Fairy Gone MAL Review

I don't review animes I didn't enjoy - not as often as I used to anyway. But I felt like I had to speak up about this one - it's confusing from start to finish. The first episode had a lot of potential: historic setting, fairy fantasies, and a dash of military power and action. There's clearly a backstory between the protagonist and her long-lost childhood best friend suddenly appearing as an enemy. It had all the makings of a wonderful, intruiging story. 

And then it kinda goes downhill by the 4th episode. There's too many plotholes to list (LOL) so I'm just going to type a few points why it the series fell short:

- The art is beautiful, but the world building and timeline is communicated very poorly. There's a lot of "U.E. 1940, 1945" etc. when the screen could have simply said "5 years later" "1 year later." Seriously. I don't think they even cover what the U.E. stands for? 

- By the way, there's no map of anything. There's war(s) going on in neighbouring cities that escalate to their own country, but it's pretty unclear who is from where, and where anything is happening. All the names given - of people AND PLACES - are completely foreign, not easy to remember. Which is understandable given it's a fantasy/science fiction, but ... there's few explanations if at all, after the introduction of new names. I think there were 2 - 5 new characters every episode, meaning 9*5 = 40 characters by the final episode. Most of them don't have visually distinguishable features either, just a lot of uniforms, so that doesn't help. 

- Very weak elaboration on the history of how fairies came to be, and the tie with Suna, the protagonist's hometown. Admittedly I was starting to skim the subtitles given the slow dialogue and pacing, so maybe I missed it. But the overall tone of the anime seemed to be "there's a war, and fairies are just the tools of the trade." so it might have been more of a shounen anime. Despite the female protagonist. 

- There's the major problem: the female protagonist herself. 

You know, I love my strong women, warriors or not. But this one was written almost as poorly as Saya from Blood+. Cute looks, average abilities, and most importantly: no backbone or quick thinking skills whatsoever. I was excited when she gained a fairy, like maybe she would turn out to be an OP character and things would get interesting, but they barely talked about it beyond 'it's illegal to have and shouldn't even be possible' for like 6 episodes. Okay. 

Even if we overlook the very poor storytelling about her childhood friend Vera / Veronica and what happened after they got separated in snow. I was still hoping "Ver" would have more screentime, since she seems like a really bad-ass character, powerful, fast, and clearly a tormented past. Heck, if Ver had been the protagonist, I probably would've enjoyed it 20x more. They should've switched seats. Sadly, Ver gets a supporting role on the sidelines, and we're forced to endure Mariya's indecision and self-pity while she fails to be useful in battle. 

This is where the most likeness with Saya (Blood+) comes in. During critical moments - like their whole troop being killed - the protagonist is paralyzed with emotion and unable to help anyone. Everyone sacrifices their lives for the protagonist, and they still have trouble fighting. It's understandable if this is e.g. Episode 1 - 3, where everything's still new and the protagonist is still learning. 

No. This is still happening even in the second half of the series, people got new weapons, allies etc. 

The most unforgivable part of this?

Mariya on screen: It's my fault [he died].

Me off screen: About time someone recognized their mistakes. She might have a redeemptive arc-

Mariya on screen: I'm a cursed child.

Me off screen: What?

Mariya is stuck (maybe even a little obsessed) with her 'cursed child past', believing she brings misfortune to everyone around her... ... I don't know how much of that is true, but not lifting your gun when you have 50+ enemies around you has less to do with how you were born, and more about how you won't pull that trigger. Just my humble interpretation. 

- The series turned from a fantasy based one into an almost exclusively military drama in the last 4 episodes or so. Talk about change of genre; I don't know if the studio changed midway but that might help make sense of it. I completely lost interest by that point and am just sharing it so you don't waste time either. Unless you happen to be studying fight scene choreography or inspiration for a new military-based book, I don't think this series will benefit you much. 

All in all - disappointing, but more so because of the wasted potential. If there's a similar series but with better storytelling, I'd give it a go!


The original review on MAL: View here

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