You may want to lay out your year … but this time might be a mistake.
Creative Staff:
Story and Illustrations: Hiro Mashima
Translation: William Flanagan
Lettering and Interior Design: Abigail Blackman
What They Say:
It’s a new year for you and the Fairy Tail guild to get fired up!
Return to the world of Natsu, Lucy, Erza, and your other favorite Fairy Tail wizards, with a year of cure and cool Fairy Tail art in full color!
Track your guild jobs, record your adventures, even do a few doodles – and when you’re cone, flip to the back for 40 pages of short Fairy Tail stories by Fairy Tail creator Hiro Mashima!
Includes three extra-special manga stories!
Content (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The colorful double thick exterior cover with a menacing portrait of Natsu may immediately hold your recognition, but it is the substantial weight of almost two pounds which bears your attention as to the impressiveness of this volume. This book is massive when compared to other Fairy Tail presentations, and the interiors are just as astounding in showing this book is formatted toward an American audience. Set up for the 2018-2019 calendar year, the tome is designed like any other day planner, with: emergency contact information, United States federal holidays, crisis hotline phone numbers and informational/reference sites. However it is not until we reveal the wondrous interior that we notice this book is entirely geared toward the Fairy Tail fanatic, with brightly colored leaves dotted by chibi renditions of our favorite characters scattered upon every page. There are ten sections with approximately sixty-two entries per area, each partition separated by a full color double page of the guild members in various holiday poses, collectively giving the user over six hundred opportunities to write down their escapades for each day’s worth of adventures. And if this was not enough, when you finally reach the end, you are rewarded with three manga bonus stories from the substantial expanse which is Fairy Tail. How could this publication get any better?
In Summary:
Fairy Tail Day Planner may have seemed like a good idea on paper, but the execution and arrangement for this organizer is lacking in its development. Most importantly, the weight is a set back – to have this book almost two pounds in something most people would carry around every day is aggravating at best; this is supposed to be a benefit for those less efficient in maintaining their schedule, but this convenience is almost the same weight as pocket dictionary, but with less bulk. Secondarily, the binding does not stay open when laid flat, like most of the kin within this genre. For some reason, Kodansha Comics chose to use the same thermal binding they use for the rest of their titles, with each color section separated into a different section. This standard creates a stiff spine which looks good on the shelf, but for a day planner, it works against the reader, giving something which fights against them, not allowing for any writing or reading without constant maintenance in keeping the book opened. So unless you plan to split the pages to crack the rigidity of the book’s backbone, this presentation would have worked better with a wire bind, which is the norm for this type of volume.
Then we reach the interior of this Fairy Tail delight, which may look initially pleasing, but upon closer examination, it is a clumsy attempt in creating a usable organizer. While the bright colors and pleasing visuals may attract you to the pages, the usability is something else which seems derivative to an actual day planner. The opening calendar is generic, not set up for either year and must be used accordingly, and more importantly, there is only room for one year, not the two advertised. Then as outlined before, while you may have room for almost six hundred entries, most of those pages only have nineteen lines, spread out on a six by four and a half inch layout. And while you may have the space for date, month and weekday at the top, every other page is split to accompany two records, effectively halving the writing area, but only when it is not interrupted by the aforementioned chibis or a panel from the manga. Although the colorful images, pages, and layout may seem functional, this book is nothing more than Mashima-sensei eye candy and is not practical for its intended use.
Fairy Tail Day Planner may be meant for a teenage audience, but the design is something reminiscent of an adolescent Hello Kitty type children’s dairy. The humorous pictures may draw you to the book, however when you attempt to use it, the functionality is severely lacking in its poor execution of viable space. And while the Fairy Tail branding may attract you to the purchase, keep in mind the practicality of it as something useful is negligible and wholly relevant as to how badly you wish to complete your collection. If you want the bonus manga, then keep in mind all are available in the upcoming Fairy Tail S series, so you would be better off spending your money on those books rather than this fun-loving disappointment.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: A+
Packaging Grade: D+
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: Teen
Released By: Kodansha Comics
Release Date: January 23, 2018
MSRP: $14.99
