"Follow the path you truly believe in! That is what it means to be a Fairy Tail wizard!"
This is the tale of Lucy Heartfilia, a seventeen-year-old girl seeking to become a full-fledged wizard (or mage, if you'd prefer, though it's officially translated as "wizard"). In a magic world ruled by guilds, becoming a full wizard requires you to join one. When Lucy meets a boy named Natsu Dragneel, who also happens to be the well-known wizard Salamander, he invites her to join one of the most notorious wizard guilds—Fairy Tail—which she accepts. Their adventures continue as they do missions for the guild, struggle with problems from the past, fight world-threatening villains and learn The Power of Friendship.A manga by Hiro Mashima, the man behind Rave Master, consisting so far of seven major story arcs and several minor ones between them. Its art style and themes are quite similar to One Piece, although not to the point of being a carbon copy.Fairy Tail has been adapted into an anime, and is licensed by Funimation. Licensed episodes are available to watch on Hulu and on Youtube. A movie is also under way. Natsu, Lucy and friends appear in the Massive Multiplayer Crossover game, Sunday VS Magazine Shuuketsu Choujou Daikessen.Not to be confused with the Fairy Tale genre (by the way, Word Of God has stated since the beginning that the spelling of the name is intentional).For the sake of keeping people from getting confused, please refer to the official English spellings for all character names.Here is the character sheet.
Adaptation Expansion - The anime filler so far has given screen time to Fairy Tail's less plot-important members, most notably Loke and Lisanna.
The anime also throws in an occasional Chekhov's Gun/Gunman, or otherwise mentions points that came up much later in the manga. For instance, Laxus's symbol being used by everyone from the beginning of the story, or mention of Siegrain and Jellal being twins before fans can form ideas about them being the same person.
The backstories of the Oracion Seis members (being slaves forced to work on the Tower of Paradise like Erza) are shown and integrated into several scenes and motivations, as opposed to being relegated to All There in the Manual trivia as in the manga.
It's done this a lot with the Edolas Arc, which glossed over quite a bit in the manga. For example, we get to see some of Gajeel's adventure as he searches for Fairy Tail, and he even gets to meet his Edolas counterpart, who is never shown or even mentioned in the manga.
The anime also expanded Ultear's Troubled Backstory Flashback to not only show how torturous of an experience the experiments done on Ultear were, but why they happened: as it turns out, Brain, the to-be leader of Oracion Seis, was running the facility to strengthen young wizards to use as candidates for members of his six-man guild. However, after Ultear returned to the facility to willingly strengthen herself and take revenge against her mother, Brain noticed that she was becoming too powerful to be a proper subordinate, and he had already gathered five other children to form his guild, so he up and left the facility right before it fell at the hands of the vengeful, overpowered little girl (and kind of expected it to happen).
There's more dialogue between Laxus and Hades in the anime than there is in the manga. The most significant part is when Laxus tells Hades that strength isn't as important as having the courage to stand up to someone stronger, then adds, "Ain't that right, Natsu?"
The Alcoholic - Cana, she drinks entire barrels of alcohol. She drinks 30% of the guild's alcohol. She started drinking at age 13, 2 years before the minimum age of the country. on her guild card her likes are: alcohol and her dislikes are: non-alcoholic drinks.
All There in the Manual - I bet none of you knew Cobra's pet snake Cuberos was actually a human turned into a snake.◊ And she's a member of Fairy Tail, to boot. This is nearly, if not utterly, impossible to tell from just reading the manga or watching the anime, and you'd have to read the extra information that comes with the published volumes to find out.
There's a lot that's only said in the extra info. Like all of the members or Oracion Seis being involved in the Tower of Heaven; Brain was Jellal's mentor, and everyone else was just doing regular work on the tower.Adaptation Expansion put scenes in the anime depicting this, though.
Gildarts hates Iwan Dreyar. We never see them interact in the manga or anime, but from this little fact we know that there was bad blood in the past, even if we have no idea what it was.
All Part of the Show - The townsfolk of Magnolia think the fighting in Laxus' arc was part of the preparation for Fairy Tail's parade.
Almighty Janitor - Natsu beats the Big Bad most arcs, but he's still not an S-Class wizard, even though Erza admits that he's at least as strong as her, if not stronger.
Gray is usually portrayed as Natsu's rival, so that throws him into the mix.
Juvia was an S-Class wizard for Phantom Lord, but she lost that rank when they disbanded (to be fair, Fairy Tail seems to have higher standards).
Gajeel was considered Phantom Lord's strongest, above even Juvia.
Anti-Hero: Phantom Lord, being a legal guild that more or less acts like a dark one, is a Type V before their attack on Fairy Tail. Jellal, Ultear, and Meredy are Type IVs (Pay Evil unto Evil) after their Heel Face Turn.
Anti-Villain: more than half of the bad guys are sympathetic to a degree. (See the YMMV page for Type IVs)
Type I: Kageyama (dark guild member, but can't commit a mass murder when given the chance), Azuma.
Type II: Juvia before her Heel Face Turn, Jellal (who is also a Type III), The Oracion Seis
Except Brain
, Ultear and Meredy.
Type III: Reitei Lyon and his group, Laxus, Knightwalker, Hades.
My Friends... and Zoidberg - Happy gets this when people count the number of wizards on Natsu's team (he even does it to himself). Natsu seems to treat Lucy a little this way too.
Arc Number - 7. All dragons disappeared at the same time, seven years prior to the story's present, on the 7th day of the 7th month of the year 777.
This was also the same year that Lucy's mother (and possibly several other people) died.
And in Chapter 253 we have a seven year Time Skip.
In the same arc as the above, but earlier We have 7 teams headed by legitimate members of Fairy Tail, 7 paths lead to battles, 7 Fairy Tail members (Makarov, Erza, Mirajane, Gildarts, Carla, Pantherlily, Wendy) that aren't members of one of the seven legitimate teams. There are 21 (7 x 3) wizards holding hands for the protective magic prior to Acnologia's final attack.
Also 3 as well: the Dragon Slayer, three active S-Class wizards currently at the guild. Makarov is the third guild master. Lucy starts off with three gold keys and three silver keys.
Three S class wizards at any given time. You start off with Laxus, Mystogan, and Erza (Gildarts has been gone so long some people think he's not coming back.) Laxus is thrown out in the same arc that Mirajane gets her magic back. Mystogan leaves at the end of the arc where Gildarts returns. And then Gildarts leaves shortly after Laxus comes back.
Zancrow is pretty much the best example of Ax Crazy that Fairy Tail has to offer. Heck, just by his looks alone, you can tell that he's some kind of psycho.
Bavarian Fire Drill - Small scale one in the Edolas arc. Carla tells the enemy she's a princess. It doesn't keep their pursuers from chasing them for long, though it does save Lucy. It's inadvertently true, though.
Beat Them at Their Own Game - When Erza's Requip armor and weapons prove utterly useless against Ikaruga, an assassin with Implausible Fencing Powers, Erza decides to fight her using an outfit with no magic and ordinary swords. And wins.
Beware the Nice Ones - During the Laxus arc, Mirajane finally gets pushed too far, and both we and her opponent get a demonstration of why she used to be an S-ranked wizard with the nickname "Demon".
Also a possible Brown Note moment too, simply because the wizard she pummeled had a demon form of his own that he ended up using and still got his ass handed to him, proving that you DO NOT FUCK WITH MIRAJANE'S NAKAMA unless you are ready to have her rip you a new one then pummel you into the ground.
Makarov too. He was perfectly content to ignore Phantom Lord's unprovoked attack on the guild...until they attacked team Shadow Gear. Then he led everyone in the immediate vicinity in a march right up to Phantom Lord's doorstep. And don't even get me started on Fairy Law...
Basically almost anyone in Fairy Tail, no matter how nice or friendly they seem, mess with their nakama and they will go into a frenzied rage that will leave you a pile of ash.
Berserk Button - Attempts to harm their True Companions or, worse still, their guild as a whole, push this for all of Fairy Tail wizards.
Absolutely do not threaten Gray in Juvia's presence.
Destroy the guild hall and Natsu WILL murder you.
Beyond the Impossible: Natsu and Gray manage to cause noticable physical harm to each other in a PILLOW FIGHT in episode 31 of the anime. Erza was also involved. They even somehow sent Lucy flying.
Pantherlily's sword is big. I do not mean Cloud Strife's sword big. I mean BIG. It's not quite Jack Rakan big, but the handle alone is large as Lily himself. And Lily's a pretty big guy.
Lily's sword is actually significantly bigger than he is (at least in the anime). Happy comments on how absurdly large it is and uses a little size comparison to show that Lily's sword is at least 4 times as big as he is. That's why Lily is able to knock chunks out of a floating island with his sword.
Big Bad Ensemble: Zeref and Hades are the most involved of Fairy Tail's antagonists, but they have separate goals.
Big Breasts, Big Deal: Within the Freaky Friday episode; Gray ends up in Lucy's body, and the first indication is that he starts bitching about how her back hurts.
This is practically Natsu's signature move with regards to Lucy - in fact, she relies on it once when she jumps from a tower in the Phantom Lord guild, having heard Natsu in the distance and knowing he'd come to save her.
Bigger Bad - Master Hades up until the S-Class Trial arc. He's indirectly responsible for the Tower of Heaven continuing after the revolt, the events of Galuna Island, and for Oracion Seis existing in the first place.
Acnologia is now officially the Bigger Bad because even freaking Zeref is afraid of it.
Big Good - Erza had this position at the start before the other protagonists caught up and she became The Big Guy. Now held by Makarov and Gildarts.
Bilingual Bonus: Those familiar with English will get a laugh when Mystogan appears in the second OVA as the school gardener, with a spray can (a literal mist gun) in each hand.
Bizarro Universe: Edolas, where the land's in the sky, Gray's extremely sensitive to the cold and has an open crush on Juvia, Jet and Droy are the strongest of the guild, Elfman's a wuss, Lucy's a delinquent, and Natsu loves to drive but is a complete wuss when not driving. Alzack and Bisca are also Sickeningly Sweethearts. To add to that Fairy Tail as a whole is an illegal guild, due to all guilds being banned, and thus being the only magic guild who resists the King's orders. Also, the only person from Earthland who can still use magic normally is Lucy thanks to the mana potion Mystogan had her drink; he provides such for the others later, too.
The anime implied that King Faust might be the Edolas version of Makarov.
Although astute viewers would have noticed that Edolas' Fairy Tail stated that their guildmaster was killed. And Faust looks a whole lot more like the new head of the magic council. If what we've seen of him so far says anything, their personalities are a pretty good match.
Blow You Away - Erigor, Ren, and, eventually, Wendy.
Bloodless Carnage - While some earlier removals of blood are forgiven, the anime leaving Gray unharmed after being impaled by a ice tiger is not. To top it off, they had him try to stop the bleeding with ice anyway.
Getting really silly when Gajeel claims that his dragon's breath (it's made of blades of iron) has torn Natsu's body to shreds. Natsu doesn't have a scratch on him.
Finally subverted to an extent during Gray and Ultear's fight, where he actually slashes at his chest and freezes his blood to use as a weapon. Granted, there was a flash of light drawn instead of blood when he did the deed, but the wound is shown sealed with ice, and we actually get to see the ice on his shoulders turn a deep crimson. So that can be forgiven.
Parody in episode 29 by Gray in an attempt to replace the missing Lucy and is quickly told how bad he is much to his dismay.
Book Ends - The first and last fights of the Laxus arc both end the same way: with Gajeel Taking the Bullet in order to save someone from a fatal attack from Laxus.
Boring Invincible Hero - Notably averted for the most part. Despite Natsu usually fighting the Big Bad and winning, they're never easy fights, and against the stronger opponents he's always gotten some outside form of help ( eating Aetherion, Gajeel teaming up with him to fight Laxus, Jellal's Flame of Rebuke)... Hell, Natsu has to have his life saved a few times.
Brain Bleach - Natsu, Gray, and Gajeel all find themselves in serious need of the stuff after spotting Makarov naked in the Yosoko Fairy Hills OVA.
Bread and Circuses: The capital city of Edolas looks more like a giant amusement park than a city. This helps keep the populace happy despite the fact that their ruler is a greedy nutcase.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: The anime has done this occasionally, with Lucy complaining at the end of one filler episode about how it has No Ending, and how another episode ends in the middle of a fight with a Cliff Hanger. Also at one point, the narrator has one of the characters provide the audience with an explanation for a problem that would otherwise go unexplained.
It would appear that Happy is better at talking to the audience than other characters.
Broken Bird - Erza, after she was enslaved and tortured, witnessed the death of a close companion, and then suffered betrayal from her childhood crush. She can't even seek comfort in anyone else because telling anyone about what happened will get all of her old friends killed.
Butt Monkey: Lucy gets quite a lot of grief from Natsu, Gray, Erza and Happy, though it's not limited to them.
Despite being the closest thing to being the main heroine of the story, Lucy is basically the butt monkey of the group, whether its being on the recieving end of another character's actions or simply being the victim of circumstances. That's why we love her though.
One event that is a combination of both is when Lucy is watching a sleeping Natsu and thinking that he's pretty cute when he's sleeping when she gets sent gets sent flying through the roof by a fist to face because Natsu was acting out his dream. Seen here and here.
Lucy can funnily be a quite literal example of a Butt Monkey in the sense that she gets spanked quite a few times which has never happened to any other character in the series, and Lucy seems to suffer from it every time.
The Cameo: Episode 48 racks this Up to Eleven during the Fantasia parade. If you pay attention, you can see, amidst the audience, The Galuna Devils village chief, his son, and the chick who likes Gray (In human form during night, for some reason), The contractors from the Everlue arc, Kageyama and his Gonk-ish friend (Out of jail, for some reason), Lyon and the Lamia Scale wizards, Erza's friends, Bora and the anime-only That Guy And That Chick from the Phantom Lord arc, and a girl that looks suspiciously like Wendy.
Subverted beautifully by Happy at one point to trick his opponents. He calls out a poison gas attack, but it turns out it was just flour.
Can Not Spit It Out - A non-romantic example is Cana, it turns out, is Gildarts' daughter. However, she was originally raised by her mother who apparently never told Gildarts about her, and after her mother died, Cana sought out Gildarts but couldn't work up the nerve to tell him she was his daughter. She's been trying to work up the nerve for 12 years.
Cats Are Mean - The Exceed in Edolas effectively rule the human world from afar, murdering any humans which are in excess of the population to both demonstrate their power and to prevent the humans from draining the limited magical supply. They also dispatched a hundred covert assassins to assassinate the Dragon Slayers of Earthland, only changing the mission to "capture" once they realized that the targets made for excellent sources of magic.
This is ultimately inverted at the end of the arc. The Exceed don't actually have the ability to do all that. Everything was simply an act to protect themselves by intimidating the human population, which had done horrible things to them in the past. The "assassination mission" never actually existed; Carla isn't remembering downloaded or transmitted instructions, she's seeing snippets of the future with the clairvoyance she inherited from her mother, Queen Shagotte, who herself turns out to be a Broken BirdWearing The Queenly Mask. The actual purpose of sending all those eggs to Earthland was to save their children and preserve their race against the End of the World the Queen foresaw.
Even before that, it's subverted with Happy. No matter what anyone tells him about what horrible things he was supposed to do, he refuses to accept it, and fights against expectations to stick by his friends.
Cerebus Syndrome - Done gradually and tactfully. The first couple missions are simple rescues, then comes confronting a Rival Turned Evil. The next one has the entire guild fighting a rival guild with Natsu's Evil Counterpart, who kicked it off by destroying Fairy Tail's guild hall. Tower of Heaven involves a Brainwashed and Crazy slavemaster trying to revive Black Wizard Zeref. The Raijinshu Arc inverts this, as the only thing at stake is one town and it's heavily implied that Laxus holding Magnolia hostage is an empty threat. It returns with the Nirvana Arc, where a Mad Scientist attempting to bring out an artifact that can turn people Brainwashed and Crazy. The Edolas Arc has the few survivors of being sucked through the Anima trying to stop a parallel world from turning Earthland's wizards into lacrima. And S-Class Trial is once again trying to revive Zeref, only thing time, it's an entire dark guild led by Makarov's former mentor. And they inadvertently succeed in reviving him.
Chainmail Bikini - Most of Erza's armor is actually pretty covering, but some are revealing pieces of metal Fanservice. She has an actual metal bikini too.
Played straight, on the other hand, by Edolas Erza.
Chainsaw Good: Because having a sword for an arm isn't badass enough, the anime gives the possibility to Gajeel to use his power to transform his arm in what looks pretty much like a chainsaw.
Charles Atlas Superpower: If the Vanish Brothers (and by extension, mercenary guilds) are anything to go by, a mere human who trains hard enough can hurl people through solid walls, catapult a grown man several meters into the air, punch so hard they create an impact crater, attain an iron body, and probably more without using any form of magic whatsoever.
Hilarious Example - Edo!Lucy offers to drop her towel so she can compare her body to Earth!Lucy's. Natsu isn't interested, he thinks they should do mirror sketches.
Chapter 261 reverses this into him actively attempting to peek on Lucy and the rest of the girls while they're in the bath. He's joined by Gray, Jet, and Droy.
Chekhov's Armory - You can generally assume any attention-getting detail that's suddenly unmentioned will be critically important in some point in the future.
Chekhov's Lecture - Gildarts's beating of Natsu telling him that fear isn't evil and is sometimes necessary.
Chekhov's Skill - Gray learnt how to handle himself in a motorcycle chase against Racer, and can strip in a split second. In his fight against Sugarboy he steals a motorcycle to pursue him and and dodges an attack by taking off his jacket quicker than the eye can see.
Chivalrous Pervert - Loke and everybody from Blue Pegasus except for Ichiya. Especially the chivalry part.
The summon spirit Taurus, whose contract essentially stipulates that as long as Lucy stays hot, he'll gladly protect her sexy, sexy body. So, to that end, on one occasion he summons himself to block an attack that Lucy couldn't otherwise have dealt with.
Child Mage - Most wizards learn magic at a very early age.
The Chosen One - Parodied. Lucy wonders if she's this when she's the only one who can use magic in Edolas. She is immediately shot down. Then everyone else gets their own mana potions to drink, and they're right back to using their powers.
Also Gildarts, even more than the above character.
Cliffhanger Copout - Wendy gets hit by a spell and vanishes into thin air at the end of the chapter, and at the start of the next she's just inside Hologorium, who conveniently popped up right then and is clinging to the ceiling.
It's mostly Lucy and Erza who gets this, though Erza usually switches armor shortly after. Despite having in the most battles, Natsu doesn't seem to get this as much. Although after a long fight, Erza will leave her damaged clothing on for a long time.
Possibly justified with Natsu, since he doesn't ever wear a shirt to begin with. Just a vest and a scarf. His pants and vest are often frayed and worn by the end of a fight, though. And recently his scarf changed colors under ominous circumstances.
Gray subverts this. He takes his clothes off in advance. And not just before fights. Avoiding clothing damage is not the reason, he just likes taking his shirt off.
Natsu and the gang (12 members) have been easily defeated by Oración Seis (6 members)
Shortly afterwards they were separated into pairs (2 members)
Each pair fought a whole guild (30+ members) and won.
And the good guys who later fought an Oración Seis one-on-one won.
Also in the beginning Erza and Lucy took down most of Eisenwald.
Raijinshuu, Lucy (by herself), Natsu and Gray vs the Naked Mummy guild they lose everytime.
Continuity Cameo: there are multiple Rave Master references including The Ten Powers.
Continuity Nod - Any new members of Fairy Tail we are introduced to appear in the background of the Guild whenever they can, and at one point you can see Romeo hanging with Macao when Wendy introduces herself to the guild. Lyon and his group appear on newspapers and magazines from time to time, as well.
The fact that they didn't do this with Mest is the first sign that he's not what he seems.
The horn from the demon that Erza vanquished and brought to the guild in her introduction is seen as a display in the guild 200 chapters later.
Mashima recently has been using this in reference to the extra details included in the anime such as Makarov's character design as a young man and Ultear's Ice Make magic having the same rose theme as Ur's, which was only made known in the anime
In the Daphne Arc at one point Happy and Lucy mimic Cobra and Hoteye's Catch Phrase/Verbal Tic respectively.
Gajeel and Natsu once argue about The Tortoise and The Hare, later it's parody in a later episode.
Continuity Cavalcade: The second OVA, for example: Carla dressing as Laxus and accidently blurts out that she wants to take over Fairy Academy.
From the same OVA, Gajeel seems to be channeling Bixlow for a moment.
The tenth ending has the whole series up until the Tenrou Island arc done in a board game-like setting.
Conveniently Timed Attack From Behind: The council, especially the new council always seems to time themselves to arrive right after the day has been saved so they can arrest or take a character in to custody for property destruction/illegal war/manipulating the council/being a member of Oración Seis. If they're so high and mighty would it really kill them to try this on the villains as well.
Though to be fair, it's also a question of Art Evolution. The page caption is from the start of the series, where she was actually drawn having breasts, just quite smaller than the ones she got in the caption. Nowadays, she is the series' resident Pettanko, not counting Wendy who is simply too young to have grown breasts.
Crap Saccharine World - The capital of Edolas is a shiny amusement park of a city kept prosperous with stolen magic, while the rest of the world is literally falling apart.
Cry Cute - Carla's crying is strangely endearing for some reason.
Makarov in the flashback when Laxus invents the "I'm always watching over you" symbol.
Curb-Stomp Battle: Makarov vs Jose at the end of the Phantom Lord arc turns into this, when Makarov unleashes Fairy Law, defeating Jose and all of his summoned minions in one blast.
Gildarts repels all of Natsu's attacks without moving an inch before flaring his Battle Aura and reducing Natsu to tearsof fear.
And then he does it again with Lucy, Natsu, Gray, Erza, and Wendy. Guy's a former Master for a reason.
Reversed in chapter 248 when Hades' source of power the Devil's Heart is destroyed and the good guys' power source the Tenrou Tree is restored.
Cute Kitten: Natsu has Happy, Wendy has Carla, and Gajeel has Pantherlily.
Cute Little Fangs - Variation with the Dragon Slayers; every Dragon Slayer has very pronounced teeth, thought not pronounced enough for fangs to stick out of closed mouths. Even Wendy has them. Just compare her teeth when she's smiling to any other girl in the series.
Cutscene Power to the Max: The anime openings frequently show Natsu flying around using his fire magic as propulsion because it looks cool. In the actual anime and manga, he can only use his magic to enhance his jumps, and needs Happy to fly.
Somewhat subverted; he uses it against Jellal (who can achieve flight by casting Meteor on himself) in the anime.
Dark and Troubled Past - All of the main characters were set on the path that eventually led them to Fairy Tail by some past trauma. Each of character arcs has the spotlight character confronting - although not necessarily in direct combat - and overcoming the villain who inflicted such trauma on them, all the while relying on their True Companions to help them through.
Dark is Not Evil: Mirajane's takeover. Her attacks are even called things like "darkness stream" and "evil spark".
Fried counts as well. Glyphs of Darkness combined with a demon transformation of his own; his title is even "Fried the Dark". He's also the most sympathetic member of the Raijinshu.
Darker and Edgier: The current arc (S-Class trial) seems to be going this route.
The Big Bad is The Man Behind the Man to Ultear, who has been The Chessmaster to several other big bads. Not only that, but he's the first one in the entire series to ever beat Makarov in a fair fight. Makarov's only other loss was due to a sneak attack.
Most, if not all, of Hades' Quirky Mini Boss Squad are more powerful than previous Big Bads. They use lost magic, which is absurdly powerful. One of them is basically a more powerful version of Natsu. He can eat Natsu's flames, and uses fire that Natsu chokes on.
And to top it off, the goal of the whole thing is to revive Black Wizard Zeref.
Daydream Surprise: How Midnight is finished off when his illusions backfire on him.
Dead Little Sister - To both Mirajane, the older child, and Elfman, the middle child.
Recently revealed to be a subversion.
Deader than Dead - How does being broken up at the atomic level and shot into the sky sound?
The reformed Ultear has an ability to unlock untapped magic potential in other wizards, which has an excruciantingly painful effect as experienced by the Fairy Tail members who decided to accept it. Somehow, the only subversion is Erza, who didn't feel a thing.
Death by Origin Story: The only non-psycho-demon to die outside an origin story is Simon. However, several other villains probably died and we just never heard about it.
Confirmed Earth Jellal after the Time Skip, as he admitted to Erza during a one-on-one talk that nothing he could do could ever make up for his actions during the Tower of Heaven arc. In response, she gives him an Armor-Piercing Slap and a Get A Hold Of Yourself Man lecture to snap him out of it.
Death Glare - Gildarts takes it to a whole new level by breaking Natsu's will to fight with a look.
Juvia and Gajeel meet this trope as they were once part of the rival guild Phantom Lord.
Gajeel wants to make Pantherlily his cat... so they battle. Gajeel really wants a kitty.
Defrosting Ice Queen - Erza, although she completely thawed out after Tower of Heaven. Carla seems to be one as well.
Designated Girl Fight - The only times when Lucy doesn't end up fighting a girl are when Erza fights the girl instead. Though neither of them got paired up with Juvia in the Phantom arc. And when Ultear fought Natsu she was disguised as an old guy.
The majority of Lucy's fights have been against men. Although she always fights someone who fights uses something else so her fights are more like Pokemon battles only with her taking a more active role with her whip.
Juvia fights Meredy instead Erza or Lucy.
Destructive Savior - One of the reasons Fairy Tail is one of the most notorious guilds around, despite the relatively high caliber of their wizards. Erza, Gray, and Natsu are especially bad at avoiding property damage. In chapter 23 the Magic Council formally charges Erza for the MASSIVE property damage that occurred throughout the arc.
Fortunately for Erza it was just a formality: she wouldn't have actually spent any time in jail. Unfortunately, Natsu busted into the proceedings in a misguided attempt to help her and got both of them thrown into jail for the night.
This turns out to be to their advantage during the conclusion of the R-System arc. Natsu even lampshades it:
"Wizards from Fairy Tail specialise in property damage!"
To elaborate: The townspeople literally change the town's layout when they hear Gildarts is returning in order to give him a clear pathway to the guild.
Except now, the Magic Council has decided they have had enough of the property damage.
Determinator - Any given hero, but Natsu most often.
Deus ex Machina - the guild is completely worn out after having fought all of Phantom Lord's best members and mooks, but their almighty leader is still in top shape. It's a good thing Makarov came back and destroyed them all with a single spell.
Also Wendy being able to raise Jellal from the dead revive Jellal from a coma to speed up the search for Nirvana.
The X-Balls from Edoras Arc. No more needs to be said.
Mavis' Fairy Sphere saves Tenrou Island from the Diabolus ex Machina of Acnologia's attack. However, Mavis won't be able to use it again, and the guild was still split apart for seven years.
Deus Exit Machina - Typically, arcs that have more than a small team of heroes have something near the beginning happen that keeps the strongest guild members there from kicking all the villains' asses themselves, which they don't get out of until only the strongest villains are left. Makarov gets his magic drained at the beginning of the Phantom Lord arc and trapped behind a Containment Field during the Laxus arc (the same barrier also trapped Natsu and Gajeel). Erza got turned into stone during the Laxus arc and poisoned in the Oración Seis arc.
Lately, Loke's been coming up with excuse upon excuse to be of no help.
Also the Edolas arc, in which Mystogan by all accounts could solve the conflict in ten minutes, and is the only one who actually knows what's going on from the beginning, doesn't bother to show up, instead settling for sending Lucy of all people as a backup. And that's exactly what happens. Of course, there is a perfectly valid reason for why he was waiting. How else would he get his exploits mentioned here???
Gildarts, Fried and Bickslow leave the S-class exams just before Grimoire Heart arrives. Bad timing. They could have beeen of some use.
Gildarts lives and breathes this trope. He could have taken out Master Jose and ended the Phantom Lord arc in less than half the time it took had he not been on the 100 year mission. It's debatable if he would have been any use during Fighting Festival; Fried would have just set his runes to lock in anyone over 40, rather than 80.
Suberted in the Tournament Arc. Just when fans are wondering why Laxus, Mira, and Gajeel aren't on Fairy Tail's team, you find out that they submitted two teams. The second team is Gajeel, Mira, Laxus, Juvia, and Jellal disguised as Mystogan.
Diabolus ex Machina - Immediately after the guild alliance destroyed Nirvana, the new magic council comes to arrest two of the people who helped to save everyone.
Well, they were well-known villains. They were going to have to get arrested some time, might as well be then.
Again, at the end of the S-Class Trials arc, just as the arc appeared to be wrapping up, the Black Dragonshows up...
Difficult, But Awesome - Quite a few of the highly specialised wizards. The strongest example is Fried, who can basically rewrite the laws of nature.
Dirty Old Man - Makarov likes to take on this role during times of peace, or as close to peace as things get.
Disability Immunity - One of Erza's eyes isn't real (though she can still see through it, which is a subversion of this trope). This gives immunity/resistance to magic that involves her eyes, including illusions and petrification through staring (since it only goes through one eye).
Distracted by the Sexy - Gender reversed version. Juvia gets incredibly distracted when fighting Gray. Of course, then she misunderstands things and thinks that he's in love with Lucy, and gets ticked.
Gemini pulls this on Hibiki. Turning into Lucy and removing her top. Lucy was not pleased.
Natsu manages to try and get Lucy to pull this on Hughes. It doesn't work.
Lyon is distracted long enough by the sight of Juvia's underwear as she leaps down from above for her to kick him in the face.
Distress Ball - Happens to Erza during the arc with Jellal, though slightly justified. She just had waaay too much faith in her old friend and thus, let her guard down enough that he was able to slap her with the magical equivalent of the Standard Female Grab Area. All so that Natsu could save the day, of course.
Not to mention the one Exceed who waves his hand like he's playing RPS...except, without changing it from rock. And apparently, as of Chapter 198, Erza, Lucy, Gray and Natsu have done it too. Hmm.
Double Agent - Gajeel. He's first revealed to be infiltrating Fairy Tail for a Dark Guild, and then later is shown to be playing that part in the service of Fairy Tail.
Dressing as the Enemy - Erza posing as her Edolas counterpart. What made this strangely amusing was Erza stripped her counterpart of her clothes in the process leaving Edolas' Erza mostly naked.
Early-Bird Cameo - In the anime, Everlue's face can be seen on a request on the board, presumably the one Natsu picks up in the next episode.
In episode 34, you can see kid versions of some of the Oración Seis during Erza's flashback.
Wendy, who was made the "fateful encounter" that Lucy meets (in the manga it was originally Natsu and Happy).
A twist on the theme, the 10th opening credits and episode 113 show us Romeo 7 years older.
Easily Forgiven - Everyone but Jellal, regardless of how horrible their plans were. Granted Jellal caused the most suffering for any member of the main cast and is the only one who killed another character onscreen. This also applies to outside the story. Fans pretty readily ignore characters' past actions. Again, Jellal is not always accepted by them, despite him being the only one with reasonable evidence that he wasn't completely in control of his actions. Of course, Jellal did kill three people (villains) before that potential excuse kicks in. Still, a lot of other forgiven criminals are known to have or at least attempted murder.
Gajeel is an aversion of this. While he is forgiven, it's not until he proves his loyalty to Fairy Tail in the Raijinshu arc that they really regard him as one of their own.
Speaking of which, Laxus with his Raijunshu tribe turned against Fairy Tail and tried to destroy not only the Guild but the entire town where it resided... twice. The only punishment he got for it was expulsion from the Guild, and most of the characters felt even that was too harsh.
Eldritch Abomination: Acnologia, the Black Dragon of the Apocalypse, definitely qualifies compared to what we know of other dragons. The gap between it and human beings is so immense that communicating with it to fathom its thoughts is completely impossible even though as a dragon it's fully capable of understanding human speech.
Zeref: In spite of that, the reason it doesn't use words is because it doesn't think of humans as anything more than insects. You wouldn't stop and talk to a pest buzzing around you. It's the same for the dragon. You also wouldn't bother taking an obnoxious insect seriously even for a moment. There are things in this world that you cannot oppose or fight back against, no matter how hard you try.
Elemental Baggage - Every single wizard in the series plays this trope to some degree. Though, it may be partially justified with Natsu, who eats fire whenever he can; a typical meal consists of fire chicken, fire spaghetti, and a fire drink.
Subverted, actually. The ice wizards make ice, the fire wizards make fire, et cetera, et cetera. Sure, being able to eat one's element gives a Dragon Slayer a temporary boost, but for the most part the elemental wizards don't need the element on hand. Compare Juvia's water magic to Katara's water bending if you need an example of why it's a subversion; most of Katara's power-ups come from finding ways to GET the water she needs.
Elemental Powers - Many of the different wizards who are able to to manipulate and control an element.
Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors - Averted for the most part. However, Natsu's fight with Erigor play this back and forth. The fight starts off shaky for Natsu, since Eligor's wind disperses and extinguishes Natsu's fire before it can touch him. But then Natsu turns up the heat so much that the air pressure changes and Eligor loses control of the wind.
Gray and Juvia's fight also plays with it a bit. You'd expect Gray to freeze her and have an easy victory, but when she gets mad, she can boil herself.
Enemy Civil War - In Chapter 179, Faust orders Code ETD, which crystallizes the Exceed forces sent to capture our heroes, then declares war against them all in a bid to steal their magic.
Enemy Mine - Natsu and Gajeel teaming against Laxus, though it's more "rival mine" since they were supposed to be in the same guild by then.
Energy Absorption - Part of Jellal's Batman Gambit, the Tower of Paradise is really made out of magic-absorbing Phlebotinum, so firing the Kill Sat at the tower actually harvests the energy necessary for the ritual.
Escalating Brawl - The first time we see Fairy Tail, Natsu causes one of these. Luckily Makarov stops the brawl before they resorts to magic.
Mr. Fanservice: Gray. How bad has he got it? His magic training left him with a deep-seated habit of stripping naked for no reason whatsoever, without even noticing.
Racer calls him a "lady killer" out of nowhere, if only to reinforce this trope.
There's also the handsome and extremely morally ambiguous Jellal, who gets to wear skin-tight outfits that subsequently get shredded and need to be replaced with a dashing Badass Longcoat. Not to mention the mangaka just loves filling up panel after panel with closeups of him.
Everyone Can See It - Bisca and Alzack, minor characters who are the only ones unaware of the fact that their feelings are mutual.
Juvia's crush on Gray, at first. Gray might be paying attention more often these days.
In recent chapters, Ax Crazy Zancrow has taken on this role, who was revealed to be a God-Slayer, which is apparently far above the level of Dragon Slayer.
Natsu has two new ones in the Tournament Arc: Rogue and Sting. They're Third Generation Dragon Slayers (meaning they were both trained by a dragon and they have Slayer Lachrima) and they killed their dragon parent to become "true Dragon Slayers".
Evil Twin - Sort of. Apparently it wasn't supposed to be incredibly obvious in the manga who Siegrain and Jellal were, so in the anime they threw in the thing about Siegrain being his evil twin immediately, right at the start of the arc. Of course, they're really the same person.
Actually an inversion with Mystogan though he is from another world
The current S-Class Exam arc ups the ante with God Slayer magic. Damn.
Expy - Jellal to Sieg Hart and other uber-wizards from Mashima's previous work Rave Master, in what is probably the most obvious example of Expy-ing ever. In short: they look exactly the same!
You forgot about his familiar alias, Siegrain, and his use of Altealice, one of Sieg Hart's spells. The author claims that it's done in the name of fanservice, though.
A more minor one — You can't tell me that Kageyama's character design just happened to coincide with Shikamaru's so much. Guess what kind of magic he uses...
Edolas!Erza's spear, Ten Commandments, is an expy of the magic sword of the same name, wielded by the main character of Rave Master.
Midnight bears a striking resemblance to Albel Nox from Star Ocean 3 Till the End of Time.
Natsu is basically a Hot Blooded Haru with fire powers instead of a sword, Lucy is basically Elie without the amnesia, and Gray is basically Musica with... no, that's right all on it's own.
Laxus looks a lot like Captain Hardner, at least in his original appearances when he's chomping on a cigar. Less so during the Raijinshu arc, but the resemblance is still there. Both of them start out calm and get more and more Ax Crazy as the arc progresses, and both of them are defeated by the combined efforts of The Hero and a dragon who's Made of Iron.
And now we have what could be called a Whole Concept Expy during the Magic Tournament arc. The first round of the tournament features a game called Hidden, the concept and rules of which have been lifted entirely out of the multiplayer stages of the Assassin's Creed series. The competitors must move through a town populated by masses of clones of themselves. They have to blend into the crowd and locate the real participants and get a hit in on them in order to score points and lose points if they strike a clone instead.
Extreme Omnivore - We've seen Natsu eat meat and mushrooms... and fire... and etherion. Supposedly, he's also tried eating lightning.
In Episode 9 Team Natsu minus Lucy was willing to chop up/cook/freeze and eat monsters to satisfy their hunger.
Evil Costume Switch - Juvia when Mind Controlled by Vidaldus. However, she is made of water, so her clothes are just more water she layers over herself, so it wouldn't exactly be hard for her to change.
Evil Is Not a Toy - Zancrow really should have been more careful while handling a legendary Black Wizard who commands absolute power over life and death. He becomes one of the few confirmed casualties in the series when Zeref kills him with Acnologia. Later followed by Master Hades. Turns out interrupting the self-imposed exile of an unstoppable Black Wizard really isn't a good idea.
Evil Versus Evil - King Faust and his underlings lost no time backstabbing the Exceed. Leaders of the latter presented themselves as nasty, murderous, specieist tyrants by that point, and Faust was a power-grabbing megalomaniac. Partially subverted, when later Exceed were revealed to be just pretending to be powerful and evil, with the help of their queen's propthetic abilities, to keep humans frightened and avoid annihilation. But they still were serious dicks.
Face Heel Turn - Laxus, though how much of a Face he was to start with is debatable.
The entire reason the Oración Seis are seeking Nirvana is the ability to cause these at will in whoever they want.
Gray in the anime exclusive arc. It turns out that Natsu forgot a promise to the villager that was sealed by Daphne and he kind of wanted him to destroy Daphne's artificial dragon.
Fake Cross Over - Plue is a summon Lucy uses that originated from Rave Master.
Then there's Musica walking around in the background. Heck half the interest for fans of Rave Master is spotting these moments.
Fanservice - Oh dear sweet Lord of everything holy in this sweet world, where do we start?! The anime even has a unique sound effect just for the fanservice moments. And it gets plenty of use.
Nearly Every female character provides some. Seriously, it must be a requirement to join Fairy Tail, or any wizard guild for that matter.
The male castmembers are no slouches in that department, either.
Then there's the "Welcome to Fairy Hills!" special chapter. It IS fanservice in forty pages with a little plot in between, though it has plenty of Character Development for the female members we don't usually get to see.
Curiously, this is exactly the special chapter they chose to make an OVA that will be released in April 2011. Also, as unbelievable as it sounds, it seems that they chose to add even more Fanservice, notably for the female crowd.
Fanservice with a Smile - Team Natsu briefly work in a cafe at one point. Lucy and Erza have ridiculously sexy outfits, and Gray forgets his uniform save the bow tie.
A Father to His Men: Master Makarov is very much this. Phantom Lord kidnapping and hurting three of his "children" was what finally drove him to defy the law against guild fights and teach those belligerent jerks a lessonthey never forgot.
Gajeel has had roughly ONE MOMENT of Oh Crap. This is a guy who taunts Natsu for fun. What makes him brown his trousers? Angry Makarov. What was he doing? Inviting Gajeel to join Fairy Tail.
Gajeel: But I hurt your guild members. Makarov: And THAT IS UNFORGIVABLE. Gajeel: (Oh Crap face) Makarov: But so is abandoning a young man surrendering himself to darkness.
Feed It With Fire - Dragon Slayers can regain energy by eating their given element (though not any that they created). Some, such as the Dragon Slayers of Metal and Sky, are more fortunate than, say, the Dragon Slayers of Lightning and Poison in this department.
Though the poison dragon slayer was smart enough to surround himself with poisonous snakes so that he wouldn't have to rely on luck to refuel.
Fiery Redhead: Definitely Erza, and Natsu too if you count pink as red.
Filler: An entire filler episode at episode nine? The only reasoning for this is that they wanted to showcase the Crowning Music of Awesome again before they moved on to the new arc.
Final Boss Preview: Done very often. Zero's first act is to beat the shit out of Natsu. Laxus did the same thing, although he was only stunned. Reitei Lyon's first appearance has him using Gray as a soccerball. Hades' first fight is curb stomping Makarov. Subverted with Phantom Lord when Jose turns out to be an illusion, and Makarov is taken out by Aria's sneak attack.
Finger Gun: Hades does this after he shrugs off Team Natsu's combined efforts. Naturally, he kicks the crap out of everyone with it.
Five-Bad Band: Reitei Lyon and his group. The Raijinshu can qualify if you ignore the fact that there are only four of them (Fried plays two roles). If Chapter 263 is any indication, Ivan Dreyar heads one that he's bringing with him to the tournament.
Flanderization: Rampant in the fillers. Gray is all Juvia talks about, and Fried is unable to make a simple decision without wondering what Laxus would do.
Floating Continent: Edolas has several, the most prominent being the one where Extalia lies.
Fluffy the Terrible: Arguably, Mystogan, an S-Class wizard on par with Laxus who's name suggests that he's useful for watering your houseplants. Also, Pantherlilly, the Badass Furry who is one of Faust's generals.
In the second OVA he literally carries squirt bottles.
Laxus and Mystogan are both S-class wizards that don't spend much time in the guild. Laxus is a flashy Jerk AssSocial Darwinist who thinks he's too good to hang around the weaklings in Fairy Tail, while Mystogan is a Shrouded in MythMaster of Illusion who is ashamed of where he comes from and wants to thwart his father's plan to turn this world's wizards into Lacrima. Laxus dresses in flashy clothing, such as a fur lined jacket and a royal purple shirt, while Mystogan wears baggy clothes in black and gray.
Another foil for Laxus is his grandfather, Makarov: a wise, humble old man with the power to flatten a city, who prefers not to fight except as a last resort. Makarov has a habit of downplaying how much of an effect his guidance has on his highly successful guild, and attributing it all to the members.
Natsu and Gray are an obvious example. They're quite similar in age and temperament, but use opposing types of magic, and Natsu is Hot Blooded and impulsive while Gray is more thoughtful and methodical.
Erza and Lucy: they're both young, attractive, and want what's best for their friends, but Erza is a calm and collected S-class wizard who fights with melee weaponry *
Though sometimes she tends to take things way too seriously
and Lucy is a summoner who's always freaking out over something.
Erza and Mirajane: They're both the same age, a little off and were constantly bickering with each other and later they're both the relative Team Moms of the guild while Erza is the stern one while Mirajane is the bubbly one.
Foot Focus: Seen quite a few times in the manga, especially in the Edolas arc. Lucy and Erza tend to get this treatment.
During Erza's fight with Evergreen she takes off her shoes so that she may hold an additional two swords with her toes.
Gemi and Mini show up in a couple chapter covers long before they were ever introduced. Though since they just look like a couple of odd creatures (never too surprising in Mashima works), it's easy to just pass over them.
In the last shot of the anime's second opening, Loke is seen standing behind Lucy and next to her Celestial Spirits... I wonder why?
Episode 4 ends with scenes not in the manga, including a battle with enemy wizards, one is a fortune teller who predicts that Gray "will have problems with water and women." Does that remind you of anyone?
Added scenes in episode 26 hint toward Loke being a Celestial Spirit.
If you notice the cover for the 197th chapter Edolas Lisanna isn't part of the Edolas Fairy Tail guild waving goodbye. Why is that? She's actually Earthland Lisanna!
Remember how Gajeel wanted a cat before the beginning of the Edolas Arc? Guess what he got at the end of Edolas Arc. In extension, Lisanna's 'Death' Anniversary just happened to be arriving right before the Edolas Arc. Guess who shows up while Mirajane and Elfman are visiting her grave at the end of the Edolas Arc.
The anime adds in a scene where Gajeel's action figure has a place on it's stand for a small cat. The Natsu/Happy and Wendy/Charla figureines are sold in pairs, so they figure that Gajeel is eventually going to get a feline companion.
Natsu telling Zalty (Reitei Lyon's Dragon) that he smells like a woman. Zalty is actually Ultear in disguise.
The last page for Chapter 234, a seemgly out of place page with a boy, who resembles an older Romeo, staring at the sea; he would appear again in Chapter 253, Tenrou Island arc's ending marking the begining of a 7 year Time Skip, the year is X791, this date could be seen in the boy's appearance in Chapter 234, on the newspaper next to him.
Fourth Wall Mail Slot: At the end of each volume there's a Q&A corner that Lucy and Mirajane take part of with occasional visits from other characters.
Friendly Tickle Torture: Natsu does this to Erza after rescuing her from Jellal the first time.
Furo Scene: Happens quite a lot almost all of them with Lucy.
Most notably the first one is in the 3rd episode and forth chapter.
Lucy has three more as filler scenes in episodes 21, 29 and 42.
Lucy and Cana have two together near the beginning and end of the S-Class Trial arc.
The Fairy Tail special Welcome to Fairy Hills one with Erza, Evergreen, Levy, Bisca, Juvia and Laki.
Chapter 261 does it in an Onsen, this time with the "guys trying to peep on the female side" part (led by Natsu of all people!) Naturally, Erza sees no problem in telling them to join…
Gainaxing: Recent episodes in the anime have taken to a subtler-than-most application. Also in episode 58 when Gemini Lucy removes her top the bouncing is noticeable, it's even commented by Hibiki. Here is a link if anyone is curious.
And now again in episode 89, when Coco is trying to extract Lucy from being trapped under Byro's octopus form.
Gecko Ending: Averted, fortunately. The anime-only Daphne filler arc was supposed to be apparently the anime ending, at 72 episodes.
Genre Savvy: Gajeel wasn't torturing Lucy for some sadistic thrill, he was doing it because he knew Natsu would get there to rescue her and wanted to fight Natsu when he was angry, and therefore more powerful.
Makarov is an inversion. He's kind and gentle normally, when he's two feet tall, but when he uses his Titan Magic, it means he's about to kick someone's ass.
Good Costume Switch: Bickslow loses the skulls on his shoulders and gains a tuft on the back of his hood, making him look more like a knight. Juvia is debatable, as her before and after outfits don't look particularly good or evil, just gloomy vs. cheerful.
Groin Attack: Lucy goes all out with this one, combining it with Trying To Catch Me Fighting Dirty. She convinces Jose that yes, she is in fact going to use a bucket as a toilet if he's not going to let her use a washroom. Then she winds up and kicks him in the balls from behind in an attempt to escape.
Guns Vs Swords - Erza and Bisca use the same magic and the latter admires the former.
Handicapped Badass - Gildarts, who can still toss other guild members on their ass even if he loses an arm, a leg, and "some organs" to the Black Dragon.
Ur is this as well - having lost her leg to Deliora due to protecting Gray/Lyon, she simply makes an icy prosthetic - and goes on to kick the demon's ass."Don't you think molding magic is wonderful?"
Heal It With Fire - Natsu does this to Macao in order to keep him alive long enough to reach treatment towards the beginning of the series (manga only)
Natsu suggests doing this to Erza when she is poisoned and they think they need to cut off her arm, but luckily Wendy arrives in time.
Heel Face Return: When Natsu and his friends return from a mission, they suddenly discover that Gajeel has joined their guild. They are not amused.
Heel Face Turn - Kageyama, Lyon and most of his underlings, Juvia, Shou, Simon, Wally and Miliana, Jellal, Gajeel, Fried, Laxus (of all people), a Nirvana-influenced Hoteye, and the Celestial Spirits Gemini, Caelum, and Capricorn (though the last was possessed by Zoldio). In short, Fairy Tail loves this trope.
Heel Face Revolving Door - Jellal, though a lot of the times it only looks like he's changing sides at the time.
He Is Not My Boyfriend - Lucy whenever Happy or someone else eggs her on about her relationship with Loke.
Also happens with Virgo egging Lucy on, only about Natsu. Poor girl never catches a break.
And a variant whenever Juvia accuses her of being after Gray.
A more recent example is occurring during the S-Class trials with two of the minor characters, Elfman and Evergreen.
Hero Antagonist: The magic council, especially Doranbalt and Rahal.
Heroic Sacrifice - Ur and Simon. Erza, Juvia, and Lyon all tried one, but ended up surviving.
Heroic BSOD: Gildarts does this to Natsu (the local Determinator and Idiot Hero) in the last arc by putting the fear in him. That's right, what dozens of obscenely powerful villians, near death experiences and assorted demons could not do in 200+ chapters, he did it in the span of five panels and he do this by simply getting serious. That how badass Gildarts is. It should be pointed that this is a more benign example than usual, for he does it to help Natsu grow as a wizard.
She is one of only two characters who changed guilds at the end of the Phantom Lord arc, the other being Gajeel.
High School AU: The entire premise of the second OVA. All the characters retain their basic personality traits, but they manifest in different ways. (eg. Natsu has Tobasco sauce and hot rocks instead of fire magic, Gray eats snowcones and his stripping fetish, Lucy uses her cell phone to call in favours from friends.) The plot for the second half is essentially a truncated Phantom Lord retelling.
Hollywood Pudgy: Happy is strangely insistent to point out Lucy's weight. He even finds her heavier than Gajeel. There may two big reasons for that but still…
Hope Spot: The whole battle with Grimoire Heart is a sequence of these. Gajeel defeating the first arriving Grimoire Heart members, nearly killing himself in the process? These are only scouts, and the real enemy fighting force, the Seven Kin of Purgatory, are far more powerful. Makarov getting serious from the beginning and nearly destroying Grimoire Heart's airship? The airship is restored in seconds and guildmaster Hades steps up to curbstomp Makarov. Fairy Tail members on the island miraculously managing to defeat most of the Seven Kin? Hades' second-in-command, Bluenote, steps in and blows most of those still standing away with no effort. Cana managing to bring the secret magic of Fairy Tail, Fairy Glitter, to bear against Bluenote? It doesn't work because he's just that much more powerful than her. Gildarts, Fried and Bickslow returning to the island and seemingly overpowering Grimoir Hear members for a moment? Azuma seizes control of the island's magic so that instead of protecting Fairy Tail members from death, it instead drains their power.
Chapter 246. Natsu, with the combined power of his and Laxus' respective elements, proceeds to kick Hades' ass before finally knocking the guy out... for all of about 5 minutes. Hades then says that, in respect of the strength and will power the guild has shown them, he'll crush them with his strongest magic.
And to wrap up the whole arc, Chapter 253 It looks like Makarov is about to sacrifice his life to protect them all, when they all come back to protect him. The Black Dragon prepares a breath attack and they all join hands to prepare defensive magic...when it blows the entire Island away with no survivors found and a Time Skip of seven years...WTF?
Hot Mom - Ur, as maternal figure to both Gray and Lyon. One of the first things we see her do is strip to her underwear, and we don't mind. She's also actually the mother of Ultear.
There is another one in chapter 261 with Lucy, Erza, Wendy, Levy and Juvia. Natsu, Gray, Jet and Droy try to do some Outdoor Bath Peeping.
How The Mighty Have Fallen: Fairy Tail completely falls apart after the tragedy of Tenrou Island and is now a nearly defunct guild who can't get any jobs. The few members who remain are haunted by the loss of their friends and are constantly harassed by the town's new dominant guild.
Humongous Mecha: King Faust owns one called Doroma Animu, a mecha dragon.
Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Levy and Gajeel, as partners for the S-Class exam. Levy stands about five feet tall, and Gajeel is tall enough that he can - and does - use Levy's head as a convenient elbow rest.
Hyperspace Wardrobe - Erza sometime uses her power in this way. She loves being dressed for the occasion.
In chapter 183, Natsu and Lucy find a machine that can change a person's clothing magically and surprise surprise, it's used for more fanservice.
She couldn't summon them at the time; their contracts only allow for them to be summoned at certain times. She even says so.
Team Natsu (Plus Wendy and even Carla and Lily) charging intoHades' ship while exhausted and with the knowledge that Hades defeated Makarov. They didn't even need to since Hades wasn't going anywhere and his objective (Zeref) was elsewhere. Grabbing Zeref (Gray even knew where he was) and leaving would have been infinitely more intelligent and was never even considered.
This is more an example of Honor Before Reason. Perhaps Natsu wouldn't have considered running with Zeref under any circumstances, but he'd be the only one of that group. No, Grimoire Heart had kicked in their door, basically invading their home and trying to kill them all off, on top of successfully destroying the island. It wasn't that they were unable to consider tactics, it was that they were pissed.
Idiot Hero - Natsu's actually a subversion. He's quite intelligent, he's just too impulsive to actually use his brain.
To be fair, that was in the heat of battle... and only when he realized he had to, as until and after that point he was continually trying to use cleverer strategies only to have them thwarted via mind reading.
I Let You Win: How Cana and Lucy were able to defeat Fried and Bickslow so quickly during the S-Class promotion exam.
Edolas!Lucy does this as well to differentiate herself from Earthland!Lucy, though there's a minor subversion, in that she claims it isn't important because the people in Edolas are too focused on trying to survive instead of their appearance. It's still viewed as an Important Haircut by the others, though.
Edolas!Erza also pulls this stunt for the same reason as Edolas!Lucy. Erza knocking her out, stealing her clothes and impersonating her probably helped in that decision.
Juvia after joining the guild.
Imagine Spot: Lucy pulls this a few times. Juvia sometimes gets this after misinterpreting one of Gray's comments as a come-on.
Natsu, Happy and Wendy each imagine what Edolas Erza would be like. They're all DEAD WRONG.
Imagine Spotting: Juvia's Imagine Spots are either visible, or everyone just knows her too well. Carla being able to see them is probably due to her having mild psychic powers.
Incendiary Exponent - For Natsu a typical meal is usually something like a chicken leg, a plate of spaghetti, and a drink; only everything is on fire. Even the drink.
With regards to the drink, maybe it's not so impossible if we consider one of those flaming cocktails◊.
Informed Ability - Erza says that Ichiya is a powerful wizard, but thus far he's been beaten up for comic relief, got taken out by a party of nameless thugs, and the only useful ability he shows are perfumes that can act as a painkiller and temporarily boost his strength, both of which have only been used once.
And apparently the author of that series's favorite author is Mashima, so that probably helped things along quite a bit. Most stunning of all is despite the WTF, it ain't half bad. The joint attraction of having both series' voices of reason in the same place being just one hilarious example.
It's All My Fault - Gray does this during the Galuna Island arc. As a child, he set out to defeat the demon Deliora, who had killed his parents. His mentor Ur saved him by sacrificing herself to seal Deliora away. He's lived with the guilt ever since.
Debatable. Just because his Face Heel Turn got reversed doesn't mean he's not still a jerk. You know he's going to come in to save someone's ass at some point (probably Natsu) and if he laughs at how weak they are before doing it, he's still a Jerk Ass.
The Edolas farmer Happy and Carla run into. Screaming the entire time about how much trouble it is, he takes them in, feeds, and clothes them, and recognizes his son at first sight.
Katanas Are Just Better: In her battle during the Tower of Paradise arc, Erza has to fight a woman using a katana. The woman destroys every one of her armors, and all her weapons except two. At the end, Erza wins using that pair of weapons. Which weapons did she use? You guessed it!
Ikaruga, the aformentioned woman, as well as Totomaru and Yomazu are also examples, and villains.
Keep The Reward - Occurs twice with technicalities being cited as justification.
Kill Sat - Despite how bizarre that seems in a magical setting.
Kissing Discretion Shot - After three whole pages of their lips getting closer, Jellal and Erza are silhouetted as the view zooms out, making it impossible to tell if they really do get their kiss or if they're still just very close before Jellal decides he actually shouldn't.
Kung-Fu Wizard - A large number of wizards, Natsu and Gajeel in particular.
This one is interesting, because the Vanish Brothers specifically mention in the early chapters that the main weakness of wizards is their body, a natural aversion of this trope. However, literally every noteworthy wizard we've seen has been quite capable in the physical department.
To be fair though, Natsu, Gajeel, Erza and a few others are arguably more fighter than they are wizard. Just fill in "chi" with "magic".
Possibly because the smart ones realize this and train their bodies as well as their magic. The wizards who live to see 40 are the ones who can dodge a sword.
Laser-Guided Amnesia - Jellal receives amnesia and has no idea who or where he is, what's going on, and who he's interacting with, but he can remember where Nirvana is and how to use his magic, which he remembers he needs to use to destroy Nirvana because it's too dangerous.
It's made even funnier by him saying Erza's name then saying "That's the only word I can remember" before pleading to be told who he and 'that person' are.
It's possible he meant to say "that's the only name I can remember."
Happy also has a case of this. Carla as well, but to a slightly lesser extent.
Except that they really don't. Carla interpreted it as this, but she was really seeing the future without realizing.
Late Arrival Spoiler - Mentioning that Jellal and Siegrain are the same person is like mentioning that Darth Vader is Luke's father.
Honestly, after Siegrain's first on-page meeting with Ezra in the manga, where he displayed the ability to protect astral illusions of himself to hold conversations with people, it should have been fairly obvious that Siegrain was Jellal's astral projection.
First Episode Spoiler - That goofy pink haired guy that Lucy ran into is not only a wizard, but he's the real Salamander from Fairy Tail.
Leeroy Jenkins - Natsu, big time. Occasionally, others as well, such as Gray or Gajeel.
Mavis Vermillion, Fairy Tail's first guild master.
Loads and Loads of Characters - Most of the support cast populating Fairy Tail. However; they all have character bios and some have been given character development and backstories.
Logic Bomb: Old-style Dragonslayers are raised and taught their magic by dragons. Wait, what?
The only thing that can kill a dragon is another dragon?
Long Bus Trip - Lyon and his underlings (him and Sherry have since returned), Erza's nakama, and now Mystogan
Loud of War - Natsu uses this to his advantage against Cobra, who has incredibly powerful hearing that lets him read minds, somehow. He tricks him with the phrasing of the attack beforehand as a widerange roar, which would normally mean a gigantic fireball. Nope, it's actually an extremelyloud, actual dragon's roar.
Make Me Wanna Shout - How Natsu defeats Cobra. After "not thinking" to confuse Cobra goes south when Cobra starts fighting back with poison, Natsu turns Cobra's sensitive hearing into his weakness, by performing a Dragon's Roar, stunning Cobra deaf. In fact the roar is so loud it could be heard for miles away, making Lucy think it's made by an Eldritch Abomination or something. And considering Happy could barely stand it with just normal hearing, the effect is absolutely devastating on Cobra's ultra sensitive hearing.
Angel of the Oración Seis is a pretty manipulative bitch too. Especially when she summons Aries, someone Loke is very close to, to fight him.
Marshmallow Hell - An interesting twist. Erza tries to pull Natsu into one while apologizing, either forgetting or ignoring the fact that she's wearing steel armour. Complete with a sound effect and Natsu complaining about the pain. Erza has done this to Lucy and Gray at least once as well.
When we learn more about Erza's past, one may figure this is a part of her psychological dependence on armor and her difficulty actually letting others get close. The gag hasn't repeated itself since, so presumably the issue is resolved.
McCloud Speech - Subverted, leading Master Makarov to give the page quote.
Mega Manning - This is the power of the assassin Fukurou, who eats his opponent whole and "digests" their power. He swallowed Natsu and used his Dragon Slayer techniques, however Gray commented that they don't really compare to the real thing.
Mistaken Identity - Jellal's amnesia isn't the reason he doesn't remember saving Wendy's life. He's never met her before, it was Mystogan who saved her.
Mood Whiplash: Happens often to the point where characters lampshades it. One notable example is chapter 249. Most of the chapter is a mix of Heartwarming and Funny moments as Fairy Tail celebrates its victory, and ends with Zeref telling the remnants of Grimoire Heart that he will destroy the world.
Also occurs during some of the more serious episodes as an unfortunate side effect of the cute little animation in the middle of the episodes - Happy acting cute while a jaunty tune plays in the background. Not so adorable when it's interrupting a big serious fight.
Mr. Exposition: The whole reason for Klodoa's (Brain's sentient staff) existence, apparently, to the point that he is killed after there's nothing left for him to explain about the Oración Seis.
Happy often serves as this.
Mundane Utility - Erza can use her Requipping magic to instantly change her outfit, in addition to summoning various magic armors, swords, spears, etc.
Also Natsu can use his abilities to cook food and dry clothes.
My Greatest Failure - Lisanna, Elfman and Mirajane's younger sister, almost died while trying to calm Elfman down when his Take Over magic went awry. While the exact details of the event are unknown, Elfman and Mirajane's lives were completely changed after the event.
My Kung-Fu Is Stronger Than Yours - Surprisingly averted for the most part. The main characters don't get significantly stronger throughout the series, with the exception of Lucy, who gets several new celestial spirits (one of whom, Loke, is probably stronger than any she started with). They continue to triumph anyway by virtue of being Determinators and through good ol' fashioned teamwork. That last one makes sense given the strong emphasis being True Companions in this series. Also, battles are usually determined not by strength but by strategy and luck.
It is played straight a few times. Mirajane's victory over Fried was mostly because she just had more power than he did. Elfman had to get a new Take Over to beat Sol. Natsu gets a temporary powerup from Jellal in order to defeat Zero.
Myth Arc - We have yet to go a full arc (with the exception of the minor Lucy-centric arcs) without a reference to either the Dragons or Zeref (Dragons: Beginning of the story, Phantom Lord, Tower of Paradise, Fighting Festival, Oración Seis; Zeref: Lullaby, Galuna Island, Tower of Paradise, Oración Seis), and they've been hinted to intertwine. Whatever is up with Jellal turns into one of these as well.
Narrator - Lucy becomes this from time to time, especially after every arc, as if she's writing the events of the story in a book, a diary, or a letter. Appropriate, as she's an aspiring novelist with a habit of writing letters to her deceased mother.
Never Found the Body - Acnologia destroys Tenrou Island and all of the members of Fairy Tail on it with a single attack. No survivors are found.
Never Learned To Read - Natsu, in the anime, learned what the letters meant but not the actual words (except for food). There's a flashback of Erza helping him out.
Never Split the Party - During the S-class arc, Levy suggest that she, Lisanna, Elfman and Evergreen stick together, in light of the circumstances. Meanwhile, Natsu, Gray, and Cana... have all run off by themselves.
New Powers as the Plot Demands - While fighting Erigor, Natsu is knocked off a bridge without Happy to save him, but manages to change the make-up of his fire to use it to as a sort of rope. He never uses or even mentions it again.
In the anime, this is explained as him emulating a trick Macao showed him when he was a kid. Macao's bio states that he uses the same fire magic as Bora, the first villain, and the anime shows this, so it's not like there's no precedent for it.
Also, Lucy's forced dismissal of celestial spirits, "learned" when fighting Sherry. It's not completely forgotten later on and is used a few more times (mostly as a joke, but to good effect when fighting Angel), but it comes completely out of nowhere.
At least that power is a logical step up from her previous powers.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero - Titular guild can never complete a mission without pulling this off, mostly through collateral damage.
No Celebrities Were Harmed - Ichiya Wanderlei Kotobuki seems to resemble a deformed version of Dustin Hoffman, with his powers being a reference to Hoffman's role in The Perfume.
No-Holds-Barred Beatdown - The Oración Seis completely wipe the floor with Team Natsu and the guild representives they've partnered up with.
Midnight did this to everyone he fought before Erza beats him.
And shortly afterwards the resurrected Zero delivers one to everyone else that requires a Gory Discretion Shot.
The first half of the fight against Yomazu and Kawazu is this for Gajeel. If Levy hadn't been there, it's entirely possible that he could have died.
After their fight with Rustyrose, Elfman and Evergreen are lucky to be alive.
Hades does this to both Makarov and Team Natsu.
The Black Dragon to Everyone on Tenrou Island and the island itself.
Numerological Motif: There's one in the Oracion Seis arc that's so subtle it might not even be intentional. Oracion Seis has six members. Sent to stop them are five wizards from Fairy Tail, four from Blue Pegasus, three from Lamia Scale, and two from Cait Shelter. After Oracion Seis is defeated, one of them gets back up again and reveals his Super Powered Evil Side, Zero.
Not So Small Role - Siegrain's first appears to be a minor character whose only role is to comment on the actual events of the story. Of course, he did look just likeSieg Hart so it wasn't too surprising when he turned out to be important.
Official Couple - Aquarius and Scorpio and Edolas Alzack and Bisca, and later their Earthland counterparts after the timeskip.
Offscreen Moment of Awesome - In the Edolas arc, Gajeel, despite being a dragon slayer, didn't show up with Natsu and Wendy in Edolas for some reason. Must be because he is waiting to pull a Big Damn Heroes moment, right? Right, and he pulls a really big one, probably turning the tide of the whole Edolas saga... and all of it happens offscreen.
Fortunately, the Anime pulled an Adaptation Expansion and included an entire sub-plot covering Gajeel's actions.
The other S-Class trial fights.
One for the beginning of the series... Where the hell did Lucy acquire multiple gold Celestial Spirit keys? She begins with Taurus, Cancer, and most tellingly, Aquarius. The first two are pretty laid back, but... Aquarius? There's gotta be a story there.
According to Chapter 224, they're inherited from her mother.
Jellal's prison break. Considering all the parties involved, it was probably awesome.
"Black Wizard Zeref". The entire Magic Council (those that aren't in on the scheme anyway) have a collective Oh Crap after hearing the name of the one Jellal wants to resurrect using the R-system.
Natsu, Wendy, Happy and Carla realizing the Edolas Erza is hunting.
Evergreen when Erza pulls off the ultimate bluff during the Laxus arc, which like Fried, shows three panels of increasing "Oh Crap I'm fucked."
During the announcement of the S-Class exam, everybody minus Natsu gets this when they are told that the eight competitors will face the S-class wizards aka Erza, Mirajane and Gildarts.
Lucy and Cana when they see who their first opponents in the exam are Fried and Bickslow
Elfman and Evergreen when they see that their first opponent is One-Winged Angel Mirajane.
Natsu has a couple of these moments in the S-class trial arc. The first is when he realizes that Gildarts is exponentially stronger than him and he is brought down to his knees by pure fear. It happens again when he realizes that he can't No SellZancrow's God-Slayer flames.
Then Zancrow gets this when Natsu figures out a way to No Sell the God-Slayer flames and turns them against him.
Natsu's and Gajeel's reaction to Laxus revealing he's a Dragon Slayer.
In chapter 240 Ultear is shocked when Gray freezes his own blood to counter her time magic. Gray gets his turn when Ultear resorts to Ice Maker magic instead—magic that is exactly like Ur's.
Master Hades has a huge one when he realizes that the source of his magic, the "Devil's Heart", was destroyed.
When a pissed off Zeref appears in front of them in chapter 250, Rustyrose and Kain Hikaru are so terrified they can't even move. Kain is even crying Tears of Fear.
Erza's first appearance gets a collective Oh Crap from everybody except Lucy and Mirajane.
The entire title guild when Zeref's dragon buddy shows up and starts wrecking Tenrou Island. Makarov is the exception, and that's because he's fighting the damn thing.
The leader of Twilight Ogre reaction to a pissed off Makarov, Erza and Mirajane.
Surely in the Celestial Realm, one year is one day on earth! Wrong - one day in the Celestial Realm is three months on earth. Made all the more funnier by the fact that many readers were fooled on that one.
Opposites Attract - As stated here, Gajeel and Levy are complete opposites of each other but they are the closest thing to being a couple among the main cast since Erza and Jellal's situation is complicated.
The budding situation between Elfman and Evergreen may qualify as well.
Omnicidal Maniac - Brain's other personality Zero doesn't care for scheming or plans. He's just a powerful nutcase that wants to destroy everything for the sheer hell of it.
Gray: You asshole! You're going to attack a man who can't move? Zero: It matters little if he can move or otherwise. AS LONG AS HE HAS A PHYSICAL FORM, DESTROYING HIM IS WORTH ENJOYING!!!!!!
One-Winged Angel - The whole point of "Take Over" magic performed on one's self. Erza's Purgatory armor is implied to turn the user into a demon somewhat; but we never got to see what it truly does despite her doing the usual "None have lived" boast that comes with a One-Winged Angel.
Only Six Faces: Averted hard. Even one-shot background characters managed to look unique. Unlike most other contemporary shonen series with Loads and Loads of Characters, Fairy Tail manages to do it without resorting to gonk. Much. Here's a particularly good example: [1]
Orcus on His Throne - Jellal is quite happy to send out minions to attack the Tower's intruders, rather than fight himself. Laxus sits in Kardia Cathedral while everyone gets trapped in Fried's runes because no matter how much he hates Fairy Tail's reputation, he doesn't have the stomach to directly kill anyone.
Hades after defeating Makarov just sits in his ship and let's the 7 Kin take down Fairy Tail.
Overshadowed by Awesome - Remember Lucy taking out that whole dark guild on her own? Or Vidalus? Duke Everlue? No? Well, maybe if she took a few steps away from Natsu and Erza you would.
Also Sherry (who had a powerset custom-tailored to beating Lucy's), Bickslow (who had already wiped out Gray) and Angel (one of the Oración Seis who had already outsmarted and defeated Ichiya, Jura, Natsu and Hibiki, and like Sherry just happened to have the power to steal control of Lucy's spirits). For that matter, by this point in the story she apparently possesses over half of all the powerful celestial spirits in the world (ten of the twelve golden keys of the zodiac — which, she explains, are unique). A person with three such spirits qualified for the Oración Seis. Possibly her lack of recognition has something to do with the fact that she uses Summon Magic rather than beating things up directly, and because if she loses her keys she's mostly powerless.
Papa Wolf: Gildarts, already one of the most powerful characters, is normally a rather nice guy. When Bluenote nearly kills Cana, however, he gets angry...
Parental Abandonment - Nobody in Fairy Tail seems to have any (living and non-absent) parents except Lucy, but her dad is an ass. Well, there is Laxus, grandson of guildmaster Makarov and son of Raven Tail guildmaster Ivan, but they are not a happy family. For Natsu, Parental Abandonment serves as a source of motivation whenever the subject of dragons is brought up - Gajeel and Wendy went through it, as well. At least the Fairy Tail members themselves (those two who have children/grandchildren) seem to be caring parents. And Happy and Charlie weren't so much abandoned by their parents as much as kidnapped from themin order for them to be sent to kill Dragon Slayers so that those Exceed children could escape the prophesied collapse of their homeland.
Macao is Romeo's dad, and their touching and close relationship is basically the entire reason they were introduced in the first place.
Gildarts is Cana's father, but doesn't know it. To be fair she knows he's her father, and has known him for the past 12 years and never told him, so it's not really his fault.
Passing the Torch - Beautifully subverted in chapter 259 after multiple chapters of set-up. Makarov chooses Gildarts as the fifth master of Fairy Tail, only to have Gildarts choose him as the sixth.
Perpetual Poverty: Despite taking on some very high-paying jobs, Lucy is always worried about whether she'll be able to afford the month's rent, because most of the reward money gets swallowed up by her teammates' destructive habits.
Playing with Fire - Natsu with his Dragon Slayer magic, as well as Totomaru (who can make fire with weird properties like freezing instead of burning and smelling bad), Bora, and off-screen (until the anime), Macao.
Power Creep, Power Seep - In the Crossover with Rave Master, Mashima was really smart about how to even the characters powers given they are all created by him, those in touch with Rave will notice that Haru Glory seems to be about only one third of his original adventure and the Fairy Tail cast seems to be early versions as well; it was the right thing to do since Haru Glory, Elie, Musica and others at the end of their adventure could prove too much of a task to the then young Natsu, Grey, Lucy and Erza who didn't have a Grand Finale to estabilish their maximum power level yet.
Power Crystal: The lacrima crystals, which are used to power almost every kind of magic item.
It's explicitly a style of powerup, even. "Magical Fusion", or "Unison Raid".
It also played a key part in helping Mavis Vermilion cast Fairy Sphere.
Power of Love - Somewhat played straight and subverted with Elfman. Him wishing to save Mirajane made him able to finally use his full Take Over magic. Sadly, it wasn't enough to save Lisanna when he lost control. Except it turns out she's still alive.
And again in Chapter 230, when Meredy's sensation-sharing power backfires on her, as Juvia unintentionally uses it to talk her down, with a combination of a Cooldown Hug and Meredy feeling Juvia's feelings for Gray (and relating them to her own feelings for Ultear).
Power-Up Food - Dragon Slayers are powerful fighters on their own, but they gain a massive temporary boost when they eat something of their respective elements, some of which can be very common.
No Sell - Attacks of their own element are just as susceptible to this as anything else. Fire wizards usually go Oh Crap after having their first attack eaten by Natsu.
Powered by a Forsaken Child: The magic in the parallel world, Edolas, comes from absorbing people from the normal world, Earthland, and turning them into raw energy.
Powers via Possession: Jellal displays no magic abilities whatsoever until brainwashed, though retains said magic afterward.
Cana's Edolas counterpart lives and breathes with this trope
Protagonist-Centered Morality: Plays a part in why villains are Easily Forgiven. Take Jellal for example. When he was a villain, the protagonists hated him, especially because what he did to Erza. However, when he shows up in a future arc and helps the main characters, he's eventually forgiven for his past actions entirely. They even protest and are angry at law enforcement when they show up to arrest Jellal at the end of the arc for his past crimes. It is very telling when the spoiler tags become fill in the blank.
To be entirely fair, however, all the main characters do have a strict Thou Shalt Not Kill policy, which they have never broken for anyone, and they're all strong believers in the concept of True Companions as well. There's also the fact that some villains (Brain/Zero, Faust and his court) who are notEasily Forgiven in the slightest. And with the example given, they were more afraid that Jellal wouldn't be treated fairly by the council, as it was implied that Jellal was Not Himself in his villain days.
Psycho for Hire - Gajeel in the Phantom Lord arc. He drops "psycho" part after his comeback. Also, the Trinity Raven assassins.
Psychosomatic Superpower Outage - This happens to Mirajane and Elfman after the latter tries a full-body Take Over, loses control of himself, and ends up killing their younger sister Lisanna. Though maybe not They're both left unable to use Take Over, because trying to use it reminded them of the incident.
Punch! Punch! Punch! Uh Oh...: The entire fight against Hades is this. No matter how many times they use their strongest attacks and combos, no matter how much outside help or power ups they receive, and no matter how confident they are in their victory once he's on the ground and knocked senseless, he still keeps getting up without a single scratch. Things only turn in their favor once Happy and Carla destroy the machine that's been making him invincible. After that, Hades is pretty much screwed..
Punny Name - Natsu Dragneel, the dragon slayer, and Erza Scarlet the girl with bright red hair. Justified since Natsu was raised by a dragon anyway so his name probably would be along those lines, and Erza didn't originally have a last name. Jellal picked Scarlet for her because he figured it would be easy to remember that her last name was her hair color.
Nichiya, the Edolas version of Ichiya (whose name means "One Night") means "Two Night."
Raised by Wolves - Natsu seems capable of intelligence. He probably could stand next to Lucy as a rare island of sanity in Fairy Tail if he'd had human parents instead of a dragon dad.
Random Power Ranking - Erza is essentially as strong as she needs to be, powerful enough to match up against some of the Ten Wizard Saints and probably actually stronger than at least two. She's also not the most powerful of the S-Class wizards in the guild. Erza and Makarov have also noted that the presumably A-Class ranked Natsu is on par with Erza when he gets angry. Which... isn't really true when you've seen the two fighting their opponents, but still throws the whole ranking system into question.
Natsu is not really angry at Erza during their fights. As he's a typical shonen Determinator, his strength and ability to take punishment are, at least, greatly dependent to intensity of his wrath.
It's specifically stated that the power of a Dragon Slayer is directly proportional to the intensity of their emotions.
Not when the two fight together. An exhausted Erza was able to hold off Jose until Makarov arrived. Jellal, Natsu and some other were perfectly aware that she could take him down... except he's Jellal, and she can't fight him. Natsu was barely able to win by using a Super Mode. A similar case can be made for Laxus only that Natsu also needed Gajeel's help there. He probably deserves an S-Class rank at the least but...
Jose was clearly toying with Erza For the Evulz, not even trying to go full-strength. Similarly, Jellal did not use any of his higher-end spells in the fight with Erza, both because he correctly predicted he can win with cunning and because he needed her alive. Similarly, Laxus was holding back his ultimate powerup while fighting her.
As of chapter 201 we've learned that the reason Natsu is still A ranked, despite apparently being as strong as Erza, is that the only way to gain S-rank is an annual competition to ascend to S-class. Natsu apparently didn't pass the last one, though he HAS qualified for the latest one. Thus, class rankings are not so random afterall.
It also shows that S-Class is much more than just how powerful you are. It also takes skill, cunning, and luck to pass those exams, the first two of which are not Natsu's strong points. Even if he can fight on par with Erza, he has nowhere near the self control or intelligence that she does. Levy (who also qualified for the S-Class exam) seems to be the opposite: there's no question that she'd lose to Natsu in a fight, but in almost any other situation she's better suited to helping out than he is.
Real Men Wear Pink - It seems Natsu suffered the same transition as Marluxia. In the color pics in the manga, his hair was a shade of salmon. In the upcoming anime, however, his hair is blatantly pink. Guess the villains will have another reason to wail in shame after being defeated by this guy.
Actually, since he's called "Sakura-head" by Gray a couple times, it's apparent that his hair is actually pink in the manga as well.
Really Gets Around: Gildarts names twelve women off the top of his head that he's slept with, then two more when trying to guess which one he fathered Cana with.
Red Baron: Erza the Titania, "Demon" Mirajane, "Beast Arm" Elfman, "Salamander" Natsu, "Sky Scorceress" Wendy, "Black Steel" Gajeel, Juvia of the Deep, and "Darkness" Fried. And that's only the people in Fairy Tail itself.
Laxus with Fried, his dragon. Also with Mystogan, his rival.
Really 700 Years Old - One possible explanation as to why when Laxus summons a barrier that bars anyone over the age of 80 from exiting, which was meant for Makarov, Natsu and Gajeel couldn't exit it either.
Destroy the Lacrima in each of Nirvana's six legs to stop it? OK, but it had eight legs the first time we saw it.
What they had to destroy were the crystals in the legs. So maybe two of the legs did not have crystals? Maybe I'm grasping at straws.
Actually, in the manga, at least it had seven legs at first not eight. In then repeatedly changes between eight and seven. Chalk it up to lazy author/assistant not counting right.
So Lisanna is alive. She was in Edolas the whole time? It was implied that she was killed by Elfman's Demon Form.
When Gajeel and Juvia joined Fairy Tail it was said that they were instantly promoted to S-rank wizards. As of chapter 201 they appearently aren't...
That one can actually be explained. They were considered S-Class before joining, but have to retake the test to be S-class in Fairy Tail.
Revealing Hug - Jellal does one after Erza 'defeats' him and 'removes Zeref's influence'. Obviously he wasn't in control, and used the hug to place a binding spell on her
Reverse Mole - Gajeel, Ivan's mole in Fairy Tail, was actually a double agent.
Whenever Lucy comes home, she is greeted by one (or more) of her comrades nonchalantly sitting on her couch having broken into her home. Every time. Without fail. Usually Natsu, with Gray and/or Erza accompanying him from time to time.*
It's revealed in an omake that Mirajane gives them the spare key.
Everytime Team Natsu comes back to Fairy Tail, eventually it will end up in a Bar Brawl. Always.
Erza Taking everything way too seriously.
Natsu scaring the crap out of a monster and is called one.
Natsu: "I'm not a monster."
Lucy walking home from the guild on top of the guard rail next to the river, while someone on a boat in the river warns her about falling in.
Sadistic Choice - Laxus imposes one on the Fairy Tail members - to get out of his magic traps and rescue their True Companions whom he had taken hostage, they must fight each other.
Sealed Evil in a Can - Black Wizard Zeref plays this role. Subverted with Deliora, as being covered it special ice seems to just be sealing him, but turns out to have killed him.
Subverted with Zeref too, since he was never actually sealed. He just went into self-imposed exile after he got tired of killing people.
Self-Made Orphan - Sting and Rogue killed the dragon that raised them.
Sexy Mentor - Gray's mentor, Ur. She was the one to give him his habit of stripping after all.
Ship Tease - Used so much that a case can be made for practically any character falling for any other one. To try to figure out who is supposed to be an Official Couple is to submit yourself to madness. But Jellal/Erza is heavily implied.
Lucy falling to her death yet having absolute faith in Natsu, and Natsu appearing right on time catch her, and Lucy was very, VERY happy to see him. Natsu/Lucy teasing check.
Don't forget the special chapter/episode 50 "Watch Out For That Guy," which is full of Natsu/Lucy ship tease.
Heavily injured Natsu carrying Erza on his arms, with him walking like a badass and her crying on his chest and add a Headbutt of Love. Natsu/Erza teasing check.
Any arc closure event with Erza and Jellal next to each other. Jellal/Erza teasing check.
The very fact that Lisanna came back; Natsu/Lisanna teasing check.
Chapters 207-210 provide a case for both Elfman/Evergreen and Levy/Gajeel. In all honesty, though, that last one was kind of expected.
When Levi leaves "Iron" for Gajeel to eat... the "o" has a heart in the middle. Just saying, not subtle.
Any time Juvia and Gray are together has Gray/Juvia teasing, if only on Juvia's part. Though he didn't seem unhappy about dressing up as a king to her queen for the Fantasia parade. And Gray gets pissed when Lyon tries to ask her out.
There's also some Gray/Lucy teasing every now and then, from Lucy being impressed by his scar to her crying to him during Erza's dream funeral. During the Nirvana arc, Gemini (copying Gray's appearance, thoughts, and abilities) reveals what Gray thinks Lucy: "newcomer to the guild, looks are pretty much to his liking, somewhat interested in her, more naive than she appears, and a Celestial Spirit Wizard."
Macao and Cana had a bit of Ship Tease in the Phantom Lord arc, which is helped by Cana having been stated to have once had a crush on Macao. This was expanded on in the anime's depiction of the arc, featuring among other things Macao Taking the Bullet for Cana and Cana crying to him when the guild is destroyed.
A lot of the time when Lucy and Loke are together. Especially when they are saving each other. He even says "I love Lucy" at one point.
Lucy/Loke teasing are strongest when they first meet, where she actually blushes and stammers to his advances. Afterwards though, its mostly one-sided on Loke's part. May have to do with the fact that she is used to his playboy attitude and may not be taking his confessions and advances seriously anymore.
Erza and Jellal gets this the most by far. Their relationship is so close though, that many would argue that those moments are far beyond just simply teasing.
Natsu and Lucy comes in 2nd place, though it is mostly on the part of Lucy since Natsu is an idiot hero who seems to be oblivious to love. Lucy does seem to be the girl Natsu is most affectionate towards, espacially as shown in the extras. Their teasings are everywhere, just not anywhere as blatant as Erza/Jellal. Juvia and Gray would be 2nd except for the fact that it is made blatantly obvious that Juvia is into Gray, which may not make her actions count as teasing.
Gray used to follow Erza everywhere when they were little, and he eventually promised that he would make sure she never cried again. Gray/Erza teasing check.
Shipper on Deck - Gildarts ships Natsu/Lisanna. Happy is a major offender here, but his favorite couple seems to be Lucy/Loke.
It's a bit of a stretch to say that Happy actually ships them though. Its more like he's making fun and teasing Lucy because Loke couldn't have made it more obvious that he wants Lucy. Some argue that Loke wants all girls.
In the Oración Seis Arc, Virgo comments about Natsu having a crush on Lucy, but she could just be imitating Happy.
Shirtless Scene - Excluding the walking ones, in episode 27, during their fight, Natsu and Gajeel rip their shirts off, for no real reason other than to please the Estrogen Brigade.
The outfit Erza dons during Fantasia in the anime and in an extended chapter is an outfit Resha is on occasion during Rave Master.
After knocking out Erza Natsu turns and gives Jellal a pissed off look, letting him know he's going down. Haru has this exact same expresion with the exact same background when threatening Sieg in Rave Master.
This one is anime-exclusive. When infiltrating the duke's manor during their very first job, Natsu dresses up as a ninja, degozaru.
In actuality, Natsu just says something akin to "That was a good one, Happy!" in reference to Happy's unintentional pun, and so this comes down to Crunchyroll referencing a show they did as well.
To Metalica of all things: Phantom Lord is the name of one of their songs, and the dragon who raised Gajeel is the band's name with two letters tacked on afterwords.
Gray has a necklace that looks like the first Rave.
During Natsu's fight with Gajeel, the latter shouts out "Who the hell do you think I am!" before launching an attack. It doesn't work as well in the Fairy Tail universe.
Fried's latest glyph encases him in metallic armor with an expressionless faceplate, and it's called Zetsui.
The third and final set of dolls that Bickslow uses in his fight against Lucy are identical to the Black Airs from Mashima's 2006 manga Monster Soul.
Happy's parents are voiced by Tomokazu Seki and Ayako Kawasumi, the same people who voiced Haru and Elie. This is most likely a shout out to Rave Master but it could also just be a coincidence since those two often voiced characters who are romantically linked.
In chapter 247, Lily steals a sword from a mook. Said mook mentions that his Musica sword cost a lot.
The mook also looks identical to Bis, who was the main mook of the Rave Master arc starring Musica.
The next one turned out to be Gray's Rival Turned Evil who wasn't really any stronger than him.
Then he was followed by a foe of Master Makarov himself that was hellbent on destroying Fairy Tail.
After that came Jellal, a member of the same organization Makarov belonged to and arguably the strongest Big Bad so far, whose goal was nothing less than the resurrection of the Ultimate Evil of the setting, the Black Wizard Zeref and only lost because of the setting's equivalent of SuperSaiyan, a conveniently-timed injury acting up, and the fact that Zeref was never dead, and therefore could never have been resurrected in the first place.
The one that followed (Laxus), while certainly very powerful, wasn't really on the same level of power or threat.
The Algorithm may have returned in the Oración Seis arc with the Big BadZero, Brain's Ax CrazyOmnicidal ManiacSuperpowered Evil Side, wanting to use Nirvana's power to destroy everything and who managed to one-shot Jellal, though it could be argued that Jellal is still the stronger considering that he had amnesia at the time and had taken a rather severe beating beforehand.
The Edolas arc originally had the Exceed Queen, who is described as being a god, but it turns out she was never a threat and the real Big Bad is King Faust, who's only power is operating a Humongous Mecha.
The S-Class Exam arc has many things coming together at once, since recurring villains are finally putting their master plans into motion (like reviving Zeref, the Big Bad and Ultimate Evil of the entire series). Even the Quirky Miniboss Squad has members quite a lot stronger than previous arcs' Big Bads, and Elite Mooks nearly defeated Gajeel and Levy.
The arc's Big Bad, Hades, destroyed Makarov without even trying.
And now in the Magic Tournament arc, we got Rogue and Sting who are both "third generation dragon slayers", what means that they have both learned how to use the dragon magic with dragons and have a dragon lachryma infused into their bodies. The big deal? They both killed the dragons who taught them how to use magic. And I think I don't need to mention the power level of a dragon after Acnowlogia, right? .
Soundtrack Dissonance: Every episode ends with the credits music starting up a bit before the the ending credits actually start rolling. Considering that episodes tend to end on cliffhangers, this results in some...interesting shots (read: really dark) running to cheerful music.
And with the third ending we have scenes like an incensed Natsu ready to fight Gajeel running to a maddeningly calm piano piece.
Most of the second opening is sickeningly sweet and is just general shots of guild members doing things that looks cool...until you get near the end where it shows the aftermath of Gajeel's attack, then Gajeel himself standing in front of shadow outlines of Element 4, and then Gajeel fighting Natsu, and the music is still sickeningly sweet.
Spell My Name with an S - Oh hell yeah. Though now that there's an official English translation with names supplied by the author, the number of characters with such names decreases more and more...until the next big arc anyways.
Yet some still insist that those fan-translation names are the correct ones. * Sigh* It's "Ur" and "Ultear", guys.
Some people insist Laxus is Luxus, "Lux" being Latin for light, lightning; not "Lax," as in easygoing.
It's understandable though. Even if the official name translations from Hiro Mashima himself say that their names are Juvia, or Gajeel, or Erza, a check of the background shows that he himself seems to flip-flop on how their names are spelled. Erza's appears several different ways in handwritten form over the course of the story.
Freed/Fried and Bickslow/Bixlow.
In the case of Fried/Freed, this might be due to the official translators deciding that Viewers Are Morons and thinking that people might mistake his name as being pronounced with the long "i" sound instead of the long "e". "Fried" is an actual name, as well as a common suffix for both surnames and first names.
Spoiler Opening: Juvia is shown fighting alongside Gray (and others)before the conclusion of her battle with him during the Phantom Arc. This may not matter as much as other examples, since said fight makes it obvious she's vulnerable to a Heel Face Turn.
Really the near-entirety of the third opening is spoilers, although aside from the above mentioned example you wouldn't figure them out yet.
You'd notice that the guy under the hood has the same tattoo and hair color as Siegrain.
Also, the second opening showed the destruction of the Guild Hall long before it happens.
The fourth opening is basically a montage of important scenes of the arc following the current one.
The fifth and sixth openings have Wendy standing in group shots that are otherwise only members of Fairy Tail. The fact that no one from Blue Pegasus or Lamia Scale is in any of these is a dead giveaway that she joins Fairy Tail later.
Subversion from the sixth opening: you see a young(er) Wendy walking around with a young Jellal, and she insists that he saved her life at one point, although he can't remember it due to his amnesia. It's actually Mystogan, who doesn't appear anywhere in the entire arc except for in Wendy's memory.
The 8th opening and ending spoils a lot of things about Edolas arc if you watch closely, such as the face of Queen Shagotte way before she actually appears onscreen, hints of the final boss of the arc, and the return of Mystogan. But the worst of all is the new ending heavily focused on Lisanna, who we barely see during the Edolas arc, and the friggin end of said arc, in which Lisanna run into her brother and sister at Magnolia's cemetery. Really? Spoiling the very last scene of Edolas arc ? Really ?! What the heck?!.
The 10th opening has a few spoilers of varying severity. Laxus is back, a brief shot of Romeo (who hasn't had an important role since episode 2), and a mysterious woman near the end. She's really Mavis, the 1st leader of the Fairy Tail guild.
Spoony Bard: Visitor Echo, whose primary magic is dancing, though not Dance Battling, it's more of a Buff/Debuff magic.
Played straight with Levy, who is a Glass Cannon, and Bickslow, who fights using his dolls. Lucy is a summoner like Bickslow, but she's a subversion of this trope.
Spot The Impostor Heroic version: the Earthland Erza manages to trick Faust and his soldiers before the Edolas Erza shows up. Edolas Erza cuts her hair later to keep it from happening again.
Staring Kid: Erza gets a crowd of them after accidentally breaking into a public bath.
Stock Footage - More powerful magics from recurring characters are given this treatment. Natsu suffers from this with every single move he intends to use more than once - even his most basic attack, which is just a glorified punch.
Strictly Formula: The endings have seemingly fallen into this. All of them have: the appearance of a clock-like object somewhere in the ending, chibi versions of the characters, and a single character (usually the main focus of the current arc) running into either the background or foreground*
The only exceptions are Mirajane and Gray, who both walk, and the former doesn't go away or towards the camera at all
Strong Family Resemblance - Hoteye/Richard and Wally, who turn out to be long-lost brothers, both have impossibly polygonal faces. Wally's is presumed to be the result of his magic, since his entire body is polygonal, but who knows about Richard..
Ultear looks enough like her mother that Gray thinks he's seeing Ur when he first sees her.
Also Lucy,Happy and Carla look like their mothers.
Stupid Evil - Cobra basically won his battle with Natsu. And yet Brain still pulled a You Have Failed Me on him, even though he didn't fail, apparently just because he didn't succeed well enough. You know, just in case we haven't hammered home that he's a bad person yet.
Summon Magic - Known as Celestial Spirits. Lucy can summon them.
Inverted by Caprico, a.k.a the possessed Celestial Spirit Capricorn, who can summon human beings.
Super-Deformed: Pops up every now and then, especially in the endings.
Super Mode - "Dragon Force", the Dragon Slayer equivalent of a Super Saiyan transformation. Apparently much easier to induce if you're not an "old style" Dragon Slayer, but not as powerful as the real deal.
Superpowered Evil Side - Brain is revealed to have a Superpowered More Evil Side that only shows up when all six members of Oración Seis have been defeated, taking him from Mad Scientist to Omnicidal Maniac.
Superpower Lottery - Midnight of the Oración Seis has the ability to reflect and distort things, including magic and light. So he can render himself untouchable, reflect attack magic back at the caster, apparently use Razor Wind, and even project illusions (by bending the light that reaches a person's eyes). He basically has a combination of the powers of Accelerator and Aizen. Too bad he can't use it directly on living things.
Although it's hard to set up, Fried's power is basically "make an area where anything I want to happen does". Lampshaded when someone says that's like a kid playing a game and making up rules as he goes along.
Wendy. Think about it. Dragon Slayers power up from eating their element, and Wendy's element is air, which pretty much gives her a limitless supply of power in most situations. She hasn't learned most of her offensive magic yet, but the one spell she does know is shown to be very powerful. And if that isn't enough, she can heal. That kid is gonna be scary someday.
Rustyrose can create anything he wants from his imagination. Elfman and Evergreen stood no chance against him.
Basically, the point being hammered home in the S-Class arc is that to join Grimoire Heart at all, you are basically required to have won the lottery. Luckily Fairy Tail isn't a series where the only answer to Story Breaker Power level magic is moreStory Breaker Power level magic!
Sword and Sorcerer - Despite both of them being wizards, Gajeel and Levi fit this trope.
Tag Along Kid: Wendy may become this, and you can see Romeo among the other Guild members in later chapters; averted in the past, where the kids formed their own magical teams distinct from the adults.
The anime occasionally Lampshades this by cutting to the opponent's nonplussed reaction while the main characters are ignoring them to argue amongst themselves.
Talking the Monster to Death - Lucy gets this at least twice. Once in her fight with the rock-and-roll assassin in the Tower of Paradise, where she specifically talks Juvia out of the Mind Control that she has been put under, and later in the Oracion Seis fight, where Lucy convinces most of Angel's Celestial Spirits to defect.
Jellal: Pathetic, (Evil Laugh), how utterly foolish. Now, that's called Dying in vain, Simon! The situaion hasn't changed one bit! No one can leave this Tower Ali—
Natsu: *POW* "SHUT UP!!!"
And again
Ultear: I'm the head of the Seven Kin of Purgatory. Someone like you is no match for the likes of—
Tempting Fate - Non-lethal version: there is an amusement park inside the king of Edolas's freaking huge castle, to the shock of Lucy, Natsu and Gray. Natsu was pleased.
Lucy also does it earlier in the same arc, complaining of boredom and wanting something exciting to happen. And then all of Magnolia Town gets sucked up by Anima...
"You'd be a really scary enemy, Juvia!" Time for Rock of Succubus. Lucy, you've really got to stop doing this.
The Chessmaster - Jellal attempts to play this role, even using actual chess figures to represent other characters. Unsuccessfully - he ends up as a pawn for his supposed minion.
The Dragon - Ultear thusfar, has played second to most of the villains.
Though she turns out to be the realBig Bad in the "Tower of Paradise" arc.
Aaaand she's back as the Dragon of the latest Big Bad, Master Hades.
More recently, Cobra of Oración Seis seems to be this to Brain. He is loyal, gets extremely happy when their plans seem to succeed, and stands to defend him from Natsu, although that's probably because Brain is too busy guiding Nirvana towards Cait Shelter to deal with him. And it turns out Cobra fits the role almost literally, being the Poison Dragon Slayer.
Some fans give this role to Midnight, being the strongest member of Oracion Seis except for Brain's Super Powered Evil Side and the leader's son.
The Man Behind the Man - Zeref, who is doing the manipulating to bring himself back to life (although he seems to not technically be dead). Ultear also plays this role both for Reitei Lyon and Jellal.
Nope, that was Ultear pretending to be Zeref. Zeref himself doesn't seem to be aware of any of this stuff happening.
There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Jose is not happy with just firing a Wave Motion Gun at the ruins of Fairy Tail's base and its wounded members. He then turns his own base into a Humongous Mecha Wizard, which proceeds to draw a magic seal that will wipe out an entire town.
Likewise with Laxus attempting Fairy Law during his arc.
There Was a Door - Gildarts loves to do this. Side affect of his destruction based powers and general ditziness.
This Is Unforgivable - Natsu in the Edolas Arc (justified considering the humans there are ready to not only kill all Fairy Tail members, but even to slaughter a whole species just so they can continue using magic for amusement purposes). Cue Unstoppable Rage.
Also Natsu when battling Zancrow after seeing that Grimoire Heart's Master Hades had given Makarov a giant buttkicking.
The general guild reaction to the attack by Phantom on Shadow Gear.
Black Wizard Zeref tells Hades that making him forget his compassion is an unforgivable sin. Then he kills Hades in cold blood.
Time Skip - Gets one after the S Class exam arc, of seven years, no less.
The series manages to subvert this trope. Those who were on Tenrou Island were frozen in time, so they didn't age one bit and feel like a few hours have passed, while the rest of the world is seven years older.
Also "Those who were on Tenrou Island" consists of the entire main cast (Natsu's team) AND nearly all the important secondary characters (Juvia, Gajeel, the Take Over siblings, Cana, Makrov etc). Only a small handful of characters experience the skip.
Time Stands Still - Racer's power is not super-speed, but slowing down everybody else's time perception to make him seem faster
Which causes some Fridge Logic. Earlier, Brain ordered him to fetch Jellal's coffin, and he said it would take at least half an hour. If his powers basically allow him to slow the perception of time of everyone in a determined range, then he was as good for this task as everyone else. However, this could be explained that he used his Dead Gran Prix motorcycles to do it. Also, maybe he'd fooled his own allies about the nature of his power.
Also, in the Cursed Island Arc. Turns out the villagers weren't humans cursed to turn into demons, but shapeshifting demons who were cursed into forgetting what they were and start to think they were humans. But, fortunately, Our Demons Are Different.
Mystogan turns out to be Jellal's look-alike. We are still not sure what's up with that.
I think we know now: He seems to be Jellal from the [3], Edolas.
Everyone in Cait Shelter but the leader, Wendy, and Carla were illusions the leader created so Wendy could have friends, and the leader himself is only a spirit.
Too Dumb ToSee: After Natsu screams out fire, after seeing Makarov lose his trunks, Gray and Gajeel looks through the telescope anyway.
Took a Level in Badass - Strangely averted for Lucy, the main character. She is getting better with her celestial spirits, but she's still not at the same level as Natsu, Gray, or Erza. Then again, those three are pretty damn powerful.
Tragic Dream - Jellal's dream of a world of freedom may count, in a sort of twisted way.
Transformation Is a Free Action - Averted in the manga- Erza is known to be exceptionally fast with her Exquipping. In the anime, they play it straight when she's bringing out the big guns.
Unholy Nuke: Jellal's magic Altearis consists of an extremely devastating orb. In the anime it sucks all the shadows in the room towards it and makes Natsu sick just by standing near it. Later, Brain / Zero's spell "Genesis Zero" is pretty much this, only with a tsunami of black shadows.
Unwitting Pawn - Jellal is victim of this twice. He spends eight years as Ultear's pawn, and then Brain uses him to awaken Nirvana. To a lesser extent Retei Lyon and his entire group, everyone working under Jellal in the Tower of Heaven, the first magic council. Basically, if you've spoken to Ultear, and you're not Master Hades, assume you're being used.
Scratch that. Master Hades is being used as well.
Utopia Justifies the Means - Jellal (subverted in that he was being manipulated) and the Kingdom of Edolas who used magic to suck up lands made up of innocent people from an alternate universe and turn them into crystallized magic. Just so his kingdom could continue using magic. The king, Faust, takes it a step further by being willing to sacrifice even his own subordinates just to achieve his goal.
Mystogan as well, in case you didn't believe he really was Jellal's Edolas counterpart.
Verbal Tic - Too many characters in Fairy Tail. Almost all of Lucy's celestial spirits have one based on the animal they resemble. Amusingly, Sagittarius (who looks like a human wearing a costume) adds "Hello Hello (Moshi Moshi)" to everything he says, and Cancer suffixes everything with "ebi" (a.k.a. prawn).
That last one really disappointed Natsu and Happy, who were certain that he was going to say "crab" as his tic.
Looks like all the male cats in Extalia do this as well. Happy's dad says "Kaah!"
Ichiya and Nichiya say "Men!"
Hot Eye/Richard and "Yes! (desu ne/Desu yo!)"
In the anime, Hughes and Sugarboy qualify as well too
Villain Ball: The ONLY reason Vidaldus doesn't ultimately win is because he'd rather use his powers to watch a Cat Fight between Lucy and Juvia rather than hypnotising them both.
Villainous Breakdown - The realization that he is alone, his underlings are defeated and everyone else in the guild are risking their lives to stop him completely shatters Laxus' composure. Unfortunately, instead of collapsing, he goes into Unstoppable Rage.
The Oración Seis seems pretty prone to this. Both Racer when Lyon figured his powers out and Angel when Gemini disobeyed her in favor of Lucy's kindheartedness towards celestial spirits have broken so far. Brain has a pretty good one here too, with eyes bulging out and everything.
Edolas-Erza when she's screaming about how Edolas will suffer without magic. Like Laxus, she also goes into Unstoppable Rage, not that it helps.
Walking Shirtless Scene - Gray, and to a lesser degree Natsu (he wears a vest, but it's not covering much).
Walking Wasteland - Gildarts' power causes everything around him to be destroyed if he doesn't pay attention and control it. He is alsoThe Ditz. The town Fairy Tail is based in actually changes shape to accomodate his presence by elevating all the houses and creating massive straight roads leading directly to the guild.
We All Live In America - The supposedly Spain like country of Fiore has some pretty Japanese tendencies.
Weaksauce Weakness - Natsu suffers from an extreme form of motion sickness. Lampshaded when it was first revealed.
Oddly, the fact that he can use Happy to fly does not cause this. This is pretty ridiculously Hand Waved by Natsu simply stating that "Happy isn't a vehicle!". This from the guy who gets nauseous on top of a still raft.
Happy isn't a vehicle, but apparently Lucy is.
Wendy fixed his sense of balance with Sky Magic to remove this weakness in chapter 152. Due to Rule of Funny it probably won't last any longer than the end of the arc.
Edolas!Natsu has the exact opposite weakness. He's only Badass while he's in a vehicle. Otherwise he's a complete wuss.
Fried really cannot handle himself around fanservice. Too bad for him then that not only are his opponents in chapter 204 women, not only are they in bikinis due to the temperature, but both of them can summon even more women.
Subverted in that he was faking it all along as an excuse to lose to his opponents out of guilt about nearly killing them in the past. Bixlow even calls him out for choosing such an unbelievably ludicrous weakness.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: Jellal is basically the living embodiment of this trope before he loses his memory. Laxus has shades of it as well.
And again in Chapter 215, where we learn Master Hades, the leader of Grimoire Heart, is the previous leader of Fairy Tail.
And in 216... as Makarov is curb stomped by Hades, after he reveals that Zeref is "the essence of magic."
In 221, apparently Grimoire Heart intends to use Zeref to kill all of the muggles in the world and remake it as a world of wizards... and they've just caught the final ingredient...dammit.
In 235, Azuma uproots the entire Tenrou Tree, and it is revealed its magic was boosting Fairy Tail's magic, and keeping them alive under the Kin's onslaught. In other words, [[spoiler:with it gone, not only are the Fairy Tail wizards being further drained of magic, but it also heavily implies that Makarov and Mirajane really are going to die now.
And 253... oh my God, the 253rd chapter... To elaborate, Acnologia destroys Tenrou Island seemingly along with the entire core cast and many extras, and then has a 7 year time skip. Watch out for the wall!
Personal Wham for Lucy in 256: Her father has been dead for an entire month.
What Could Have Been - Mashima mentioned in Volume 10 that he once thought of Erza's entire adult life being All Just a Dream of young Erza, but decided against it when he realized what that would mean for the entire rest of the series.
Considering the problems she has as an adult (not the least of which is that the love interest she relied on so much as a child is Brainwashed and Crazy), this would have some serious Unfortunate Implications for her mental state if it were true.
Natsu and Lucy fixing their hair and Happy putting on his sack right before they fight Urtear and Kain
What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?: Jellal, in the Nirvana arc especially. Crucifix? Yep, his coffin's shaped like one. He gets revived from the 'dead' and in addition uses Heavenly Magic.
Erigor showed up again in Episode 55 of the anime, only be beaten easily by Natsu and have his clothes stolen by Jellal.
Where the hell was Angelica during the Nirvana arc?
Whatever happened to Gray's smoking habit from the first few chapters??
Those people Sho sealed in cards. Were they ever freed? What about the one who saved Lucy? She owed him. They're not even mentioned in passing.
It's given a Hand Wave in Episode 34 of the anime - Gray, Lucy, and Juvia alerted the council's soldiers before they ran off to rescue Erza.
Also, In episode 48 of the anime the guy trapped in the card is one of the cameos for the Fantasia Parade, they got out one way or another.
What the Hell, Hero?: Sugarboy informs Gray that the key to the Dragon Cannon can be used to change everyone back from Lachima, and then freaks out after Gray destroys it anyway. Subverted when Gray reveals that he can duplicate the key out of ice.
Whip It Good - Lucy sometimes carries a whip, typically one that ends in a spade/heart shape.
Wildcard Excuse: Happy's answer to questions such as "Why are you blue?", "Why can you fly?", or "How come you can talk?" is always "Because I'm a cat!" cheerfully and likely intentionally ignoring the fact that these questions are because he is a cat.
Will They or Won't They? - Alzack and Bisca are this trope personified. It's their main character trait, even. The ultimate answer? They Do.
Not as prominent, but there's plenty of this between Erza and Jellal as well.
The Worf Barrage: A sustained assault against the Big Bad of the S-Class Exam arc, from a united front of various Fairy Tail members using some of the most powerful techniques seen in the series so far, successfully destroyed his cape and made him mad (maybe he liked the cape).
The Worf Effect - Midnight one-shots Jellal. Off-panel. But see below.
Gildarts, "the strongest wizard in Fairy Tail", suffers this in his introduction. He got maimed to show off the power of the black dragon.
Seemed to be in effect for Jura, who was introduced as one of the Ten Wizard Saints and then was One punch'd by Angel in the next chapter, but was subverted when he returned to kick some serious ass later in the arc.
To be fair though, the enemy was in diguise at the time.
Worf Had The Flu - According to the author, the reason Midnight beat Jellal so easily was because of the self-destruct spell that had damaged Jellal a few chapters earlier on top of his Laser-Guided Amnesia. Alternatively, some fans have pointed out that, if you consider Midnight's ability, it's highly possible Jellal tried to one-shot him with one of his Game Breaker spells and had it reflected back in his face.
World of Badass: Actually subverted. Despite the fact that there are loads of Badass characters, who tend to hog the spotlight, only 10% of the Fairy Tail world's population can use magic. But Grimoire Heart plans to use Zeref to create such a world, where only the badass can survive
World of Buxom: While Lucy is the most obvious, almost every adult female character is quite well endowed. Indeed, out of the members of Fairy Tail, the only ones who are not particularly busty are Levy, who's whole schtick is being small and cute, and Wendy, who is still a little girl (and even then, her Edolas counterpart is noticeably well-developed.)
This seems to be in effect for the entire world of Fairy Tail, actually. There doesn't seem to be a distinction made between genders at all, at least as far as fighting goes.
This is true. Natsu actually invokes this when he suggests a round of fighting to find out who is the strongest wizard in Fairy Tail.
Happy: Natsu... I don't think you should go picking battles with girls...
Natsu: Guys or girls has nothing to do with it!!
Xanatos Speed Chess - Brain in his plan to obtain Nirvana. He originally intended to get it by himself, but when he realized that Wendy was with the group sent to stop him, he used her to make his plan move faster, having her heal Jellal, who would in turn fetch Nirvana for him. When Jellal attacked him, instead of going This Cannot Be! he ordered Cobra to follow him. His assumption was right, as Jellal restarted Nirvana... With the intent of destroying it. But, instead of breaking down or trying to force Jellal to obey him by any meaning, Brain simply deactivated the self-destruction spell Jellal cast on Nirvana, succeding in his plan at last.
Year Inside, Hour Outside - inverted in the Celestial Realm, where one day in there is equal to three months outside.
You Gotta Have Blue Hair - Natually, Jellal is the first that comes to mind here. Other people with unrealistic hair colors include Natsu, Levy, Juvia, Wendy, Bisca, Fried, Erza and Cobra (you can have somewhat red hair, but not that red), and Mirajane, Lisanna, and Elfman, since their hair seems to have always been white.
You Have Failed Me - Brain gives Cobra this treatment after Natsu nearly beat him with a single roar.
Brain (after shooting Cobra in the shoulder): I don't need the six demons if such an average guild can defeat them so easily, you trash!!
You Make Me Sic - Post something along the lines of "Who's your favorite Fairy Tail character?" online and take a shot every time someone tells you the genre is actually spelled Fairy Tale.
Zero Approval Gambit: Mystogan decides to unite Edolas... by draining it of its dwindling magic and offering himself up as the villian that Pantherlily will kill, thus making him the new king. Pantherlily has some complaints with that plan.
The plan hits a serious snag when both of them realize they can't bring themselves to kill the other for the sake of this plan. Mystogan even admits this was a terrible idea.
The plan is even more screwed up because Pantherlily, as a being with internal magic, gets sucked up into Earthland with the rest of Edolas's magic. Granted, Mystogan didn't know that at the time.
Your Princess Is in Another Castle: Edolos Arc: Team Natsu manages to keep the Lacrima from crashing into the Exceed homeland and Mystogun suddenly arrived to warp the Lacrima back to Earthland, back to their original forms. Everyone begins to celebrate and things seem peachy... then Erza Knightwalker fires a shot at Pantherlily and comes after the group with the Edolas army in tow!
End of the S-Trial Arc: Fairy Tail manages to repeal Grimiore Heart despite taking some serious wounds. All the members come out alive and are healed. Laxus is back even though no longer a member and Cana reveals to Gildarts that she is his daughter who accepts her. All seems right with the world...wait whats that ominous evil looking dragon over the island?
Zettai Ryouiki - Seems to be a theme with the female villains. Also, Lucy as a maid and Erza as a Goth Loli.
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