Anime: MAR Heaven

Marchen Awakens Romance, another anime adaption from author Nobuyuki Anzai, creater of Flane of Recca. I myself have been a Flame of Recca fan ever since I read the manga and saw the anime, so I was overjoyed to find out there was going to be another anime based upon his work. Unfortunately, I was rather dissapointed, as marchen awakens romance was aimed at a whole other audience than Flame of Recca (kids), and the whole anime was nothing but a crappy clone to boot.

Fortunately, I kept watching, and later episodes do get better (though not exceptional). Right now, being at around episode 40, I think the show is fairly enjoyable.

Animation:
well, dont know about this, but in my opinion it could have been much and much better. As another review already states, they seem to have spend more attention on the characters (of whose most characterdesigns, especially those in the beginning, seem rather unimpressive to say the least) than environments. This can easily been seen by the sheer simplcity of the backgrounds, which detracts from the overall quality. Then there is the CGI, which is present a little. The CGI seems different than normal CGI, which is interesting. Unfortately, it doesnt blend one bit at all and the 3D models arent very well animated.

Sound:
Allright I guess. I am not too fond of the opening themes and ending themes, but thats more a matter of taste. The soundtrack goes by unnoticed. Normally this shouldnt be too much of a problem, but with animes like this I think a good soundtrack supporting battle scenes is neccesary, which isnt the case with Marchen. The seiyuu are pretty nice, although there are some exceptions (like princess Snow, in my opinion).

Story:
The story is very simple. There is a bad guy named Phantom, who is responsable for a lot of suffering in the past, and some hero back then defeated him. Now Phantom has come back to life, and its up to the main characters to defeat him once again. Thats it and thats all there need to be, since this anime revolves around battles and a story is not really neccesary.

Characters:
Well, there are a whole lot of characters, but none of them have received a lot of development so far, making the characters fairly uninteresting. The design of the characters are rather dissapointing, especially in the first 20 or so episodes. Not much else can be said

Value & enjoyment:
While having a very slow start, once the war games start, the anime gets pretty interesting, since in the war games the fights are all that matter. Fortunately, this gives the enjoyment a boost, but still Marchen cant compete with animes like Law of Ueki, Bleach and other titles. If you have either too much free time on your hand or you are just plain bored, you should try this anime, but remember, there are better titles out there.

Animation: The animation is mostly fluid. The CGI sequences look good but seem out of place. You get used to them though. The fight scenes are fluid and varied.

Sound: The sound is appropriate for the fight scenes. It helps get you into the fights. The voice actors are good and the voices fit.

Story: The story is a very straightforward good vs. evil scenario. Not much deviation at all from that formula. There is also occasional annoying filler. The jokes are usually not very funny, I think this must be geared toward a young audience as it has a lot of silly, childish jokes.

Character: Unfortunately the two main side characters are extremely annoying. I cannot stand Snow and Jack. Jack is on of the most irritating anime characters I have seen. He is mostly used for comic relief and has no depth. He is the typical weak sidekick type character. He is really weak and pathetic and extremely boring to watch. Snow is also pretty boring, your typical female in love with the main hero. No depth at all. Some of the more periphery characters, such as Alan, Nanashi, and Alviss are interesting but they don't get much screen time. Ginta is your typical goody two shoes hero. He also is pretty flat, but he at least is likable as opposed to Snow and Jack.

Value: It's worth a watch once but not a rewatch. I cannot think of one particular outstanding episode that I would want to rewatch. I would not buy this but it's worth the time to download if you're bored. It has its moments.

Enjoyment: The anime is enjoyable, but in no way engrossing. Worth a watch if you have nothing else to watch. Not worth a rewatch though.

MAR Heaven is a unique place, but the story is not.

The animation is not half bad as it seems though it’s more zoomed on the characters rather then the surrounding, they could have made more artistic sceneries, but time is money.
The animation is very similar to Adventure RAVE.

The sound/voices the characters and the seiyuuv are well matched imho. The deep voices for the big guys and the smaller ones yeah you get the point. And the seiyuu are pretty good as well, the opening song is a nice mood setter and the lyric fits both the story and the opening.

You get a feeling that you have watched more episodes in beginning, in other words the plot evolves fast, or you might get that feeling. If you’re not new to the anime scene then you’ll get the feeling that all of this has been done before and it has, even though I'm not that picky and I have seen too much, but I know some people that think this anime is great, and it has some really nice twists in it.

The characters is that thing in this anime that draws the most of my attention, first of there is a variety of characters and everyone has a interesting story behind them, every character within MAR are unique even though you have seen some of them before in other animes.

To be honest I don’t think I'm going to watch it again, but I’m going to watch it until the end
It’s not that bad tough that you’ll stop watching it halfway through, My guess.

Don’t forget too watch things you never though you would, it might give you a new experience.