User blog comment:ILuvAnime/Fairy Tail continue after episode 175/@comment-24.86.185.4-20130723054306/@comment-7418318-20130723232429

While I have heard that rumor (and others) about Aya Hirano ad nauseum, there is NO official info regarding this what-so-ever. And I'm pretty sure if it was real, we'd have seen some official news from her, her talent agency, the anime director, Mashima or TV Tokyo by now.

An anime wouldn't go on an extended break just because of a single voice actress quitting - leading role or not. Apart from this breaching many contracts (resulting in lots of fines to be payed and probably ruining the producers), there are enough great voice actors in japan that a temporary stand-in can be found really quickly (hell, they could even let one of the other female VAs speak Lucy's lines for a few episodes if push comes to shove) while they search for the "perfect" replacement.

On the 16th July Mashima twittered that the continuation of the anime got the green light, which means that for several month it wasn't clear whether there ever were going to be any more episodes produced.

For the actual reason of the sudden break we can only speculate, but by now it should be clear that it's not Aya Hirano.