Reviews for Maerchen Maedchen

Jiggly jiggly heaven in real life! The show that literally melted! There is a lot that can be said about Madchen Madchens decline in quality to episode 9 where after a two week break it came out with animation that rivaled Animegataris' club's animation. It was disappointing and memed on by about everyone. And it makes sense. That episode was terrible. But the show isn't just that episode. In fact the rest of the show is quite good and it's unfortunate that this episode will now overtime the good parts of the show with it's infamy. Yes, there were lackluster parts to the show like the edgy subplot thatdidn't fit in well or the plot in general which wasn't the greatest. But there was also a lot of good. Hazuki was able to gain confidence, friends, and did grow over the course of the series. And added onto that she made her story her own. She took control and even though she was associated with a story that didn't mean the show just copy pasted the story into her life. It was different. Her stepmother and sister were nice. They genuinely cared for her. So did her friends. While there are parallels they weren't all encompassing, but rather natural.

Not to mention the character interactions which were a lot of fun. The girls got together well and had this nice push and pull. Also teams like the Russians were very endearing and managed to show their comradary well. They were loveable dorks and I loved how they tried to support each other and i loved how silly they were. That add really shined especially the conclusion to that arc which was silly, heartwarming, and creative.

Sure there was a bad plot but the other points were good. And sure the animation and art took a nosedive but it was still nice to see at the beginning.

Especially with the unfinished ending and production issues I'm not sure I can recommend it. But I would like to remember the Marchen Madchen i really enjoyed watching. It's just a shame that this will at least for now be an uncompleted story.

On each season we are gifted with great anime, there are some anime that are okay, there are bad ones and there's Märchen Mädchen, a masterpiece found in the bottom of a trashcan. Märchen Mädchen has to be one of the most absurd generic anime I've ever seen, not because its bad, but of how ludicrous it is to the point of being insanely funny. The Opening practically reveals what will happen in the first episodes (The very first one, later in the anime they add a visually different opening) But to sum it up, here's the introduction (Cringe warning): PD: H= Hazuki and W= Witch (Appliesfor multiuses) Skip to "End of introduction" if you don't want to lose your braincells

H: I'm so stupidly shy but I still want to get banged by the top girls on my school. Books are my friends, I love books, books are fun. Deep inside I believe witches are real. I have a glance of what a witch would look like, so I follow her because she reminds me of a book I once read.

W: Hey you stupid girl, don't follow me >:(

H: But I want you to f*@# me!, I mean be friends with me :(

W: (Is she on drugs?) Last warning, I will attack next. >:(

H: Meanie :c

W: Boom, I'm gone, don't even follow me >:(

H: Damn, she's gone, I don't know where she headed, but I'll go to the library because lol. Oh, I'm so lucky, the witch is in the library and she's staring at a book case. :o

W: "Magical words of wisdom to open magical libraries" I'm pretty sure no one heard me, so lets go.

H: Oh, that's cool, its magic :o, wait, what did she said? those words to Open it? "Magical words of wisdom to open magical libraries"

~The path opens revealing a portal to an unknown world~

H: OoOoOh, so cool, I don't want to go in, but its pulling me inside... Whatever, WAAAAAAAAAAAH D:

~Welcome to an unknown world~

H: Oh, I'm alive, thanks god, now, lets explore... OoOoOoh nice castle :o

W2: Hey, who are you? Why are you here? what is that book you have in your hands? come here >:(

H: OMG ITS A BULLY GIRL! D:

~She Runs~

W2: Come here you dumbass >:(

H: I don't wanna :c

W2: Woops I lost her >:(

~Hazuki heads towards a suspicious house, with a suspicious girl that offers her to stay in her home for a while~

H: Sounds Fun, lets also use the thermal baths because why not, she's nice and totally not suspicious, nothing can go wrong :D

~She nude, she baths, she forgets about her pursuer, most importantly she BATHS~

W2: BOOM I'm here, now you can't escape... wait, why are you naked? Gross D:

H: Waaaa, the Bully is back, OMG I'm naked, lets get to my clothes.... Wait, they are gone, damn it, I'll protect myself with the book I had and lets keep running. D:

~Naked girl runs away from a bully girl for several hours until she finds herself cornered~

H: She's gonna bang me, pls help.

(To Be continued...)

~End of introduction~

Yes, I'm not making that up, that's exactly how this anime starts: absurd events with convenient fan service and a very gullible main character. The amount of red flags I saw dancing on my mind at that moment, almost made me insta-drop it. I'm 99% sure that you have a "WTF" face printed after reading that. Now imagine if you actually watched that... it fails as an introduction because nothing relevant actually happened. According to the Synopsis, this anime was supposed to be similar to a battle royale were the winner of a certain event gets a wish, but the first episode didn't even settle that. Story: 1/10

This is not the worst part of this anime, the plot itself was already ludicrous, but what else could go wrong?

The animation was already bad, but it was bearable. But after some time, things gets off the rail. There is an actual shot of the crowd (because there is a crowd on a "Stadium" that watches these magical girls fight) that looks like a drawing of a 6 year old, faceless and completely soulless. What's even worse, is that they had a 2 week hiatus to "improve" the animation quality just to find out that the animation didn't improve, it got worse: Early Dragon ball super and Orange levels of trash animation. We got derpy faces, bad choreography, lazy shots and animation sequences that might be running on a calculator because its going at one frame per second... Ah yes, before I forget, The Character outfits are ludicrous, it looks like VIP clothes you see on a MMORPG that doesn't fit anything. Art/Animation: 3/10

There is nothing worth mentioning in the sound department 3/10

Here comes an example of how to properly nerf powerful characters, if your character is incredibly strong but you failed on pointing a significant weakness to it, then make him a retard. If you can't be creative enough with weaknesses, at least you are guaranteed that you will receive a lot of laughs if you make your characters stupid enough. That's exactly the case in this anime, each team that Hazuki's team encounters is full of retard girls, but don't worry, we all know that they will succeed no matter what. The character cast is full of cringe worthy and laughable characters. There is also a concept of Yuri between Shizuka and Hazuki (the concept grows stronger with the ending) Characters: 2/10

Enjoyment 5/10: Laughable despite being so bad, I'll never forget how a casual conversation on a bath ended up on naked girls fighting each other for no apparent reason.

Overall 3/10

[THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS] ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– [A Cliched Magical Girls Tale] What happens when you combine fairy tales stories, pre-established Anime tropes and stereotypes, and the magical girls genre? The end result is Märchen Mädchen, a battle magical girls show that uses minor aspects of fairy tale origins to create a cliched storyline, shallow characters, and subpar animations. STORY: Story summary: Hazuki Kagimura is a shy and socially awkward high school girl, who doesn’t have any friends. Whenever, she gets upset, she finds a book and quickly immerses herself in it, a condition she calls, ‘Story Syndrome’. One day, she spots a cloaked figure (Shizuka) and follows herto an abandon library. From there, Hazuki is transported to another world, where she learns that she is a Maedchen, i.e. a book user, and is contracted to the Origin book “Cinderella”, which possesses strong magical powers. She transfers to Kuzunoha Girl's Magic Academy, where she starts learning the basics of magic and what it means to be a Maedchen. And, along the way, she will encounter many other Maedchen and be involved in the most important magical tournament, the Hexennacht competition.

The story is simple and will feel very familiar to those that have seen many other magical girls shows. Numerous common themes noticed in those shows can be found here, such as friendship, willingness to change, determination, and forgiveness. It’s also filled with many cliches and is highly predictable. Let’s list out some cliches:

- Main character is an outsider, who possesses the strongest magical power.

- Main character is unable to use her overpowered magic, until just the ‘right moment’.

- A tournament (i.e. Hexennacht competition) is held annually that will determine the fate of the main character’s school; in this case, the Japanese school.

- Cue lots of expositions in the form of characters explaining why this super-ultra-mega-important tournament must be won at all cost.

- Cue obligatory fanservice scenes (i.e. bathes/hot spring, Hazuki running nude, characters wearing gym clothes, etc).

- Obligatory training episodes.

- Fight/conflicts are resolved through the “Power of Friendship” and the fulfilling of other people’s wishes.

Other problems with this show includes weak and lazy writing (lots of exposition and some Deus Ex Machina moments), lack of tension and buildup, lack of world building, unexciting fight scenes, and uninteresting dialogues with the occasional interesting discussion focusing on past details regarding our main characters. And finally, an incomplete ending (i.e. Episode 10 was the last episode for the TV series) due to production issues at the studio. The remaining two episodes (episodes 11 and 12) will be determined at a later time.

For those who might watch this show, here are some noticeable fairy tales: The Mitten, Ivan the Fool, Shuten Doji, Cinderella, Aschenputtle, Puss in Boots, Pied Piper of Hamelin, Kaguya-hime no Monogatari, Issun-bōshi, Der Freischütz, Shuten-dōji, the Little Matchstick Girl, the Gigantic Turnip, Arthurian legends, and The Ramayana, Little One-Inch, the grateful crane, etc.

Overall, the story is a cliched and recycled plotline seen in many other magical girl shows.

ANIMATION:

Most times, the art and animations were mediocre and bearable, however there were moments where both these elements were lacking and, as such, resulted in poorer character designs and shoddy animations. Such examples could be found in many scenes that require lots of animation movements, background or foreground characters, and character facial expressions and animations.

The art is sub-par to mediocre. The background designs are fine. The character designs, while appearing very cute and ‘moe’, are generic, simple, and uninspiring. Every girl appears similar to each other as they have few distinguishable facial details, beyond different hair styles and colors, different eye colors and shapes, and different skin colors. This is further reinforced by the general lack of diverse facial expressions, being limited to smiling, making stoic or slightly angry faces, and looks of surprise. The character’s appearance and school uniforms are based on their country of origin and created as stereotypical as possible. Sometimes the characters will look off-model, having pointy edges around the face or body, feet appearing like shoes, disproportional bodies and objects, distorted or derpy faces, etc, though they mostly happen in the background, still it’s noticeable.

The animations are also sub-par to mediocre, though, it’s more due to laziness than outright terribleness. For example, the transformation scenes are not noteworthy, detailed, or exciting compared to the transformation sequences seen in Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica or Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru. In this show, the girls just raise their books, recite the name of their fairy tale, which causes a large burst of energy to surround them, and then they appear in their battle uniform. Another example are the action scenes, particularly in episodes 4, 6, and 8. They aren’t full-fledged fights, but rather you’ll see some punches, kicks, and magical spells thrown around, and then something will interrupt it, cutting the fight short. It’s annoying and honestly frustrating to watch.

Furthermore, the animation was so poor that the studio had to delay episode 9 until March 22, 2018. Delays are usually a huge sign that the show has a low budget and mismanagement. And, even with the two weeks break, the animation quality is still subpar. Maybe, even worse than before.

SOUND:

The voicing acting was pretty good as every voice actresses was able to provide a wide range of emotions for each character. Although, hearing Hazuki and many other characters yelling and screaming in the early episodes was annoying, this was only a minor complain.

The opening song, sung by fhána, is your standard J-Pop that features numerous scenes found in the anime, such as Hazuki in gym clothes, some magical girls performing their Büchulle spell, two scenes of Hazuki running naked, etc, along with several “zoom-in-on-one-character-accompanied-with-a-screen-tone” scenes. By episode 6, the opening intro changes and feature many characters that Hazuki and her friends will fight in the Hexennacht competition, along with Hazuki’s transformation scene and magical girl form. The ending song, sung by Reina Ueda, has slow-moving music accompanied with soft spoken lyrics that feature countless still shots of characters in various poses.

The background music features mostly fantasy-sounding tones, through the use of orchestras and pianos, to reinforce its fantasy-like setting. Sometimes the background music could be haunting to emphasize dreadful events, or when an action scene appears the music becomes heavy and rock-sounding. In other words, the background music is suppose to match the tone of the scene. And finally, expect many action sound effects, such as swords clashing or clanging, explosions, cannons firing, objects falling or cracking apart, etc.

CHARACTERS:

There are two words that could easily describe every character in this show: stereotypes and tropes. There are other words, such as two-dimensional, undeveloped, or unremarkable, however these terms do not apply to our main characters, mainly Hazuki Kagimura, Yumilia Qazan, and Shizuka Tsuchimikado.

Tropes and stereotypes are a common occurrence in the world of Anime, and this show has several of them. For example, the Russian characters will usually have short silvery hair with a military uniform and likes to drink vodka; the Indian characters will usually have tan skin with braided hair, and wear some Indian headpiece jewelry and robe; the Chinese characters will usually have a flower piece in their hair, while wearing silk dresses; the British, German, and American characters will usually have blonde hair and act very competitive. These are some of the tropes and stereotypes that I noticed, however there could be more.

Every character’s personality, weapon, and battle uniform are all based on their fairy tale origins. For example, Charles Giovanni’s fairy tale is Puss in Boots, her personality is trickster-like with hints of confidences and fierceness, her battle uniform consist of french clothing, and her weapon is a Tizona Cup Hilt Rapier Sword; Molly’s fairy tale is the Pied Piper of Hamelin, her personality is mysterious and avenging, her battle uniform is a green hunter suit, and her weapons are rats and a flintlock blunderbuss; Tatiana’s fairy tale is Ivan the Fool, her personality is naivety, kindness, and daring, her battle uniform consist of farmer’s clothing, and her weapon is her magical spell, i.e. the Joys of Physical Labor, that negates the opponent’s magical transformations. These are only a few characters that I listed, however every other character follows the same concept.

Besides the three main characters, most characters will lack a proper backstory and be unmemorable, and most will not have any growth or character development. However, all members of any particular team will have a goal and an ambition in the form of granting a single wish. For example, the main wish of the coalition team was to find a ‘home’, and the main wish of the Russian team was to restore Tatiana’s magical origin. Each wish may be simple, but each carries a lot of meaning for all the members of that team.

Our main character, Hazuki Kagimura, follows the classic “main character has the best magical power (i.e. origin and spell), but is unable to use it” trope, making her useless and annoying in the first 6 episodes. However, because of this trope, she later gains insight about herself and changes for the better. Yumilia Qazan follows the classic “villain turn friend upon realizing how wrong she was” trope. And finally, Shizuka Tsuchimikado follows the classic “serious and hardworking person who doesn’t need help, until serious shit happens to her” trope. Overall, the characters are okay, despite being created from overused tropes and stereotypes.

ENJOYMENT:

Watching Märchen Mädchen reminds me of several other magical girl shows, such as Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica, Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru, Soushin Shoujo Matoi, etc, and, when compared to those shows, it pales in comparison. The story rehashes the same cliched plotline seen in many other magical girl shows. Similarly, the characters were created and ’inspired’ from pre-established tropes and stereotypes that have rooted itself in the anime industry. Even the art and animations are sometimes lacking. Overall, I found this show to be subpar and a chore to watch. I don’t recommend watching this show, unless you’re a huge fan of the magical girls genre.

WATCH A SERIES CRUMBLE TO PIECES FROM PRODUCTION ISSUES It started out as a decent show, with bland but not unenjoyable characters and a plot that's not very original but still a bit engaging. According to some sources, it's been utter chaos in the production studio for this series, with bad management and turmoil. Well, that's reflected pretty obviously in the anime itself. The series took a break to supposedly improve the animation. What followed, episode 9, was a total disaster in all aspects. First of all, the animation was some of the worst I have ever seen. All of the original detailing was trashed, face proportions werehilariously bad, and it was painful to watch. In addition, the plot took a nosedive, and the previous flaws of the series that you could overlook were no longer forgivable.

It's always a shame to see something like this happen.

It's not a bad anime but it's not an excepcional either. It's a pretty much clichê anime but despite that it's still interesting. The MC is strong but not strong as in "I can kick every one's arses" but in a loving way, treating other people's wounds as we could see on the latest episode (episode 7). It's a funny anime with cute girls. despite missing a bit of actual story, it's a good anime to watch while it's releasing. It's just sad that the team behind this anime gave up on the idea. They took a two or three week break in order to improve animation(since a lot of the episodes had really bad drawings) that resulted in no improvements and, a week after that, they totally shut down the anime, which killed the entire story. This anime as no ending, leaving us, the weebs, to imagine what would happen to the characters, if they'd succeed in their fight or if they'd lose and accomplish nothing.

(This was an old review that I made when the anime was releasing and was at episode 7, but changed a couple of things. Sorry if it's confusing in some way).

DETAILED SCORE:

Story: 5

Art: 6

Sound: 7

Character: 6

Enjoyment: 7

IMPORTANT NOTE: I'll be doing this review under a new grading system I've come up with. Since I care more about story, characters, and execution than animation and sound, I will be focusing more on that on my reviews from now on. To give an idea of what it will be like I will judge an anime on three thing: TO UNDERSTAND, TO FOLLOW, and TO CARE ABOUT. For the grades, there will be five of them on a scale from best to worst: EASY, INTERESTING, SIMPLE, DIFFICULT, and IMPOSSIBLE. I may make side notes about the art and music if necessary but the mainfocus will be on the story and execution. Now onto the review.

---

After four episodes, Marchen Madchen is an anime that has a simple enough premise, the execution and the melodrama makes it difficult to care about what's going and why we care.

SIMPLE TO UNDERSTAND

Any magical girl anime is easy enough to get into and Madchen does just that. It's kind of like a magical version of Fate Stay Night with it students characters and their transformation. The problem is that the show so far hasn't focused enough on these things.

DIFFICULT TO FOLLOW

Despite its simple premise we're not given a clear explanation of exactly why this magical world exist and why it has this special tournament. Granted, the series is only four episodes in right now, but unless we get an episode that takes it's time explaining things, I'm going to find myself caring less and less about this series.

DIFFICULT TO CARE ABOUT

The show's biggest problem right now is its characters. They're characters we've all seen before and honestly they are ones you really couldn't care less about. The story so far has practically done nothing to improve and at this point I don't expect it to. The characters as of now are just there because the plot requires them to and to provide silly fanservice. The implied yuri relationships are enough to make you constantly roll your eyes when it gets all melodramatic. The main character is just a bland fangirl version of Akko from Little Witch Academia. Unlike Akko, a character who never gives up, Hazuki just finds a new way to annoy you while the anime tries desperately hard to make her an important character. Unfortunately, none of the other characters are any better so for the time being you'll have to deal with Hazuki and her shenanigans.

Overall, unless this anime starts to make dramatic changes to its story and execution don't expect much from it.

To all dear MAL users who will read this review of mine will must know this note: i'm not really good at reviewing an anime and if u had seen my first anime review then u appreciate it Now this is my 2nd anime review and this review is about the messy yet dreaded and also the nearly forgotten anime that was Marchen Madchen. Ok here are a few details of this anime that i rage quitted watching at: Case no. 1 The Story: Anyway this anime is about a girl who sink herself with books (she reads fairy tales rather than world history or a bookthat tells the famous battles in history) rather than contacting or make friends with people until she met a stranger that became her friendly not much to say about the story for now.

Case no. 2 The Art/Animation:

The animation in the first 8 episodes started from being decent to nearly critical level and after the 2 week break of the staff of this series it ended in a bad direction ( which i got nearly predicted with ) also add of couple of yuri cliches, fanservice extravaganza,and random transformation sequences that i myself felt angered (seriously use a magical book known as Origin to transform into a fairy tale character? That's totally wierd) anyway again i drop this one after 4 episodes

The 9th episode was the worst in the series and it ended with the following:

1.Inaccurate animation

2.Weird facial animations

3.Bad timing action scenes

4.Disfigured-esque character appearance.

Case no. 3 Sound/Music:

The BGM in the anime sounds ok-ish but the only thing i feared about is both the OP and the ED ( Which i think of this myself is the OP of the anime related to the late author's unfinished story of his life? or the ED which is a slow one but give it a title like "Sleepland"? That's one weird title for an anime theme )

Case no. 4 Character:

The Characters in this anime are ranging from decent looking to the most annoying ones in the show ( Especially the Russian characters who likes4 to make jokes which i considered myself unfunny in my opinion) well not much to say about it for now

Case no. 5 Enjoyment:

My enjoyment on this anime? It was bad and really worse tbh some animes can pull off a decent or better animation and this one might be just not of them.

Case no. 6 Overall:

Marchen Madchen is more like a military mishap in terms of bad anime staffing ( i already think of this as an anime version of the Battle of the Little Bighorn where Lieutenant Colonel George Custer refuses to use a newer military equipment and got killed in battle as a result. ) also most of the other staff members who work on this had worked for another anime made by Hoods Entertainment ( i'm talking about 3D Kanojo ) and this studio should act themselves together to prevent a disaster like this and make a new anime that was not a bad and dreadful as this ( P.S : If u want more info about the disastrous result of Marchen Madchen read the article that was posted in the forum page related to this anime) also this review might be late but i created this as a safety precaution that a mahou shoujo anime fan should decide:

1.If u want to watch this anime i respect ur decision

2.If u had dropped this anime in the 3 episode rule or halfway there then u had read this review

THANKS FOR READING THIS REVIEW wether u like it or not and sorry for my bad typing here.

May Peace in this site exist :)

The things Marchen Madchen actually got wonderfully right I swear this is a review but I first have to start off with a bit of background of this anime since I believe people are a bit too harsh in their mocking of this show. While 2018 brought us some terribly animated anime such as the likes of My Sister My Writer and Master of Ragnorok, Marchen Madchen became known as the biggest disaster of the year and is likely set to become the next metaphorical warning pillar of how badly things can go during anime production since the Beserk remakes. The show's suffering is fairly well-documentedthanks to no small effort by the likes of anime news sites and industry reporters like SakugaBlog who have written a great piece on Madchen Marchen and the larger allusion to some of the unsustainable practices of the anime industry. I highly recommend a read through it so you can gain a better understanding of the inner workings of our much-beloved industry.

https://blog.sakugabooru.com/2018/03/24/marchen-madchen-a-production-postmortem/

In summery, Marchen Madchen was an unfortunate victim of a well-known snowball-effect in animation production where small problems - that are notably intrinsic to the framework of the production line - build up and start causing massive scheduling issues which all but broke the already delicate and hard-pressed machine. These production problems are often experienced with most anime series but Marchen Madchen seemed to be hit especially hard. Production was so bad that the studio was forced to take the infamous two-week break between episodes 8 and 9 under the pretense of "fixing animation" but they were, in fact, running around panicked and blind trying to find a production assistant for episode 9. The time and budget were all but ruined even before that break but episode 9 surely put the last nail in the coffin and the originally one-cour plan was scraped and the series was forced to end its television run at only 10 episodes. Everyone who knows about Marchen Madchen knows whats wrong with it. Just have a quick read through most of the reviews on this site and the problems are all but apparent - terrible animation, generic and bland story, forgettable cast, confusing tone, pacing issues, the lot. So I'm going to do something different and talk about the things that Marchen Madchen actually does WELL at.

To start off the review, I just want to confirm that I genuinely like Madchen Madchen. I went in with very little expectations with only the knowledge of the incredibly low MAL score and that the animation was a disaster but the show managed to charm me in a way that I haven't felt in a long time and it compelled me to write this review. The show tells the story through the eyes of our main character - Kagimura Hazuki - a shy girl with little self-confidence. Upon following a mysterious stranger, she stumbles into a world of magic where she finds herself in a magic school where girls use the power of Origins - classical stories that grant the wielder powers in an allegorical fashion related to the story. She finds that she has become the wielder of one of the strongest Origins- the tale of Cinderella and sets forth on her adventure. Yeah yeah I know this synopsis is one you've probably read a million times by now but I feel this anime has just the right amount of heart put into it by its creators that Hazuki is often criticized as a bit of a wussy character by most people but I believe she is so much more. Her character has a level of genre savviness that allows her to not only create a level of comedic self-awareness but also as a force to drive the themes of the show. Case in point episode 6. The episode prior had Hazuki go through a phase of self-doubt and Hazuki arrives to save her friends from trouble and unlocks her hidden power that is so spectacular it wins them the fight. This sequence of events is incredibly cliché and predictable but for me the scenes worked incredibly well. In a single speech Hazuki managed to become one of the most badass characters of all time as she managed to perfectly cap off the build-up of the shows themes up until that point.

The show's thematic and symbolic elements rose far above the mediocre writing and world-building. We are told time and time again that the Origin's the girls possess are given preferential treatment over the girls themselves and much of the conflict in this show focuses on the fate the girls struggle to fight against. What Hazuki did in epsode 6 perfectly ripped into the high and mighty traditional view of abusing the Origin's at the cost of the girls who wield them. Not only that but she also tore into the way stories are told and how people cling too desperately to an untenable tradition in her criticism of the fairy tale of Cinderella - her Origin and a story she herself adored. This was a powerful and immensely satisfying moment that had genuinely great build-up. Add to that the great performance by Hazuki's voice actor, Kusunoki Tomori, and this scene almost singlehandedly saved the previous bland 5 episodes. Hazuki is easily the best character of the show and a strong character in general even if she is somewhat generic. Small sub stories such as the friend of the Academy’s principle leaving her Origin behind and the struggle for Shizuka to hold on to and protect her mother's legacy all contributed to a powerful narrative theme. Even if the show's production was falling apart I get the feeling that the writers and planners were desperate to at least get this one theme through to the audience and I think they did a damn fine job. They never created a heavy-handed and overly-direct manner in which to carry out their message which they really could have done under the excuse of the shot pacing.

After the first serious arc concluded, the show took a bit of a breather with our characters facing the Russian team. I had Vietnam-esque flashbacks to just how poorly something like this was handled in a similar show that featured cute girls in a knock-out tournament- Girls und Panzer (in fact, that show also went through production hell almost on the same level as this one but that's a story for another time). I want to be the first to say that episodes 7 and 8 were genuinely funny comedic episodes and that the Russian team were a hilarious gang that gave me a good chuckle more often than not. The level of comedy in this mini-arc is not particularly great nor is it that original but it is well-executed. The situations that were created were clearly thought up by competent writers. In one scene, in a comedic attempt to sabotage the main character's team, the leader of the Russian team sends an e-mail to Hazuki asking her to arrive at a fake meeting in the basement where they can lock her up. How does she get out? Easy. Just use her phone to call her friends thanks to the available Wi-Fi that was used to send the e-mail in the first place and was completely overlooked by the Russian team. I know explaining jokes is in poor taste if there's no context but these types of situations gave rise to a charming, short, easy-to-watch breather arc before we were treated to the disastrous episode 9. Heck, I even found the more serious tone regarding the tainted Origin of one Tatiana from the Russian team to be a pretty good addition. It was short and sweet with a likeable character and that's all you need sometimes. How fortunate we were in getting this arc in the first place since apparently the original light novel (which is clearly much better written) downsized this arc and its comedic parts in place of more serious plot points.

Of course, I had to take incredible amounts of liberty in ignoring the implications of the plot points that made me like the anime so much. These would be things related to world building (which is terrible), the rules of the magic system (which were poorly explained), the horrendous pacing (packing an amount of material that could easily fit into 2 cours into just one), the sloppy presentation of the main conflict in the show, and the character writing (which, apart from maybe the main pair of Hazuki and Shizuka and the whole Russian team, were pretty lackluster and bland). Honestly, there's a lot wrong with the show. Even if everything went perfectly fine in the animation production I doubt I would give it more than a 6/10 since everything is mostly bland and simple. But I like this show. I don't exactly know why. Perhaps its a blend of personal reasons and managing to notice legitimate praise-worthy aspects to the show when everyone else pushed it aside. Marchen Madchen is a show that just managed to hit the right notes with me and I think that sits well for me.

So what lies ahead for Marchen Madchen?

Episodes 11 and 12 were cast into a dark limbo after the series was canned off TV and they face an uncertain and anxious future. The most likely thing that will happen to them, as agreed by most people, is that they will be released as direct-to-DVD and bluray sets for anyone still willing to watch the show. That's if there's anyone on the staff who's still willing to make it, of course... Youtube has some videos with comparisons between the TV and Bluray version of some of its most infamously awful scenes and the improvement in quality is so apparent it's almost like watching two completely different anime. This improvement is certainly most welcome. Marchen Madchen was the last hurrah of the light novel author Tomohiro Matsu before he tragically passed away in 2016. This anime and the controversy surrounding it may probably be the biggest insult to a deceased person. Despite this, at least I found his message that he left behind in this anime.

EDIT: After another series of delays to air the episodes during December 2018, they're now trying again for during or after April 2019 "due to circumstances"...yeeeeaaaaahhhh this doesn't smell good...

UPDATE (APRIL 2019): They're finally releasing the final 2 episodes. Hope the animators, directors, writers, and producers have worked things out...

UPDATE (NOVEMBER 2019): Finally got around to watching the final 2 episodes. It didn't fall outside of my expectations. It was extremely messy, rushed, and convoluted especially since I forgot a lot of the plot threads that were brought up in the series. Also, I have no idea how the mothers of the MCs were related to each other. Weird twists happen a lot too. Animation and direction-wise ep. 11 is really underwhelming. I can see that they hardly had much time to go through with polishing the show despite the long gap. It just looks pretty ugly at times. Episode 12 actually has some nice moments of animation and cinematography which was definitely fresh for this show. Doesn't fix everything, of course, and it's a shame seeing that this is how the series could have been but it's nice that they finally stuck it in the end. Overall, despite how messy everything was (like, really, who the fuck is Arthur? I want the real female Arthur Pendragon *looks longingly at Saber in the distance*) I still like this show. It stuck with it's themes which I personally resonate with me and it still had genuinely good, albeit transient, moments of comedy I enjoyed and chuckled at. Nothing ostensibly bad here and a much welcomed and deserved final rest to one of the most troubled productions in recent memory.

Thanks for reading!

Yuri, Yuri !! It's the best. Put your sister to the test !! Again i have found another anime this season that has eh reviews or eh ratings. But it isn't that bad. First was Toji no Miko and now it's Märchen Mädchen. Really if i had to pick any complaints it would be 2 things. : Voice acting at times doesn't really seem to go with the characters : Some things can be rushed it feels. Some things i like and wish we got more of. Such as the MC spending time with her new family ( i want her sister to find out that theMC has a crush on another girl and her reaction too it)

I also like the magical world. Has kind of a nice atmosphere to it. If i remember the school is on a island in the middle of the sky ( I can be wrong) But might be why i like it. I wish we got more of what the school grounds are like.

Animation is pretty good with some minor hiccups i'd say.

Hope this get's more recognition soon.

Overall a pretty fun show.

So the thing with this anime is that it started off pretty strong, but at about the 9th or 10th episode, it became really mundane and boring. The original charm the show had, that magical feeling art style it had, was just lost. The premise of the show is pretty cool and original. Girls using books about fairy tales to cast magic, who wouldn't like that? But the execution is just terrible and the impressive animation it had at the beginning is just gone. I would suggest to not watch this anime because you could become too attached to these characters and just wind updisappointed. Overall, I give it a 4/10.

This anime is the best combination of CGDCT and action. It doesn't have perfect graphics, but the story is amazing. I bought the light novel! It is my favourite! It is a perfect combination of moe and action. You will how the protagonist enters the magic world. Don't forget watching the specials. Originally they were episodes 11 and 12. I had to wait 1 year to see the end of storie. Maybe one more volume can be released. I send a message for one of responsibles and he said the volume 4 is not the end. We must wait. Storyworks is one of authors.

Review (short ver): In a nutshell: Socially awkward lesbo idiot stalks wizard to magical world ---- PROS +Cute magical girls +Storybooks magic designs +Strong side still being cute girls doing cute stuff ---- CONS -Story feels fairly weak-Rest of the most part feels meh

---

Review (comments/longer ver):

-Story

The “serious” part of the story felt the most moronic part somehow. Half of the time the “round table” hags purpose and what they were doing felt just pointless and questionable, the “big villain” purpose and existence was the same. Most plot elements felt like “premises/themes” for general gist/idea but without actual story. So as far as serious plot points went, they were pretty bad.

But the cute girls doing cute stuff, their school life drama and character interactions story telling and such was pretty pleasant and enjoyable.

What I did like a lot was how they decided to go with magic designs. Magic powers are essentially designed, idea/concept wise after various story books. “Cinderella, little red riding hood, match girl” etc…. Various culture story books essentially. Which as concept was pretty neat.

-Character

I mean we have plenty of cute stereotypes, but I were not particularly big fan of the main character. Didn’t mind her social awkwardness and closeted yuri aspect. But damn, she was such a damn idiot. We had a side kicks idiots as well, which seems to be running theme. But overall there are plenty of cute characters but sadly not all of them get enough screen time. While the “Japan” school characters get the main focus and for the most part enough time to grow into them, other characters are pretty much dice roll.

Overall… once okay as whole the “character” side was okay. Nothing too amazing nor would say particularly bad.

-Art & Sound

Ending video nice I guess. But yeah, Animation, music, OST etc… was okay I guess. For the genre and content we got it was fitting enough. Nothing too impressive.

-Enjoyment & Overall

In the end I did enjoy it for the most part. Although the serious part of the story was quite iffy and lacking and everything else felt fairly average, but as whole it had it’s own charm which made it enjoyable cute magical girls doing cute stuff with cool magic type of Anime. And I have a habit rating Anime a bit higher usually people do. Would I recommend it? Eh… I’m neutral on it, like that type of genres and content, watch it, otherwise, find something better.

---

Total Score 6/10

---

Review info

Reviewing Info: How I rate/review stuff is explained on my site. In a nutshell, my personal opinion outweighs "objective" value

Review layout: Unformatted hopefully MAL friendly non-H

Review type: Anime

Note: Still testing review layouts. This line will be removed when I’m satisfied with the layout.

I didn't know what to expect going in with an anime rated average of 5.39, but I really don't think it deserves to be this low. People are just too pissy and appear to have unnecessarily high expectations. Starting with episode 1, I was pleasantly surprised with how they designed the main character and the direction the story seemed to be heading in. From then on out I knew this anime was definitely underrated by people. The episodes were very fun to watch and the story is overall light and enjoyable. There's no hard topics or a lot of drama so it's a perfect little animeto watch to have some fun.

Overall, don't listen to people or watch the reviews. In fact, why are you reading this? Watch anime and make your own calls instead of relying on people's info!

I'll cut this short, just like the anime was. I started watching this by accident. I downloaded an episode of another anime, but the site made some mistake and I got the first episode of this anime instead. I watched it and was hooked from the first episode. This show had a very original take to this kind of story, and the protagonist is also really interesting. Since you probably have an idea of what it is, I'll skip over that part. Overall, this anime was really good, but it had some problems down the line and the 12 episodes it should have had got cut to 10.And let's not talk about episode 9's animation.

If I had to say, I recomend everyone give this a go and, if you enjoy it, maybe look at the Light Novel (I know I will).

If, let's say, it was anounced that the studio would remake the anime or that they would release the last two episodes in a OVA, I'd still give it a go.

To finish this off, I can only say one thing. This anime had a lot of potential and could have been one of those animes that is nice to come back to every now and then, but it was unlucky and met with some problems, so we were left with this sour taste, but, at the very least, it's one more Light Novel to put on my Plan to Read list.

The time I watched Märchen Mädchen was when I felt that there was no good anime elsewhere because they are all (well, a lot of them I meant) are mediocre at best. Boy was I right. This anime wasn't particularly dreadful, the art was ok, and the soundtrack was tolerable. But the story and the characters were just so plain and so boring! I'm surprised that I managed to finish all 10 episodes in actuality. I didn't have a care for the main character (I even forgot her name, wow) and I didn't have a care for any of her relationships with the supporting characters.I kinda did like the whole book idea and that everyone had their own little cute outfits from those books. But when we found out that the main character had one of the "special~" versions of the book I literally face palmed and said "of course! she'd be the "chosen one". I found this very cliche, but if you enjoyed it then I won't judge you.This show was clearly not meant for me.