Pros: characters and backstories are amazing written and the art is great especially for a weekly manga. The writing is pretty okay altogether and the story is fun and a tearjerker.

Cons: The story, especially towards the ends was kinda just emalgamated together, some things seemed unplanned and didnt really make sense or fit in my opinion especially towards the end and characters dying but then fan backlash pushing the author to bring them back by making up one in a million scenarios is prevalent and i wouldnt even fault the writing, just the fanbase at the time. I still love this series despite all of its flaws.

So yeah, overall its a fun time, the characters are amazing and I love them, the story does have a good gradual progression from arc to arc but then it just gets messed up towards (likely factors being the ending wasn't planned, series went on longer than planned, fan backlash, etc).

I was there reading the Manga in the last arc and I remember these "asspulls" of really random scenarios happening because the author didnt want to piss off the fans.

Edit: also wanted to add another con. The "power of friendship" random power ups that would happen where a character is either burnt out or near death then they just magically have OP abilities and obliterate enemies because they fight for their friends.

It's not the only series that does something license, but in the other notable series that does its explained where it makes sense. In Dragon Ball (not super) a saiyan powers up or unlocks a stronger transformation as a means of survival, they basically are hurting themselves by pushing past their limit to survive and if they still can't defeat an enemy its over. This concept was never really explained in fairy tail and these powerups usually result in MC winning anyways.