Narm/Anime and Manga/Manga

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


THIS ISN'T AN EVIL GUYS

Miura: It's definitely a serious scene, where he's really angry, and it would otherwise be cool... but with an otter...
Hattori: Do you think Hiramaru-kun was going for laughs?
Miura: I can't tell...
Mashiro: Hiramaru-san was serious, but we laughed anyway.

—Bakuman｡

Just like their Anime cousins, Narm may occasionally creep into the pages of your favorite (or not-so-favorite) manga series.

  • Although, to some, all manga can be construed as narmy, what can really kill it for fans and Otaku alike, is when the magazine editors for which the manga is originally released take it upon themselves to add more to the suspense of the already Cliff Hanger-ish ending. By adding stupid tag-lines. The most EPIC, MIND-BLOWING THING could happen, and snap the coolness evaporates into Narm for the reader. Just by adding a few simple words such as: "Rejection!" or they just plain point out the obvious or ask stupid questions like "What will X do next!?" As you can imagine, it becomes quite tiresome when your favorite manga gets sorta ruined every single chapter.
    • Although it helps that the compiled volumes usually get rid of the tag lines.
  • In the "Queen Sayoko" mini arc of Ah! My Goddess, Belldandy willingly sacrifices her free will for Keiichi's. She is also commanded to "go home" (everyone thinks that means Heaven) because he was too busy laughing about Sayoko's utterly ridiculous "queen" outfit.
  • "Scanslations" (which is to say, translated manga scans - the comic equivalent of Fansubs) suffer from this when the translators do not originally speak English (or whatever language the scanslation is in), are overly literal, or just don't care. One particular instance comes from a scanslation of an early issue of the Fullmetal Alchemist manga in which the otherwise touching and poignant segment of Ed and Al Elric being forced to be midwives for a delivering mother is ruined by the line "THE BABY'S BEEN BRONED!" (sic). That same page also has "time to the wash the baby" and "becasue".
    • From a Mahou Sensei Negima scanslation: the climax of a dramatic conversation is flattened by the main character saying, "Stop trying to pull the WOLL over my eyes!" ARGH. Come on guys, check your spelling.
    • A Touhou hentai doujinshi had Reisen and Youmu -- erm -- taking care of business, as it were. The whole thing suddenly spiraled into hilarity when Reisen discovered Youmu's ghost half and asked "how did it formed?" Whoops.
    • Any scanlation where the scanalator uses internet slang to save space. How can you take a fight with a giant-dwarfing zombie seriously when half the crew reacts with "OMG!"?
      • Same goes for unfitting swear words. Cursing makes a character sound vulgar and unintelligent. When a character who's supposed to be classy and educated uses them (especially every other sentence), the result is Narm.
    • One D.Gray-man scanslation translated "The Musician" as "The Player." Way to break the drama, guys. Arguably even funnier because that particular character could probably score with anyone in the series, male or female, if he tried.
    • It's astounding how often translators will misspell "strength" as either "strentgh" or "strenght."
  • The scene in Fullmetal Alchemist in which Ed digs up the remains of his attempt to transmute his mother back to life was supposed to be one of the most dramatic scenes in the series, but the cartoony look on Ed's face combined with his line ( "THIS HAIR IS BLACK!") makes it one of the funniest scenes instead.
    • Greed's Big No was narmy, in part because of its scanlation.
    • The friendship speech that Edward gives Envy right before he commits suicide.
    • Armstrong's face right after the Big Bad's defeat, where everyone thinks that Al won't make it after the last battle. It kills the drama of the scene.
  • There's a scene in the GetBackers manga where Action Girl Himiko just finished an emotional fight, defeating the guys who killed her new friend Miyama, who had just asked her to use her perfumes and witchcraft to save the Kiryuudo. As soon as she sees Ban next, she jumps into his arms and hugs him in distress. Even if we ignore the lingering Clothing Damage, the gratuitous Panty Shot while she's flying in mid-air kills any emotional effect the scene might have had. Except immature giggling.
  • The Tower of Conviction arc in the Berserk manga had a group of inquisitors who were turned into "angels" via demonic magic. They were interesting characters with angelic wings, a threat to Guts and his group, an interesting study on the nature of religious dogma and true miracles... wait, did that guy just shout GOD CANNON as he attacked? Seriously? GOD CANNON? Way to make a torturous inquisitor who had previously been shown torturing people laughable, guys.
    • That particular character has a head shaped like a cube, which in itself can be amusing. The "GOD CANNON" wouldn't have been too bad if all of his attacks were formatted "GOD (SOMETHING)," but there is some slight variation. "GOD'S BREATH" and "GOD'S HAND" weren't bad, but "GOD'S PRESSURE" was a bit ridiculous.
  • Samus repeatedly screaming "Kill Me!" at the end of the Metroid manga's 9th chapter and at the beginning of the tenth. Her white eyes, occasionally elongated "Me"s, and being Out of Character make this scene hard to take seriously.
  • Golgo 13: "Flagburner." It makes sense that someone angry with the Clinton administration would hire Golgo 13 to tip the scales of the 2000 Florida recount. It made a convincing, well-written thriller... up until the panel that showed the stylized Clinton having smiley anal sex in the Oval Office.
  • The Enigma of Amigara Fault has one of these that ruins the unleaded nightmare fuel, partially because you can take the last page out of context and partially because of Memetic Mutation. Someone shines a light in one of the fissure-like holes on a side of the vault in the last few pages. Inside, he sees a former human, twisted beyond recognition into a blackened, leathery And I Must Scream Body Horror (teriyaki-flavored, probably), slowly worming his way through the cracks with the infamous cry of DRR... DRR... DRR... The researcher's response?

"IT'S SLOWLY COMING THIS WAY!!"

    • If you don't know the rest of the story, then this is hilariously camp.
    • 4chan, in typical 4chan fashion, had to render the manga completely unterrifying by changing "DRR DRR DRR" into "DDR DDR DDR"...

"It's slowly dancing this way!"

    • Exemplified within [1]
    • Even in the original, the "DRR" loses its scariness when you realise that it could be pronounced as "durrr". As in, the stereotypical idiot grunt.
  • The "Cleaning Out the Storage" strip in Axis Powers Hetalia had a genuinely powerful and emotional plot. But when England went into a Twisted Knee Collapse in front of America after being defeated, the panel shot gives the impression that he was about to give America head. Waaaaaaay to ruin the until-then very well-done drama, Himaruya.
    • You used to be so big...
  • One particular scene in the Neon Genesis Evangelion manga is hard to take seriously. During the "End of Eva" scene where Shinji is trying to snap Asuka out of her coma, instead of the scene ending in Shinji jerking off to Asuka's comatose body, Asuka snaps out of it just long enough to go crazy and violently strangle Shinji. Perhaps this was Asuka's revenge for all the things Shinji does to her in End of Eva: "Now how do YOU like it!?"
    • The shonen ai between Shinji and Kaworu went from Subtext to Text in the manga. Kaworu lost all his original charisma and interest when he became a lovestruck teenager who doesn't want to live anymore because Shinji doesn't love him back.
    • Also, the scene where Kaworu kills a kitty became Narmful if you know the "Kaworu kills kittens" meme. Yes, that meme. For the meme-blind among us:

Every time you masturbate, Kaworu kills a kitten.

  • The creator of Shoujo Sect chose insane romanizations for the characters' names. Chizuru becomes Chizzle, Handa is Hunter, Enjyoji is Engeorge, Naitou is Knight-O... Any time one of these spellings appears, it removes drama from the scene.
  • In one Yu-Gi-Oh! translation, a scanlator makes the questionable decision of having (normal) Yugi refer to Jounouchi's former friend and gang leader Hirutani as a "son of a bitch."
    • Given the context and Yugi's character (he was a bit less of a cute panda and more of a normal teenager) in the beginning of the manga, this doesn't seem too narmy.
    • Here's an example from the first seven volumes: so Yami Bakura has trapped everyone in that tabletop RPG game. Towards the end, the good Bakura manages to regain control over one of his hands, so Yami Bakura decides to deal with it by impaling his hand on one of the towers of the boardgame's castle, uttering the priceless but silly line "How do you like the taste of durable polyester, Hand?!" in the process. Even better (or worse, depending on how you view Narm) if you imagine the line being said with Ted Lewis's typical delivery for the character.
  • The most poignant scenes in the manga Translucent are ruined by the frequent Narmtastic Off-Model shots. Even when on model, some of the characters look incredibly bizarre for a supposedly realistic manga. In particular, there's Shizuka's teacher, whose first appearance makes his head three faces tall and tilted 45 degrees. Even in later volumes, he has a head easily twice the height it should be.
  • Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service has one during a chapter in which the group discovers that a parasite normally found in snails that bulges out their eyestalks and hijacks their mind to make them go up to high places and get eaten by birds has adapted to use humans in the same way. While the final discovery of a victim with his eyeballs turned into humongous eyestalks is supposed to be horrific, it's also somewhat ridiculous, especially with the victim's expression and his line afterwards.

"I wanna be a biiiiiird!"

  • The first volume of Black God included a segment where, due to some fancy magic, the main character and a random magician girl couldn't be too far apart because she had saved his life by exchanging his mangled arm for her OK one. The manga decided to show this by having the main character's donated arm fall off and following this with his getting told off like a naughty schoolboy for letting it happen.
  • In Waq Waq, during Shio's fight with Leo, there are two major bits of Narm while Shio is considering what he can do compared to what Leo can do.
    1. Shio notes that Leo has quite a few abilities for his Gozinzou, then recalls that he can eat, whereupon a Super-Deformed version of himself fused with Armati with a face on his eating arm.
    2. Shio finally recalls one of his father's techniques to harden and uses that technique to defend, but still gets blown away by Leo's attack. Instead of an Oh Crap expresion, he has a dazed expression with Blank White Eyes as he flies into the air spinning countless times. He notes somewhat anticlimactically, "it didn't help any."
  • In Death Note, the scene in which Near and Mello are informed of L's death is hard to take seriously because Mello looks totally psychotic and Near looks like he wasn't paying attention. (Spoilers at link!)
    • When L hears the word 'Shinigami', he throws his hands in the air and falls out of his chair. Narm for this troper because of the lack of momentum to propel him out of said chair.
  • Chapter 387 of Inuyasha (which is in volume 39), in the translation by Viz, includes this dialogue:

Ryujin: You're harboring Toshu, aren't you?! Then I'll slice you all to ribbons!
Inuyasha: Oh yeah? I like ribbons. So try it!

  • Mirai Nikki is full of this because the art isn't well-drawn in the early chapters. This is a particularly lovely example of Narm in the series.
  • Fourteen. Even the description of the plot puts this manga in narmtopia. The manga takes place in the future in a chicken meat growing factory, where a lump of chicken flesh transforms into a supermutant chicken man named "Chicken George". He goes on a mission to take revenge on humanity for ruining the planet. This was written by the author of the creepy horror manga "Drifting Classroom".
  • In the Akira manga, Lady Miyako succumbs to her wounds while fighting Tetsuo. All in all, it's an appropriate and dramatic scene... except that she happens to collapse on a slanted piece of rubble, and a whole panel shows her body slowly sliding down.
  • At the end of the Future Arc in Katekyo Hitman Reborn, Kikyo was talking about how the Funeral Wreaths were not just "normal humans," and how Byakuran had brought the them up to greatness in this parallel world, and then Xanxus tells him to shut up and does this. It really shouldn't have been funny.
    • The character Shitt. P. of the Shimon family. More specifically, her name.
  • Quoted above is a part of a scene in Bakuman｡, where Hattori and Miura advise Takagi and Mashiro to incorporate "serious humor" into scenes, that kids won't notice as funny, and adults will laugh at, so they can be funny without trying to be. The expressions on Mashiro and Takagi's faces after Mashiro suggests that Azuki broke up with him over keeping Takagi's meetings with Aoki and his uncle loving her secrets mother from her don't exactly convey the sense of shock that they feel.
  • Sorry, Tsukuyomi. Seeing you make the face on the right top side of the page completely killed the drama of the tense scene you had just been in. (SPOILERS!) We do know the Sex Is Violence deal going on with a Blood Knight Depraved Bisexual like you, and that It Makes Sense in Context... but for some of us, it's still funnier than it should be.

Chao: Ohohoho. When you act cool in a cute costume, it just doesn't convince people!
Setsuna: Be quiet!

    • The tension that comes from Beatrix, Yuna and Sayo being turned into stone by Fate's petrifying darts goes POOF when there's a close up of Chibi!Sayo becoming granite. Most hilarious Kick the Dog ever.
    • When Emily is revived by Asuna alongside everyone else, her friends go hug her. It's very heartwarming, except for how Yue was drawn in that particular page.
  • Jadeite's death in the Sailor Moon manga because of the sound effect, written as "FLAAAAAAA!".
  • The art in Hellsing's early chapters is a bit... weird. Fortunately the manga underwent some drastic Art Evolution, but this makes rereading Volume 1 really jarring. Take a look at Seras. It also doesn't help that Hirano apparently hadn't finalized Alucard's characterization... "I still have too many human reasons"? He's a completely different character than the sadistic psycho we know him as today.
  • The entire fourth round of the Liar Game tournament gives the different players nicknames, usually based on their appearance. Thing is, these nicknames can sound condescending when they're spoken out loud, which they are. So we get the eternally cheerful Nao calling people "Four-Eyes", "Baldy" and "Fatso", among other names, in the middle of otherwise serious discussions.
    • Liar Game has a lot of this due to the characters' mouths opening way too wide when they're feeling particularly happy or surprised.
  • Whenever someone swears (it happens a lot) in Super Mario-kun.
    • There's also the panel with the Shadow Queen. It looked like they weren't sure if they wanted to make her a chibi-type manga cute, or a terrifying Eldritch Abomination like in the games and decided to just do both. Also the face Mario's making in the corner of the same panel completely destroys what little threat she still had at that point.
  • Gyo is full of Narm. Pretty much everything from the second chapter onward can be construed as completely hilarious. Anything involving a shark is guaranteed funny, as is the fish in the garbage bag. The second volume is replete with scenes of infected humans burping and farting everywhere, and even a death stench circus. One wonders how it is even possible to be scared by this, apart from the Body Horror.
  • Mad Bull 34 usually gets a pass because of Narm Charm, but the second chapter of the manga is... special. A junkie going through withdrawal takes a neighbor hostage in his apartment. Aside from his being fat for a long-term heroin junkie, what he does with the girl is ridiculous. Facing out the window with shotgun in hand, he forces her to grab his testicles and squeeze as if she wanted to crush them - reasoning that such intense pain will take his mind off the whole "my desire for smack is driving me mad" thing. Whatever you're imagining, it's more absurd than that. Subsequent chapters feature their fair share of bizarre and hilarious content, but this is the, ahem, high point.
    • Later, we get to know Nickel the Electrician, a hitman who kills people by using his electrical and mechanical expertise in creative ways. There's nothing silly about that, but his other big thing is his bizarre compulsion to piss on his target's car. Nickel happens to be diabetic, by the way, which is how Sleepy knew he was gunning for him - because he could smell the sugar from Nickel's insulin in the urine. After Nickel's "exploding light bulb" trick doesn't work, his next plan involves strapping a firearm of his own design to a stray cat.
  • The manga version of Puella Magi Madoka Magica is not known for its subtlety. It shows in the very graphic consequences of the Witch hunts (like its version of Mami Tomoe's death)... and then it completely ruins the scenes that put Kyubey in the light of his his inability to understand human concerns/standards and very crafty and effective manipulations. Considering that Kyuubey's "key" for this is his Perpetual Smiler, Dissonant Serenity and Frozen Face traits, his "Nightmare Face" from the manga (which he pulls when Homura calls him "Incubator" comes off more as ridiculously overblown than truly scary... if not downright stupid. Guess some things are just better done in animated form...
    • Made even better/worse/whatever by how from then on, Kyuubey has Black Eyes of Evil. It's so stupidly and ridiculously Anvilicious that it seems he's constantly tripping balls, or that the manga author thinks the readers are complete idiots who need to be constantly told how eeeeeeevil he's supposed to be.
    • In the sort-of prequel Oriko Magica, due to the art-style, some things are really hard to take seriously. For example, Yuma just saw her parents killed right in front of her, and she's wondering where she's going to go while Kyoko tries to disuade her from becoming a Magical Girl. It's a really sad scene, until...she makes this face (bottom right panel.) Damn it, Yuma.
      • Four manga chapters later, when Madoka is separated from Hitomi and Sayaka during the witch attack on Mitakihara Junior High orchestrated by Oriko and Kirika, she makes almost exactly the same face. (bottom left panel). Wut.
  • In Manga Messiah, a manga adaptation of the Gospels, a very serious accusation is ruined with Jesus calling the Pharisees "phonies". As in, "You phonies!" Facepalm.
  • In The Prince of Tennis, specifically New Prince of Tennis, when Atobe evolves to get his xray vision, it's really not a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
    • Wait, only that? Beforehand, Inui's "transformation" in a mummy after his doubles match with Kaidoh is just as narmtastic as in the anime.
  • In the Soul Eater manga, Medusa's possession of Rachel Boyd's body loses a lot of its dramatic impact when it looks like this.
  • The official English translation of the Trinity Blood manga often uses some very...questionable translations for dialogue and sound effects. It kind of ruins the drama when the vampires insist on using Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe every time they speak, especially with Ion Fortuna. The fact that he keeps insisting on addressing himself as "we" really lessens whatever drama they were going for. The sound effects are just as bad; in the Gunmetal Hound chapters, a dude getting shot in the head apparently warrants the sound effects "Bonk" and "Splat". BONK AND SPLAT, GUYS. There's also an entire panel, right in the middle of a tense, fast-paced fight scene, used to translate the large japanese sound effect as "a cold wind blows". What.
  • During a rape scene in the Zeorymer manga the attacker walks outside, breaks off an icicle from the roof, and uses it to continue raping the victim. This would be disturbing, except it happens right after a cheesy exposition monologue (also made while raping), so instead it just pushes the whole scene over the top and into funny territory, and it just gets funnier when you realize that the rape is never mentioned again.
  • Katekyo Hitman Reborn: After Tsuna epicly punches Daemon several yards underground, the next panel is simply "YOU BASTARD!" coming from the hole created. I laughed.
    • The entire concept of the great power that pacifiers can give.
  • Pandora Hearts: See Elliot in chapter 26 here where he holds a sword at crotch level. Oz does it too.
  • Viz's English translation for the Dragon Ball manga can be narmful in a different way from FUNimation's dub of the anime with its borderline Purple Prose and abuse... of... Dramatic Ellipsis.
  • In Black Butler chapter 68 Ciel goes to a school where students have "butlers" which are called "fags". I laughed every time the word fag came up. "It's fag time!"
  • Very late in the Fruits Basket manga, Bishie Sparkle is used as a Vomit Discretion Shot after Kyo's stomach gets the better of him.
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