Gildarts is the rare occurrence of a shonen character who’s so powerful he can’t actually be seen in too many episodes because he’d just win every fight for the other characters without ever being challenged. We rarely ever get to see him, but every battle involving him is very much the best kind of spectacle that only a series like Fairy Tail can provide.
That said, despite his very few appearances in the series, Gildarts is tied into Fairy Tail in a way that makes him quite important to the storyline, as the father of Cana and the only mage to survive a battle with the series’ villain.
10 CRUSH MAGIC
A funny thing happens when Gildarts uses his spell on people. In any other show, it would mean they would be destroyed and die horribly. But in Fairy Tail, no one actually dies so it means something else.
Crush will split a human being into a bunch of tiny versions of themselves, often resulting in his enemy giving up rather than continuing to fight. But when he tried it on Natsu, Gildarts wound up being swarmed by tiny Natsu who continued to bug him until he reversed the spell.
9 LOOKS OUT FOR THE KIDS
One of the best things about Gildarts is he shows love to all the children of Fairy Tail. He became a doting father to Cana the moment he discovered that was his actual daughter, but he’s always cared about all the members of Fairy Tail.
One of the easiest ways to get him to snap is attacking the younger members—it’s caused him to lay out some rather powerful members of groups before.
8 DEFEATED BY ACNOLOGIA
Gildarts is missing both his left arm and leg, and when we see him he’s got wooden prosthetics to make up for it. This is because he took on a 100-year quest, the kind of quest which is ranked highest—even above S-Ranked quests.
Despite his incredible power, he went to take on Acnologia and was barely even noticed. The creature’s incredible magical power was too much for Gildarts to take on, and he wound up being completely crushed.
7 ONLY ONE LOSS
Gildarts’ sparse appearances in Fairy Tail mean he doesn’t have to spend a bunch of time taking a bunch of losses. Actually, the only loss he ever takes is to Acnologia, the most powerful antagonist in the entire series.
Every other time, he’s proven almost impossible to defeat, even against some of the most powerful mages in the universe. Even against Spriggan 12’s August, said to be the most powerful mage outside of Zeref and Acnologia, Gildarts was still able to walk away with an easy W.
6 ONLY SEEMS TO HAVE ONE SPELL
From what’s been shown, Gildarts only has one spell: Crush. He knows how to put variations on it and there are certain ways he can use it depending on the opponent or what he’s dealing with.
He’s used crush to negate someone’s magic or break an enemy down but it’s all just variations on the same spell. Nonetheless, Crush is a powerful spell, and the way it can be used in various ways keeps him from being left behind by his guildmates.
5 ORIGINALLY WASN'T IN THE ANIME
Gildarts’ first appearance is in episode 72 of the anime. When he appears, all the Fairy Tail characters treat him like he’s been a long-standing member of the guild, but up until his appearance he’d never been mentioned in the anime.
But that was because the anime wasn’t actually supposed to run long enough to include Gildarts. The series was meant to stop after a year, and so the anime staff pulled all references to the character.
4 LEFT BY HIS WIFE
Gildarts was originally married to a woman named Corneila. He met her when he was much younger, the two fell in love and got married. Gildarts couldn’t stay married for long though, as he was too devoted to his work.
After all, he makes very few appearances in Fairy Tail because he’s constantly going on involved quests that last years. Eventually, his wife couldn’t take it and left him, leaving him single again.
3 ALSO KNOWN AS: KAKASHI
If Gildarts seems overly awesome, that’s because he’s got one of the best Japanese voice actors ever: Kazuhiko Inoue. He’s been voicing characters since 1973, and has countless characters to his name, but he’s best known for voicing the teacher of Naruto, Kakashi Hatake.
His English voice actor is known for being the voice of Beerus, the God of Destruction—his role as Gildarts is probably what got him the job.
2 AN EXPERIENCED MAN
When he first learns Cana is his daughter, a rather amusing moment occurs where she explains she’s his kid and he begins to wonder exactly who he could’ve had a child with. He names over a dozen women before Cana stops him and explains that it was Cornelia.
Of course, all the women were ones he’d dated since Cornelia, but Gildarts’ travels appear to not just be about him completing high-ranked quests.
1 REFUSED TO BE THE GUILD MASTER
Gildarts was offered the role of becoming the leader of the guild immediately after the group returned from being trapped within the time spell that lasted seven years. After being set free, they returned to find a different world, and Makarov thought he would leave the job to the next generation.
But before Makarov could hand that job off, Gildarts was already gone, though he left two rules: to accept Laxus back into the guild and to make Makarov the Sixth Guild Master.