My Dear Marie is a 1994 manga made into a three-episode OVA in 1996. Only the OVA has been brought overseas, originally under the name Metal Angel Marie, and is the subject of this article. It was created by Sakura Takeuchi and Sho Aikawa.
The first two episodes revolve around Hiroshi, a friendly neighborhood mad scientist. Unlucky at love, he creates a robot with the appearance and name of his crush, Mari. The robot, Marie, accidentally meets the original Mari, and Hiroshi starts telling people that he and Marie are siblings as a cover story. Soon, a tough girl, Hibiki, enters the picture, and threatens to reveal the truth about Marie, unless Hiroshi becomes her boyfriend.
The third episode revolves around Marie and consists of three dream sequences. They contain much bizarre imagery and navel gazing, as well as some other stuff.
This work contains the following tropes:
- Best Beer Ever
- Black Comedy Rape: Hibiki gets Hiroshi drunk and tries to have sex with him, over his objections. Played for laughs.
- But Liquor Is Quicker: Hibiki's approach to seducing Hiroshi once she gets him home, but see the next trope down.
- Can't Hold His Liquor: Hiroshi passes out after two screwdrivers, though Hibiki might've made them a bit on the strong side.
- Casanova Wannabe: Tanaka.
- Clingy Jealous Girl
- Color Failure
- Crash-Into Hello
- Creative Closing Credits: The OVA ending shows what Marie's life could've been as a normal girl, from birth to career and marriage.
- Delinquents: Hibiki, who solicits men and robs them.
- Do Androids Dream?: Yes, they do. And she even makes a Shout-Out to the trope namer.
- Does Not Know His Own Strength: Marie accidentally sends a door flying across the room just by knocking on it.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Would Hibiki's attempts to get Hiroshi to have sex with her really be as funny if their genders were reversed?
- Fanservice: Ever wanted to know what Robot Girl breasts look like? Here's your chance.
- Handsome Lech: Tanaka.
- Hopeless Suitor
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy
- Identical Twin ID Tag: The only physical difference between Marie and Mari is that Marie has pink hair, while Mari's is blue.
- Mad Scientist: How many average guys can build an android duplicate of their crush?
- Magical Girlfriend: Set up to be that way, then averts it.
- Really Was Born Yesterday: Marie literally tells the rest of the cast she was in fact born yesterday. Luckily, everyone else just assumes she means it was her birthday.
- Replacement Goldfish: Marie is a copy of Mari.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: If you don't see her during maintenance or displaying one of her weirder features, you'd never think Marie was a robot.
- Scary Shiny Glasses: Hiroshi gets these while working on Marie at the beginning, and also in the Stab the Scorpion example.
- Stab the Scorpion: The memory of Hiroshi and Hibiki at the pool years ago, when Hiroshi pushed her down to keep her from being noticed by the feral dog.
- Stalker with a Crush: Hiroshi is sort of this with Mari- especially apparent when he's making Marie by obsessively copying her exact likeness.
- Super-Deformed: Marie takes this form for the previews.
- Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids: Despite what she was made for, Marie is able to do things like jump onto moving trains and throw people around.
- Technobabble
- Tsundere: Hibiki.
- Twincest: The end of episode three has Marie kiss Mari.
- Unlucky Everydude: Hiroshi.
- Yamato Nadeshiko: What Hiroshi tried to mold Marie as. It didn't quite take.
