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  • Informed Wrongness: Caused by the English dub; Maya is supposed to be an Enfant Terrible whose behavior is so out of control that the only thing her mother can do to get her to behave is to seek out the help of a good witch. The original version (which is a series consisting of 26 episodes) does show Maya behaving as she is described, such as kicking a ball into a boy's face and later refusing to apologize when he and his mother show up at her own door, but the English release removed these scenes and made it seem like Maya is mildly bratty at worst; it only keeps the scenes showing the witch's visions of Maya sleeping in class, trying to catch a frog, and pulling on her mother’s dress in an apparent attempt to get her attention, which are all typical behaviors of children around Maya’s approximate age and hardly serve to illustrate the “impossible problem” described in the opening narration.
  • Narm: Maya's dub actor sounds like she thought the character was a young boy.
  • Tear Jerker:
    • The scene where a distraught and shrunken Maya tries to wake her mother up. While her scratchy voice dampens it some in the English dub, it's still heartbreaking to watch her shout "Wake up, mama!" and "Help me!" in desperation after finding herself to be tiny like the titular Thumbelina.
    • When Maya walks up to the door of Aunt Ruth's house and looks at her cooking a soup, she briefly sees her mom instead. She then tears up and says she misses her mom a lot and is sorry for disobeying her. One can't help but feel sorry for her, especially since it clearly shows she progressed from being a bratty child after everything she's faced so far...
  • Nightmare Fuel:
    • Cassandra looks plain old terrifying. Her face looks like that of a demon and in general looks like she came out of someone's nightmare. Croven by extension counts too; despite the fact that he keeps failing to permanently bring down Maya and her friends, he still manages to commit such acts as luring Maya into his trap under the guise of a kind woman and threatening her with death if she doesn't obey his orders, and swallowing Noble whole and alive.
    • The 3-parter consisting of the episodes "Trapped in the Mole Tunnel", "Crooked Proposition" and "Maya's Wedding" manages to get pretty dark:
    • Maya's Nightmare Sequence in "Dragon of Flower Light". She dreams about escaping from giant sentient flowers during a stormy night, not wanting to repaint their colorless petals when a dragon takes their colors for his ball of light. They surround her and start to admonish her for attempting to leave, towering over her in a very sinister manner. And to top it off, she hears Noble calling out to her... only to find him as a featureless pile of melting sugar, followed by the flowers accusing Maya of letting such a thing happen to her own friend.

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