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Poor Ginta just can't get a break. He's nearsighted, does poorly in school, isn't athletic, and to top it all off, is really short for his age. He has quite the imagination, however, having had the same dream of the fantastical world of Märhaven, where he's the hero that saves the day, a total of 102 times. This only makes him a bigger laughingstock at school, except for his childhood friend Koyuki who very much enjoys Ginta's imaginary adventures. Then one day, a mysterious portal appears in the middle of his class room and its guardian summons Ginta to the world beyond. With litte hesitation, Ginta steps through to find himself in the land of his dreams. Not only is Märhaven real, but Ginta is now strong and agile and best of all, no longer needs his glasses to see! Thus begins Ginta's adventures in Mär Heaven.
Early on in the plot, the action revolves around fighting [[Monster of the Week|monsters and bandits]] and introducing the other main characters. The plot then takes a [[Darker and Edgier|darker turn]] when the [[Nebulous Evil Organization|Chess]] declare war on all of Märhaven which culminates in an [[Tournament Arc|epic tournament]] with the fate of Märhaven hanging in the balance.
The anime's North American release ran on [[Cartoon Network]]'s [[Toonami]] (after a more consistent run on Toonami Jetstream), however [[Screwed
The manga also got a sequel called ''Mär Omega'', which is neither written nor drawn by Anzai. It features a cast of entirely new characters apart from Babbo (with one or two original characters making cameo appearances). It also doesn't follow the same format as the first one. [[Your Mileage May Vary]] on how good it is.
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{{tropelist}}
* [[Accidental Pervert]] - Jack during his first match with Pano. He was entirely clueless to the [[Unfortunate Implications]] during his fight.
* [[Action Girl]] - Both Snow and Dorothy
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* [[A Glass of Chianti]] - [[Bloody Murder|Peta]] drinks Nanashi's blood from a fancy (yet creepy) wineglass ''during'' their battle. And yeah, it's just a glass, not an Ärm.
* [[Alternate Universe]] - Mär
* [[
* {{spoiler|[[Amnesiac Dissonance]] - Babbo was Phantom's Ärm in the first games.}}
** In the last volume, we learn that isn't strictly the case. {{spoiler|Babbo's "evil" personality was actually the result of the evil from the Caldian Orb inhabiting him. It left after the first War Games, leaving Babbo with the personality of Caldia's Elder... And Ginta's father.}}
* [[Anime Theme Song]]: In the Japanese version. The English dub has a badass [[Instrumental Theme Tune]] instead.
* [[Anti
* [[Apologetic Attacker]] - Rolan
* [[Ascended Fanboy]] - Ginta gets to visit the fantasy land he dreamed so long for.
* [[Authority Equals Asskicking]] - The Chess are ranked via chess pieces. Pawns being mooks, followed by Rooks, Bishops, and Knights being the highest ranked fighters. There is only one King and Queen and they don't fight {{spoiler|till the very end.}}
* [[Back
* [[Badass]] - Characters on both sides each exhibit moments of badassery, but Alan takes the cake, literally everything he says and does looks badass.
** Except [[Weaksauce Weakness|against cats]].
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* [[Bait and Switch Lesbians]] - Despite being in love with Ginta, Dorothy has quite a few moments in the anime being inappropriately groped by other females.
** Poor Dorothy, despite being a canonically straight woman, that doesn't stop the animators for taken advantage of her in the name of Fanservice.
* [[Battle in
* [[Betty and Veronica]] - With Snow being the Betty and Dorothy being the Veronica.
* [[Big Screwed
* [[Bilingual Bonus]] - Märchen is German for "Fairy Tale"
** Koyuki is Japanese for 'little snow', her alternate within MAR is Snow
* [[Black Magician Girl]] - Dorothy
* [[Blade
* [[Blessed
* [[Bling of War]]: Justified in that the flashy outfits with fancy rings, necklaces and accessories are what the characters use to attack. In short, their bling ''is'' war.
* [[Blood Knight]] - The basic Chess Piece philosophy, especially Phantom and Peta. They believe that a peaceful, pristine world like [[Mär Heaven]] is meaningless without conflict, war, and battle.
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** Bumoru is a counterpart to Merilo, though significantly less of a 'cat-girl' impression.
* [[Chess Motifs]] - The Chess, if you couldn't tell. Most obviously, their ranking system is organized by the strength of chess pieces, the order being Pawn, Rook, Bishop, Knight, Queen, and King.
* [[Clothing Damage]] - Happens a lot in the anime. Dorothy and Alviss are the main victims.
* [[Chaste Hero]] - While Snow and Jack comment on Alice's appearance, and Bappo is embarrassed to take that form, Ginta doesn't even seem to give her the time of day.
** He does notice that Snow is an attractive young girl when he carries her off the battlefield in the third round, and when Dorothy gives him a kiss for helping her at the story's start, he blushes and apologies to Koyuki, which he notably doesn't do when Snow [[Crash Into Hello]] with him, twice!
* [[Combat Sadomasochist]] - Candice. She outright says this to Jack when she fights him. Her Chimera guardian works by having her take pain in order to power it up, and then inflicts that "pain" on the foe by way of [[Taken for Granite|petrification]].
* [[Conspicuous CG]] - The anime is very guilty of this, especially with its Guardian type Arms.
* [[Crap Saccharine World]]: It's a world of [[Sugar Bowl|children's fairy tales]]... populated by [[Omnicidal Maniac|Omnicidal]] [[Blood Knight
* [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass]] - Ginta, Jack, and Nanashi. All three display varying degrees of stupidity, yet when pushed hard enough show their badass sides.
** Nanashi definitely as well, seeing how he acts like and is in fact a skirt chaser all of the time. However the few matches that he loses are because he went easy on his opponents
* [[Curb Stomp Battle]] - Dorothy vs. Avrute.
** {{spoiler|Arguably, all of the battles near the end of the manga, esp. v.s. the Knights, Queen and King. They, almost invariably, followed the formula, A uses X, hitting B once, then countered easily by B using Y, and then after several X,Y,Z... A summons a Guardian, which looks really badass, hitting B once, but it is always killed by B's Guardian, often in one shot. The end. Hell, none of the heroes even got a scratch after the last battle.}}
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* [[Disappeared Dad]] - Ginta's father {{spoiler|who turned out to be Boss of the Cross Guard.}}
** Specifically, he was killed in the first War Games. {{spoiler|In the last volume, we learn that the Caldian Orb possessed his body, and that his soul was pushed into Babbo.}}
* [[Disproportionate Retribution]]: {{spoiler|This was what lead to Chimera's [[Start of Darkness]] when her wedding was crashed and her groom killed all because he was a former (and by then reformed) Chess member. If that wasn't enough the mob that killed him turned their hatred on her, scarring her face horribly and even RAPED her. [[What the Hell, Townspeople?]]!!}}
* [[
* [[Disc One Nuke]] - Babbo, and Ginta too, pretty much.
* [[Dropped a Bridge
* [[Dude Looks Like a Lady]] - Rolan.
* [[Elemental Ignorance]] - During the War Games Snow seems really intent on going into the worst possible places for her powers, and at the same time never seems to go to the ice field. And that's barely scratching the surface of some of the rather... unique choices they make.
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** [[Dishing Out Dirt]] - Rolan
** [[Extra Ore Dinary]] - The majority of characters, as they tend to have at least one weapon Ärm.
** [[Green Thumb]] and [[Playing
** [[Light
** [[Shock and Awe]] - Nanashi
* [[Emotionless Girl]] - Subverted with Loco, {{spoiler|as she is simply a stoic, 32-year-old woman in a little girl's body.}} Also, she shows genuine surprise (in one case, horror) at some of the crazy shit the good guys pull off.
* [[Empathic Weapon]] - Babbo, which is considered an impossible trait for an Ärm to have.
* [[Epic Flail]] - Babbo again, the weapon in question looks like a [http://www.onemanga.com/Mär/4/02/ Kendama]{{Dead link}} (like paddle-ball, only with a hammer), Ginta uses him like a flail until Babbo gets upgraded later.
* [[Even the Guys Want Him]] - "Man, Alviss-dono is popular among both men and women!", as stated by Edward during episode 88's Mär Heaven Network.
* [[Evil Only Has to Win Once]]
* [[Expy]] - {{spoiler|Nanashi is whole lot similar to [[Flame of Recca]]'s Joker. [[Epileptic Tree]] says that Nanashi IS Joker who got thrown into the Mär universe after his final battle.}}
** Well, he ''does'' have the scent of an otherworlder, and {{spoiler|first showed up in Märhaven with Joker's clothing and stomach wound}}. Make of that what you will.
** Well who else could Nanashi possibly be? He doesn't seem to originate from any of the [[Fractured Fairy Tale]], unlike [[Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs (
** Nanashi is reminiscent of Robin Hood, stealing from others and giving to his guild. Alan is likely related to Beauty and the Beast.
* [[Eyepatch of Power]] - Both Nanashi and Galian wear their bandanas so that it looks like they're blindfolded (although close-ups reveal that one eye is exposed) and Candice wears an actual eye patch (with a flaming skull insignia no less) over her left eye, and they look pretty badass this way.
* [[Eyes Always Shut]]: Ian. He opens them slightly when being creepy.
* [[Fairy Tale Motifs]]: They're Everywhere, most notably Aqua's storyline has
* [[Face Heel Turn]] - {{spoiler|Danna, and in the anime, Alviss}}
* [[Famous Ancestor]] - {{spoiler|Ginta's father Danna}}
* [[Foe Yay]] - Alviss spends so much time hating Phantom that {{spoiler|during the anime-only ghost chess arc he accepts to live together with Phantom for eternity. To be fair, it was more or less mind control.}}
* [[Fun
* [[Fractured Fairy Tale]] - Boy howdy. Almost everyone is a reference to some fairy tale, even guys like Alviss. It'd be easier to list the people who ''aren't''.
* [[Guardian Entity]] - Guardian ÄRMs can summon a Guardian to fight for their user but they are unable to move from the spot they summon the entity.
* [[Gecko Ending]]: An rather odd example in that the manga ended ''before'' the anime.
* [[Genre Blind]] - The Chess were fully capable of completely destroying Mär, and instead they decide to ''deliberately'' sit back and watch the good guys become stronger. [[What an Idiot!|What a bunch of idiots...]] [[Justified]] in that an easy victory goes against [[Blood Knight|basic Chess philosophy]].
** It's even worse for the Zonnen. In order to end the War Games, they intended to assassinate the main characters during the latter's [[Training
*** More of a case of [[Hoist
* [[Gingerbread House]] - In one round of the War Games, Princess Snow fights against the Bishop Emokiss, an ugly little girl whose signature ÄRM is the Gingerbread House - a house of sweets. When she eats the House, she bulks up, growing fatter and larger and stronger with each bite.
* [[Gladiator Games]] - The War Games
* [[God Save Us From the Queen]] - The Chess base themselves in Lestava, with Diana ruling over both.
* [[Gondor Calls for Aid]]: Anime only, in typically the final battle.
* [[Good Scars, Evil Scars]] - Many of the protagonists have minor scars, while some of the Chess Pieces are more damaged and even deformed, especially Chimera.
* [[Gonk]]: Semi-deconstructed with Kouga, who is extremely sensitive about his ugliness, and hates [[Bishonen|pretty boys like Alviss]].
* [[Grand Theft Me]] In the final battle {{spoiler|Its revealed the Danna who Ginta faces actually being possessed by the true big bad, a evil orb}}.
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* [[Heavy Voice]] - One character's signature ARM is the [[Gingerbread House]] - a house of sweets. Eating it makes her grow to sumo-like proportions, gaining superhuman strength and toughness in the process. As she grows bigger, her voice grows deeper and thicker.
* [[Heel Face Turn]] - Plenty of Chess pieces {{spoiler|in the anime, Ash, Pano, Gido, Ian, Galian, Chaton, Loco, to name a few}}
* [[Heroes
* [[Heroic BSOD]] - Ginta, in the anime, after {{spoiler|Snow's death}}
* [[Heroic Sacrifice]] - {{spoiler|Danna dies in his fight against Phantom.}}
* [[Hidden Elf Village]] - Kaldea, from which all Ärm are produced.
* [[Highly
* [[Hoist
* [[Holding Back the Phlebotinum]] - Utterly averted. Most notably, the [[Year Inside, Hour Outside|Training Gate]] is introduced early and used often; every character not participating in the current day's fights will be training inside, and everyone goes inside to train on the days off.
** In battle, the big weapons and guardians are used often, but saved for late in the battle, but this is [[Justified]] because it takes time to build up synchronization with one's Ärm. Using a big guardian too early will result in it being as [[Incredibly Lame Pun|hÄrmless]] as a soap bubble, as [[Badass|Alan]] is all too willing to explain to an unfortunate Rook.
* [[I Coulda Been a Contender]] - Gaira on the surface, has the makings of a [[Badass]] and was the number 3 player in the previous War Games {{spoiler|gets eliminated in the preliminaries by Chimera.}}
* [[I Have You Now, My Pretty]] - There's an entire arc in the anime dedicated to Phantom kidnapping and keeping ALVISS at his side, under mind control-complete with Yaoi Fanservice! No, really.
** [[Guy
* Immortality - Phantom {{spoiler|and the zombie tattoo.}}
* [[Improbable Weapon User]] - Jack and his Battle Scoop! (yeah, you heard me right).
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* [[James Bondage]] - Alviss, in the anime.
* [[Jumped At the Call]] - Ginta heads through the portal to Mär with minimal regrets.
* [[Karmic Death]]: Rapunzel {{spoiler|after taking it upon herself to kill her fellow teammates if they lost (or tied in poor Aqua's case). Say the least after she lost her battle to Dorthy, Phantom has her killed personally (in the manga, she decapitated, which was one of her favorite killing methods.}}
* [[Karma Houdini]] - Girom. Sweet blue monkey hell, ''GIROM''. No matter how many atrocities he commits, the only punishment he ever gets is getting blasted into the sky and punched unconscious {{spoiler|and losing his sister Rapunzel to Ian}}. He never learns his damn lesson.
** So he's a one man Team Rocket
* [[Kawaiiko]] - Aqua. Her cuteness will [[Tastes Like Diabetes|rot your teeth out.]]
* [[Kill It
* {{spoiler|[[Kill the Cutie]] - Aqua, a Chess bishop, is killed by Girom after her draw against Nanashi, even though she SUCCEEDS in winning [[Rock
* [[Laser
* [[Loads and Loads of Characters]] - All the members of Chess are named, and there are a lot of members... A select few (mainly the knights) are given backstory and/or become recurring characters throughout the tournament.
* [[Loveable Rogue]] - Nanashi
* [[Love At First Punch]] - Jack and Pano.
* [[Love Bubbles]] - Quite usual in the anime
* [[Love Makes You Evil]] - Subverted: Phantom only got more bitter when Alma dumped him for being a villain.
* [[Luke, I Am Your Father]] - {{spoiler|The King is Danna, Ginta's father}}
* [[Magical Land]] - Märhaven
* [[Magikarp Power]] - Jack's Battle Shovel is easily the most useless Ärm the group has, even worse than an unpowered Babbo. All it is is a shovel shaped chÄrm that morphs into... an ordinary shovel, not even meant for battle. However, during his first Trianing Gate session, Dorothy teaches him how to use Magic Stones with the shovel to give it better powers. Jack manages to turn the shovel into a highly powered Nature Ärm (renaming it the Earth Shovel) with the power to manipulate soil and rock, and to germinate and control all manner of highly magical plants. He then proceeds to win almost every one of his War Game fights with it.
* [[Magitek]] - The Ärm
* [[Man Behind the Man]] - {{spoiler|The King}}
* [[Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy]] - Roland and Candice, mostly noticeable in the Ghost Chess arc, when they appear together often. Roland is mild mannered, delicate, gentle and looks like a girl. Candice is loudspoken, rude, loves to fight, has an immense ammount of bloodlust and even gropes females now and then.
* [[Mask Power]] - Every Chess Piece with a rank higher than Pawn has a unique mask. Pawns all have identical masks, to cement their place as [[Faceless Goons]].
** Inverted in the Fourth Battle, where the only Chess Bishop wearing a mask was ''defeated instantly''.
* [[Meaningful Name]] - Dorothy, being a [[Shout
** Also, Snow and Koyuki.
* [[Mighty Glacier]] - Possible deconstruction: Avrute, one of the Chess bishops in the forth battle of the war game, moves slowly and wields a huge claw that can slice through anything; {{spoiler|he gets defeated ''instantly'' before he can even do anything.}}
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* [[Morph Weapon]] - Babbo and Jack's battle scoop, and a few other Ärm, through the use of socketing magic stones and then thinking up of cool powers.
* [[Multiple Demographic Appeal]] - Despite the manga having blood and being geared towards a young teenage audience, the anime was made to be aired to kids... and surprisingly enough, [[Yaoi Fangirl|fangirls]]
* [[Mushroom Samba]] - In the War Games, Jack gets a rematch with Pano. He seeds her with special mushrooms that give her hallucinations. They go like this: The volcanoes around the battlefield erupt, the mushrooms become caterpillars, the caterpillars become [[Pretty Butterflies|butterflies]] and the [[Mood Whiplash|wasteland becomes a field of flowers,]] the butterflies become bats, vines wrap her up, and ''then'' Jack, much better looking than he really is, appears and offers to remove the mushrooms if she gives up, which she [[Distracted
* [[Nebulous Evil Organization]] - The Chess.
** Lampshaded by Loco, who fully recognizes just how evil the Chess Pieces are. Though, being a Chess Piece herself, she doesn't seem to care.
* [[Nerd Glasses]] - Ginta wears these at the beginning of the series. Discarding them right after arriving in Märhaven.
* [[Normal Fish in
* [[Not a Game]] - Ginta gets a very harsh wake-up call as to the seriousness of the Chess Piece threat when Alan explains the War Games after showing Ginta the destruction the Chess have already caused.
** And reaffirmed again with Snow after she watches Dorothy utterly destroy one of the Chess Pieces, even when the poor guy tries to call uncle but Dorothy won't let him.
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* [[Orgasmic Combat]] - Candice's sadomasochistic streak makes her enjoy her fights too much.
* [[Our Werewolves Are Different|Our Vegetarian Werewolves Are Different]]
* [[Perky Female Minion]] - Candices's (one sided) relationship with Phantom. Also Chaton and Aqua.
* [[Princesses Prefer Pink]] - Snow.
* [[Psycho Supporter]] - Peta, Rolan... hell, the ''entire Chess organization'' qualifies for this.
* [[Remember the New Guy?]] - Bell, Alviss' [[Fairy Companion]], isn't active during the tournament, making very brief appearances in the interludes beteween rounds. The same happens to Ed, the dog. They both get more screen time in the anime though.
* [[Rose
* [[Royals Who Actually Do Something]] - Both Dorothy and Snow actually fight and kick ass.
* [[Screwed
* [[Serial Killer]] - Girom kills without remorse, except for when he knows he cannot defeat his enemy, in which case he [[
* [[Shout
** In the first episode, Ginta is playing a Video Game that closely resembles ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]''
*** Ironic considering Ginta looks very much like Cloud Strife.
* [[Sissy Villain]] - Rolan again.
* [[Smoking Is Cool]] - Alan does it, and only looks more like a badass for it.
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* [[Sorting Algorithm of Evil]] - As the tournament progresses, the heroes face the higher ranks of the Chess.
* [[Soul Jar]] - {{spoiler|Babbo.}} In fact, it's had as many as ''three'' souls inside at once.
* [[Stalker
** Technically Dorothy this to Ginta.
** Phantom to Alviss. It creeps the other out.
* [[Storming the Castle]] - The final fights take place in Lestava castle.
* [[Summon Everyman Hero]] – Somewhat Invoked to bring Ginta due to it working before once with "Boss".
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* [[Tertiary Sexual Characteristics]] - Pozun's wife and their female children have bows on their heads.
* [[The Baroness]] - Candice
* [[The Chosen One]] - Ginta
* [[The Dragon]] - Peta
* [[The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry]] - Subverted. Both Diana and Dorothy are beautiful, popular, and sMärt. {{spoiler|Diana is evil, though, and that's what causes Dorothy to try and}}
** Well that and its the law of their floating continent. She ''has'' to do it.
* [[The High Queen]] - Diana
* [[Theme Naming]] - A great number of characters are named after and have attacks based on fairy tales.
** Dorothy's Ärm are almost all based on the [[Land of Oz
* [[The Stoic]] - Alviss. Spoofed on a few occasions in a few gag strips found at the end of each manga volume.
* [[Title Drop]]: Of a sort. In the manga, the last chapter is the same as the anime, "Marchen Awakens Romance".
* [[Time to Unlock More True Potential]] - Gaira and Alan are usually responsible for those.
* [[Tomboy and Girly Girl]] - Dorothy and Snow.
** Wait, whose the Tomboy? And whose the Girly Girl? Because Dorothy and Snow were kinda a combination of both! I mean, sure Snow wasn't-mega tomboyish, and Dorothy wasn't mega-girly...but Dorothy also wasn't mega tomboyish, and Snow wasn't super girly. They both were feminine and girlish and both could fight.
* [[Together in Death]]: {{spoiler|Chimera...or rather, Irene and Märco}}
* [[Tournament Arc]] - The War Games making up 2/3 of the series.
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* [[Weaksauce Weakness]] - Alan's fear/allergy to cats.
* [[Wicked Stepmother]] - Diana to Snow
* [[Will They or Won't They?]]: Alan and Chaton's relationship seems to fall into this especially during the anime. {{spoiler|They do at the end.}}
* [[Yandere]] - Candice, for Phantom.
* [[Year Inside, Hour Outside]] - Dimension Ärm Training Gate. Time passes sixty times as fast inside the gate. The heroes use the Ärm at just about every opportunity to train for enormous periods of time. Ginta's first training period saw him spend half a year inside the Gate, while only three days passed outside.
* [[You Have Failed Me...]] - {{spoiler|In the fourth battle of the War Games, the Chess Knight Rapunzel kills those Chess members who lose their battles. Unfortunately, the last one killed was [[Tastes Like Diabetes|sickenly adorable]], and her death drove Ginta [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|COMPLETELY BERSERK]]}}.
** Ironically this happened to {{spoiler|Rapunzel herself}}.
* [[Your Universe or Mine?]] - Life is though for Ginta.
* [[When You Snatch the Pebble]] - After Gaira's [[Training
* [[Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?]] - Alan, the most [[Badass]] of anyone on Team Mär, has a crippling cat phobia. This turns out to be a problem when he has to fight a [[Catgirl]].
* [[Word Salad Title]]
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