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]
