Fairy Tail the Movie: The Phoenix Priestess

Let's not look at the score and assume so soon that I'm not fond with the series altogether; I like Fairy Tail as a shounen series. I'm not the biggest fan of the series, and granted that the series has lots of flaws which can be easily improved, but altogether the series is very entertaining, the characters are memorable and some arcs can be really fascinating. And now, the long-running popular shounen series finally gets its take on a movie. It's fun having a series you may love or like to get a movie, so I was naturally looking forward to some more Fairy Tailfun. That was when I finally realized that movies don't really work that way. Movies are completely different from anime series, even if it doesn't seem like it on the surface. They're similar in how they tell tales of any kind of stories, achieving many things in the anime industry that cartoons and non-japanese animation can't and, of course, the fact that they're both animation. However, movies tend to be in a much more grand level, and it generally takes difficult steps to achieve the things series can't. Experience can be remotely different considering it being inside a much shorter animation time to tell the story, and it's not so surprising that presentation and development are taken in a completely differently way, as well as budget and production values going all out. And it's mainly the reason why people's expectations go up when a popular or favorable series gets given a movie. Movies tells a story in ways that series sometimes cannot do, and movies like Evangelion, Ghilbi films, Mamoru Hosoda's movies and many, many more are so spectacular in different ways. But what about movies in addition to existing series? Unless some kind of prequel/sequel/remake link is involved in any way, it's hard to add a newly born story to a long-running series because of time-line issues (difficulties as to where it takes place in the series, for example), which leads to many disadvantages with how you can tell a story. Because of this, it'd have to be regarded as a side-story (or in harsher terms, a money milker), and even one where it doesn't effect the series at all. And Fairy Tail fell right into that trap. "B-but hey! It doesn't matter so much if the movie is regarded as a dairy money milker! Who cares, as long as the content is well-written, entertaining and unpredictably gripping with the same charm, right?" Yes, you're kinda right. Except... the movie is nothing like that at all. Firstly, this takes place far in the series, and I don't when exactly but you've got to pass the 'time skip' bit in order to get what's going on around you (vaguely discribing for fans who haven't seen that much of the series). But then again, it doesn't really matter as it's only little details to limit the questions you'd be wonderingly asking, so if you're really desperate to watch this then ask someone to fill you in the very basic details. In other words, do what I did because I haven't caught up with the series. Assuming you've read the quick synopsis on the top, do you know how the bad filler arcs in Fairy Tail are like? Yes, and this movie is on par with them. Go up to the relations and realize that the actual movie is NOT an adaption of the original manga, so it's completely original. Remember that silly Gray arc for example? It's probably worst than that. Not that it's more complicated or contradicting, but the writing is just plain bad. It's basically another set-up like 'the heroes getting caught in a bad situation and they solve stuff' sort of thing. You see the fun atmosphere of the Fairy Tail guild, they gets caught in a mess and get their asses kicked, figure out what to do and attempt to defeat the bad guys (and to stop the world getting destroyed too). If you can convert the inside story into summarizing words on a single paper, you'd find out that it's really, really basic story writing about the fact that two stones would cause big trouble, and the new girl has one and the bad guys has the other. Considering it's made into a movie, the entire plot is basically about all said (with a little more background for teeny development), and it's just too uninteresting and unoriginal to be in film format, as well as being too little and less grand than nearly all the main arcs of the original series. The writing is so cheap that everything inside the story felt so uneven that... nothing seems right. The very fact that some girl with amnesia has some unimportant stone (to the main guild that is) which can destroy the entire world just gives a big sense of doubt, and that can subtract to the experience of watching the film by a lot. Given the thin, thin storyline, it's no surprise that it'd be extremely predictable at some places too. You get your bad guys who shows off their skills and somewhat thrashes the guild at first, but with the comeback of various battles between the two sides, it's easy to guess who would win. And not forgetting to mention the battle of massive monster who's aiming to destroy the world, guess who won that one? There are some story twists in which may shift differently in accordance to what you may think during the film, but the story and premise just seems so silly that you can't even be surprised about it. It's really hard to sense a real feel of hope or anxiety towards anything, and I can ensure you your edge of the seat won't be necessary for you to sit on. Apart from those points, there's quite a few plot holes here and there, though not enough to hurt the writing (well it's damaged enough I'd say). There also isn't enough background on the stones and Eclair (I'll talk about her later though), considering the time limit of the movie. And even with the background given, once again it's not nearly as interesting as what the bad story is, and it doesn't help if they're only presented in single explanations from either narrative or a character's point of view at scenes (which isn't a creative way of telling backgrounds). There's nothing much else to say about the story, except it's just child writing at best. Some may argue that this sort of writing is how shounen shows work, but it's nothing on par with the original Fairy Tail series, and that what mainly matters. It's so unoriginal and predictable that it passes the point where it's beyond help. Let's get aside the point of the writing content for now, and go into the production values. Let's not forget that this is in movie format, because one would expect that the animation would be taken in better consideration than the series. Results? Well... mixed answers actually. In comparison to the original series, the animation is certainly better. The most noticeable thing about it is that the animation is much more fluent and smooth in movements, and this makes the experience of some fight scenes more practical and less forced. With the more cartoony style, it's simply more fun to watch the scenes go less picture-moving style whilst it allows more experimental movements. However, that's the most worth noting in the department, because it's nowhere as close as "movie quality". The style in the art is a little different than the original series (and no worries, it's not by a whole lot) but what you'd expect from a big movie isn't going to be in here at all. Also, quality. There's still a lot of 'quality' moments where the faces from far distance are hilariously distorted, weird positioning at times, and the infamous cheap tricks of moving one frame in certain directions are used here. If anything was really worth getting out of the movie, it'd be the opening song. 200 miles (Jang Keun-suk) is one of those rock songs that you'd find in either classic anime openings or songs from old rock bands outside Japan. I've listened to the full song like, 50 million times, and I still love it. It's a catchy and good-ass rock song, and it's probably the only really, really awesome part of the entire movie. That said, the OST and ED is fine, but nothing really worth saying. The newly composed OST is just on par with the original OST used, and it's mostly not noticeable because the scenes are cliché enough to not even care for the soundtracks. Voice acting is the same as what you'd expect from the series, and Aya Endou (Sora no Woto's Filicia, Needless's Cruz) does a decent job voicing the new, unfamiliar character. Ah yes, Eclair, the new highlight character of the featured movie. The entire movie is based around Eclair (and her bird Momon). She's a pretty good character actually, personality wise. The big problem was though that she was more of a plot device than an individual; It was her being that Fairy Tail was driven into this mess, and if she never met Fairy Tail, then they weren't have the care in the world about whatever's happening (oh and the world would end too, woops). It's not necessarily a bad thing though, as many stories feature encounters of characters who then gets involved in all sorts of troubles, and Eclair even had a decent amount of past behind her considering the amount of time in the movie was only 86 minutes long. The past wasn't so significant though, and definitely wasn't too interesting to know about, especially if the story wasn't good at all. The other problem, again, lies in the fault of being in movie format; it's too short to bring up the development between Fairy Tail (especially Lucy) and Eclair herself; she kinda just met them by chance and became fond with them. This means you won't feel much for her on anything that happens to her, and considering she's the center character of the story, she alone isn't enough to drive my interest towards the story during the entire movie. The entire Fairy Tail cast is involved. It's fun to see every character again, but... that's really it. The lovely charm of seeing the tropes of every individual in funny scenes is there, and if you're a fan of the characters then it's a given that you'd smile to how they usually act. But that's really what they're there for... oh, and the fact that they all try to stop the mess from happening and stuff. They're all trying to do the same thing as a group, and not one of them, apart from Natsu and maybe Lucy, do anything really significantly interesting or important as a whole. They're just there to involve the charm of the Fairy Tail; if Eclair, Natsu and Lucy were the only main characters (excluding bad guys), then it'd still be enough to carry the burden of the thin, thin story forward to where it is. Oh, and the bad guys. The bad guys, uhh... I forgot their names, are bad. And not bad as in "evil bad", but they're actually "badly-written" characters (you can probably tell since I don't even remember their names at all, both group and people). In a long time, they probably have the worst motives anyone can come up with; the motives are generic, rubbish excuses that even contradict each other, and the fact that the world is going to end because of the given motives is just plain horrible for the movie. They're nothing worth mentioning (except a few bad guys are kinda cool), but the rest are your usual assholes with uninspiring motives. It wasn't zero percent enjoyable though. I got through the movie because the introductory was entertaining and was a okay set-up, but from where the story unfolds just unfolds a rotten smell and unpleasant cooking. It's a given that the fight scenes, unique style and seeing the characters again were quite enjoyable, but the story felt like a pathetic excuse to bring up an entire movie, and it's really not worth putting it in film format. A massive fan of Fairy Tail? You'd probably enjoy this, as you get to see every character be themselves and cool fight scenes. But a casual fan of Fairy Tail? Don't bother, because this really isn't anything compared to the original series, and the story is just an extremely cliché, generic and dumb linear story which doesn't add to the series in any way possible. Movies are a cool addition to series, but sometimes they don't work at all, especially if they're setting the bar up high by making it a movie in the first place. But who cares, isn't it about the content? Oh, wait.