Fairy Tail Volume 9

Warning: may contain spoilers.

“The Glorious Dead” – Inscription on the Cenotaph. 

The latest DVD collection of Fairy Tail brings us a brand new story arc, combining the usual instalments of battles along with some added character development, although some aspects of production are a lot more questionable.

This collection begins with Lucy finding something unexpected in her bath: the hard-drinking card wizard Cana, who is feeling very depressed. Lucy learns that Cana normally feels depressed around this time, whereas the other wizards in Fairy Tail are keen to do extra missions. It turns out that it’s time for the “S-Class Wizard Promotion Trail”, where eight wizards, assisted by a partner of their choice, have the chance to be promoted to the top S-Class rank alongside Erza, Mirajane and Gildarts.

Cana is one of those nominated to take part, but she reveals to Lucy that she has failed the test four times before – more than any other member of the guild – and if she fails this time, she will leave Fairy Tail. Lucy thus decides to be Cana’s partner on the mission. The other people taking part are Natsu (assisted by Happy), Gray (with Loki), Juvia (with Lisanna), Elfman (with Evergreen), Levy (with Gajeel), Fried (with Bixlow) and the seemingly unknown Mest Gryder (with Wendy) who reveals himself to have been a student of Mystogan.

The trail takes place on Tenrou Island, which has another island on top of it, and is home to the grave of Mavis Vermillion, the first head of the Fairy Tail guild. As the various trials take place, however, new problems begin to surface. Natsu, Happy, Elfman and Evergreen encounter another wizard, not from Fairy Tail, who seems to have some unwanted and highly destructive magic. Another problem is the arrival of a Dark Guild, Grimoire Heart, who have come to the island to find that said wizard. It turns out that the wizard is Zeref, who caused untold death and destruction across the world over 400 years ago. 

The best aspect of this collection is the development of some of the minor characters. This is clearly an arc in which Cana is the main focus, but time is still devoted to the other characters, including Natsu. We also meet some of the other celestial spirits, resulting in learning a little bit more about Lucy and her family. I also like the competition aspect, with the eight-way battle to achieve the S-Rank, although you do suspect that you know who will get it eventually, given the main focus of the story.

However, these plus points are heavily outweighed by the problems in terms of production. For starters, the chapter points on the DVDs are in the wrong places, taking place in the middle of important scenes. Also the subtitles are out of sync with the dialogue at times, with the text appearing a tad early. There are also some aspects of the original animation which look shoddy and cheap. For example, a scene in which you get a character running seems to have been animated by just moving the background up and down.

In terms of the music, the new opening and closing themes: “Towa no Kizuna” by Daisy x Daisy, and “Kono Te Nobashite” by Boys Be Ambitious!!, are alright, but not the greatest songs the series has had.

Concerning DVD extras, there are some episode commentaries, textless opening and closing, and an American trailer.

While this has been an entertaining collection in some parts, the lack of quality is really frustrating.