History YMMV / MaiHime

* JustForFun/XMeetsY: ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' meets ''Franchise/{{Highlander}}''.

* ReplacementScrappy: Another criticism of Haruka being a Hime in the manga is that she is one instead of Shizuru.

* MarySue: Haruka Suzushiro, who was a somewhat complex BadassNormal in the anime, was turned into probably one of the most powerful Himes in the manga, and it shows (although she and Yukino lose to Natsuki and Mai). There's also some favoritism skewed in her favor over Shizuru; just go read the chapter where she's having a hallucination inside Yukariko's Child.

* BaseBreaker: Shizuru. She has many fans, but people who are fans of her victims often hate her. It's hard to find anyone who's indifferent.

* CompleteMonster:
** [[spoiler: The Obsidian Lord. This guy arranges the entire Hime battle to make sure the Hime lose their loved ones so that he gains power from the battle, in during the battle in question in this series he plans destroy and re-create the world due his dislike for how Japan has become.]]
** All of the psycho killing and betrayal in the anime is ultimately a result of Nagi's direct and indirect manipulation. He gives the girls their powers and then creates monsters for them to fight in order to train them to use violence to solve their problems. Then he manipulates a few characters to get the massive betrayals and killings we see in later parts. It is not clear exactly why he does this (though he laughs his head off over the betrayals and fawns over the killers) or who he is. Supposedly, he is just serving the Big Bad of the story, but the Big Bad is more of an Orcus on His Throne. At the end, Nagi seems to imply that he himself is an immortal demon and that, though the Big Bad is dead, Nagi can't be killed and will be back.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: It's by YukiKajiura, what else can you expect?

* HilariousInHindsight: In early episode, some of Mai's yaoi fangirl friends imagine a romance between them because they find both of them cute (not knowing that Akira is a girl), before Mai tells them to keep her brother out of their CrackPairings. And later in the series, Akira and Takumi do seem to be romantically involved.

** Nagi, for being a ManipulativeBastard who is complicit in the above.

* AmericansHateTingle: Italian [=Mai-HiME=] fans hate Shizuru after she [[spoiler:destroyed Yukino's Child, killing Haruka]].
* [[spoiler:AntiClimaxBoss]]: [[spoiler:The Obsidian Lord goes down in one attack after the Himes destroy the Hime Star.]]

* FanPreferredCouple: Shizuru and Natsuki, also known as [[PortmanteauCoupleName ShizNat]], overwhelmingly so. The Mai-Hime section of fanfiction.net has more Shizuru/Natsuki fanfics than there are ''all other stories combined.''

* PeripheryDemographic: Aside from the normal lovers of MagicalGirl series, [=Mai-HiME=] gained a surprising amount of interest from lesbians, mostly thanks to the draw of the Natsuki x Shizuru pairing. This was embraced by the writers, and expanded upon in the supplemental materials, and then made canon in {{Mai-Otome}}, along with various other couples and hinted same-sex crushes.

** Moreso with Mai. By canon relationship (being at the center of a LoveTriangle with Reito and Yuuichi), canon implication (see IncestSubtext above, and LesYay below), or fan re-interpretation, Mai may have literally been paired with [[AnythingThatMoves every other character]] in the series.

* LBGTFanbase: Naturally given the number of lesbian characters.

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation:
** Some suspect that Shizuru was [[NotHimself not herself]] during her PsychoLesbian phase, especially considering that immediately after [[spoiler:being resurrected]], she [[TearsOfRemorse breaks down crying]], [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone begging for Natsuki's forgiveness]].

* [[spoiler:AnticlimaxBoss]]: [[spoiler:The Obsidian Lord goes down in one attack after the Himes destroy the Hime Star.]]

* CrackPairing: In-series (well, in-series-''extra'') example -- the {{Omake}} for episode 21 seems to be [[ShipTease suggesting]] ''[[TeacherStudentRomance Mai/Midori]]''!
* CrowningMusicOfAwesome: It's by YukiKajiura, what else can you expect?

** Or was the show's attempt to be DarkerAndEdgier a betrayal of the PowerOfFriendship and TeamSpirit tone set up in the Searrs arc? In that case, it's an Ending ''Re''version.

* LesYay: Mikoto's behavior toward Mai, naturally giving way to plenty of ShipTease moments between the two. [[spoiler:In reality, Mai feels more comfortable being Mikoto's CoolBigSis, though it's rather blatantly implied that Mikoto wants more than that.]]

* RealWomenNeverWearDresses: Fans have accused Akira of {{Chickification}} for wearing girlier clothes towards the end of the story (in the manga, there's a scene in the ending in which she's trying on a girl's middle school uniform). Not only it ignores that several of the [=HiMe=] are actually rather feminine girls (Shizuru is a LadyOfWar, Natsuki is a Gunslinger who wears her hair very long and loves collecting lingerie, ''Mai'' herself is kinda motherly and a SupremeChef, etc.), but also "forget" that the main reason Akira dressed up as a guy is that she was trying to hide the fact that she was a [=HiMe=] in the first place, thus she started wearing skirts ''only'' when her mission was over and she had no real reason to hide her gender. GirlinessUpgrade, yeah; {{Chickification}}, uhm, no.

* {{Rescued From The Scrappy Heap}} or CreatorsPet: Yuuichi gets a noticeably larger role in the manga than in the anime, to the extent where he's the manga's protagonist, as well as several of his more [[CanNotSpitItOut questionable]] [[TheLoad aspects]] from the anime being removed or diluted.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: A dark and tragic universe where [[MagicalGirl Magical Girls]] are given their powers as part of some Satanic ritual and are forced to kill each other to protect the ones they love ''could'' have made for an amazing story... if it had actually ''started'' with that plot instead of having it randomly hijack a completely different show after nearly two-thirds of the episodes had been carefully built up as a scientific deconstruction of the MagicalGirl genre. Sunrise themselves apparently agreed with this assessment, considering they made EXA.

* Moe: Mikoto, she's extremely cute and her childish behavior makes her even cuter, notable examples include a scene where she grabs onto Mai and clings to her for the better part of a day, and Mai isn't even particularly bothered by it, having apparently gotten used to her acting this way by that point in the series.

* {{Narm}}: John Smith's name is quite amusing because it seems to be an obvious pseudonym and sounds strange when the characters try to say it in the Japanese version. It gets even funnier if you're familiar with HaruhiSuzumiya.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: A dark and tragic universe where [[MagicalGirl Magical Girls]] are given their powers as part of some Satanic ritual and are forced to kill each other to protect the ones they love ''could'' have made for an amazing story... if it had actually ''started'' with that plot instead of having it randomly hijack a completely different show after nearly two-thirds of the episodes had been carefully built up as a scientific deconstruction of the MagicalGirl genre. Sunrise themselves apparently agreed with this assessment, considering they made EXA.

* CrowningMomentOfAwesome: Midori's [[EstablishingCharacterMoment first appearance...]] in both versions.

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: Some suspect that Shizuru was [[NotHimself not herself]] during her PsychoLesbian phase, especially considering that immediately after [[spoiler:being resurrected]], she [[TearsOfRemorse breaks down crying]], [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone begging for Natsuki's forgiveness]].

* {{Woobie Destroyer of Worlds}} with shades of {{Freudian Excuse}}: (manga) [[spoiler: Takumi's]] justification for his actions as host of the Obsidian Lord was that a world that has brought him absolutely nothing but suffering wasn't worth preserving.
** Considering he was [[spoiler: a corpse]] when Obsidian Lord assimilated him, it's not like he had much of a choice in the matter.

* IncestSubtext: Mai and Takumi are quite a bit closer than you'd expect out of siblings, which gets furiously [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] at several points. Tate and Akira both accuse him of having [[BrotherSisterIncest a sister complex]]. Mai takes it quite hard when Takumi decides to [[spoiler:go to America for surgery alone]] as a way of becoming independent from Mai, although it's a matter of interpretation whether this reduces the subtext on Takumi's, adds to the subtext on Mai's end, or both.

* StupidEvil: Alyssa and Searrs seem to prefer making a bunch of threats the other hime basically amounting to telling them to stay out of their way to bring about the "golden age" and never bother even explaining what the "golden age" even is, as opposed to trying to win any of them over.
* SuddenlySexuality: Some viewers see Natsuki's pursuit of Yuuichi in the manga despite having no interest in boys in the anime as an example of this.

* IncestSubtext: Mai and Takumi are quite a bit closer than you'd expect out of siblings, which gets furiously [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] at several points. Tate and Akira both accuse him of having [[BrotherSisterIncest a sister complex]].

** Moreso with Mai. By canon relationship, canon implication (see IncestSubtext above, and LesYay below), or fan re-interpretation, Mai may have literally been paired with [[AnythingThatMoves every other character]] in the series.

* MarySue: Haruka Suzushiro, who was a somewhat complex BadassNormal in the anime, was turned into probably one of the most powerful Himes in the manga, and it shows. There's also some favoritism skewed in her favor over Shizuru; just go read the chapter where she's having a hallucination inside Yukariko's Child.

* ParanoiaFuel: So many characters are not what they appear to be, in a negative sense. Are you sure you ''really'' know them, or just who they're pretending to be?

* AlasPoorVillain: [[spoiler:Alyssa's death. She's too cute to die, and too covertly evil to let get away, but it's still so damn ''sad'' to watch her go.]]

* AmericansHateTingle: Italian Mai-HiME fans hate Shizuru after she [[spoiler:destroyed Yukino's Child, killing Haruka]].

* FanPreferredCouple: Shizuru and Natsuki, also known as [[PortmanteauCoupleName ShizNat]], overwhelmingly so. There are more Shizuru/Natsuki fanfics on fanfiction.net than there are ''all other stories combined.''

* FanPreferredCouple: Shizuru and Natsuki, also known as [[PortmanteauCoupleName ShizNat]].