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Imagine if Harry Potter had vanquished Lord Voldemort by about ... Book Two and a Half. That’s the kind of magical potency on display in Fairy Tail, where our plucky young heroes think nothing of making mincemeat of some Seriously Evil Wizards, and even an ancient demon. Sure, this volume follows every action-adventure convention by the book, but damn if it doesn’t put on a good show along the way. With each major character fighting at full strength and pulling off some clever moves, this is a special-effects extravaganza not to be missed. Why, it’s almost good enough to distract you from the lack of story and character development going on.

It’s more than good enough to compensate for the lightweight story?especially since Hiro Mashima has such a strong grasp of pacing for large-scale battles. The fight against Eisenwald could easily have been a multi-volume drag, but instead it’s an efficient, fast-paced sequence of one-on-ones that typically take no more than a chapter each; even the highlight of this volume, where Natsu takes on the wind-user Erigor, is maybe a chapter and a half at the most. Some shounen series take an entire chapter and a half just announcing someone’s attack and how it works! Mashima also brings in a variety of magic styles?fire, wind, ice, shadow, summoning, weaponry?and carefully shows how each technique is unique to the user. Natsu’s brute force with fire, for example, is worlds away from Erza’s precise ability to "requip" weapons and armor. The multiple locales for each fight also add to the variety: a train station, a railway bridge, a rural town. See, even something as genre-driven as a magical battle requires creative effort.

With combat being the focus, there are speedlines and special effects galore, from Erigor’s numerous wind-based spells to Natsu’s fire magic to everything in between (see, that’s where the variety of magical techniques comes in handy). Yet despite the frenetic artwork, the layouts miraculously avoid the usual pitfalls of clutter; the panels are spaced widely enough to be readable, and the action scenes clearly show how the characters are moving in relation to each other. Ah, if only other other artists realized that readers actually do like knowing what’s going on in a fight. The only downside of this is the inevitable monotony of an entire volume’s worth of battle: all the attacks start to look the same after a while, and Mashima’s other artistic strength?background and landscape?doesn’t get much of a chance to shine.

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