Welcome to a land where rocks talk, birds have more than one head, fairies live happily, and trees that dance as much as they please. This land is known as Marchen - a world that only exists in the imagination of a middle-schooler named Ginta Toramizu. Without good eye sight, the attention span to focus in school and the stamina to run laps, his fantastical dreams are his only escape (and probably the only thing he's good at doing). But how can one explain the fact that he's had the same dream 103 times?
That is when dreams cease to be dreams.
On another normal school day, the class is interrupted by a strange phenomena. An eccentric figure appears out of nowhere, darkness engulfing the entire classroom. A gateway is set and the dice is rolled. It only allows one person to enter into another realm. After making the choice to enter the mysterious being's gate, Ginta is transported into his 'dream world'. Here, his dream becomes reality. His physical being also improves; the boy has no need for his glasses and better tolerance for physical activity.
In the middle of sight-seeing, Ginta is attacked by a suit of armor. The boy easily defeats it and finds out that he has an audience. Enter Dorothy - the girl who tested him with her 'suit of armor'. It turns out that the armor is actually an item called an Ärm: an accessory that has unique powers engraved into it by mystic forces. These Ärms are separated into three categories: weapons, guardians, and dimension arms. In fact, there are very few rare Ärms around that everyone wants to get their hands on.
Impressed with Ginta's super-strength, she takes him to find a rare Ärm called "Babbo". Of course, with Ginta's interference, he ends up with the rare Ärm. With Babbo in tow, the boy now continues with his journey. Although ecstatic, he finds that there are some things that he misses when he was at home. With a new goal in mind, Ginta, along with the help of others, goes onward through Marchen. He soon will find that he is prey to many others who want the Ärm he bears.
MÄR is another work done by Nobuyuki Anzai, who created Flame of Recca (Rekka no Honou), his other well-known manga.
With its comedic timing and strange characters, MÄR is a manga that should not be overlooked. Much like the manga Flame of Recca, the artwork and character design varies from the super cutesy to the uber-cool. It may look semi-kiddie-ish, but as the story progresses, it takes on that dark fairy tale style people usually aren't use to. Märchen still seems like a very interesting place to visit. Then again, some should be careful what they wish for.
