YMMV / Lord Marksman and Vanadis

• Anticlimax Boss: Valentina. Despite being set up as the final volume's antagonist, with all other Viralts petrified for the time, she ends up fatally stabbed by a minor character who simply fell to his death immediately afterward. The fight with Ganelon in the previous volume felt much more climatic, as he brought much higher stakes by absorbing Tir Na Fal and needed her remaining power along with six out of seven Viralts (which led to the aforementioned petrification) channeled into Tigre's bow to be defeated.
• Awesome Music:
  • The opening theme, Ginsen no Kaze, is as gloriously, cheesily over-the-top as a fantasy anime OP can get.
  • Eleonora's theme, starts off pretty chill then builds up to the feel of an epic battle. Really suits her as the cool, intelligent badass she is.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The demon fight against Vodyanoy can come off quite random, and out of place, if you look at the Brune arc on its own. It's for this reason that many believe this to be the reason it got skipped in the anime adaptation, which is a shame since the lore surrounding the demons gets further Exposition after the Brune arc.
• Broken Base:
  • The rushed pacing of the first anime episode due to Adaptation Distillation ended up causing this. People were either fine with how their first impression of the series turned out, or you (mostly those having read the light novels) felt that the adaptation was ruined for leaving out too much of the content. There's also the third camp that felt the rushed pacing and disappointed that content got skipped, but are enjoying the adaptation anyway. This has somewhat died down when Media Factory released mini episodes that cover content skipped by the anime.
  • Some people love the fanservice and ridiculous outfits the war maidens wear, while others feel that they mar a story and setting that are well-written enough to do well without pandering.
• Complete Monster:
  • Duke Maximilian Bennusa Ganelon is the driving force of evil for most of the story, manipulating the Brune civil war, and pressing soldiers to commit war crimes and atrocities. Poisoning Prince Faron, and executing honorable commanders via cruelly creative methods (including large bees), Ganelon later burns down an entire city with civilian casualties to escape justice and continues to manipulate new wars, even devouring the demon Baba Yaga when she recognizes him as the demon Koschei in disguise. Obsessed with chaos, Ganelon even tries to unleash a primordial force of destruction to raze the land, only to try to betray and devour her as well.
  • Torbalan is a demon who joins Prince Elliot's army as the human Le(ice)ster so he can kill more people. After being defeated, Torbalan leaves the army and establishes a base at an island where he gets a bunch of pirates to work for him. Torbalan sinks two ships using a sea dragon before ordering his army to launch a full-scale attack on a helpless town, intending to kill all the residents along with the naval fleet protecting them. Finding himself outmatched, Torbalan begins sending waves of his men to wear the enemy down, not caring if they all die.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Roland for many people, especially after his death.
• Growing the Beard:
  • Roland's death showed viewers/readers that this story has a dark undertone beneath what many see as just another Harem series at first glance.
  • The fact the series had the balls to kill off one of the war maidens was a pretty risky move by Tsukasa Kawaguchi that got everyone to realize that not even the Harem is safe.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Viktor is paranoid that the war maidens will rise to power. Two years later, Tina does rise to power after Viktor's death so that she can begin Zhcted's civil war.
• I Knew It!:
  • Quite a few readers predicted that Tigre would become King of Brune and Zhcted. They were right.
  • Everyone called that Tina would eventually take over Zhcted through evil means.
  • Despite Elen claiming Tigre as hers, many expected it would expand to more than just her considering all the other beauties interested in him. In the end, he does indeed Marry Them All, further evident when does it with Tiffa, and it is not Elen but Queen Regin of all people who becomes his Top Wife, though for political reasons.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Tigre gets paired with practically every female character that was introduced within the first 7 volumes. The lone exception being Princess Guinevere of the Asvarre Kingdom.
• Memetic Mutation: You cannot walk into a Vanadis thread without someone shouting "BEEEEEEEEEEES!"^note This is what kills Roland who was undeniably a badass, but failed to kill Tigre on Thenardier's orders.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • When Duke Ganelon kills Roland with killer bees for failing to kill Tigre and Ellen.
  • Duke Thenardier crosses this when he orders Zion to raze Alsace because Tigre was a war prisoner of Zhcted. You know, instead of just negotiating to pay the ransom. Zion also crosses it doing the deed, and attempting to rape Titta in the process.
  • Greast crosses it when he defiles Elen when she's his captive, only refraining from outright rape until he can force Tigre to watch.
• Narm:
  • It’s difficult not to see the Vanadis' outfits as designed for fanservice before anything else, which can make them look rather silly while surrounded by nearly everyone else wearing proper armor.
  • Episode 10 has Tigre and Mila struggling with Muozinel’s greater numbers. It’s supposed to be a tense situation before reinforcements arrive… but then you look at the enemy forces and see poorly animated CGI soldiers swinging at nothing.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: Many due to Tigre's ever growing harem as the volumes move along.
• Strawman Has a Point: Duke Thernadier ignored his own Social Darwinism in regards to his son, and it came back to bite him, hard. He not only lost two dragons and a rather sizable army, but ultimately his life as a direct result.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Due to the series coming to an end after the Zhcted Civil War, the ongoing threat of the southern Muozinel Kingdom never got any real spotlight. As a result, Muozinel just remained as a nearby kingdom that sometimes sent out armies to try to take over kingdoms during some Story Arcs.
• Too Cool to Live:
  • Roland overwhelms two Vanadis, survived a Combination Attack from the two of them with Tigre’s bow, becomes Tigre’s ally after the fight... and then gets unceremoniously stung to death by a swarm of bees before he can provide any direct assistance.
  • Bertrand who, in many ways, acted as Tigre's mentor.
  • Sasha, after she was finally able to show off why she was chosen as one of the seven war maidens.