natsu and Happy work at a restaurant because they couldn’t pay their bill, Grey gets arrested for taking off his clothes in public subconsciously (Grey: Bitch, you just jealous of my icy swagger), Wendy and Carla take in the sights as does Lucy and Éclair, and Erza goes into shops and buys a wedding dress (for what I have no idea, but I’m sure it’ll force its way onto the story somehow). We even get a shower scene with Lucy; it’s never Fairy Tail without a Lucy fanservice scene is it? After that scene Lucy and Éclair are attacked by a member of Carbuncle named Chase voiced by Koji Yusa (Shadow from Sonic X), a ninja who can manipulate shadows. He chases the girls through the city (with Lucy in a bath towel) until Natsu and Grey catch up to him, fight him off, and force him to retreat. They return to the girls where they get a nice surprise in seeing Lucy naked because her bath towel fell off (lucky bastards).
They arrive at the Boundary Forest where they see that Kalard’s place is in ruins (sorry gang, but your wizard is in another castle). They find a secret passageway where Kalard left a message for Éclair detailing that he has created a dispelling magic for the Phoenix stone but he won’t live long enough to use it and that he is Éclair’s father (noooooooooo, that’s impossible! No, wait, it’s totally possible). Éclair deals with the emotions of losing her father quietly but when Lucy opens up and says that she too lost her father (okay so this takes place after the 7 year time skip) the tears begin to flow and the two become friends (just like that? I swear I will never understand the way girls think). Éclair makes an official request to Fairy Tail asking them to dispel the Phoenix Stone in which they accept. They return to the guild only to be attacked by the members of Carbuncle who almost demolish the place (dammit, we just rebuild this place too). We have Cannon voiced Koji Ishii (Garterbelt from Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt) who wields a magic machine gun (say hello to my little magic friend*gunfire*), Coordinator voiced Hitomi Nabatame (Reynalle from Highschool DxD) who can use requip magic like Erza but she also seems to have the power to nullify the magic of others, and their leader Dyst voiced by Showtaro Morikubo (Shikamaru from the Naruto series) who seems to have psychic abilities (quick, get me a dark type Pokémon and a ghost type assuming we’re following Generation 2 rules). They take out each member of the guild, capture Éclair and take her back to Veronica.
The master of the guild, Makarov returns with fan favorite Gajeel and Lily who inform them that if the pieces are reunited it will resurrect a phoenix and grant the person who united them immortality. Erza is asked to assemble a team to go to Veronica and rescue Éclair (I recommend Capt. Falcon, Dante, Shikamaru, Goku and Zoro to join her) and she chooses the main cast (who got their asses kicked during the attack on the guild but according to anime law they’ll win the next time they meet) along with Gajeel, Lily, and Juvia who is going because she believes Cannon wants to make Grey his (to be fair her motives are valid considering what the guy wanted to do to Brief in Panty and Stocking).
So they infiltrate the kingdom by busting through the front gates (subtle), and split up where they each fight members of Carbuncle and the royal guards to reach Éclair before she gets executed. Grey and Juvia fight against Cannon and beat him by freezing him in a block of ice (you stay cool alright), Gajeel beats Chase in the sewers (hopefully it doesn’t smell like poo gas down there), Erza owns Coordinator in that wedding dress from earlier (and I thought bridezillas were scary), Lucy continues making her way to Éclair while Wendy and Lily keep the guards busy and Natsu takes on Dyst who I’m sure he beats. *Goes to the scene to see Natsu defeated* well . . . shit (I told him to capture a ghost or dark Pokémon. See what happens when you don’t listen to me). The Kriem douchbag unites the two pieces but is tossed aside by Dyst who says he can’t stand him living forever (amen to that) and declares himself the new king. While this is going on Éclair gets burned at the steak and Lucy and Natsu watch with horror but Momon jumps into the flames and tries to save her but burns and vanishes (I wanted my chicken deep fried not burned to a crisp). The steak that Éclair was on falls over and she somehow survives with her skin not entirely burnt and only a few burnt marks on her (well at least she’s in a better condition than Shishio from Rurouni Kenshin and Darth Vader, seriously, how did they survive those burns, it’s like getting your whole body burnt just serves to piss you off). With the stones combined a creature shows up looking nothing like a phoenix but instead Mega-Ultra Chicken’s cousin Metal-Super Rooster but they call it a phoenix anyway who begins firing lasers off into the distance.
Lucy gets Éclair to safety who reveals that she remembers everything about her past. It turns out that the event we saw at the beginning took place 400 years ago and Éclair was given the blood of the phoenix which made her immortal so that she could dispel the magic on the stone or find a way to destroy the stone entirely. The rest of the gang tries to stop Metal-Super Rooster but their magic has no effect on it (well duh, everybody knows fire beats metal, don’t you guys know anything about Pokémon). On the rooster Natsu fights against Dyst who is searching for the Phoenix’s blood but can’t find it (geez, is it because the damn thing is made entirely out of metal and has no flesh). Natsu uses the Fist of the Fire Dragon to send Dyst flying and joins up with the other members of the guild who show up (Members of Fairy Tail: We’re here for our 5 minute cameo) to take down the rooster. Their attacks continue to do nothing and Metal-Super Rooster absorbs their magic to prepare for one final attack that will destroy the world. But luckily, Markvov shows up with the Arrow of Haja, the dispelling tool that Éclair’s dad created to stop the phoenix and orders Erza to take the shot. The arrow destroys the rooster but at the same time destroys Éclair since she drank the blood of the phoenix. After Metal-Super Rooster is destroyed everybody goes through the sad phase because Éclair dies especially Lucy who takes it quite hard. Guys, she lived for over 400 years that is a fate worst then death. How do you think she felt knowing that everyone she befriended died in front of her? I know you’re sad she had to die me too but at the same time you guys freed her from her hell on earth. So through the credits we see the kingdom of Veronica rebuild, the guild makes a tombstone in honor of Éclair, Markvov gets scolded by the Magic Council for stealing the Arrow of Haja, the gang starts rebuilding the destroyed guild, and Lucy sees the ghosts of Éclair and her parents and smiles. The end.
Final Thoughts
This movie was actually pretty good. The story is very well written, the animation is pretty nice, it’s your standard movie animation so it’s nothing that special but it’s still nice and the music is a nice touch as well, they even remixed the main theme of the series to suit the movie. The action and fight scenes are great and are what you would expect from Fairy Tail. The only problems I have with this movie are what they do to Lucy. At first they do a good job with her, she fights with the others, she’s there as the emotional support for Éclair but near the end they make her useless in fact she’s even willing to risk the destruction of the world just to keep Éclair alive. That totally doesn’t fit with Lucy’s character, yes, she would be sad to lose her friend but she would never risks the death of all her other friends just to save one. The other problem is the villains, they’re pretty weak. They just show up and beat them once and then lose to them 3 scenes later, and the whole Dyst wanting to be immortal just came out of nowhere, there was no build up for it, it was just “Hey. I’m not gonna let this asshole be immortal that power is mine”. They just weren’t that strong as villains, if we would have gotten a little back story about them and build up to their ulterior motives then they would have made decent villains for the movie.
Final Score
Fairy Tail: The Phoenix Priestess scores a 7/10. It’s a little underwhelming but for the first movie of the series it holds up very well, a lot better than some animes’ first movies (I’m talking about you Pokemon). In my opinion this movie is good and if you’re a fan of the series it’s worth watching at least once and if you haven’t checked out Fairy Tail yet I highly recommend checking out the manga and anime when you have free time. While I’m sad to see the anime is ending, the silver lining is I can start reviewing it which is something I’ve been looking forward to doing for some time. Well that’s all the time I have. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.
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