All Fairy Tail arcs in order of release

Fairy Tail first became serialized in Weekly Shōnen Magazine way back in 2006, and over the last 18 years, there have been 63 volumes of the original manga totaling 545 chapters, 328 episodes of the anime, nine OVAs, two fully fledged movies, and additional spin-offs. That’s a lot of lore to sift through. 

In total, discounting the hours it would take to get through all 63 volumes of the manga, that’s way over 100 hours of watch time. We all lead busy lives, and finding 100 extra hours to watch Fairy Tail from start to finish is a big ask, so it’s understandable if you’d rather watch the main arcs and avoid all of the optional filler. 

All Fairy Tail arcs in order of release

With that in mind, here are all of the main Fairy Tail arcs in the order they were released, whether they’re classed as canonical or filler content, and where you can find them in both the manga and the anime. 

Note: Release dates are based on the original manga release, and anime release dates may differ.  

If you want to watch or consume the Fairy Tail story in chronological order, Zero should be read or watched first, as it’s the origin story of the Mage Guild Fairy Tail.

Fairy Tail: 100 Year Quest arcs

The 100 Year Quest collection of manga began to be released in 2018 and is an ongoing series with the anime lagging slightly behind the story of the manga. All of the arcs are considered canonical. Here’s all the arcs from the ongoing series:

All Fairy Tail filler arcs

As you can see from the table above, there are only three arcs that are considered filler in Fairy Tail. These aren’t present in the manga and only appear in the anime. If you want to give them a miss, here’s a quick list of which episodes you can avoid:

• Daphne Arc (Episodes 69 – 75)
• Key of the Starry Sky Arc (Episodes 125 – 150)
• Eclipse / Celestial Spirits Arc (Episodes 204 – 226)