After half a year since I’ve paused, I have finally finished reading Marchen Awakens Romance the manga. When I started I never really expected anything too serious and heavy plotted, and at first the story appealed to me, but after a while it just got stupid. Like the generic shounen series, no one really dies except for a few bad guys every now and then, and to be honest by the end of it, it was down to who had the best “ARMs” (weapons).

Traveling to a fictional world where you are the hero destined to save many lives and bring peace, sounds like every kid’s ideal dream. However, this simple idea got repetitive and eventually bored me, after the first few chapters, the villains are introduced and MAR began to follow a predictable trend of fighting enemies in order of strength and finally defeating the big boss, not only that but the fights got boring too. Unlike the beginning, where lots of good and perhaps even fresh concepts were explained, by the end it was literally taking turns to summon the best weapon or monster they could. Of course our main character, Ginta, controls the legendary ARM; Babo, which can take any s1hape or form Ginta wishes, this pretty much means Ginta is unbeatable.

Although MAR isn’t so impressive in terms of plot and developments, the art is very nicely done and the character designs are rather good. I think Dorothy is undoubtedly my favorite character from the series, not only is she strong but rather moe as well ^^;. Second to Dorothy is probably Nanashi, the typical flirty guy, but his attacks are overpowered with awesomeness. So, to sum things up I think MAR is a rather empty series which is packaged very well in terms of art and the first few chapters. I did manage to finish the series, so it can not be THAT bad. It is indeed rare to find a shounen series to conclude, thats why there is a continuation of the series called MAR Omega, but I know I won;t be following this. Perhaps I may start Flame of Reca since I’ve heard many times that MAR is a “lite” version of Flame of Reca, it’s the same mangaka afterall.