MÄR

Title: MÄR
Author: Nobuyuki Anzai

What it's about: In MÄR, Ginta is quite the dreamer, always dreaming of a fairytale world. Everyone teases him except his friend Koyuki, until one day, a mysterious figure summons Ginta to another world, the world of MÄR-Heaven. There he finds himself stronger and fitter than in his old world, and after a run-in with a sorceress named Dorothy, Ginta meets Babbo, a talking kendama. With Babbo as his Ally, Ginta sets out to find a way back home.

What I thought: This series, by the same guy who did Flame of Recca, is sort of like a lighter version of that. It's about half the length of Recca, and to me it seemed pretty rushed. The characters are good, and the plot is interesting, but too quickly it just becomes a series of battles in the war games, without enough intervening plot. That's a pity, too, because the characters are a neat group, and it would have been nicer to have more scenes that weren't battles. However, the art is good, and the manga's a nice, short read. Still, it doesn't quite match up to its predecessor.

Overall: If you're looking for a fun, relatively short manga series, you can't go wrong with MÄR.