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This is the Antagonists' character page for the Mary Skelter trilogy. Be warned that there is a possibility of encountering unmarked spoilers, between self-explanatory tropes that cannot be spoilered per site policy, numerous Walking Spoiler characters, and things spoiled by the mere premise of the sequels.
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Nightmares

     Nightmares in General 
  • Dub Name Change: Many of the Nightmares have their names shortened down to one or two letters and Nightmare in the English versions due to character limits.
  • Evil Is Not Well-Lit: The presence of a Nightmare quickly cuts away all lights, short of the glow provided by spilled Marchen blood. Mary Skelter 2 plays with this with "White Darkness" generated by the Nightmares, functionally the same as normal darkness that is somehow also blindingly white. Marchen blood still shines through.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Most Nightmares are simply named for where they roam. For example the City Streets Nightmare is the Nightmare of the City Streets, and so on.
  • Flat Character: Most Nightmares receive no real characterization, being more comparable to unstoppable forces of nature than individuals. This works to help amplify the It Can Think reveal. Mary Skelter 2 similarly leaves most of them undeveloped, focusing instead on the threat of Blood Skelter through most areas of the Jail. And again is used for a reveal, by creating the character for Otsuu from a complete blank slate that the original Nightmare? was.
  • Hell Is That Noise: Any time a Nightmare begins hunting the Blood Team it is announced by a loud growling noise.
  • Implacable Man: Nothing short of death will stop them from chasing you. Escaping only grants a brief period of relative safety to continue exploring the labyrinths.
  • Nigh-Invulnerability: Even if you break them apart, all that does is slow them down while they reform. It's only after the Core in their territory is destroyed can they be put down permanently.
  • You Don't Look Like You: Almost all of the original Nightmares had their appearances updated for Mary Skelter 2, some as minor as adjustments to their colors while others receive entirely new body parts.

     Snark Major Unmarked Spoilers 

Snark, The Blue Bird, Professor Tohjima, "Assistant", Hauteharolde

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/msn_snark_cut.jpg
(Major Spoilers for the entire series, so proceed with extreme caution)

The "King of Nightmares". A being of unknown origin, Snark met with Professor Tohjima long ago, but has not been seen since.Or rather that is his cover story. Snark and Professor Tohjima, originally the real professor's Assistant, are in fact one and the same and is an alien rather than a true Nightmare.


  • Bus Crash: As Professor Tohjima there is a long period of Never Found the Body for him, supporting the idea to those that played the first game that the Mysterious Nightmare is a legitimately powerful new form for Snark. Later on in the game his corpse finally turns up, though nobody ever discovers his true identity.
  • Complexity Addiction: Snark has a story for every situation. Even those that really don't need it. Blaming the already hope crushing defeat of the Tower expedition team on Snark the King of Nightmares who possesses the Power of the Void when just revealing the existence of the invincible Tower Nightmares would've been enough was one of his earliest unnecessary stories that, down the line, just get used to expose him when finally confronted with a person willing to bother questioning these stories.
  • Composite Character: Snark also has traits of The Big Bad Wolf, having long since replaced the man who found Red Riding Hood.
  • Conveniently Unverifiable Cover Story: With the entire expedition team wiped out, Professor Tohjima being a known recluse, and a facial injury there's nobody alive who could honest question him about who he is. Some doubts are briefly raised in the prequel novel, and he uses that reclusive nature specifically to get them to drop it.
  • Crazy-Prepared: Snark had the foresight to come up with cover stories for almost any evidence someone might use to expose him, which is why Jack and the Blood Team had a hard time proving their suspicions of him. His only flaw was coming up with unnecessary stories that allowed the Blood Team to find a contradiction in his defense.
  • The Dreaded: Single handedly wiped out the original team attempting to escape the Jail. Even after they find a way to kill Nightmares the Professor insists that they do everything they can to avoid him. This is because Snark is specifically crafting such an image of himself to survive as he is actually incredibly weak, only capable of killing things already in the process of dying. He didn't even wipe the original team out, it was the Tower Nightmares who did it.
  • Driven to Villainy: Had the ship looking for an uninhabited planet not been struck by a meteor, the Theophil would've functioned as intended rather than becoming Jails and Snark would've been a hero for saving his world rather than the villain who would sacrifice another to do so.
  • Evil Plan: His ultimate plan is to create a new Jail that he can exert god-like control over. To do this, he manufactures a conflict between humans and Marchens, nurtures a religion while mentally poisoning its divine figure, uses the Blood Team to focus all of the Jail's energy into the tower, and leads the religious followers into the tower for their souls to be sacrificed and their collective desire to be used to fuel a new Jail egg. Either he completely succeeds, in which case everything goes to hell, or the Order of the Sun's followers are saved, in which case he uses Marchens and himself as sacrifices instead.
  • Fairy Tale: The Hunting of the Snark and Little Red Riding Hood
  • Greater-Scope Villain: While serving as a Big Bad in the original Mary Skelter, he is this for the series as a whole. Snark is not a Nightmare at all, but rather an alien that came along with the Jail, a tool that was supposed to recreate his homeworld. When the Jail began to mimic Earth instead he opted to guide things toward creating a new Jail egg, fertilize it, and, if necessary, fuse himself with it becoming a god that could make the world he desired in the first place. With the confirmation of multiple Jails he is responsible for the suffering in all of them, even without his direct manipulations, and because there were multiple Jails Nightmare? was able to cause the events of Mary Skelter 2 to happen well after Snark's death.
  • I Have Many Names: Snark, the Boojum, Hauteharolde, the Blue Bird, and Professor Tohjima. Learning his real name, Hauteharolde, from Jabberwock, Toh even calls him a man of many names. Prior to taking up the role of Professor Tohjima, he had been the original Professor's Assistant as well.
  • Light Is Not Good: Unlike other Nightmares Snark is brightly colored, primarily white. This extends to his reversal of black and white in the Dawn uniform as Professor Tohjima as well.
  • The Man Behind the Man: He is behind all three factions in the game, being the King of Nightmares, the Blue Bird, and Professor Tohjima.
  • Manipulative Bastard: He manipulates every single faction in the game, and uses Plausible Deniability to cover up the holes in his story as they open up. He even comes up with explanations seemingly on the fly to cast doubt on Jack's evidence, only coming clean when Haru calls him by name and tells him that he's been figured out.
  • Sore Loser: In the process of figuring out his identity Jack finally starts getting him to stumble when bringing up the monitor room and Haru steps in to end the charade before he can figure out some new lie. Exposed, cornered, and out of allies Snark pulls a gun on everyone to allow himself to retreat and finish his plans for the Jail.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Trying to save his world is a noble goal. Sacrificing another to do so is what makes him a villain. Finale adds a more tragic detail to this, in that Earth itself is already almost entirely lost due to the freak accident that brought him and the Jails there. His goal would have simply sped up Earth's end to save his own.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
    • Does this to the Station Grounds Nightmare. Though in hindsight, he's essentially leaving all of the Nightmares to be wiped out by the Blood Team to further his own goals.
    • He also tries to get the Blood Team killed by suggesting that they split up, then plays it off when they call him out on how dangerous his plan is. Once his schemes come to light, he tells Red Riding Hood that she's not needed anymore.

     Nightmare? Major Unmarked Spoilers 

Nightmare?, Nightmare Otsuu (Nightmare Tsuu)

(Spoilers for the first two games, so proceed with extreme caution)

A Nightmare encounter in the Underground Cavern. While the Blood Team fights and defeats it, its nature is unknown until the second game, where it is revealed that this Nightmare is actually Otsuu.


  • Actually a Doombot: Mary Skelter 2 reveals that the Nightmare? killed at the end of the Underground Cavern was a copy created to be a decoy after the first escape so she could retreat back to the second Jail tower.
  • Ambiguous Gender: It is interesting to note that this Nightmare's true form does not even have the prominent breasts that the already-boyish Blood Maiden incarnation of Otsuu has.
  • Because You Were Nice to Me: She alters the past entirely because Little Mermaid was nice to her ten years ago.
  • Composite Character: Originally just a Nightmare seeming to avoid its responsibilities, much like the citizens of Hamelin not paying the Piper, Mary Skelter 2 and the remake of the original expand on this by incorporating her drive to do anything for Little Mermaid out of gratitude.
  • Despair Event Horizon: Nightmare or not, she very clearly crosses the horizon in the remake after asking the Blood Team about Little Mermaid and learning that she's dead.
  • Fairy Tale: The Pied Piper of Hamelin combined with Crane's Return of a Favor, as well as The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl
  • A Form You Are Comfortable With: She is dropped into the past as a Blood Maiden after using the Jail seed, in order to save Little Mermaid. She ends up reverting to her true Nightmare form for a bit in the True Ending.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: Nightmare? is incredibly timid, doing whatever it can to avoid the Blood Team. The original version of the game was able to play this up with the area's massive size, it would spawn somewhere well away from you so you'd hear it but likely never find it until the scripted battles. The remake version of the area is incredibly small, making it almost impossible to avoid encountering her at which point she will chase you just the same as any other Nightmare.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: For Mary Skelter 2. Despite Otsuu being the protagonist for that game, her Nightmare form's selfish actions are unintentionally responsible for all of the death and suffering the cast went through.
  • Happy Ending Override: If the way that the endgame plays out in the remake is canon rather than the original game, she used the Goverment Building's Jail seed after the team had defeated Snark.
  • "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: In the remake, the last battle against Nightmare? amounts to this for Jack, who at that point has regained his memory of Mary Skelter 2.
  • Interspecies Friendship: She really wanted to be friends with Little Mermaid, who was kind to her despite her appearance, but doesn't work up the courage to talk to her until it's too late.
  • It Can Think: And far moreso than most Nightmares, given her clear goals and understanding of how to use the Jail cores toward her own ends.
  • Mini-Mecha: Not mechanical, but appears to piloted in a similar manner. You can see a humanoid inside after breaking the outer shell. In the remake, after being defeated for real in the second Jail the mechlike body disintegrates like any other Nightmare while leaving Nightmare Otsuu's original body behind, who continues to fight the Blood Team on foot.
  • Plant Person: Mary Skelter 2 gives a closer look at the humanoid form inside, revealing her to be this. In her Nightmare form, Otsuu's left arm and tail are made of bamboo, while her hair becomes a leafy green.
  • The Reveal: This Nightmare is the original Mary Skelter timeline's version of Otsuu, aptly titled Nightmare Otsuu. She is an incredibly weak Half-Human Hybrid who grew fond of Little Mermaid during her time at the Aquarium. While searching for Little Mermaid, she gets lost in the Underground and ends up encountering the Blood Team. She narrowly escapes and, after learning about Little Mermaid's death, decides to grow the Government Building's Jail until it can reach its Jail seed. She wishes for a way to protect Little Mermaid, and is reborn in the past as a Blood Maiden named Otsuu. She rescues Mermaid before a young Red Riding Hood can arrive, kicking off the sequel timeline.
  • Right Red Hand: She has an inhuman eye and one of her arms contains a mass of tentacles instead of a hand, but she becomes friendly to the Blood Team once Jack helps her remember the Mary Skelter 2 timeline.
  • Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Downplayed, as it takes a while for her to remember and it is apparently pretty painful, but she eventually recalls the Another Story ending in Mary Skelter 2 and the events of Mary Skelter 2 in the remake.
  • Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: The first time Nightmare? loses its armor, it bails out instead of continuing to fight the Blood Team. The sequel and the remake reveal that she survived the second encounter as well by leaving a copy of herself to handle that fight, and is pursued by the Blood Team until she uses the Jail seed (leading to the sequel), or has her memory restored (leading to the remake's Golden Ending).
  • Sequential Boss: Notable in the remake in that she has three forms the final time that she's fought: a Murder Hunt battle, a battle against the unarmored Nightmare, and finally a battle against the humanoid Nightmare Otsuu.
  • Sheathe Your Sword: In the remake the only way to defeat this Nightmare's final form is to stop attacking and use the various items Jack had found both as a human and Nightmare in order to restore Otsuu's memories.

     Mysterious Nightmare Major Unmarked Spoilers 

Mysterious Nightmare, "Snark?", Nightmare Alice, Love Nightmare (Nightmare Love)

A Nightmare found shortly after escaping the Underground Cavern, having wiped out the Liberated District, that serves as the primary antagonist of Mary Skelter 2.


  • Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: She manages to kill off Snark during her rampage at the start of the game, though nobody discovers this as he was still disguised when he died.
  • Bait-and-Switch: The site for Mary Skelter 2 has this Nightmare listed as "Snark?", and the Blood Team do put forth the idea as well given its proven capacity for destruction, and during the Final Boss Preview a few of its attacks names reference concepts of void, implying that the King of Nightmares has taken on a far more imposing form. The truth is that this Nightmare is in fact the original Alice.
  • Bishōnen Line: As their massive flower form is shattered, it reveals a pair of almost human bodies chained together inside, the bodies being the original forms of Jack and Alice.
  • Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Snark is highly effective at planning and manipulating others, while the only plan the Mysterious Nightmare has is to shred everything that she comes across.
  • Eyes Do Not Belong There: She has a single eye on her stomach.
  • Fairy Tale: Alice in Wonderland and, later, Jack and the Beanstalk
  • Final Boss: The game ends with a battle against the Mysterious Nightmare, either as she appears normally or as the Love Nightmare.
  • Final Boss Preview: Mamoru and Hansel have a battle with the Mysterious Nightmare well before the ending of the game.
  • Fusion Dance: Pulls one with Nightmare Jack to become the Love Nightmare.
  • I Have Many Names: As a result of speculation on her identity, her actual identity, and her Fusion Dance, this Nightmare has numerous names.
  • Love Makes You Evil: She is an Omnicidal Maniac Nightmare born from Alice believing that she had killed Jack. Even in this state, she refuses to harm Nightmare Jack; everyone else is fair game.
  • Made of Good: Kind Eyes, Guard Arm, and Love Gear are all parts of the Mysterious Nightmare. These are also the very concepts used in the creation of Nightmare Alice. She simply becomes an Omnicidal Maniac to exact revenge upon a world that would make her kill Jack.
  • Meaningful Rename: Once the player correctly deduces her identity, the game changes its name from Mysterious Nightmare (Nazo no Nightmare) to Nightmare Alice.
  • Plant Person: After her Fusion Dance with Nightmare Jack, they becomes a massive fleshlike flower with a small field of normal flowers and two massive arms inside.
  • The Reveal: This Nightmare is the Alice who falls into Blood Skelter at the beginning of the game.
  • Together in Death: As the Love Nightmare, Jack and Alice's final words even say as much.
  • Tragic Monster: The Nightmare is revealed to be Alice after she mistakenly assumed she killed Jack in Blood Skelter, and unable to erase the guilt, wished to destroy the world that took Jack away from her. Her fusion with Nightmare Jack represents their tragic love for each other. Even though the team deem it necessary to put them down, they still can't help but feel sorry for them. Even Red Riding Hood, who wanted revenge on Nightmare Alice, feels saddened by their deaths.

     Tower Nightmares 
The Nightmares that live in the Jail Tower. They, rather than Snark, were responsible for the deaths of the Dawn's expedition team.
  • Adapted Out: Averted. As the fairy tale's page here states the giant's wife is often left out of adaptations of the story. The Tower is guarded by not one, but two, Nightmares based on the giants.
  • Diabolus ex Machina: In Mary Skelter 2, the second Nightmare waits until the Blood Team is weakened after defeating the True Final Boss to ambush them.
  • Fairy Tale: Jack and the Beanstalk
  • Interface Spoiler: Mary Skelter 2 lacks sufficient enemy slots in the enemy listing for both Nightmares, giving away that something is up with the second Nightmare to anyone who played through the first game.
  • Nothing Is Scarier: In Mary Skelter 2, in the upper levels of the Tower the Blood Team is disturbed by the the fact that while they can hear the Nightmare it never once shows itself or gives chase.
  • Opportunistic Bastard: In Mary Skelter 2, the second Nightmare only deigns it appropriate to appear after the team has exhausted themselves fighting the Love Nightmare.
  • Power of the Void: In the Prlogue novel, the Tower Nightmare displayed the ability to control the darkness it produced to erase anything that came in contact with it. It was used to quite gruesome results against the Dawn expedition 15 years prior to the game. Of course this entire power was made up by Snark himself while "explaining" what happened to the expedition team.
  • The Scapegoat: The Tower Nightmares, while powerful in their own right and actually responsible for the failed expedition, have their actions and powers greatly exaggerated by Snark himself. He even went as far as to claim specifically that one identified itself as Snark, the Boojum, to Leader before consuming him. A claim that is disproven when Mamoru gains Leader's memories and had never even heard the name "Snark" before.
  • Took a Level in Badass: In Mary Skelter 2, the upper Tower Nightmare successfully kills off most of the Blood Team.
  • The Unfought: The second Nightmare goes completely unencountered in Mary Skelter 2. Until it takes advantage of the Mysterious Nightmare weakening the Blood Team to kill them all.

     Devouring Armada Tower Nightmare Major Unmarked Spoilers 

D.A. Nightmare, Massacre Pink Nightmare (Genocide Pink Nightmare)

The Devouring Armada Tower's Nightmare, an artificial Nightmare made by the Massacre Pink's master.

     Other Nightmares 

C.S. Nightmare (City Streets Nightmare)

The Nightmare that lives in the City Streets. Its initial attack introduces Blood Skelter in both Mary Skelter and Mary Skelter 2.

G. Nightmare (Graveyard Nightmare)

The Nightmare living in the Graveyard. In Mary Skelter it attacked Thumbelina and her sisters, taking the eldest sister captive.

T. Nightmare (Temple Nightmare)

The Temple area's Nightmare. In Mary Skelter it hunts the Blood Team while specifically calling out to Kaguya.

D. Nightmare (Downtown Nightmare)

The Nightmare found in the Downtown area. In Mary Skelter it chases the Blood Team and takes Cinderella's earrings.
  • Fairy Tale: Cinderella
  • Giant Foot of Stomping: This is the form the Nightmare takes. As it takes damage the rats riding it fall away, the slipper breaks, and the head comes off leaving only a giant rotting foot with carved up toes behind.
  • It Can Think: This is the first or second Nightmare to display the ability to speak, depending on how you approach Chapters 3 and 4.
  • Multiple Head Case: In Mary Skelter 2, beneath the pumpkin-like head is a cluster of three bloodied heads, the stepmother and stepsisters, still stomping around on the giant rotting foot.

W. Nightmare (Waterside Nightmare)

The Waterside area's Nightmare.

S.G. Nightmare (Station Ground Nightmare)

The Nightmare that lives in the Station Grounds.

L.M. Nightmare (Little Mermaid's Nightmare)

The Aquarium Ruins' Nightmare. Its attack renews Little Mermaid's trauma from the Mysterious Nightmare's attack on the Dawn, driving her into Blood Skelter.
  • Despair Event Horizon: It brought about one. While the Mysterious Nightmare destroying the Dawn's Liberated District pushed Little Mermaid to her limits, this Nightmare's arrival during her search for survivors pushed her to the breaking point and pushed her into Blood Skelter.
  • Fairy Tale: The Little Mermaid
  • Odd Name Out: Most Nightmares either have a specific name, or are just referred to by where they roam. The newer Nightmares instead refer directly to the Fairy Tale they come from.

O. Nightmare (Crane's Return of a Favor Nightmare)

The Nightmare found in the Art Alley.
  • Fairy Tale: Tsuru no Ongaeshi (Crane's Return of a Favor)
  • Odd Name Out: Most Nightmares either have a specific name, or are just referred to by where they roam. The newer Nightmares instead refer directly to the Fairy Tale they come from.
  • Waddling Head: The Nightmare is just a giant two faced head walking around on its large seven fingered hands.

M. Nightmare (Metropolitan Office Nightmare)

The Nightmare found in the Metropolitan Office Jail Tower. It works to keep the Blood Team and Nightmare Otsuu from being able to revive Little Mermaid at any cost.

J.T. Nightmare (Judgment Jail Tower Nightmare)

The Nightmare found in the Judgment Tower.
  • Brain Monster: Breaking away the Nightmare's helmet reveals that the upper half of its head is an exposed brain.
  • Nested Mouths: This Nightmare is a floating head with a mouth inside its mouth inside its mouth.
  • Warm-Up Boss: This Nightmare is Jack or Mary's team's first real challenge, requiring Little Mermaid to keep the pressure up on it with Wind attacks getting Otsuu's automatic followup attacks while Jack heals or for Alice to overwhelm it with Wind's Edge while Mary and Charlotte play support.

F. Nightmare (Frozen Jail Tower Nightmare)

The Nightmare roaming the Frozen Jail Tower.
  • Matryoshka Object: Breaking the cube form of this Nightmare reveals it to be a giant matryoshka doll.
  • Ominous Cube: Its first form is that of a simple cube with faces on every side.
  • Warm-Up Boss: It serves as the first real challenge for Toh or Red Riding Hood's groups, requiring you to make use of Toh's ability to use items or balance Thumbelina's SP between healing and exploiting its weakness to Earth type damage.

L.I. Nightmare (Leichhardt Nightmare)

The Nightmare living in the Jail on Licard Island.
  • The Bus Came Back: You'd not expect it to come up again after Pyre shuts it down, however it very nearly assists in killing her in return, successfully in one bad ending, much later in the game due to it chasing down Riley and Ellie who were trying to destroy the remaining core that was keeping the Devouring Armada Tower's Nightmare alive.
  • Mushroom Man: This Nightmare is a mass of mushrooms arranged to look like an electric chair with a face.
  • The Unfought: Rather than destroy Licard's core that she came across, Pyre simply uses her administrative authority over that Jail through the core to order the Nightmare to just stop. Clara's group find the Nightmare frozen in place, completely unresponsive, unaware that this was not a unique behavior of the surface Jails' Nightmares after destroying one of the area's two cores.

E. Nightmare (Eisern Jail Tower Nightmare)

The Nightmare found in Eiserne Tower.

G. Nightmare (Grave Tower Nightmare)

The Grave Tower's Nightmare.
  • Goofy Suit: This Nightmare appears to be a bizarre mascot costume, designed as a pink frog with a mass of balloons for a body.
  • Multiple Head Case: Breaking the Nightmare reveals numerous colorful human heads underneath the balloons on its body. The one place you'd expect to find a head, under the frog mask, is just a guillotine.
  • One-Steve Limit: Averted in the English version, as it shares its name with the Graveyard Nightmare.

S. Nightmare(Salvation Tower Nightmare)

The Nightmare roaming the Salvation Tower.
  • Angelic Abomination: The Nightmare resembles a broken angelic doll with a spiked orb coming out of its back instead of wings. Breaking the orb reveals a second massive and deformed head.
  • One-Hit Kill: It often begins the fight using a highly accurate full party instant death attack, and can use it many more times throughout the fight, making the use of the few death resistance equipment in the game, and mercifully found within the Salvation Tower, a necessity.
  • Shear Menace: It is armed with a pair of scissors that are easily larger than itself, and uses them to attack the party when not using its deadly magic.

Hansel

For Tropes relating to Hansel check the Allies page.

The Jails

     Underground Jails 
The setting of the first two games, this Jail is a massive tower that forced a portion of Tokyo over 600 meters below the Earth's surface and turned it into a fairy tale themed hellhole. The alternate ending to Mary Skelter reveals a second underground Jail formed from the remains of the Tokyo Metropolitan Building and is revealed in the remake to have been based around a Tanabata festival.
  • Big Bad: Took over a large Japanese city, transforming it into the strange place it is in game, and changed almost every living thing within it into Marchen. The survivors are regularly kidnapped and tortured for its own satisfaction.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: The Jail is the primary enemy to the city as a whole, Snark and the Mysterious Nightmare are more personal enemies to the main cast in the first and second game respectively, and Nightmare? is responsible for the events of Mary Skelter 2 entirely, though unintentionally.
  • Bizarrchitecture: Much of the Jail's "buildings" make no sense at best, and utterly defy physics at worst. Walls and objects visible only from certain angles, blood fountains that flow in reverse, doors that replicate to open both directions at once, entire rooms and hallways only accessable by destroying walls, various objects and parts of walls growing out from other walls, flickering lights that, upon closer inspection, are actually just flying around at extraordinary speed between the objects seeming to produce them. The inconsistency on what exactly is off about the place between games leaves it up to speculation on how much of this was intended and how much of it was just graphical bugs left in.
    • In Mary Skelter 2 and the first game's remake, certain areas of the Jail clearly line up at the edges of each map, for example the 2 version of the Dorm has areas 1-4 connected in a counterclockwise rotation, however the shortcuts between each area are often laid out in a way that resembles a stairwell between floors which implies that each area is connected both horizontally and vertically at the same time.
  • Character Customization: In both Mary Skelter 2 and the remake you're given the ability to edit the Jail's behaviors and abilities to further adjust the game's difficulty beyond the three presets. There are two separate methods of doing so.
    • The first applies specific drawbacks in return for some advantage, for example permanently disabling the use of maps in exchange for more experience or random chance stat decreases for boosted drop rates on certain things.
    • The second is a Point Build System editing of the reward roulette, being able to stack in multiple copies of an effect to increase the odds of the Jail providing you that option.
  • Chaos Architecture: The Jail's exact layout varies between Mary Skelter, its remake, and Mary Skelter 2. It is at its most extreme in the latter with nearly every area having its very color scheme changed up and arranged around the tower in a different order and including new areas. The remake being different from the original is justified by being the third time the Jail has grown, rather than just being a game simplifying design choice.
  • Doing In the Wizard: Zigzagged. The Jail is actually a terraformation device intended to remake the Earth in the image of Snark's and Haru's homeworld. Unfortunately for them, it's a bit too sensitive for its own good, and its first meal (Michiru and her storybook) result in it transforming into a fairy tale-themed monstrosity. It's Zigzagged because, while this explains mimicry and the transformation of humans into Marchens, it does not work for its ability to alter the past.
  • Eldritch Location: While the Jail could always have been considered one, the Mysterious Nightmare's mere existence takes this trait and amplifies it. Ever since it showed up Otsuu, Gretel, and Rapunzel feel something direly wrong about the Jail, even by its own nightmarish standards, with Gretel openly comparing it to the feeling of giant bugs crawling about inside thin walls.
  • Fairy Tale: Each region within the Jail takes some aspects of the fairy tales related to Jack and the Blood Maidens.
    • Jack and the Beanstalk: The Jail Tower is very loosely styled after a beanstalk, which is part of what compels Jack to try climbing it.
    • Alice in Wonderland: The City Streets are lined with card soldiers and nonsensical clocks, with the doorways being shaped like keyholes giving a distorted sense of size. Guillotines are a common trap as well.
    • Little Red Riding Hood: The Station Grounds have become a forest like area with wolves and baskets laying around.
    • Thumbelina, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty: The Graveyard is covered in roses and thorny vines, with massive tulips in the background. Moles, frogs, and dwarves can be found all around as well.
    • Hansel and Gretel: The Dorms are built out of, and filled with, various types of candy. Hansel and Gretel also leave white stones by teleporters that aren't trapped to keep one going in circles.
    • Cinderella: The Downtown region has pumpkin shaped carts made of lights, glowing glass slippers locked away in cages. The loading screen depicts the area's signs as having an excessive foot focus as well.
    • The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter: The Temple is surrounded by a massive bamboo forest, much of which is faintly shining gold, and in some places appearing more mechanical than natural giving it an alien feeling.
    • The Pied Piper of Hamelin: The walls of the Underground Cavern are covered in whistling and singing mouths, and cages full of rats can be found everywhere
    • The Waterside is an odd exception to this, as there is almost nothing here but train tracks, water and cages. The cages themselves are often stacked high like towers, the closest thing the area has to touching on the story of Rapunzel outside of the enemies present.
    • The Little Mermaid: The Aquarium Ruins resemble glass tunnels winding around under the sea, with the majority of the Marchen present being aquatic animals.
    • Crane's Return of a Favor: The Art Alley is styled like old fashioned Japanese buildings with cloth floating overhead bearing images of cranes, while some windows show a silhouette of cranes. There are Marchen that resemble a cross between paintbrushes and cranes, with their necks caught in a bloody bear trap.
    • The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl: The second Jail, formed around the Metropolitan Government Building takes advantage of the building's structure to pull it off. Two towers remain almost normal early on, though now connected by a milky white webbing. There is a heavy star theme as well, with false stars on the ground and in the sky. The final floor also has exactly two chests containing a Wedding Dress armor hidden behind breakable walls, one to what's left of each tower.
  • Fisher Kingdom: Everything except for the few remaining survivors were changed when the Jail arrived. Eventually it stopped actively changing things quite so drastically, though depending on what the survivors eat or expose themselves to they may still end up changing. The Marchen within each area are generally thematically tied to the story that served as its basis as well. Otsuu originally suffered from this as well. Born a plantlike Half-Human Hybrid Nightmare, her time trapped in the Jail's Underground Cavern looking for Little Mermaid eventually warped her form into the stony mechlike body she is seen in in Mary Skelter.
  • Genius Loci: The Jail is essentially a metropolis sized Mimic. It doesn't appear to takes sides, though; if the Blood Maidens sate its desires, it'll reward them and/or punish its own denizens without a second thought.
  • I Have Many Names: The Weird Moon has a few different terms for it based on what it is and does. The moon, the white core, and the egg all come up in Mary Skelter while Mary Skelter 2 reveals that the Nightmares themselves have taken to calling it Witchcraft. In a discussion about the term, and what exactly it is capable of regardless of the name, Otsuu also specifies that the Jails would more properly be known as Theophil.
  • Inconsistent Dub: Some things refer to the Jail's depth as simply being 600 meters below ground, others 666.
  • Jackass Genie: The Jail, whether through malice or incompetence, has a tendency to twist any and all desires it tries to grant. This is speculated to be due to the Jail having a poor environment for its growth. Compared to it the Metropolitan Office Jail, having a better environment from a Tanabata festival, proves to be a Benevolent Genie, going above and beyond in Otsuu's attempt to revive Little Mermaid by aging her up to the rest of the group and restoring Otsuu's human form.
  • Loves the Sound of Screaming: Screams are a lullaby to the Jail, which drives the Marchen to capture and torture humans to help satisfy its need for sleep.
  • No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: All of Snark's plans rely on the Jail doing what it was intended to, its failures making it necessary to start from scratch. Eventually it's proven that there are actually multiple Jails that landed on Earth. The original game leaving it an ambiguous "what if" alternate ending, Mary Skelter 2 making it official and expanding on it. More Jails are involved in Finale as well.
  • Not the Intended Use: An In-Universe example, rather than a gameplay one, revealed by the Finale prequel novel. The Theophil were never intended to be used on an inhabited planet, much less get dropped in the middle of Tokyo. While searching for such a planet the ship carrying them was struck by a meteor, causing them to crash on Earth. The presence of humans, animals, and countless ideas threw them wildly off their intended purpose. Snark was ultimately forced to make the most out of an unexpected catastrophe.
  • Overdrawn at the Blood Bank: One of the perks the Jail may grant in battle is doubling Marchen bleeding, the aftermath of which generally leaves everything, the floor, ceiling, and walls, within four tiles completely pink, with splatters occasionally reaching out even further.
  • Plant Aliens: The Jails came from another world and have traits of both plants and animals. They have intelligence, desires, blood, and organs, yet they have roots and grow like plants, including trimming them to get it to grow the way you want it to.
  • Turns Red: Mary Skelter 2 introduces a mechanic relating to the Jail's current mood. Every battle progressively aggravates the Jail, enhancing the stats of Marchen and Nightmares as well as increasing the rate of Nightmares showing up. Passing 60% causes a noticeable increase and the Jail begins glowing red and constantly screaming. Only by constantly satisfying the Jail's needs can its rage be kept in check.
  • Villains Never Lie: The Jails are always clear on exactly what they want from those within, though their non verbal method of passing this information along with the moon colors is vague at best.
  • The Walls Have Eyes: The eyes are quickly noted, and the Blood Team wonders what the world was like before the Jail arrived if that was somehow normal. The Dorm utterly lacks any such eyes, something that bothers Snow White enough to speak out about it. As it turns out the eyes are functionally cameras Snark has set up to monitor everywhere in the Jail. Because Hansel and Gretel killed everyone who pushed too far into the Dorm, there was never a chance to set them up there.
    • In Mary Skelter 2 the Downtown region is excessively covered in eyes. Few rooms are lacking in them, and several consist of nothing but eyes. This is a Call-Back to the first game's novel. Tohjima wanted to study Blood Skelter, and he was not going to a miss a thing Cinderella does during her rampage there with this many eyes set up.
  • Weird Moon: The moon changes between glowing white, blue, and pink, depending on its current primary desire, which will be easier to satisfy and provide a slower roulette for the reward. The moon also isn't a moon at all, it's an egg.

     The Devouring Armada Tower and Surface Jails 
The setting for Mary Skelter Finale. The colossal Devouring Armada Tower flies over the Earth's surface, with several smaller Jails below it; The Judgment Tower, the Frozen Jail Tower, Licard Island, the Eiserne Tower, the Grave Tower, and the Salvation Tower.
  • Abandoned Hospital: The Salvation Tower is a blindingly white and mostly empty hospital, with the occasional gurney, straitjacket, mostly barren shelf, chair, or computer for decoration, as well as countless nooses and other blood red ropes hanging from the ceilings and making up the walls, and Marchen made of medical equipment and hanged bodies.
  • Amusement Park of Doom: Grave Tower is an amusement park full of guillotines, ferris wheels with cages replacing the normal cars, monster clowns, and mascot animals turned into Marchens.
  • Benevolent Genie: Surprisingly enough, the Devouring Armada Tower's Witchcraft grants wishes in the best possible way. Even the second Bad End is merely it creating the timeline that Mary Skelter: Locked Up in Love takes place in for a world without pain and suffering. In the True End its response to a wish for "nothing" is to simply erase itself and every other Jail, along with anything relating to the Marchens from existence, Hameln's clothes excluded. This results in the Earth becoming a heavily depopulated paradise and the Blood Team and Mamoru's group being made completely human, the Massacre Pink's Master's additional changes to Pyre aside.
  • Brutish Bulls: The Judgment Tower is full of small bull-like Babymares that will actively interfere with the Blood Team in combat. In less literal examples of bulls, but continuing the area's use of it as a secondary theme, there are also brazen bulls partially submerged in the coins that make up the floor and one depicted on the area logo.
  • Character Customization: Like the underground Jails in Mary Skelter 2 and Mary Skelter's remake, these Jails can be modified by the player to set a personalized challenge using the same two systems as before.
  • Dub Name Change: While some of the Jails' names were changed in simply space saving ways, Licard Island's Jail area has the qualifier of being a Tower added to it when originally it was the one Jail area that wasn't actually a Tower. The change from Leichhardt to Licard also ends up removing the possible implication of Hikari's teleportation dropping the group in Australia, as that is the name of a couple real areas there.
    • Eisern Jail Tower and Grave Jail Tower have been shown in prerelease screenshots to have been renamed to Eiserne and Dungeon, going the opposite direction of Leichhardt/Licard by removing their status as Towers. Later screenshots would show them as Eiserne Tower and both Grave Tower and Dungeon in the exact same screenshot.
  • Genius Loci: As with the underground Jails, these locations are massive living creatures whose desires must be satisfied by their inhabitants.
  • Giant Flyer: In comparison to the more common Jail Towers, the Devouring Armada Tower flies above the Earth's surface.
  • Gratuitous German: In the Japanese version, Leichhardt and the Eisern Jail Tower are locations with German names in what may be what's left of Tokyo.
  • Horrifying the Horror: After two Jails of suffering extreme pain upon the destruction of a core, Toh tries to communicate with the Grave Tower's. All he manages to get out of it is that it is completely terrified of the people going around killing its guardian Marchens, unlike the suberranean Jail being happy about such actions, before it's destroyed as well.
  • Inconsistent Dub: The English website refers to the main Jail Tower as the "devouring Jail", devouring not used as a proper noun. In game it is referred to as the "Devouring Armada Tower". Similarly Licard Island is referred to as such everywhere except the logo, where it is Licard Tower instead.
  • Mad Scientist Laboratory: Licard Island is an artificial island made of bisected train cars that has been converted into a massive lab with various giant needles full of glowing liquids sticking out of its walls.
  • Man-Eating Plant: The Devouring Armada Tower. Jack gets to see how it earned this name, watching from the Eisern Jail Tower as it chases down a group of humans and absorbs them with its tentacles.
  • Odd Name Out: Leichhardt Island's Jail area is just "Leichhardt", since it's not technically a tower and simply spreading across the artifical island. This is averted in the English version where the name has been changed to Licard Island and, sometimes, Licard Tower.
  • Organic Technology: The Devouring Armada Tower's interior is a bizzare mixture of flesh and machines. Brains with glowing monitors and camera eyes watch the halls from above while throbbing veins and circuitry run along the floors and walls everywhere.
  • Plant Aliens: Just like the underground Jails, these too are alien plants with numerous animal traits. The Devouring Armada Tower in particular leans more heavily into the animalistic side, being a highly active predator.
  • Psychological Torment Zone: Getting too close to the outside of the Devouring Armada Tower leads to a group of humans having surreal hallucinations causing them to stop running and approach its tentacles to be devoured.
  • Public Execution: Like the Massacre Pink, the Jails visited on the surface are all execution themed with additional Cold-Blooded Torture added in as well.
    • Iron chairs can be found in multiple Jails. Marchen made of iron chairs are found in numerous Jails, as are ones made of severed limbs in a shrew's fiddle or small animals with their heads crushed in a vise.
    • The Judgment Tower leans heavily into a brazen bull theming. The Struggle line of Marchen are bull headed demons with a horn, continuing the theme.
    • The Frozen Jail Tower is depicted on the loading screen with numerous water tanks, with chairs being lowered into them. Numerous people can also be seen frozen completely solid, and are found in game. Numerous Marchen appear to be frozen over or have ice spikes worked into their bodies.
    • Licard Island has numerous needles full of glowing liquids, giving it a lethal injection theme. It lacks Marchen that fit into the theme, primarily drawing from ones found everywhere. The Prison Wolf line of Marchen are three headed dogs bound by a scavenger's daughter.
    • Eiserne Tower is full of iron maidens, along with other bloodletting devices. Curiously, like Licard Island, no Marchen within fits the theme, though a few fall into Licard Island's lethal injection theme including the area's Nightmare.
    • Grave Tower is full of guillotines, crucified and decapitated bodies, and pendulum scythes. Guillotines and scythes are frequent body part replacements for the Marchen inside.
    • The Salvation Tower has little more than nooses, but they are far more numerous than any other method in any other Jail. Many of the Marchen similarly incorporate ropes or complete nooses into their design.
    • The Devouring Armada Tower has high tech versions of iron maidens, gallows, and guillotines. A few types of Marchen appear to have been partially flayed, the Karma demon types almost entirely so.
  • Schizo Tech: The technology inside the Devouring Armada Tower is all over the place. Iron maiden styled acid tanks, gallows with a Hard Light noose, laser guillotines, floppy disks and CDs in the walls, massive CRT monitors doubling as jail cells.
  • Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The Frozen Jail Tower is completely frozen over, however it lacks the slick ice floors often found in this sort of area.
  • So Last Season: These Jails have multiple cores all linked to a single Nightmare, as opposed to the subteranean Jails having a one core one Nightmare setup. Toh and Charlotte are aware of this and warn their groups of this when they notice it, Pyre doesn't even bother trying to find both cores and just uses the first one found to shut the local Nightmare down, and all other groups only find out after their area's Nightmare has been dealt with.
  • Sorting Algorithm of Evil: The underground Jails and the more standard Jail Towers among the group, along with their Marchens and Nightmares, are now considered to be the safe places to be. Leaving these Jails puts a person at the mercy of the much more aggressive and mobile Devouring Armada Tower.
  • Swirly Energy Thingy: Rather than a white core, numerous golden lights that take this form are found at the end of these Jails. Some groups run experiments to find out what they are, some have someone who already knows. They're a type of wormhole that moves nutrients from one Jail to the next, ultimately leading to the Devouring Armada Tower.
  • Torture Cellar: Eiserne Tower appears to be a cross between this and a high class restraunt, being filled with iron maidens, bladed walls, blood spewing out of the walls, tubs filled with blood, and fancy lamps, mirrors, and tables.
  • Treasure Room: The Judgment Tower's floors are a neverending pool of golden coins, with the occasional vase or similar objects, given the entire place this look.
  • The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The Devouring Armada Tower serves as a living example of this trope, as reaching the it becomes the primary goal of the game and fittingly serves as the last dungeon to explore.

Massacre Pink

     General Tropes 
  • Alas, Poor Villain: Despite the fact they're cold-hearted murderers, their fate of being turned into a Nightmare before getting killed off by their master is treated with horror and sympathy from some of the members of the Blood Team, especially Jack, Otsuunote , Little Mermaid, Alice, Charlottenote , and Pyrenote . The only people among the Blood Team who don't sympathize with them are Marynote  and Gretelnote .
  • Amazing Technicolor Population: They have grey skin, in contrast to everyone else's more normal skin tones.
  • Big, Screwed-Up Family: The name isn't just for show, for either reading. For Guillotine, Iron Maiden, and Gallows their kill counts were in the hundreds before they were even 10 years old at the orders of their master and "Papa", the older sisters torment Pyre for not being a mass murdering psychopath, and said master is Guillotine's actual older brother, who hates them all and is planning to kill them along with everything else.
  • Blood Magic: While not really magic, the Gore Suits used by them greatly enhance their powers and gives them special abilities. The Gore Suits are fueled by human blood. Since Pyre refuses to partake in the killings of humans, her Gore Suit breaks down at the end of the first chapter.
  • Bowdlerize: Aside from toning down the name from Genocide to Massacre, the fact that they've been enhanced with drugs was replaced with meditation in the English version of the prequel novel.
  • Clothes Make the Superman: Well, they don't quite make the superman as much as they make the already existing superman significantly stronger, but this is effectively the idea behind the Gore Suits. The one used by Gato is a much straighter example, as he is just a normal human without it, and becomes the Final Boss with it.
  • Designer Babies: The third prequel novel chapter reveals that, after finding Guillotine, someone had taken to intentionally causing prenant women to be turned into Marchen with the sole purpose of creating more execution themed children with the goal of wiping out all life.
  • The Dreaded: Following their introductions, the Massacre Pink girls are treated as such. The Blood Team would rather avoid fighting with them, acknowledging how little their chances of beating them in a head on fight are, and would rather spend the effort hiding from them instead.
  • Dub Name Change: Genocide Pink to Massacre Pink, keeping in line with all other substitutions of the term Genocide with Massacre.
  • Establishing Character Moment: When Massacre Pink first reveal themselves, they (with the exception of Pyre) immediately get to work slaughtering the survivors from underground while easily overpowering the Blood Team, showing themselves to be extremely powerful and utterly ruthless. Each member also gets their own individual moment that showcases their character very well, and Pyre's thoughts also explain their personalities thoroughly.
    • Guillotine first appears demanding to know who among the large group of people is Alice, and once she gets the answer, immediately starts cutting down survivors without mercy or emotion. When someone doesn't die quickly or starts fighting back, she gets angry to the point she actually almost kills Alice, something she was absolutely not supposed to do, despite normally being devoted and obedient to her master.
    • Gallows demands a woman to hand over her necklace, a precious heirloom to the latter, if she wants to live, only to decide not to take it and kill the woman anyway when she offers it. This lets us know she prefers to target the precious things her victims have just so she can watch them wallow in despair.
    • Pyre shows reluctance to kill, hinting that she is the Token Good Teammate.
    • Iron Maiden shows the most eagerness to kill her victims gruesomely while tasting their blood, establishing herself as Ax-Crazy and Sadistic to the point of being literally bloodthirsty.
  • Even Evil Can Be Loved: Despite the fact they treated her like dirt, Pyre still cared for the other Massacre Pink girls as her sisters, and she's horrified to see them transformed into a Nightmare, especially when their master sadistically gloats over how he turned them into a Nightmare for their failure.
  • Exotic Eye Designs: Except for Pyre, all of the members of the group have bright blue eyes with the same vaguely circular mass of scribbled lines for pupils that the Blood Maidens have in Blood Skelter.
  • The Heavy: Guillotine, Gallows, and Iron Maiden collectively serve as this in Finale. While their Master's identity remains hidden until the endgame, they each serve as the biggest obstacles and threats to the Blood Team during their journey on the surface, with each girl going after their respective targets (Guillotine for Jack and Mary's party, Gallows for Clara and Pyre's party, and Iron Maiden for Toh and Red Riding Hood's party).
  • Invincible Villain: With the exception of Hikari and her godlike powers, so far there hasn't been anyone who can come close to defeating them. Even the Nightmares follow their commands. The first battle against them results in complete defeat, while the following ones are revealed to be case of them playing around. Only to effortless stomp the Blood maidens into the ground the moment they get serious. Even Pyre the Token Good Teammate is a Crutch Character, stronger than Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel when you first get her as she is locked in permenant Massacre Mode. To prevent the team from having that strong of an ally, The Gore Suit breaks down at the end of the first chapter. Though this trope eventually becomes downplayed as time passes on.
  • Loss of Identity: It is the aversion of this in the process of becoming a Marchen that creates a Massacre Pink, though some are still born like Blood Maidens. That said, the transformation eventually brings about insanity, as the Finale prequel novel brings up those who had been shaped by Magical Girl and Sentai concepts do gradually go from genuine heroes to full blown Knight Templars with cults worshipping them.
    • The person specifically going out of their way to create Execution themed Massacre Pink had been primarily using the Blood Maiden method of creation, as this method's rate of failure is nearly 100%. Pyre was the only successful attempt at replicating the process that created the Justice themed ones.
  • Made of Evil: The four Massacre Pink involved in the game itself were not made from the ideas that the ones discussed in the prequel novel were, but instead methods of brutally killing humans.
  • Non-Indicative Name: All of Massacre Pink's members lack any of the pink that's typically associated with Blood Maidens, their eyes and flames (or whatever those are) being a light blue instead.
  • Nonuniform Uniform: Like the Blood Team their oufits are composed primarily of black and white, though that's where the similarities end. They add in a teal cape and their outfits are more exposed and yet also add in pieces of armor on their legs and forearms. Beyond that the designs vary greatly. They are also numbered, with Guillotine being 1, Iron Maiden being 2, Gallows being 3, and Pyre being 4.
  • Power-Upgrading Deformation: A relatively subtle example, but it's still there. The experiments performed on the Massacre Pink by their master turned their skin gray, changed the usual pink of their Massacre states into blue, and if Pyre is anything to go by, caused their hair to become at least partially white even in their normal state. Even the master in question gets these very changes in apppearance upon activating his personal Gore Suit, despite being a normal human and not a Massacre Pink in his own right.
  • The Psycho Rangers: Like the Blood Team they're a group of people changed by the Jails with inhuman powers, kept in a permanent Massacre Mode by their Gore Suits. Unlike the Blood Team they're, mostly, a group of murderous psychopaths.
  • Public Execution: Their team's theme, as well as the source of their Meaningful Name. Pyre's theme is Burn the Witch!, Guillotine's is the guillotine, Iron Maiden similarly is the Iron Maiden, and Gallows is the gallows.
  • Theme Naming: As mentioned above, all of them are named for a method of execution. The English version takes it a step further to make it perfectly clear by having their names all uniformly English instead of a mix of English and Japanese.
  • Transhuman: This was done to the four Execution themed Massacre Pink in order to give them an advantage over the more numerous and various Justice themed ones, using any means necessary such as drugs, machines, and Marchen parts. Pyre even more so than the others as she had been forcibly changed into who she is like most other Massacre Pink, while Guillotine, Iron Maiden, and Gallows had been born like Blood Maidens. These modifications are the reason for their unusual skin color and blue eyes replacing the normal pink.
  • Villain Forgot to Level Grind: While they remain a massive threat from the start, the gap between them and the Blood Team are reduced each time they encounter one another. Going from a Curb-Stomp Battle at first to a Curb Stomp Cushion with each passing encounter.
  • White Hair, Black Heart: All of them have white hair like the Blood Maidens in Massacre or Blood Skelter, but are a murderous group of antagonists. Pyre, the Token Good Teammate, is the only one to have half her hair a more natural looking black (though this is somewhat downplayed, as Pyre is also the only one we see outside of her Massacre form).

     The Massacre Pink's Master Major Unmarked Spoilers 

Yuto Gato (Yuuto Gatou)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gatou_5.png
Voiced by: Yu Kitada (Japanese), Armen Taylor (English)

One of the only surviving humans on the surface, Gato joins Mary's group and provides information about the world's current condition.

In truth, he only joined to keep an eye on Alice to ensure her death, and the resulting time loop, would not be repeated to allow his plans for the destruction of Earth to finally be complete.


  • Abusive Parent: Iron Maiden, Gallows, and Pyre all refer to him as Papa, but it's pretty clear he doesn't care at all about them. From his perspective, there nothing more than tools for him to use and discard, as well as the one thing he hates more than anything. He doesn't even hesitate to order Pyre's death when he finds out she joined the Blood Team, nor does he hesitate to mold Iron Maiden and Gallows into a Nightmare with Guillotine to do his bidding.
  • Big Bad Friend: Gato spent a considerable portion of the game posing as an ally of Jack and Mary's groups, before his role as the Massacre Pink's master is revealed.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: When Gato first appears, he comes off as a Gentleman and a Scholar, providing the Blood Team as much help as he can offer with information about the surface world and the Devouring Armada Tower. While there are some hints that there's more to him than he seems, it's not until Jack finally exposes him as Massacre Pink's master that he shows his true colors as a monstrous and nilhilistic sociopath who wants to destroy the world.
  • Blasphemous Boast: He's openly offended at the thought of using a Witchcraft core to reach his goals. After all, why rely on a god when you are above them?
    Yuto Gato: "None of you seem to get it. I'm not like any of you! I am human! I have used and destroyed this world with my own hands. Hundreds of lives can attest to that. You think I need this to become a god?! You're gravely mistaken!"
  • Cain and Abel: The Cain to the slightly less evil Guillotine's Abel. When his sister is of no further use to him, he turns her into a Nightmare and later kills her for daring to call him her brother.
  • Can't Kill You, Still Need You: He gives Massacre Pink strict orders not to kill Alice, because her death triggers the sequence leading to the time loops interfering with his plans, so he must keep her alive until he can identify the source of the time loops. Unfortunately for him, Massacre Pink's respective obsessions cause them to go against orders and almost jeopardize the mission, forcing him to infiltrate the Blood Team to keep a closer eye on Alice. His act of treating Alice before infiltrating the group is the first thing Jack uses to expose him as Massacre Pink's master.
  • Clothes Make the Superman: He develops a Gore Suit for himself, granting him enough power to fight off the Blood Team despite being a normal human.
  • Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: He's this to Snark even more so than the Mysterious Nightmare was in Mary Skelter 2 and is even this to the Mysterious Nightmare in certain ways.
  • "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Gato could have undone almost all of the damage that was done by the Jails' arrival a long time ago by simply making proper use of the Witchcraft fragment by just telling it to go away, rather than use it as a shield against the Marchen, as Jack essentially did with his wish in the true ending, but his hatred for them blinded him to this possibility and drove him to commit his omnicidal rampage instead.
  • Defiant to the End: He finds himself completely trapped by all three of the Blood Team groups on top of the Devouring Armada Tower and rather than allow them to force him to stop the Jail from dragging Earth's moon down, he continues to insult them, even downgrading them from mere "bugs" to "maggots", before jumping to his death satisfied that their victories over him in combat were still meaningless with the moon's approach.
  • Determinator: A very dark example. Gato sees the world as beyond salvation, so he decides to just end the world without even trying to find the right solution to ending the Jails. He's so determined to see the world's destruction through that he tries to find a way to end the time loop interfering with his plans even though he could use those time loops to find the solution to save humanity.
  • Evil Counterpart: Gato can best be summed up as "Towa, minus the Morality Chain". His response to losing his family to the Jails and Justice themed Massacre Pink was to wipe out all non human life on the planet and anyone sympathetic to them, which is to say everything left alive. Even worse is that he didn't lose his entire family like Towa, he just rejects his relation to his sister due to how she was born.
  • Fantastic Racism: Anything and anyone not human, such as Marchen or Blood Maidens, are dismissed as "bugs" to him and must be eradicated. Not even his sister is spared, having been born a Massacre Pink, he keeps her around only because she's useful in killing other "bugs" and doesn't hesitate to kill her once that use has been lost. Subverted in the end as he turns out to be an Omnicidal Maniac who would gladly kill any other humans that doesn’t agree with his views.
  • Final Boss: For both Mary Skelter Finale and the series as a whole, Gato is the last enemy the Blood Team must face both to save the world and put an end to the Jails once and for all.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: 20 years ago, he was just a normal boy living with his brother and parents, after the Jail Seed landed, he pretty much snapped and became the Marchen-hating person who would stop at nothing to end all of them.
  • Have You Told Anyone Else?: A variation on the concept occurs. Mary was not paying close attention to who she saw help Alice in the Judgment Tower, leading to him passing it off as her delusions and that she really was the one to help Alice. Unfortunately, Mary insists that she knows the difference between the two and that even if she didn't the familiar saw it happen too and much more closely. He then asks to explain how the familiar was made, learning of her ability to manipulate reality with Cores and her matches, which is ultimately what has him order Guillotine to assassinate her rather than just the risk of either of them revealing his identity.
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters: Out of all the major antagonists of the series, Yuto Gato is the only one that is human and is downright rotten and irredeemable to the core, having none of the sympathetic qualities of the previous antagonists described under Contrasting Sequel Antagonist. He also believes this towards all humans during his final Hannibal Lecture towards the Blood Team before he proceeds to commit suicide out of spite and pride, believing that he still had complete victory in the end with complete destruction, even going so far as to claim that perhaps he should have spared some of the people who came up to the surface just so they could see what Blood Maidens were truly capable of and turn on the Blood Team despite what they had done for them..
  • Iconic Item: His one-of-a-kind silver pocket watch, found by Mary early on in the game. Mary accidentally breaks it during her team's exploration, leading her to use one of her matches on a nearby core to create a copy of the watch without the damage before she gives it Gato. The broken pocket watch is crucial to reaching the true ending, as Jack must use it to prove that Gato was the one who treated Alice, thus providing the first piece of evidence that Gato is Massacre Pink's master.
  • Inconsistent Spelling: Yuuto Gatou in the Japanese version, Yuto Gato in the English version. They also incorrectly list his name as Yuko on the official English website.
  • I Never Said It Was Poison: Like Jabberwock, his regular use of terms that should only be known among the cast that came from the underground Jail casts suspicion on him right from the start. Miko brings it up when he's being revealed as the Massacre Pink's master, noting that it was odd for him to habitually use the terms without an excuse for it like Jabberwock had.
  • Kick the Dog: Unsurprisingly for a villain, he's bound to have these, but one of his most notable is when he's confronted by Clara's party. He sadistically gloats to Pyre over how he turned her sisters in Massacre Pink into a Nightmare, going over every detail as excruciatingly as possible, before yelling out how much he hates her. There was no reason for him to do this beyond making Pyre cry, and it only serves to enrage all of Pyre's friends.
  • Last-Name Basis: While his full name is given, and always present on his dialog boxes, other characters only ever refer to him as Gato.
  • Mask of Sanity: Gato is capable of acting like a rational human being, but his true self is a nihilistic megalomaniac consumed by hatred.
  • Mr. Exposition: Gato's initial role is to fill in Mary's group on the state of the world on the surface, and then he promptly fades off into the background even more so than other non-party members.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Despite not living to see it happen, Gato's refusal to use a White Core out of pride ends up undoing his entire plan, as Jack uses Mary's match on the Core to make a wish that will save the day (either to rid of the Jails, Marchens, and Nightmares while turning the Blood Team and Mamarou's group into humans, or creating the timeline that Mary Skelter: Locked Up in Love takes place in).
  • Redemption Rejection: When given the chance to explain himself to Jack he just laughs, mocking the thought that he would beg for forgiveness.
  • Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Thanks to being in possession of a fragment of a white core he's able to retain his memories of every time loop Charlotte and Mary have been trapping the world in in their attempt to save Alice.
  • Shoot the Mage First: Finally meeting Mary and Charlotte allows him to put together who and how time has been being constantly reset, delaying his plan to wipe out all life on Earth, and orders Guillotine to assassinate Mary so her power to project her delusions can't be fed into a core to reset time again.
    • That he could never find the chance to do this to Hikari is a sore spot for him, as she manages to wake up from her coma just in time to slow the moon's approach. Jack's portion of the Final Boss fight against him is specifically stated to be an effort to keep him from finally doing so.
  • The Sociopath: Gato acts like a nice man when the Blood Team first meet him, but once his true colors are shown, he reveals himself to be this. He cares nothing for the lives of others (not even his remaining family, Guillotine, because he only sees her as a monster who ruined his life), sees himself as above the gods, and is perfectly fine with dying as long as the world is destroyed.
  • Spiteful Suicide: After he's finally defeated by the Blood Team, Gato chooses to jump to his death after seeing the moon about to fall to the Earth, satisfied that his plan to destroy the world is about to happen and the Blood Team's efforts were apparently All for Nothing. He spends his last moments mocking Jack's team about their failure and continues to degrade them as "maggots".
  • Straw Nihilist: Gato sees the world and humanity as beyond saving, to the point he prefers to just end the world rather than think of a method to save it, and he'll gladly die if it means the world goes with him. He even admits that he never really had faith to begin with, and he teaches Massacre Pink that religion is for the weak. He also seems to think other humans are just like him, people who would hate and turn on the Blood Team no matter what they've done to save them.
  • Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum: Having passed the Despair Event Horizon when the Theophile Seed fell in his parents' vicinity and turned his Mother into a Marchen, and having said mother die by the attacking Massacre Pink's hands, causing his sister to be born a Blood Maiden, seeing no one to lean on with his plight, he sought to gain enough power at any cost, no matter the sacrifices just to end all existence. This is especially true after Jack exposes him as the vile, cowardly scum he truly is, especially during his Hannibal Lecture in the Final Battle.
  • That Thing Is Not My Sibling: He does not view Guillotine as his sister thanks to the Jails turning their mother into a Marchen, resulting in her being born a Massacre Pink. He completely loses it when she calls him "brother" instead of "master", brutally killing her for it despite having expected her to serve as backup for him against the Blood Team not even seconds earlier.
  • Ungrateful Bastard: When the camp in the Grave Tower is attacked by Marchen, Jack attempts to save him after he drops something important to him. Rather than being grateful for having his life saved, he lashes out at Jack for interfering. Justified, since he was probably counting on the Marchen to kill off all of Jack’s Team since he knows they won’t target anyone with a Witchcraft Core fragment that he possesses and Jack taking him away from the area before he could retrieve it would leave him vulnerable.
  • Used to Be a Sweet Kid: When he still had his parents, he was, now, all that innocence is gone, replaced by hatred and contempt for the ones who ruined his life.
  • Viler New Villain: As explained under Contrasting Sequel Antagonist, Snark was a Well-Intentioned Extremist who wanted to recreate his homeworld, while the Mysterious Nightmare is a Tragic Monster who transformed and went on a rampage after apparently losing the one she loved. Both of them have someone they still cared about deeply that played a role in their motivesnote . Gato, on the other hand, is an Omnicidal Maniac who wants to destroy everything just because he hates non-human beings that much, has none of the sympathetic or redeeming qualities of the previous antagonists, is indiscriminate in the lives he ruins, and has absolutely no one he cares about (he rejects the only remaining family he still had, Guillotine, just because she's not fully human, making his Freudian Excuse fall flat).

     Guillotine 

Guillotine, Rin Gatou

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/guillotine_0.png
Voiced by: Yuki Nagaku (Japanese), Amber Lee Connors (English)

  • Alas, Poor Villain: Despite being a mass murderer who is fanatically devoted to her master, her death ends up being tragic once it's revealed that said master is her older brother and she's been trying to earn his approval and affection. Hearing her beg Gato to say they're family before Gato cruelly rejects and stabs her to death is downright heartwrenching. Even Jack's team (with the exception of Mary) are horrified by this, with Jack himself becoming enraged and disgusted with Gato's act of heartless cruelty.
  • Berserk Button: Her victims not dying in one hit, and slowing her down in any way. Jack and the Blood Maidens surviving her attacks leaves her repeating irritating and This Is Unforgivable! before regaining her composure. Hikari holding the Massacre Pink in place for little more than a second, then attempting something else has Guillotine break down again and scream to the others to "kill the feathered one NOW".
    • Also talking about her master in anyway. While all the Massacre Pink girls have a master that they are loyal to, Guillotine's goes much further. Her devotion is such to the point that it borders on the line of fanaticism. Even the very notion of anyone asking even the simplest things about her master is enough to send her into a blinding rage.
  • BFS: Guillotine wields a massive sword that has a built in guillotine.
  • Flaw Exploitation: Jack intentionally pushes her Berserk Button to cause her to become fixated on him, creating an opening for Otsuu to finally actually harm her in their final, non fused Nightmare, battle.
  • The Dragon: She leads the Massacre Pink, but is completely devoted to their master
  • Meaningful Name: Her name and method of execution are one and the same. Her parents had attempted to invoke this with the name Rin. Her brothers Kento and Yuuto were wise and gentle men(before the latter was consumed by revenge and his trauma of losing his parents anyway), so they hoped she would become a dignified woman.
  • Mood-Swinger: Guillotine regularly shifts between being calm and quiet and a near incomprehensible screaming lunatic multiple times even within the same conversation.
  • Murder by Mistake: Guillotine attempts to kill Mary upon the Blood Team's arrival at the Devouring Armada Tower, only to instead to kill her servant because the latter was wearing her clothes. Guillotine cut it down upon seeing the shadow without bothering to take a closer look.
  • My Master, Right or Wrong: Even if it goes against her nature or would actively harm her, she will comply with anything her master tells her to do. Her devotion is so great that the instant he tells her to kill Iron Maiden and Gallows so he can fuse them into a Nightmare, she does so.
  • No-Nonsense Nemesis: Downplayed. Because of her Blood Libido, Guillotine prefers to kill her enemies as quickly and efficiently as possible. However, this trope only seems to apply to killing her targets. When it comes to following her master's orders, her desire to kill leads her to nearly jeopardize her mission by attempting to kill Alice, something her master had warned her not to do. Failing to carry out her mission properly a few times leads to her master to fuse her with Gallows and Iron Maiden into a Nightmare.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
    • Guillotine prioritizes speed and efficiency in her kills and spares no one, so telling Riley to hand over one of her sisters to be "raised" by her and her master by the count of ten or have everyone die is unusual. Even more unusual is that she drew the count out, "one" alone took several seconds. Children have the highest chance at surviving the process that creates a Massacre Pink, and she was under orders from her master to bring one back.
    • Guillotine gets a second one later in the story, when she attempts to kill Mary while everyone was sleeping. As Jack points out, Guillotine is usually too haughty to resort to such methods, being the type to confront her enemies face-to-face, and this tips him off that Guillotine was ordered by her master to kill Mary specifically.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: Her extreme loyalty to their master is due to the fact that he's her older brother. Everything she does is an attempt to gain his approval and affection.

     Iron Maiden 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ironmaiden_0.png
Voiced by: Marika Kouno (Japanese)

  • Ax-Crazy: Easily the most unhinged member of Massacre Pink, and literally bloodthirsty to boot.
  • Blood Lust: Iron Maiden enjoys tasting the blood of her victims as she kills them. She can get very angry whenever she doesn't like the blood, leading her to kill more victims.
  • The Brute: She's the most physically imposing of the Massacre Pink thanks to her iron maiden limbs, is the only one to enjoy an actual fight, and is also the first among them that the Blood Team truly get to fight against.
  • Cyborg: The most obvious among the four to have recieved mechanical upgrades, thanks to the parts of her iron maiden being attached to her back by black mechanical arms.
  • Fan Disservice: The way she floats and leans back inside her giant iron maiden blatantly exposes her panties to the player. And any would be victim that's seconds away from being viciously impaled on her spikes so she can drink their blood.
  • In-Series Nickname: She's referred to as Mei by both Gallows and herself.
  • Meaningful Name: Her weapon and execution basis is an iron maiden.
  • Out of Focus: Among the members of Massacre Pink, Iron Maiden gets the least amount of screentime and focus. She only makes a total of three appearances within the overall plot, whereas Guillotine and Gallows have more scenes within the story (albeit while the latter is in disguise). Also noteworthy in that after Massacre Pink is fused into a Nightmare, Iron Maiden gets mentioned the least afterwards, whereas Gallows and Guillotine at least get a mention of their reaction to being fused into a Nightmare while Guillotine makes one final appearance as the sole mind of the Nightmare before she is killed by her master.
  • Paranoia Fuel: She provides some In-Universe for Red Riding Hood's team under orders by informing them that "Snark is watching" before leaving them in Eiserne Tower. She has no idea what it means herself, and it ultimately had no purpose other than to make the group paranoid.
  • Sadist: Pyre lampshades that Iron Maiden is the most sadistic member of Massacre Pink due to how eager she is to shed blood.
  • Say It with Hearts: She ends many of her sentences with a ★.
  • Sugary Malice: Iron Maiden tends to speak in a cutesy and syrupy manner even when she's mocking others. She only drops this whenever she gets angry, especially after losing to Toh's team at the Devouring Armada Tower.

     Gallows 

Gallows (Kubitsuridai)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gallows_41.png
Voiced by: Rie Takahashi (Japanese), Jenny Yokobori (English)

  • Ain't Too Proud to Beg: After Massacre Pink's master grows tired of their failures and decides to fuse them into a Nightmare, Gallows can only cry and plead futiley to be spared. The master even gloats about this just to hurt Pyre, who still cared for Massacre Pink even after everything they've done to her.
  • Big Sister Bully: Arguably, Gallows likes to bully Pyre the most among Massacre Pink when belittling her for her reluctance to kill. When Pyre joins the enemy's team, Gallows tries to ruin her newfound friendship by turning them against her. Pyre even outright calls her a bully after defeating her in battle alongside her friends.
  • Climax Boss: Gallows is the last member of Massacre Pink fought in the Devouring Armada Tower, and her battle occurs just after the Blood Team's members reunite. Her defeat at the hands of Clara's party leads her to reveal the truth about Pyre's identity as Rachel just before she's taken away by her master to be fused into a Nightmare alongside Guillotine and Iron Maiden, with the attack from the Nightmare allowing the team to deduce the master's true identity.
  • Deadly Euphemism: All of her attacks in the Japanese version make reference to bringing "Salvation" to her victims in some way. The English version retains this to an extent with Savior and Blessing, though Forced Salvation becomes Random Rush despite having no similarity to the player's Random Rush.
  • Despair Event Horizon: She loves to torment her targets by targeting what they hold most precious first, wanting to see them wallow in despair before she kills them.
  • Dub Name Change: From Kubitsuridai to Gallows. Like the Blood Maidens, it's a mostly direct translation of her name.
  • Faux Affably Evil: Arguably the most cheerful and easy going of the Massacre Pink girls, however underneath it, she's still a cold-blooded killer who enjoys committing murder and causing suffering.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: Pyre tells the group about her, and it puts her tendency of taking things from her victims in this light. She wants whatever others have but once she has whatever it is, it rarely continues to interest her and will dispose of it even if she doesn't kill who she stole it from. Pyre herself is a common target, having taken and later killing her pet Marchen some time in the past as well as using her former human identity and an attempt is made to take away Pyre's newfound friendships.
  • Meaningful Name: Kubitsuridai means "hanging platform", essentially gallows which the English version uses for her name instead. This is both her weapon and execution basis.
  • Sadist: Of the psychological variety. Gallows prefers to target what is most precious to people so she see the look of utter despair on their faces before killing them.
  • Shapeshifting: One of the unique functions of her Gore Suit allows her to disguise herself as other people. She joins the group as Rachel in order to make Pyre completely miserable before killing her and everyone else.
  • Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: A Fatal Flaw of hers. She loves to toy around with her targets so much that she can forget about her mission and even allow her targets to escape because of her obsession of inflicting despair upon them. This ends up screwing her over, as she wasted numerous chances to assassinate Pyre because she wants to break her emotionally. By the time she gets ready to actually kill her, Pyre has forged an unbreakable bond with her new friends and along with her new friends have grown strong enough to defeat her.

Pyre

For Tropes related to Pyre please check the Blood Team page.

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