Fairy Tail (妖精の尻尾フェアリーテイル Fearī Teiru) is the series' titular wizard's guild, in the fictional city of Magnolia, where the main characters gather to do paid jobs with their magical abilities. It is considered one of the most famous and popular guilds for much of the series. However, its members are infamous for being rambunctious and causing extensive collateral damage during missions. For this reason, the guild is seen as a nuisance by the Magic Council, despite the guild members' heroic deeds.

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Mashima has insisted that the spelling of the guild's name, which is a play on the phrase "fairy tale", is intentional. In the story, the guild's name comes from the question whether or not fairies, which are considered mythical creatures within the series, have tails, which poses "an eternal mystery and, therefore, eternal adventure". Tyler Walker likens Fairy Tail to the Scooby-Doo franchise: "it's got a core group of characters, with one talking animal, sometimes two...they travel, it's episodic...you know, we've seen this kind of thing before with the core group that's affiliated in some way going through adventure after adventure".