Story: The story revolves around our main group consisting of Natsu, Lucy, Grey, and Erza embarking on the Legendary 100 year quest, a feat no mage has ever been able to complete before. While the plot itself is fairly basic it does allow for an expanding of Fairy Tail's universe, taking place on entirely different and unknown continent than the one the guild hails from. There is also an mystery subplot involving Gajeel, who is tasked with uncovering the secrets held by Fairy Tail's mysterious newest member Touka. Overall the story is something that is a tried and true tested formula in Shonen and that isn't necessarily a bad thing. 7/10
Characters: The characters that we all have come to know, love, and yes even hate are back and with them its safe to say not much has changed. In some respects this is a good thing but in others it does show a clear lack of character development which I think is greatly needed. If you liked the cast of Fairy Tail then you will still like them as they are now, but if you didn't and were hoping for some changes I'm sorry to burst your bubble but you STILL wont like them even now. There are also new faces we meet as well but for spoiler reasons I wont discuss it here. 6/10
Animation and Visuals: One of the biggest issues with Fairy Tail was its continuing drop in animation and art quality as time went on and the seasons built up. I personally felt that the 2009 version of Fairy Tail was the best looking and animated out of all the seasons, and its safe to say by the end of the main story its artwork was extremely disappointing and honestly just plain old hard to look at. While the current art style and visuals have been largely kept the same from its 2014 predecessor, the animation has been noticeably improved, especially compared to the Alvarez Empire arc. However despite its improvement the animation itself is still nothing remarkable. It is not lazy nor are they still frames which is a blessing, but it is obviously very plain when compared to other Shonen anime being produced in today's age. 7.5-8/10
Music and Soundtrack: The one thing Fairy Tail has always gotten right is its fantastic soundtrack, and the soundtrack and music are still just as great as they've always been. Not much more to add here 8.5/10
Overall Score: 7-7.5 While Fairy Tail fails to innovate in its story or dazzle us with its visuals as other Shonen have done in recent years this season thus far has been largely a step up from the quality we've gotten in the past. While it is nothing fantastic it in my opinion does revive the magic of what Fairy Tail was and does it more justice than anything we've gotten from the franchise in the last 6+ years. If you enjoyed Fairy Tail then you should definitely come back and give this show a look.
