Wednesday, 27 March 2013

Contents & Characters (part 1)

Contents

Creation and conception

When Hiro Mashima was creating Fairy Tail, he cited Akira Toriyama, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Yudetamago as influences in his works.[2][3] Mashima based the titular guild on a local bar he was visiting at the time.[4] He based Natsu Dragneel on his early years as a junior high school student.[3] Mashima based Natsu's motionsickness on one of his friends, who gets sick when taking taxis together, and he also cited his father's death as an influence for the relationship between Natsu and the dragon Igneel.[2]
When Funimation Entertainment acquired the license to dub Fairy Tail in North America, Mashima was worried about actor Todd Haberkorn voicing Natsu since he had a lot of yelling in the series.[5] Tyler Walker, the ADR Director for the dub, revealed that a "Fairy Tail tea" was made to accommodate the voice actors after each recording session.[5]

Fairy Tail

The main protagonists are all members of Fairy Tail (妖精の尻尾フェアリーテイル) Fearī Teiru?), the titular wizard's guild, founded by Mavis Vermillion. It is considered to be one of the most powerful guilds in the series.[ch. 210] However, its members are infamous for being rambunctious and causing extensive collateral damage during missions.[ch. 2] For this reason, the Fairy Tail guild is seen as a nuisance by the Magic Council despite the guild members' heroic deeds, to the extent that the Magic Council actively tries to disband the guild.[ch. 200]
Fairy Tail's guildhall is stationed in Magnolia, a city located on the southern coast of the fictional country of Fiore.[ch. 1] It is first depicted as a two-story public house with a pyramidal design. The first floor of the building serves as a lunch hall for its guild members to hang out, and contains a bulletin board where job requests are posted.[ch. 2] The guild's most dangerous job requests, called S-Class jobs, are posted in the second floor of the building, which only S-Class wizards, who are officially recognized as the guild's most powerful members, are permitted to enter.[ch. 24] Eventually, the guildhall is destroyed by Phantom Lord, a rival guild, but is later rebuilt as a large, extravagant Gothic building, with resort-like amenities such as a stage, recreation room, outdoor gift shop, swimming pool, and café.[ch. 103] Guild members are permitted to access the upper floors, but S-Class jobs are still restricted.[ch. 103] Seven years after the primary guild members' disappearance on Tenrou Island, the guild loses most of its members and is re-stationed in a rundown building even smaller than the first guildhall.[ch. 254]
Mashima has insisted that the spelling of the guild's name, which is a play on the phrase "fairy tale", is intentional. In the story, the guild's second guild master Purehito speculates that the origin of the guild name comes from the mystery of whether or not fairies, which are considered as mythical creatures within the series, have tails.[ch. 244]

Natsu Dragneel

Natsu "Salamander"[a] Dragneel[b] (ナツ・ドラグニル Natsu Doraguniru?) is the primary protagonist of the Fairy Tail series and is the first friend Lucy Heartfilia makes on her journey. He is accompanied by Happy, a flying cat. During Natsu's early childhood, he is raised by a dragon named Igneel.[ch. 2] After Igneel's disappearance seven years before the series' present, Natsu joins Fairy Tail and decides to find the dragon.[ch. 1,66] As a Dragon Slayer (滅竜魔導士(ドラゴンスレイヤー) Doragon Sureiyā), Natsu can perform an ancient form of magic, or "Lost Magic", that grants him the physical properties of a dragon. The Fire Dragon Slayer magic (火の滅竜魔法 Hi no metsu ryū mahō) allows him to breathe fire, emit flames from any part of his body to attack, become physically immune to fire, and ingest any flame for nourishment.[ch. 1,5] When he consumes magical substances that contain a large amount of magical energy, Natsu is able to achieve a more powerful form of Dragon Slayer magic called Dragon Force (ドラゴンフォース Doragon Fōsu), which turns his skin around his eyes and on his forearms scaly, and increases both his physical and magical power.[ch. 97-98,160] With Dragon Force, Natsu can temporarily eat other forms of magic and combine that with his own; however, Natsu becomes sick for several days after his transformation wears off.[ch. 106,245]
Natsu has a rivalry with Gray Fullbuster due to their conflicting natures and elements. Natsu is generally carefree and reckless in nature, and causes most of the collateral damage Fairy Tail is blamed for.[ch. 2] However, he is extremely loyal to his guildmates and attacks anyone who tries to harm or insult them. Although he comes across as thick-headed to several other characters, he is a perceptive tactician in battle and can quickly deduce his opponents' strengths and weaknesses.[ch. 41] He suffers from motion sickness when riding on vehicles of any sort, as well as when carried by others such as Lucy. The exception to this rule is Happy, who Natsu considers as his friend.[ch. 4][6] He is prone to challenging his guild's S-Class wizards to petty fights to test his strength, in which he is often defeated with little effort from his opponents.[ch. 24] When properly motivated to fight however, he is recognized as one of the most powerful wizards in the guild.[ch. 64] He is voiced by Tetsuya Kakihara.[7] In the English dub, his voice is supplied by Todd Haberkorn.[8]

Lucy Heartfilia

Lucy Heartfilia (ルーシィ・ハートフィリア Rūshii Hātofiria?) is a 17-year-old wizard and the initial viewpoint character of Fairy Tail. Mashima named the character after The Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".[vol. 2:afterword] Specializing in celestial magic (星霊魔法 seirei mahō), Lucy can summon celestial spirits from a set of magical Gatekeys (門(ゲート)の鍵 Gēto no Kagi). Throughout the series, Lucy occasionally fights with a whip. Virgo later provides her with a version of this weapon capable of using magical energy, called Fleuve d'Étoiles (星の大河(エトワールフルーグ) Etowāru Furūgu, lit. "River of Stars").[ch. 115,184] During her early childhood, Lucy establishes herself as a celestial wizard. Her mother Layla Heartfilia (レイラ・ハートフィリア Reira Hātofiria) dies when Lucy is ten years old. Six years later, Lucy sets out to join Fairy Tail due to a strained relationship with her father, Jude Heartfilia (ジュード・ハートフィリア Jūdo Hātofiria).[ch. 50]
After befriending Natsu Dragneel and Happy, Lucy joins Fairy Tail and works guild-posted jobs to fund her rented house in Magnolia.[ch. 1-4] To that end, she pursues her dream of writing a novel on her adventures with Fairy Tail.[ch. 4,9,25] As one of the saner members of the guild, Lucy regularly gawks at the odd habits of her guildmates, who frequently show up uninvited inside her house.[ch. 4,47,106] After Phantom Lord's dissolution, Lucy breaks ties with her father, warning him to never interfere with Fairy Tail again.[ch. 50,64,67] Eventually she reconciles with Jude after he loses his fortune, and professes her love for him after learning of his death during her disappearance on Tenrou Island.[ch. 129,130,257] In the original Japanese series, she is voiced by Aya Hirano.[7] In the English dub, her voice is supplied by Cherami Leigh.[8] Carl Kimlinger of Anime News Network praised Lucy as being "sympathetic."[9]

Happy

Happy (ハッピー Happī?) is a blue-furred cat-like creature called an Exceed. Using the magical ability Aera (翼(エーラ) Ēra), Happy is able to fly by growing white feathered wings, and can also carry up to one person.[ch. 1,3] Six years before the series' present, Happy is sent from the parallel world Edolas to Earth-land as an egg for protection after the Exceeds' queen, Chagot, has a premonition of their realm's destruction.[ch. 198] He is soon found by Natsu, who cares for him together with Lisanna Strauss until he hatches. His birth cheers up everyone in the guild while they are in the middle of an argument, for which Natsu names him "Happy".[vol. 15:make] Though Happy is unaware of his family ties, he is actually the son of Lucky (ラッキー Rakkī), an exiled Exceed farmer, and Merl (マール Māru).[ch. 177,198] In the original Japanese series, he is voiced by Rie Kugimiya.[7] In the English dub, he is voiced by Tia Ballard.[8]
When creating Happy, Mashima originally intended to name him "Freyr", the Norse god, but found the name did not fit his character.[vol. 2:afterword]
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