Ranked #1365

MÄR

i'm going to do this review since there is no review for thing anime yet. now i feel that this anime is underrated since MAR is a really good shounen anime. MAR is also an anime that would make you laugh in each episode and keep you interest in the story but now i think i will start the review.

story- the story is kind of unoriginal where the main character is transported to a fantasy land to help stop the evil force and save that world. yah we've seen it before, but made me keep watching because of interesting ways the fight. yes they fight with thing call "arm" that transform into awesome weapons like swords, element control, and monster to fight for you. now there is a war going on between the chess and MAR. and i found it confusing because instead of fight army against army like a real war, they fight like a tournament style instead. in my opinion i think that chess would conquer this world if they would just plan and invade each country until the they control the whole MAR Heaven. even though there some flaw the story is good and decent to watch.
8/10

art- by 2006 standard it is okay but not great. the background are nothing special and the character design seen unoriginal. i also have to complain how in some of the fight scene the character is shown stabbing or dodging back and forth for 10 or more seconds and i think it is just kind of lazy of them to do that.
6/10

sound- the opening and ending music are okay to listen and the voice acting is okay. background music, i don't pay attention too much. that is all
7/10

character- now this is where anime shine its best, with its character. almost all the character in this anime is very like and they provide a lot them. each of the character are different and likable in their own way. since there so many, i just pick three. first alviss who is curse to be a immortal zombie but doesn't want to. he is very coo and he also has the strongest weapons. he maybe a jerk but just enough to not make him douch. i also think he has a fairy fetish because of the fairy next to him who seem to like him. next are the comedic duo, Chaton and Loco. chaton is a girl who is dresses like a cat and is very outgoing. while loco is a old girl that get younger each time she uses an arm and is always serious and i have never seen smile. each time these two are together it like gold and i wish there was more moment with them in the show. final verdict
10/10

enjoyment-even though it has its flaws i really enjoy most of the episode in this series and want to finish it but it still being subbed. all that
9/10

overall- now i'm just going to include story, character, and enjoy in overall score. i don't worry about the art and sound that much unless it has really crap animation or horrible voice actor. now add it together.
9/10 read more

This review is based off watching half of the series. If you’re curious as to why, it's because I watched season 1 and 2 on Netflix but season 3 and 4 were never dubbed and thus is not available on Netflix. I probably will not bother to watch the rest as explained below. So simply consider this a review for season 1 and 2.

*(Note: May contain some minor spoilers)*

Story - 6 - In one simple sentence: "Boy gets sent to another world to save it from destruction."

For a more detailed description, it's basically about a boy named Ginta that gets sent into another world called MAR Heaven. In MAR Heaven he's a lot stronger, physically and mentally, than he is on Earth which is a weak , geeky boy. Upon arriving on MAR Heaven, Ginta finds an ARM called Babo with the help of another character. On MAR Heaven, the leader of an evil group, Chess Pieces, has been resurrected and attempts to destroy the world yet again and it's up to Ginta, Babo and his allies he befriends on his journey to take them down.

The term "ARM's" are objects that people can use which can do things such as become weapons, summon familiars and more. It is the fighting style of the series; it's what makes the series more interesting because there are so many variety of them

Art - 5 - First of all this is a battle shounen, so most of this section will be based off the animation/art in the fight scenes. You’ll find that many fight scenes are fairly poorly animated and don't give off much-to-any impact. Scenes where the characters are dodging attacks are literally just the character being dragged from one spot to another without moving. You'll find that there are many re-used attack scenes in the fights and not the repeated punch/kick frames (which it also has) but more along the lines of entirely re-used scenes of a character dodging or attacking with the same background within the same episode. There's a lot of CGI during the fight scenes, especially when characters summon creatures using their ARMs or even when they preform certain attacks. The CGI doesn't blend in well at all and lowers the quality of fight scenes than they already are. You’ll also find that when a character has their clothing damage from an attack, it’ll instantly repair/fix itself in the next scene, guess the animators didn't care about minor detail. Most enemies Ginta and the group encounter have pretty generic or completely random designs that looked as if they were pulled out of someone’s a**. Even with all these flaws though, I would consider it still to the point of ‘watchable’, at the very least you can tell what they're doing while they fight.

Sound - 5 - As stated at the top, I watched the Season 1 and 2 of series on Netflix, so I presume it was the dubbed version (but Netflix had Japanese Audio/English Subs available) and I’m unsure if any songs/background music were changed in the process of the dub. The dub’d Opening was pretty much just a bunch of chopped up random scenes thrown together with a forgettable song with no lyrics. The BGM's/Insert BGM's weren't memorable so I can't say much about them.

Character - 7 - The characters were ‘probably’ one of the good points of MÄR. The series revolves around 9 or so characters, un-including the antagonists. Character improvement was pretty dull but it was the variety that got me. Every character was different in terms of ability and personality, which can make a series more interesting when it comes to “what are they going to do in this situation?” since every character would have done something different. The series itself doesn’t do much in terms of character improvement to the point where I've watched. The characters get stronger, but that’s literally all they do. The protagonists all have their reasons for fighting the Chess Pieces and Phantom but to be completely honest, most if not all of it is related to revenge in the end. Phantom also isn’t much of an antagonist, he’s one of those “I-can-kill-them-anytime-but-I’ll-let-them-get-stronger” bad guy which he does throughout the series.

Enjoyment - 5 - Part of enjoying shows is guessing what’s going to happen next, in this show, you didn’t need to guess because it was incredibly obvious. To be completely honest, I managed to finish what was available on Netflix because it’s a show I watched to make me fall asleep, which it managed to do in 2~3 episodes. I've watched half of the entire series and found that the show has not even improved in the slightest in terms of a battle shounen series and neither in enjoyment. Whether or not the story changes in the next two seasons, I see no reason to force myself to complete the rest if it's gone 50 episodes without any improvements.

Overall - 5.6 - So if you’re in desperate need to watch some fantasy adventure battle shounen, try MÄR, but if you want some quality battle shounen, there are a lot of better choices out there.
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