Fairy Tail

The world of Earth-land is home to numerous guilds where wizards apply their magic for paid job requests. Natsu Dragneel, a Dragon Slayer wizard from the Fairy Tail guild, explores the Kingdom of Fiore in search of his missing adoptive father, the dragon Igneel. During his journey, he befriends a young celestial wizard named Lucy Heartfilia and invites her to join Fairy Tail. Natsu, Lucy, and the cat-like Exceed Happy form a team, which is gradually joined by other guild members: Gray Fullbuster, an ice wizard; Erza Scarlet, a magical knight; and Wendy Marvell and Carla, another Dragon Slayer and Exceed duo. The team embarks on numerous missions and misadventures, which include subduing criminals, illegal dark guilds, and ancient Etherious demons created by Zeref the Black Wizard.

Natsu and his companions eventually meet Zeref on Fairy Tail's sacred ground of Sirius Island. Cursed with immortality and deadly power for the past 400 years, Zeref wishes to die to atone for his atrocities. A battle over Zeref ensues between Fairy Tail and the dark guild Grimoire Heart, which attracts the attention of the evil black dragon Acnologia. The Fairy Tail wizards survive Acnologia's assault when the spirit of their guild's founder and Zeref's estranged lover, Mavis Vermillion, casts the defensive Fairy Sphere spell that places them into seven years of suspended animation.

After finishing his previous work, Rave Master, Hiro Mashima found the story sentimental and sad at the same time, so he wanted the storyline of his next manga to have a "lot of fun." His inspiration for the series was sitting in bars and partying with his friends. He also described the series as being about young people finding their calling, such as a job. Mashima drew a one-shot titled Fairy Tale that was published in Magazine Fresh on September 3, 2002, which served as a pilot.

Mashima's later concept for the serialized version involved Natsu as a fire-using member of a courier guild who carries various things on assignments. Mashima then came up with the idea to have different types of wizards hanging out in one place, and eventually coerced his editor into allowing him to change the concept to a wizard guild. The title was changed from "Tale" to "Tail" in reference to the tail of a fairy, which the author said may or may not prove to be a "pivotal point." Mashima stated that while he tried to consider both his own interests and the fans' on what would happen next in Fairy Tail, the fans' took precedence.

By February 2020, the Fairy Tail manga had 72 million collected volumes in circulation. 7 million copies by 2018. According to Oricon, Fairy Tail was the eighth best-selling manga series in Japan for 2009, fourth best in 2010 and 2011, fifth best of 2012, dropped to ninth in 2013, to seventeenth in 2014, and was fifteenth in 2015. The fifth volume of Fairy Tail was ranked seventh in a list of the top ten manga, and the series once again placed seventh after the release of the sixth volume.

com's Deb Aoki listed Fairy Tail as the Best New Shōnen Manga of 2008. Fairy Tail won Best Manga Series of 2008 at the 2009 Anime & Manga Grand Prix held by French magazine AnimeLand. It also won the 2009 Kodansha Manga Award for shōnen manga. At the 2009 Industry Awards for the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation, the organizers of Anime Expo, Fairy Tail was named Best Comedy Manga.