The best thing about watching an anime train-wreck is seeing your hope and exceptions for a series get destroyed like dirt. Like many others from the net, I was excited for Fairy Gone. It had a great appealing poster that stood out compared to other anime of the season. I really thought that Fairy Gone was going to anime of the year material alongside with Fruits Basket 2019 and Vinland Saga thanks to its great premise. Instead, what I got was a badly directed, uninspired, and incoherent train-wreck of a show that contradicts almost everything that I value in anime.
The biggest problem with the anime is that it doesn't explain the plot. It has a lot of things going on yet the show doesn't even bother to explain shit. It doesn't take the time to give you the character motivations instead of stuff that just happens for the sake of it. It doesn't feel like a story at all and because of that the show ultimately becomes pointless just like a pre-made asset flip game on Steam.
Sure you may have the assets of the project that you want to make but there should be a purpose of all this and in Fairy Gone case a story that is worth telling. One of the reasons why people have gotten interested in this medium is for the stories that the writers have in-stored for us to experience. The varied story-lines, the intriguing themes and character growth.
The fact that this action-fantasy show doesn't have a story is not only insulting to the eye but it completely contradicts why people watch anime in the first place.
You can get away from being plotless in a slice of life series but for an action fantasy show, it's really pathetic. By the time I got to the second half of the series aka Fairy Gone Season 1 Part 2, I stopped giving a rats ass about the plot as it was so incoherent. I tried to care about many of the events of the second half but once again the show still didn't learn from its mistakes that plagued the first half.
This is what happens when you don't explain the story to the viewer and as a result the writing and characters suffer because of this.
Fairy Gone is an anime original project yet the writing is on par with generic light novel garbage. It hamfists you with info-dumps, flashbacks, stock cliches, monologues etc.
Now here comes the sad part of Fairy Gone, the characters. I really wanted to like the characters because they could have been good but the light novel garbage writing and the show's failure to explain the story competently killed these characters as they came off as husks rather than actual people. Not only are there so many characters that the show expects us to care about every one of them. I can only remember 1 character in the show Marlya.
The rest of the characters I had to go to the Fairy Gone Wiki just to remember the other characters names and if I have to use outside assistance just to remember the names of your cast then something is wrong.
Getting back to Marlya, she's one of the most annoying and blandest female characters of 2019. Not only she's a total Mary Sue but her motivation is weak. I also hated how she contradicts the show's setting. She gets a spirit by touching one while people like Free have to get surgery just to get a spirit. I think the writers in Fairy Gone had no idea of what they were doing, and they just had to contradict the setting to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
I really wanted to like Free but the show wouldn't allow me to like him. He seems to be a cool character that has a decent amount of personality but thanks to the show's failure to explain the plot properly it breaks this character to a point where just becomes just another generic male action lead. The rest of the characters just exist for the sake of existing. They are not even worth mentioning all just like this lifeless shell of a plot and it includes Veronica who is nothing more than a plot device for Marlya.
Fairy Gone visually is on par with other P.A works in terms of art-style, background scenery and character designs but at the same time, it's not as consistent or colourful as other P.A works shows. For starters, the style gradually gets more inconsistent as it progresses. The first 3 episodes are visually pleasing but after that, the show starts to deteriorate to mediocre territory making it the worst anime from P.A works visually. Animation while competent at times is rather stiff.
The kicker of Fairy Gone visuals is the crappy CGI. I honestly have never seen CGI used so poorly in a long while. It makes the show look cheaper than it actually is with still frames, horrid fight, choreography and choppy animation. It just breaks the immersion drastically.
I honestly forget this show had a soundtrack. Despite the show having a great number of tracks, the show seems to play the same handful of tracks over and over again to a point, it becomes grating.
The opening themes, on the other hand, were good and easily the best thing about Fairy Gone. The ending themes were good but nothing special.
Both the Original Japanese Audio and the Funimation Dub are solid. The voice actors suit the roles nicely and the line delivery is consistent.
Fairy Gone is a textbook example of great ideas but poor execution. The series had everything right from its great premise and setting but the writing, empty characters, inconsistent production values and atrocious story structure ultimately killed it.
There is so much better action and fantasy out there like Bungou Stray Dogs, Golden Kamuy and The Ancient Magus Bride. Fairy Gone is a failure that is a void of passion, substance and creativity and you should avoid it like the plague.