MAR, Volume 1 Book

MAR: Marcehn Awakens Romance volume 1 uses fairy tales in a unique way, which is sadly canceled out by the characters being recycled from the mangaka's other series Flame of Recca and a rushed beginning.

Ginta Toramizu has had the same dream one hundred and two times. He is a gamer with average grades, poor eyesight, and lacks athleticism. His love of fantasy and his... average-ness? Glasses? The fact that he interrupts classes by talking in his sleep? lead to him being teased by his peers. The only person who doesn't tease him is Koyuki. One day a talking door appears in the middle of his classroom and gives him the chance to enter the world of his dreams. Ginta quickly discards Koyuki and enters the other world.

While characters entering fairy tale worlds isn't an uncommon story idea, Nobuyuki Anzai make his story stand out by giving it a Dragon Ball feel to it. It's less about the fairy tales themselves, and more about Ginta's adventures and battles.

The art is good; it follows the shonen style of art.

It's a story that can be enjoyed, but still has flaws.

The biggest flaw would have to be the rushed beginning. Ginta's home world is not well flushed out. He's picked on, but the reason behind it isn't fully developed and Ginta doesn't seem to care at all. The bullying is there just so that Ginta has a closer bond with Koyuki, thus building the romance between them. The only problem with this ploy is 1.) Unless Ginta travels between worlds or Koyuki joins him on the journey, their relationship will not develop beyond this, and 2.) because the bullying is lackluster and Ginta doesn't care, it detracts from any motivation Ginta may have to go to another world.

Though Ginta doesn't have a prefect-life he certainly isn't in distress. He has a loving mother, friend/girlfriend, and so many video games that his vision has gone bad from playing them. So why abandon it? It sounds like a good life. Curiosity about this dream-world? It's not a bad motivation, but the manga doesn't build it up. It starts to, but a few more pages or scenes would have helped (there are only fifteen pages dedicated the normal world).

The other weakness of this manga is that the characters are copies of characters from Flame of Recca. It doesn't take away from the overall story, but for someone who has read Anzai's other series it can be a downer. This is because the characters are not just physical copies (not uncommon in manga) but they share the same personalities. To be fair though, some of the personalities are good: Recca and Ginta's impulsive and energetic personalities are entertaining and it is nice to have strong, impish female characters like Dorothy and Fuku. The only flaw with these characters is that other than a few physical changes (hair color/length) there are exact duplicates.

MAR has it's good points and bad, and if you are someone who enjoys shonen manga, action, adventure,and fantasy then this may be the series for you.