Gekijouban Fairy Tail: Houou no miko

The movie was fantastic. I wanted to watch this movie for a while, and it was totally worth the wait. There were so many epic fighting scenes. So many explosions! I love the new characters too, they had such cool and interesting abilities! The art was amazing! The plot for this was great! The ending was awesome and quite different from the show. Some of you might like this so much, you might like it even more than the show itself.

First off I'd like to say that the 2 reviews I've read are very disappointing although the film is definitely NOT. One was a review of the series rather than the film and the other was by an alleged fan who has ADHD or watched another movie altogether.

In this film you are introduced to the guild of Fairy Tail full of lovable eccentric mages. Even if you are not a fan you can pick up the storyline and quickly are given an insight into the rich tapestry of great characters. An earlier criticism from "a fan" was that this effort to introduce the characters and additional scenes could be viewed as filler in the movie. This is not my view, as in reality it was done to ensure this was not just another fanbase movie that only the fans would watch.

Within the first 10 minutes you realise that these characters are larger than life and funny as hell. Happy, Natsu's pet flying cat, always has me laughing with great offhand comments and didn't fail to deliver in the movie. Fairy Tail are guaranteed to bring havoc wherever they go but they have hearts so large you can't help but warm to them.

What Japanese anime does well,and this movie is a good example of, is combine pathos and fatality with comedy to provide a roller coaster of emotions so that you can be crying and laughing within the same breath.

Look at UP, Toy Story and even Wreck it Ralph and you can see how the influence of anime and quality anime such as Fairy Tail has had in this area.

I loved the new characters too, Eclair and Momon's story was loving and poignant and if you watch the prologue which was released after the movie as a 15 min short it just enriches the story of these two. It is referred to as Fairy Tail Movie Prolouge - Hoou no Miko aka "Sunrise" or "The First Morning"

The Fairy Tail mages I felt were a bit under powered from the series but that does happen when you translate onto the big screen. Still their hearts were just as big and the emotions evoked by fully developed characters just as solid. There are a couple of scenes where there is slight nudity for comedic purposes but nothing graphic.

As a fan I'll give it 8/10 as this is a solid example of why after 175 episodes of the series it is still going stronger than ever. Quality never goes out of style and with all the great characters in Fairy Tail there is someone there for everyone.

Pretty standard anime movie. Nothing spectacular, and nothing more exciting than a standard set of episodes. The animation was pretty good, but not spectacular.

Back when I liked Fairy Tail, I stumbled across this movie...and oh my God, it was absolutely terrible. It basically makes the series look worse by comparison. So where do I start:

The silent context-less prologue: The beginning of the movie has no dialogue, meaning you have to assume you know what's going on. Not a good way to start a story.

The story in general: The story felt so formulaic and predictable that if you watch the series, you know how it will all end.

The characters: My biggest beef against this film ere the characters. You have cookie cutter one-dimensional villains shouting the most generic villain dialogue ever...and then you have Lucy. Lucy does ABSOLUTELY nothing in this film, unless you count crying like a stupid baby for most of the film as something. The fact that this film centers around her and her relationship with Eclair, she doesn't add anything to the plot. She is also portrayed to a degree as useless, when I remember that she has keys to summon celestial spirits to aid her.

Overall, this movie is not worth watching at all.

If you like the show, you'll like the movie too. A short arc to be expected of an anime-movie but its the same Fairy Tail.

Pretty good animation on the fight scenes and throughout the movie, nice clean transitions and ambiance.