Character Outlives Actor: Bob Magruder, the original English voice of Igneel and the narrator, died months after recording his dialogue for the sixth season. Starting with the simuldub of the 2014 series, Magruder's characters have been voiced by Jim White.
Creator Backlash: While she enjoys voicing the character, Brina Palencia doesn't like how Juvia is almost solely defined by her relationship with Gray and doesn't have any real significant arcs. While she does understand why Juvia acts that way, she wished that Juvia could have an arc that focused on her find her own self-worth instead of just focusing on Gray.
Creator's Favorite: Juvia is a darling among the people involved in Fairy Tail. Mashima stated that she is one of his favorite characters, Erza's seiyuu, Sayaka Ohara said in an interview that if she wasn't voicing Erza, she would have enjoyed to voice Juvia instead and the director of the movie Fairy Tail: Dragon Cry, Tatsuma Minamikawa, declared in an interview with Manga Tokyo that she is his favorite character for being so funny and expressive, and that's why he expanded her role in the movie.
Development Gag: Before revealing the black-haired youth on Sirius Island to be Zeref, Mashima considered giving him various other names. Two of them, Toma and Invel (Inberu), were recycled for the king of Fiore and Emperor Spriggan's chief of staff, respectively.
In the Italian dub, Paola Majano was one of the two ADR directors, as well as Cana Alberona's voice actress.
In the Latin American Spanish dub, Gerardo Ortega is Gray Fullbuster's voice actor as well as the dub's ADR Director.
Dueling Dubs: Two English dubs of Fairy Tail exist: one by Funimation, and another by Animax that only airs in South and Southeast Asia. Unlike most Asian dubs, the Animax dub has a relatively devoted cult following, especially the second season (the first is a bit trickier to find) since its episodes were released nearly a year before Funimation, causing some to think Funimation switched out its entire cast in-between seasons.
Fandom Nod: At first, certain sections of the fandom bemoaned the idea of an anime filler arc following the conclusion of Grand Magic Games arc, and this kind of reaction is nothing new to anime in general and Shōnen in particular. Though a good portion of these fans have since come around to at least being more open-minded about the filler arc after finding the new character designs for the Eclipse Celestial Spirits interesting, the first actual episode of the filler arc was positively chock-full of references and foreshadowing for the upcoming Tartarosarc, including Happy getting an afro and Character Development for Lucy and Aquarius' relationship (and given what happens in the Tartaros arc between the two, this can very easily be considered a Tearjerker to those who have read it). It's hardly a secret that the fandom has been eager to see Tartaros animated, and if these Mythology Gags are any indication, the studio is well aware of this.
This◊ little gem in the Tartaros arc of the anime did not go unnoticed by the shippers, either. Explanation "Nalu" is the fandom name for Natsu/Lucy.
Most of the anime-original characters were created or designed by Hiro Mashima himself; the ones who appear in the "Key of the Starry Heavens" arc are even accepted as canon thanks to its Continuity Nod present in Chapter 282 of the manga.
The gentlemanly version of Gajeel present in the anime with a color-inverted version of his guitarist getup is also his work. Hiro Mashima noted that he wanted an Edolas version of Gajeel in the manga, but couldn't work him in. This is how he envisioned him.
All of the Eclipse Celestial Spirits were designed by Mashima himself, and the anime refers back to that arc during Mard Geer's confrontation with the Celestial Spirit King.
A sizable portion of the fandom believes that Mashima stated that Natsu and Lucy would end up together, when he actually just said that in a hypothetical scenario where the two had a child, he would be called "Nashi"; incidentally the name is Japanese for "non-existent" and a portmanteau of their names, meaning he wasn't serious with the name.
Mashima is often misinterpreted as having planned to end the manga with the Phantom Lord arc, due to statements that he originally intended Fairy Tail to be about ten volumes longnote Incidentally, the Phantom Lord arc ends in Volume 9., with a War Arc between two guilds occurring at a later point in the story, before its popularity influenced him to keep writing. While Mashima has admitted the part about the manga's increased length is true, the rumor leaves out the fact that he also started writing the Phantom Lord arc earlier than he anticipated, to say nothing of his repeated assertions that he worked out the manga's entire plot on the fly from the very beginning. Suffice to say, he was already far from wrapping up the manga by the time he put the Phantom Lord arc to paper.
Late Export for You: The show finally got a Latin American Spanish dub in 2022, after the show finally ended in 2019 in Japan from its 2009 debut. This is especially relevant, since many Latin American fans have wanted this show dubbed for years.
Life Imitates Art: The Japanese voice actors for Fairy Tail couple Alzack and Bisca Connell - Yoshimitsu Shimoyama and Satomi Arai - respectively - married in secret during the series’ production, whilst keeping their marriage secret within the public eye. The two even had a son in secret, with the anime's staff being the only few people aware of their relationship, leading to Hiro giving Alzack and Bisca a daughter in the form of Asuka Connell.
No Dub for You: Given that the OVAs were only released in Japan, they don't include an English dub.
No Export for You: The nine OVAs have never received an official English release thanks to being exclusively bundled with limited edition manga volumes in Japan.
Official Fan-Submitted Content: The designs of Princess Hisui and four of the Hungry Wolf Knights besides the leader were created as part of a design contest.
Due to Satomi Arai's maternity leave, Mai Nakahara voices Bisca during the Fighting Festival arc. Nakahara is also the voice of Juvia, making it an example of Acting for Two.
By the time of episode 245's premiere, Hades's voice actor on all of his previous appearances, Masashi Hirose, had already retired due to health issues. As a result, in this episode, Hades is voiced by Yutaka Aoyama.
In a similar vein to Arai's maternity leave, Ikumi Hayama temporarily replaced Mariya Ise as Levy McGarden.
As for the English dub:
Corey Cleary-Stoner replaced Michael Chinnici as Jet starting at Season 2 because Chinnici retired from acting and moved away to Los Angeles as a photographer.
Lindsay Seidel replaced Kayla Carlyle as Romeo only halfway through Season 1 due to Carlyle also moving to Los Angeles and working in union-only projects.
Also in the dub, Magic Council member Leiji went from Jim Johnson to Keith Kubal when the new council is formed in episode 96 because of Johnson's inevitable unavailability.
Plue was voiced by Majken Bullard in the first season before being replaced by Funimation script adapter Monica Rial for the rest of the series (she is also Mirajane) as Bullard moved away to San Francisco.
Eric Cherry replaced Shelton Windham as Max Alors in Season 3. Windham moved to New York City to work as a teacher and an actor.
Barry Yandell (who also voiced Sol) has replaced Antimere Robinson as Bob in Season 4, as Robinson mainly works as a graphic and web designer in Dallas.
Also in Season 4, Chris Ryan has taken over for Steve Summers as Goldmine due to Summers continuing his career as a singer.
This also happened to Bixlow after Scott Freeman was arrested and convicted for possession of child pornography; Tyler Walker, the ADR director and voice of Vijeeter, replaced him.
Due to the death of Bob Magruder in early 2015, Igneel and the narrator are voiced by Jim White.
Grandeeney was first voiced by Pam Doughtery during her talk with Igneel in episode 48. When it became known that Grandeeney was, in fact, the Earth-land counterpart of Porlyusica, who is voiced by Linda Young, the latter took over for the dragon in the Tartaros arc, cementing her as the de facto voice actress for the characters. Young's roles also make an example of Acting for Two.
During his first speaking appearance during Erza's trial, Crawford Theme was first voiced by Bradley Campbell who would go on to voice the succeeding council chairman Grand Doma. When making his proper appearance in the Tartaros arc, however, Crawford is voiced by Bill Brooks as Campbell moved away to New York City.
Due to Krishna Smitha doing union-only projects after moving to Los Angeles, Marissa Lenti replaced her as Libra.
By the time the final season premiered, Ohba's voice actress in that dub, Juli Erickson, had retired. As such, Ohba is now voiced by Casey Casper.
Since Alex Organ retired and now only does theater projects, Christopher Wehkamp replaced him as Doranbalt.
Due to Brina Palencia's maternity leave in February 2019, Dawn M. Bennett temporarily replaced her as Juvia from episodes 291 to 294.
Gabe Kunda replaced Major Attaway as Arcadios due to the latter moving to New York City in 2016.
A retroactive example happens in the Latin American Spanish dub: Since this show is dubbed in Mexico, Happy is voiced by Jennifer Medel rather than Lucia Suarez, since the EDENS ZERO's version of him was dubbed in Chile.
The Other Marty: An English dub trailer of the first part of the Edolas arc features Faust being voiced by Bradley Campbell. By the time of the DVD release, however, Campbell was properly replaced with R. Bruce Elliott when it became clear that Faust was the Bizarro Universe counterpart of Elliott's primary character, Makarov.
Overtook the Manga: Defying this is the reason why the anime went on hiatus twice, first in 2013 to 2014 after the conclusion of the fight between Natsu and Gajeel vs. Sting and Rogue during the Grand Magic Games, and again in 2016 to 2018 after both the Tartaros Arc and the anime adaptation of the prequel manga. The final season would finish well over a year after the manga.
Posthumous Credit: Bob Magruder, the English voice actor for Igneel and the narrator, managed to complete all of his dialogue for the sixth season before he died in January 2015. The fifteenth Blu-ray/DVD release came out only a few months after his death.
Real-Life Relative: Yoshimitsu Shimoyama and Satomi Arai are married like their characters, Alzack and Bisca, though they have a son rather than a daughter like their characters.
The manga was initially released in North America by Del Rey Manga, before switching to Kodansha Comics USA.
At first, the anime was initially co-produced by Satelight, before switching to Bridge for the second series in 2014 and CloverWorks for the final series in 2018.
Mashima mentioned in Volume 10 that he once thought of Erza's entire adult life being All Just a Dream of young Erza, but decided against it when he realized what that would mean for the entire rest of the series.
Considering the problems she has as an adult (not the least of which is that the love interest she relied on so much as a child is Brainwashed and Crazy), this would have some serious implications for her mental state if it were true.
Her friends also were supposed to be the Quirky Miniboss Squad of the arc, rather than have a Bait-and-Switch with Trinity Raven. When he was writing their backstories Mashima decided that he liked them too much to make them serious villains.
Mashima noted in a twitter post that he considered making Gray the 10th Rave Master since his necklace shares the same design as the main Rave stone, which would have made Fairy Tail a Stealth Sequel to Rave Master, but discarded the idea early on.
Wendy was supposed to be the Water Dragon Slayer and was also intended to have a Sugar-and-Ice Personality.
Similarly, Erza's original character design had her as more of a Nubile Savage than the Magic Knight we know her as. Mashima's idea for her character was simply "a woman badass enough to scare Natsu" and everything evolved from there.
Mashima intended to kill Makarov off no fewer than three separate times across the series, but decided against it each time. Ironically, when Makarov really did die in the Alvarez Empire arc, Mashima allegedly meant it to be final, but became so emotional over Mavis and Zeref's subsequent death scene that he resurrected Makarov anyway, playing right into the expectations of jaded readers who wouldn't buy it a third time.
The anime was officially going to end after the Daphne filler arc, which is why most of the passing references to Gildarts were left out. It proved more popular than expected so it continued.
According to the Q&A section of volume 22, Erigor was supposed to appear as a member of the Oración Seis, but was ultimately cut out when Mashima wanted to make them slaves at the Tower of Heaven instead. The only bit that was left in was a brief mention at the start of the arc before Natsu and his friends' departure. However, he was added into the anime adaptation of the arc, and was even included in the guild's roster in a Filler arc under the codename "Grim Reaper".
The name Oración Seis was originally only used as a placeholder for another title Mashima was trying to come up with, but he ended up going with it when the deadline came too close for comfort.
Mashima always intended for Faust to be Makarov's Edolas counterpart, but was forced to exclude it from the manga for reasons unknown. He was glad to see that the anime included it, but complained that their shared actors made the connection too obvious.
Cosmos was originally named "Fione", but her name was changed because it sounded too similar to "Fiore", the primary setting.
Before The Reveal that Mest was a council agent pretending to be a member of Fairy Tail, Mashima considered making him an actual member of Fairy Tail, Grimoire Heart, or even Tartaros. In fact, he intended to set up another reveal that Mest really was an amnesiac Fairy Tail member all along, but never got around to it.
A series of older sketches◊ Mashima released during a drafting phase for Volume 32 of the manga shows Lucy kneeling before Zeref in the lower right-hand corner.
Mavis was originally envisioned as a male character, but Mashima redesigned her after finding out that Mavis is a female name.
Ever since he illustrated Zeref's first on-screen appearance, Mashima actually hadn't settled on him being the hitherto-unseen main villain of the series, and experimented with at least four other names. Two of them, Toma and Inberu/Invel, were later assigned to other characters. The other two, Mafuyu and Fuyuki, both contain the Japanese word for "winter", fuyu, which would've brought Mashima's Temporal Theme Naming full circle.
Silver really was supposed to be possessed by Deliora, but In Volume 46's afterword Mashima explained that he himself caught a Plot Hole with his own explanation for how this would have been possible and discarded the idea for Silver faking it instead.
Word of Dante: Everyone treats it as a well known fact that Lucy's mother died on July 7th, X777, the same day the dragons disappeared. It was mostly to imply some greater connection between Natsu and Lucy, as if you actually look through the series you might notice that while she did die that year, there's no mention whatsoever of the exact day or even month she passed away. It was outright debunked in Chapter 465, when it was revealed that Layla Heartfilia was the one to open the Eclipse Gate to allow the five natural dragon slayers into the modern era (which was the day the dragons "disappeared/died"), and died herself just a few weeks later.
Word of God: Mashima often confirms or explains plot details in the Q&A sections of several manga volumes, titled "Emergency Request! Explain the Mysteries of Fairy Tail", hosted by Lucy and Mirajane. Perhaps one of his biggest confirmations is the reveal in Volume 15 that Natsu and Gajeel actually aren'tover 80 years old, which was never explicitly stated in the story after the mystery came up. That led many readers to believe the two wereover 400 years old, further propagated by vague evidence at best.
Write Who You Know: The designs of Kinana (pre-Time Skip), Wan Chanzi, Joey Fullborn, Chico C. Hammit, and Kain Hikaru are based off of Mashima's assistants.
Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: From the time he started writing Fairy Tail, Mashima admitted that he never really expected the manga to last as long as it did, and that it was mostly just envisioned as a series of adventures than a ongoing epic that he anticipated would last ten volumes as opposed to the final 63. He also repeatedly clarified in interviews after the manga's conclusion that, aside from having Natsu being raised by a dragon, nothing in the story was planned in advance; this includes the finale, which he didn't have any sort of idea for how it would go until he started writing the Tartaros arc. As such, most of the arcs' more questionable outcomes are due to him coming up with things right on the spot to meet deadlines.
Tetsuya Kakihara and Aya Hirano.
