When Hiro Mashima was creating Fairy Tail, he cited Akira Toriyama, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Yudetamago as influences in his works [REF].
When Funimation Entertainment acquired the license to release Fairy Tail in North America, Mashima was worried about actor Todd Haberkorn voicing Natsu since he had a lot of yelling in the series [REF].