List of Fairy Tail characters
The Fairy Tail manga and anime series features an extensive cast of characters created by Hiro Mashima. The series takes place primarily in the Kingdom of Fiore, a country in the fictional universe Earth-land, where several of its residents perform various forms of magic. Those who practice magic as a profession, referred to as wizards, join guilds where they share information and do paid jobs for clients. The series' storyline follows a group of wizards from the rambunctious titular guild.
The main protagonists are Natsu Dragneel, a longtime Fairy Tail wizard with the powers of a dragon, and Lucy Heartfilia, a celestial wizard who joins the guild at the series' outset. In the early part of the series, they form a team including: Happy, a [|flying cat] and best friend of Natsu; Gray Fullbuster, an ice wizard; and Erza Scarlet, a knight who specializes in using various magic weapons and armors. Throughout the series, Natsu and Lucy interact with and befriend other wizards and guilds in Fiore. They also encounter various antagonists from illegal "dark" guilds, and Zeref, an ancient wizard who is the series' main antagonist.
When creating the series, Mashima was influenced by Akira Toriyama, J.R.R. Tolkien and Yudetamago and based the guild on a local bar. He also used people as references in designing other characters. The characters have been well-received overall.
Creation and conception
When Hiro Mashima was creating Fairy Tail, he cited Akira Toriyama, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Yudetamago as influences on his work. He based the titular guild on a local bar he was visiting at the time. He based Natsu Dragneel on his early years as a junior high school student. Natsu's motion sickness is based on one of his friends, who gets sick when they take taxis together. He has said that his father's death influenced the relationship between Natsu and the dragon Igneel.Del Rey Manga, the original North American publisher of Fairy Tail, explained that Mashima provided them with official English spellings for "just about all" the characters in the series. When Funimation Entertainment acquired the license to release the Fairy Tail anime in North America, Mashima's worried about actor Todd Haberkorn's voice since the Natsu character did a lot of yelling throughout the series. Tyler Walker, the voice director for Funimation's adaptation, revealed that there was a "Fairy Tail tea" that the voice actors drank after each recording session to protect their voices. Walker likens Fairy Tail to the Scooby-Doo franchise: "it's got a core group of characters, with one talking animal, sometimes two...they travel, it's episodic...you know, we've seen this kind of thing before with the core group that's affiliated in some way going through adventure after adventure".
Fairy Tail
The series focuses on the titular guild, Fairy Tail, with the main protagonists constituting what their fellow members regard to be the guild's most powerful team because of their high magical strength and teamwork. It initially consists of Lucy Heartfilia, Natsu Dragneel, and Happy at the suggestion of the [|celestial spirit] Plue shortly after Lucy's induction into the guild, and later expands to include Gray Fullbuster and Erza Scarlet after several shared missions together. Wendy Marvell and [|Carla] are also considered to be members of the team.Team Natsu
Natsu Dragneel
Natsu Dragneel is the main pink-haired protagonist of the series. He is raised from a young age by the dragon Igneel to become a Dragon Slayer, a wizard with dragon-like physiology whose powers are designed to combat dragons. Using his Fire Dragon Slayer Magic, Natsu is immune to flames and capable of consuming them to fuel his attacks, which include breathing fire and igniting any part of his body for use when striking; however, he suffers from motion sickness when he is in a vehicle of any sort. Following Igneel's disappearance on July 7, X777, Natsu searches for the dragon and is subsequently inducted into Fairy Tail, where he eventually becomes one of the guild's most destructive members known as "Salamander". Eventually, it is revealed that Natsu is a demon known as "Etherious Natsu Dragneel" who was sent 400 years from the past by his brother, Zeref Dragneel, as part of a larger conspiracy to kill both Zeref and the evil dragon Acnologia.Lucy Heartfilia
Lucy Heartfilia is the series' main female protagonist. She is the seventeen-year-old daughter of the wealthy Heartfilia family who embarks on a journey to join Fairy Tail, which she fulfills after Natsu Dragneel rescues her from a slave trader posing as a Fairy Tail member under his own moniker of "Salamander". She performs paid guild missions together with Natsu and Happy to fund her rented house in Magnolia, and is often exasperated when her teammates inadvertently reduce their reward due to their destructive antics. She is also an aspiring novelist who eventually publishes her debut novel based on her experiences at the guild at the end of the series. As a celestial wizard, she uses magical keys that summon [|celestial spirits], collecting ten out of twelve rare golden keys that summon the powerful zodiac spirits as the series progresses. She is also proficient in battling alongside her spirits with a whip, and eventually gains the ability to don magical Star Dresses that give her direct access to her zodiac spirits' powers.Happy
Happy is a blue furred six-year-old anthropomorphic cat who is Natsu Dragneel's best friend and only traveling companion at the start of the series. Using a magic ability called Aera, Happy can transform into a winged cat and fly at great speeds. He uses this form to carry Natsu in the air, and is the only one Natsu rides without succumbing to motion sickness. Before the beginning of the series, Happy is hatched from an egg found by Natsu and Lisanna Strauss, who name him "Happy" after his birth quells an argument the rest of the guild were having. Eventually, Happy discovers his origins as an [|Exceed] from Edolas, where he is separated from his parents Lucky and Marl before birth as part of their queen's plan to evacuate 100 Exceed children to Earth-land before their kingdom's destruction.Gray Fullbuster
Gray Fullbuster is an eighteen-year-old ice wizard who is a brothers in arms with Natsu because of their same personalities and magical elements. Orphaned by the Etherious Deliora at age eight, Gray is tutored by [|Ur] to use Ice Make, which instantly produces ice in the form of any weapon or object he imagines; during his training to withstand cold temperatures, he also gains the habit of subconsciously stripping his clothes, something that Mashima based on a personal habit of his own. He joins Fairy Tail after Ur sacrifices herself to save his life when he recklessly attempts to kill Deliora. Later in the series, Gray inherits Ice Demon Slayer Magic from his reanimated father, [|Silver], becoming a Demon Slayer to carry out Silver's will to destroy E.N.D. The corruptive influence of his demonic powers compels Gray to irrationally fight Natsu upon discovering his identity as E.N.D., but he ultimately uses his powers to help strip Natsu of his identity as an Etherious so he may live normally as a human.Erza Scarlet
Erza Scarlet is a nineteen-year-old red-haired [|S-Class] swordswoman of Fairy Tail who is nicknamed "Titania for her notoriety as the guild's most powerful female wizard, referencing the Fairy Queen from A Midsummer Night's Dream. She uses magic called "The Knight" to instantaneously "requip"—exchange and equip—various weapons and armors that alter her already tremendous strength and magic ability. Erza has the largest breasts in the series. Left at infancy by her mother, [|Irene Belserion], Erza is enslaved at the [|Tower of Heaven] and befriends Jellal Fernandes, who gives her the surname "Scarlet" after her red hair. She first activates her magic power while leading a slave revolt, only to be betrayed by a brainwashed Jellal and forced to escape from the tower alone. Her experiences lead her to join Fairy Tail and become a serious-minded but compassionate disciplinarian who temporarily becomes the guild's seventh master in Makarov Dreyar's absence when the guild is reformed one year after Tartaros's demise. Over the course of Fairy Tail, Erza grows fond of her friends during their adventures.The character is named after Eru from Mashima's one-shot manga Fairy Tale, which served as a pilot for Fairy Tail. Mashima initially designed her to only shed tears from one eye due to a defect with her artificial eye, but he eventually abandoned this aspect after accidentally drawing some scenes where Erza has tears flowing from both eyes. He also said that he often forgets what Erza's armor looks like, and changes the design every time she appears.
Wendy Marvell
Wendy Marvell is a blue-haired young Dragon Slayer adopted and trained by the dragon Grandeeney to perform Sky Dragon Slayer Magic, which draws power from clean air to heal others' injuries and ailments, and can temporarily relieve Dragon Slayers' motion sickness. Together with Natsu, she is part of a group of Dragon Slayers sent 400 years from the past through Eclipse as children to combat Acnologia. When the group is scattered upon arrival, Wendy travels the world with [|Mystogan] until he leaves her at the Cait Shelter guild, where she comes to be known as the "Sky Dragon" and "Priestess of the Sky". Seven years later, Wendy represents her guild in an alliance with Fairy Tail, Blue Pegasus, and Lamia Scale against the dark guild [|Oración Seis]. After the Seis are defeated, Wendy discovers her guild's true nature as an illusion created by their master, the elderly spirit Robaul, to care for her; she is then left to join Fairy Tail after her old guild vanishes. Wendy comes to admire Natsu as an older brother figure, inspiring her to use her magic's combative functions, which include manipulating wind and augmenting her and her allies' abilities through enchantment.Mashima designed Wendy to be a 12-year-old girl after one of his staff members commented that young girls "just don't appear" in the series, and noted the character's popularity among his associates. His original concept for her was that of a "Water Dragon" based on the Japanese name for Wednesday, which Mashima derived her name from.