Del Rey Manga has just begun published the US edition of Hiro Mashima’s Fairy Tail, an “irreverent story filled with silly, slapstick humor about young wizards.” Del Rey Manga is releasing the first two volumes simultaneously. According to Associate Publisher Dallas Middaugh, Japanese publishers will often release the first two collections of a long-running series—or one that they predict will be immensely popular—at the same time, in order to give readers both the foundation of the story and the first “real” episode. “It gets all of that introductory stuff out of the way quickly,” Middaugh said. For Del Rey, the simultaneous release is “our way of saying ‘take a look at this one, this one is special.'”
DRManga’s Director of Licensing and Acquisitions Mutsumi Miyazaki notes that Mashima’s visual style and storytelling are influenced by Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball), and also compares it to Eiichiro Oda’s One-Piece. But whereas One-Piece and Mashima’s previous series, Rave Master, are geared to a very specific young male demographic, Fairy Tail reaches far beyond the typical shonen reader to a wider audience.
In Fairy Tail, young wizard Lucy teams up with another young wizard, dirt poor, motion-sickness prone, fire-breathing Natsu, who she hopes will help her become worthy as a member of the wizards guild. Fairy Tail is a guild made up of delinquent wizards whose methods are questionable, but whose hearts are in the right place. Colorful characters abound: womanizing Loke; drunken Cana Alberona who’s never far from a barrel of booze; nudist Gray Fullbuster who is either falling out of his clothes (when he remembers to put them on) or carrying on in his underwear. There is over-the-top slapstick humor, Looney Toons-style violence, juvenile irreverence, and sibling-type rivalry—all set in a world of magic that is anchored in familiar experiences.
Del Rey Editor Tricia Narwani says “Mashima takes elements of western fantasy and role playing games and transforms them. There are new and original surprises on every page,” including some nice touches, such as that Loke is ranked as “The Wizard I’d Like to Be My Boyfriend” in Weekly Sorcerer Magazine, and that Cana drinks 15 kegs of liquor and then expenses it to the guild.
Kodansha’s Weekly Shonen manga magazine began serializing Fairy Tail more than a year ago.
The first volume (pictured above), and number two (pictured below), are both available now. Volume three is scheduled to be released in late June. All of them are 208-page trade paperbacks with cover prices of $10.95.