Line #30 YMMV/MAR - TV Tropes


1	* AmericansHateTingle: While Snow is shown in the MAR manga to be listed as the top 10 most popular character in the franchise based on Japan, if you were to go on any forum, the reaction is the exact opposite of Western fans stating their complaints of her being a DamselScrappy, her [[DieForOurShip getting in the way of someone else for Ginta]], or her just not being as cool as [[DarkActionGirl Dorothy]].
2	* AngstWhatAngst: Rather than complain about their problems, characters on both sides use their angst as motivation to beat the crap out of their opponents.
3	** Ginta sorta subverts this in a few scenes where he does feel genuinely homesick; but he quickly gets in over his head enough that he really doesn't have time to angst.
4	** Ginta sort of zigzags this in general after Snow is captured. Sometimes he can't get her out of his head and other times he seems to forget that she even needs rescuing. He does legitimately angst after she dies, but tries to hide it from everyone... nobody buys it.
5	* AntiClimaxBoss: In spite of being hyped up as Phantom's superiors, [[spoiler: both Diana and King are defeated rather easily in short battles in the span of a single volume directly after Phantom's fight with Ginta and right before the finale; having rather poor showings for their abilities in spite of their goals and ambitions, that seem especially underwhelming after Phantom's impressive display of BeyondTheImpossible feats during his final fight with Ginta.]] The anime [[AdaptationalBadass manages to rectify this by allowing for screen time for both and giving them more climatic battles with the heroes.]]
6	** Maira to much lesser extent than the above, he appeared like he was going to be a bigger threat than Loco with his terrifying appearance and cold demeanor. However, he's soon revealed to be a SmallNameBigEgo who, after losing his only Ärm easily to Toto, and is EatenAlive with little fanfare.
7	** Alibaba in spite of his boasting of being a big threat with his Guardian Ärm, goes down in three moves- his Ärm is destroyed, he's punched out and finally thrown into a volcano to his death. Considering this was [[TheAce Alan]] he was fighting this was justified.
8	*** Arguably, the entire Chess Piece group as a whole. In spite of being built up as TheDreaded from the second volume onwards, a threat that once nearly conquered Mär Heaven once with the HeroicSacrifice of the previous hero to stop them and manages to conquer the world again with ease. Once the heroes undergo TrainingFromHell several times, especially towards the beginning of the series' the villains that fight them are pushovers at worst and slightly difficult foes until the heroes manage to reveal their Trump Cards to easily trounce the enemies [[spoiler: even their Queen and King taken down with relative ease in the manga]]. The only genuine victory from the Chess Pieces during the games was from the Third Battle with Rolan; all the other times being PlayedForLaughs.
9	* ArcFatigue: Pretty much everything after the sixth round. The show starts adding more and more filler and padding which prolongs both the monotonous TournamentArc as well as Snow's rescue. Compared to the manga where she was only gone a volume and a half, she's missing 26 episodes here. It's mildly annoying watching it now, but imagine watching the show as it was airing. That's half of year of mostly filler. And then there's the Ghost Chess arc, which is loved by YaoiFangirls and people who wanted a better resolution to Phantom's character arc (that was anti-climatic in the manga) but disliked by others. The last 7 episodes are generally considered to end the series on a high note, though.
10	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: The English anime's OP.
11	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRyT-2VlcOc Yume Hanabi]] (the Third opening).
12	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL5X7y6TLLo Tonight at Eden's Corner]] (the sixth ending).
13	* BaseBreakingCharacter: Snow is a very divisive character to say the least. There are many who see her as a [[TheScrappy Scrappy]] for [[DieForOurShip getting in the way of Ginta and whoever they ship him with]], and for [[DamselScrappy getting captured on screen at least twice]] (four times in the anime), but she does have her fans and is [[AmericansHateTingle considerably more popular in Japan]].
14	* CompleteMonster: The manga version of [[TheSocialDarwinist Halloween]] is one of the most sadistic and brutal members of the Chess Pieces. [[FromNobodyToNightmare Originally a homeless and bullied boy]] by the name of Pamp, he had a firm belief that the weak become sacrifices for the strong, [[AmbitionIsEvil and promised to become strong so he could kill everybody in the village]]. He started off by [[BadPeopleAbuseAnimals killing neighborhood pets]] before going on to stab five kids to death and fleeing the village. During the first War Games, [[SoreLoser because he and Alan tied]], [[EvilIsPetty he cursed Alan and Edward to be forcibly merged together out of spite]]. Six years later when Phantom resurrects, Halloween and Chimera launch an attack on the country of Acalupa, destroying it and wiping out the majority of its population, recounting to Ian how fun it was. To punish Ian for not taking part in the attack on Märhaven, Halloween has Chimera transorm Ian's best friend, Gido, [[ForcedTransformation into a grotesque mixture of human and monster]], knowing it would cause more pain to Ian if his best friend was punished instead. During his fight against Alan in the second War Games, [[CombatPragmatist Halloween distracts Alan by setting several innocent spectators on fire]] while telling Alan how sickened he is by Alan's sense of protecting those in need.
15	* DieForOurShip: Snow is the main victim of this whenever the pairing concerns Ginta with someone else.
16	* DracoInLeatherPants: Phantom, and for [[{{Bishonen}} very]] [[HoYay good]] [[WoobieDestroyerofWorlds reasons]].
17	* EnsembleDarkhorse: Alviss is by far the most popular character in the series given that almost all artwork and fanart is mainly about him. It's even lampshaded in the series by Edward and Belle.
18	* EvilIsCool: Most of the Chess Pieces are well-regarded by the fandom due to their CoolMasks, their creepy powers and their shameless love of being evil anarchists. Phantom, Ian, Candice, Rolan, [[spoiler: Galian]], Peta, Magical Ro, Diana and [[spoiler: even Chimera once you get past the NightmareFace of her ExtraEyes on the right side of her face]] are seen as attractive by some fans as well.
19	** The anime iteration of King/ [[spoiler: Caldia's Orb]] is seen as a major [[AdaptationalBadass improvement over his manga depiction]] having a CoolMask, a NoNonsenseNemesis who [[spoiler: [[HeroKiller manages to kill almost all of Team Mär with ease]]]], avoids the VillainBall and has a cool set of Ärms including a {{BFS}}. [[spoiler: Inhabiting the body of badass former captain of the Cross Guard played a part in this as well.]]
20	* FanonDiscontinuity:
21	** Lots of people consider the anime ending superior to the original manga's, which was anti-climactic, rushed and a little bittersweet.
22	** Most ''MÄR'' fans do not acknowledge ''MÄR Omega'', an official {{sequel}} penned by the original author, as part of the canon for a myriad of reasons. First, the new art and overall character design by Kōichirō Hoshino is mostly inferior to the original. Ginta and most of the original main characters are DemotedToExtra and replaced by a new generation of forgettable [[ReplacementScrappy Replacement Scrappies]], and the plot and fights are now centered around Guardian [=ÄRMs=] as a thinly veiled attempt to turn it into a {{Mon}} franchise. And even if you weren't bothered by any of that, the series was swiftly [[{{Cancellation}} cancelled]] after 4 volumes, making it an unsatisfying read with a rushed ending ''[[HistoryRepeats (again!)]]'' and unresolved plotlines.
23	* FanPreferredCouple: Nanashi/Dorothy is largely supported in the fandom due to their BelligerentSexualTension that they have.
24	** Jack/Snow is surprisingly more popular than Jack/Pano (if only because of the Ghost Chess arc) on forum discussions.
25	** On the HoYay side, you have Ginta/Alviss, Phantom/Alviss and Rolan/Alviss with the first two being nearly tied.
26	* HoYay: [[HoYay/{{MAR}} Has its own page.]]
27	* {{Moe}}: Snow/Koyuki can be this at times, but there's also Aqua and Loco.
28	* MoralEventHorizon:
29	** Halloween killing the bystanders, Peta killing the Luberian Thief Guild, [[spoiler: Chimera turning Gido into a TorturedMonster]], and [[spoiler: Galian betraying the Thief Guild to Peta]].
30	** Diana could cross it at any number of points depending on the viewer. Keep in mind she [[spoiler: betrayed her sister and her country and later sent the Chess Pieces to raze it, manipulated the entire world into TWO full-scale wars, and helped create the Chess Pieces in the first place, all to satisfy her greed. And that's not even taking into account how she treated poor Snow, in that she created her in the first place, having cloned her from Koyuki, which led to her real mother's death, for the purpose of sacrificing her to gain the real world as well.]]
31	** King mass murdering several chess pieces, such as Pano's father and brother.
32	* NightmareFuel: You've gotta admit, there are some scary things in this series. For example, the character Chimera, whom, upon having [[spoiler:her]] mask broken off, [[spoiler:she]] is shown to have [[spoiler:a mass of multiple eyes on the right side of her face]]. Also, Pinocchion, just Pinocchion.
33	** Episode 22 of the anime. The whatever it was that happened to the "person" who gave Loco her cursed ÄRM. It's not even made clear if the person died or not.
34	* NoYay: Kolekkio/Jack scene during episode 33. Also a SugarWiki/{{Funny Moment\|s}}.
35	* TheScrappy: Edward and Belle are considered annoying, clingy mascots. Edward is only there to be a handicap for Alan before the curse was undone and once that happened, Edward had no character of his own, aside from commentary and being a SatelliteCharacter to either Alan or Snow. Belle in comparison reminds too many people of a certain fairy from a [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime certain video game]] due to her annoying voice and clingy attachment to Alviss, mainly for [[DieForOurShip shippers who rather have her gone so Alviss can be closer to preferred ships like Ginta, Rolan or Phantom]].
36	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: The series started out as a perfectly respectable adventure series, and was setting up for an epic journey across the country. Then the next episode cuts to them already at their destination and the majority of the series is spent on a fighting tournament. This wouldn't be so bad if the battles weren't such a step down from those of Manga/FlameOfRecca. Fortunately, the anime fixes some of these things by adding filler arcs that don't have to do with the tournament and the aftermath which included the Ghost Chest arc and the final arc which had a much more satisfying ending than the original manga.
37	** While the ending being superior is a majority opinion to be sure, there are those who'd argue the filler detracted from the show more than it added. It could just be that it was rather misplaced as well. {{Rescue Arc}}s and {{Tournament Arc}}s are the two things you DON'T want to prolong.
38	** Also Babbo being Phantom's former weapon, we could have gotten scenes where [[SuperPoweredEvilSide Babbo switches back and forth between his current gentleman self and the psychotic past alter ego.]]
39	*** [[spoiler: Of course he was possessed by the Orb, the main villain of the series.]]
40	* TooCoolToLive: Played with both Alan and [[spoiler: Danna]], the former is much stronger than the main cast, but a flaw in order to not make him too cool and [[spoiler: the latter was possessed by the BigBad, only to be revived at the end of the series]], Chimera plays this straight though, a deadly warrior only losing because Dorothy is [[ManipulativeBastard too witty about disrupting her concentration]] and [[spoiler: dying by Ian's hand explicably due to [[WorfHadTheFlu being weakened beforehand from the fight with Dororhy]].]]
41	* TheUntwist: Quite a few "plot twists" in this series are fairly obvious, mainly because the foreshadowing is a little too thick. Some of these include [[spoiler: Ginta's dad being Danna, obvious because his father had gone missing six years ago... exactly when the last War Game happened. Koyuki and Snow being connected in some way, granted the exact nature of the connection differs between the manga and anime but nobody is pretending that the fact they were connected was in any way some kind of surprise. The Queen being Diana, and Diana being Dorothy's sister... just look at her! They looked too similar for the revelation of them being related to be a surprise. The only plot twists that aren't untwists are ones that border on AssPull, such as Babbo being the spirit of the previous Caldean Elder... because nothing hinted at that earlier]].

Context YMMV / MAR