The second season of Fairy Tail is 24 episodes long. It follows the adventures of Lucy, Natsu, Happy, Gray and Erza, who are members of the Fairy Tail guild. It is set in a fantasy world and the guild members basically have their own unique set of magic as there doesn’t seem to be many others who share similar powers. There’s no real objective for the anime, as it’s just the group going on quests and completing them. The season starts off right after the first and continues in the same way, that is, with several episodes of filler. It doesn’t help that some of the episodes don’t flow together properly as they jarringly move onto the next plot of the week.
The show, if it can be believed, is even more lighthearted in its tone. The filler episodes pile on the sillier gags and humor. It’s not that it is bad since some can be funny, but at the end of the day, filler is pointless and doesn’t add much, if anything, to the story. Things just seem too carefree for the characters at times. Lucy continues to fulfil her role as the comic relief character, not to be taken seriously even though she’s usually the only sane one in a lot of situations. Unfortunately, she’s just not show to be very strong, and she doesn’t get many chances to show off the powers of her Celestial Spirits as well.
Given that we’ve already seen the power of Erza and Natsu, it’s only natural that the anime continues to introduce new opponents that are even more powerful in order to keep giving the characters some challenge. This may get ridiculous since even Erza can easily get curbstomped upon their first encounter, which can feel somewhat of a far cry to what she should be. However, you can rest easy knowing that they’ll find a way to overcome each and every villain that is thrown at them.
The combat scenes have gotten better, not because they’re animated any better or are better choreographed, since it still uses the same cost-cutting tricks from the first season, but that the encounters are more thoughtful. For the better fights of the season, instead of just Natsu overpowering his opponents through sheer brute force, there’s a bit more thought into his opponent’s powers, with a way to exploit a weakness out of it. Natsu is still the brainless character that thinks with his fist rather than his brain though and can be annoying.
Surprisingly, despite the filler in the beginning of the season, most of the season is focused on one arc, and it is one of the better ones so far. It reuses similar plot points that are supposed to surprise the viewer, but when it is yet another “Dragon Slayer” that Natsu encounters, you can’t help but roll your eyes. Yeah, sure, powerful people attract other powerful people, but despite their rarity, they sure seem to turn up often. There is a heavy reliance on returning characters. These are characters that were once villains, or were minor supporting characters, that now return with a bigger role. It’s as if it is an attempt to give the viewers a “aha!” moment upon seeing them. Some are fine, others feel more forced, and some are just plain tiring to see them again.
Despite the anime showing each fight against the villains in detail, for some reason, the supposedly strongest villain got the shaft. Their battle ended too quickly and in such an anti-climatic way. It’s like the animators realised that they ran out of time and had to finish that part off quickly in order to move onto the next event. At least the music is used to good effect in several scenes during the season. There are several tracks that has its own unique spin so that it is recognizable and iconic to the series. The humor is also well done. Despite the show being aimed at a younger audience, there are a lot of times where it wasn’t cringey and was actually funny.
The season ends by covering a short arc, which continues to add more and more events to the characters’ pasts. It’s like in every single arc we see something revealed that was important and happened when they were young. Yet somehow each time, it is something that they had never mentioned before but slots in whenever relative to what we already know. It’s not a bad arc since it keeps you in the dark for most of it on where it was heading towards, and the ending was epic, for the anime’s standards at least.
Overall, the second season of Fairy Tail is a definite improvement over the first season. At first, it doesn’t bode well with the many episodes of filler before it finally enters the next arc, which ends up taking over most of the season. Thus it doesn’t feel as episodic, and while it is a negative in that we don’t see many other characters apart from the select few involved in these events, it was much better than what we have had in the past. It’s still not an amazing anime, as the pacing is weirdly slow at times, the animation quality fluctuates, and the fight scenes, supposedly very flashy and epic, just aren’t up to scratch. However, it is fun enough and if you haven't already, then you will slowly warm up to the characters now.
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