Fairy Tail - Dragon Cry (UK Rating: 15)
The Fairy Tail series has been running for almost twelve years, and while the manga has reached its huge conclusion, the anime is still yet to adapt that final story. That season has finally been confirmed as hitting screens in Japan this year but, in the meantime, this movie, Dragon Cry, sits between those two arcs. Natsu, Lucy, and Happy head off to recover a powerful artefact that was stolen from Fiore by a traitor. This artefact, though, is more than it seems, tying into the huge overarching story of dragons and E.N.D that has been building over the last 400+ chapters and 265 episodes of anime to get to this point. Coming from All the Anime, this release was made available in the UK from 28th May.This movie relies on the audience being well versed with the source material and those not completely up to date would be better off leaving it until they are. The titular Dragon Cry is a powerful staff formed in the graveyard beneath Fiore; it built up over time, absorbing the power of the dragons slaughtered by Acnologia. It was hidden away in a frozen fortress but stolen by the rival country, Stella; worse, it was stolen by the once minister of Fiore Zash Caine who was banished after trying to overthrow the country with his dark mind manipulation magic.
Cue the heroes! Fan favourites Natsu, Lucy, Erza, Grey, Wendy, Carla, and Happy take on the mission to recover the staff. During the mission, they find out there's a bigger story playing out here. The reason that the kingdom of Stella stole the staff was to try and use it to save their kingdom. There are huge crystals entitled Stellanium that absorb moonlight, and upon absorbing an excess amount, they explode with extreme destructive force. At least that's what the King of Stella's aide Sonya tells them… She seems sincere and not an obvious villain, like the King or the cliché, cigar-smoking, moustache-twirling Zash. Regardless, though, Natsu feels a true dark power within the staff and can't leave it there; he's happy to go destroying all the crystals himself, though.
Fairy Tail has always been those most fan-service heavy of all the recent popular shonen series and that trend continues here. So… Much… Jiggling… Lucy and Erza regularly find themselves in tiny slips of material and the camera lingers from the most advantageous angles. It's not gratuitous and nowhere near the myriad of ecchi shows that appear every season but it's something that can attract or lose an audience, and as such this could be a plus or a negative, depending on who's watching.
The production values are disappointingly low, with the final thing being mostly indistinguishable in quality from the weekly show. There are a few moments during the big closing battles where Natsu's attacks look great, and the fan-service of Lucy belly dancing certainly seems to have eaten up the majority of the budget; but, outside of this, it all looks like the regular show. Similarly, the same English and Japanese voice acting casts are here, and as usual the Japanese is far superior. The bonus features are equally underwhelming, pretty much limited to promotional materials from Japan: a few trailers and promo videos that were shown on TV. Altogether, they add up to only a few minutes' worth of content.