Fairy Tail, Volume 3 by Hiro Mashima

Lucy has joined the Fairy Tail guild as she always dreamed of, and has been on a few missions with Natsu and his cat, Happy, who can grow wings and fly occasionally. But a problem for the guilds are the Dark Guilds, many of which want to supplant the approved guilds and take their place.

To that end, the Dark Guild Eisenwald has attacked Fairy Tail. The Dark Guild has retrieved a flute that kills anyone who hears its music. Near the Fairy Tail Guild is a train station with an advanced Public Address System. Are the residents of the town in danger from the Eisenwald Guild, or are their plans something else, something more sinister?

Along with the attack on the station, the Eisenwald Guild has also attacked the Fairy Tail Headquarters. With the Guildmaster gone to a meeting of guildmasters from other guilds of magic-users, the magicians from Fairy Tail will have to defeat the magicians of Eisenwald on their own.

But one of the Eisenwald Magicians sets up a wind wall around the Fairy Tail guild while the leader of the guild takes off. But is he heading into town to kill the inhabitants, or does he have another target in mind? In any case, it will soon be up to Natsu to fight him to a standstill while the other Fairy Tail magicians take up the challenge of taking on the rest of the Eisenwald magicians. But can they defeat them on their own, or can they persuade one of the Eisenwald magicians to defect from his buddies?

Once again, Hiro Mashima relies on many of his Rave Master character designs. Just like I mentioned from the first volume, only in this one, we also have Pluie showing up as one of the Celestial Spirits that Lucy can summon. Which is okay, I suppose, but it does smack of him having only a limited store of character designs.

Thankfully, the story isn't really recycled at all, and that I did enjoy, but with the many recycled character designs, it lends itself to a "been there, done that, seen it, read it" feeling that isn't really supported by the text.

Nonetheless, the combination of the two means that the book, while new in story, feels like something you've seen too many times before. If you haven't already seen and read Rave Master, this is a wonderful series I highly recommend. Otherwise, you'll find it less satisfying.