Alternate Character Interpretation: Nina Wang: Girl who always did her best only to get manipulated by Nagi and Sergay, tragic figure who has good intentions but started down a dark road due to a few critical mistakes, or completely and utterly amoral individual who is willing to commit mass murder for the sake of her incestuous love for Sergay?
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Shiho's dream sequence in episode 21. Made even more disconcerting by the fact it pops up in an otherwise tragic episode.
Grand Duke Nagi Dai Artài and John Smith are the respective leaders of the Artài Principality and the terrorist organization Schwarz. Desiring to Take Over the World, the two begin by firing an energy cannon on a crowded stadium, injuring many, then unleashing their armies on the Kingdom of Windbloom. Smith also forces Erstin Ho, whom they have raised to be a spy, to attack heroine Arika Yumemiya, while Nagi manipulates Nina Wang into joining him and has her also attack Arika, resulting in Erstin sacrificing herself—to their amusement. Once in power, the two exile Queen Mashiro and the poor population into the desert to die while also using the corpse of Lena Sayers to create the Valkyrie, Otomes that must obey Nagi under pain of electric shock should they refuse his orders. They then order Nina to use the Harmonium to destroy entire cities and kill everyone within, intending to spark a world war. Upon the heroines returning, the two men send their minions to kill them all. Smith then attempts to kill Sergey upon the latter's betrayal; when he fails, Nagi shoots Sergey instead and uses his life to further extort Nina into following his orders, later having her destroy Windbloom and putting the entire planet in danger out of spite when his plans are foiled. Despite claiming to want to free Otomes from their contracts, their real aim is to force everyone to suffer the pain of war.
Tomoe Marguerite uses her charm to mask her malicious intentions. Throughout the show, she tries to personally take out Arika Yumemiya because she saw her as a potential threat to her affections towards her elder Shizuru Fujino. Her attempts involved trying to convince a gang to rape Arika, knowing that if they went through with it, her Otome powers would be neutralized. She later goes on to betray the Alliance, stating that she deserves to have anything that she wanted, and that everyone's lives, except that of Shizuru's, are meaningless to her. She gladly works under Grand Duke Nagi Dai Artài and John Smith, becoming the leader of the Valkyrie squad and bullying her friends into subservience. Despite supposedly loving Shizuru, Tomoe takes great pleasure in essentially making Shizuru into her plaything. When Shizuru reveals to her that she never loved her, Tomoe rants, noting the similarities between her and the older Otome, and states that she was entitled to be the only person to have her, then finally attempts to kill her and Natsuki.
Die for Our Ship: Mahya. This is more understandable than many examples, as she deliberately interferes with Akane and Kazuya's attempts to have sex (instead of merely being someone either one could be or is interested in), but she still gets a lot of hate for interfering with the couple.
Draco in Leather Pants: Nina. Despite her detractors, she still has fans willing to overlook or excuse her actions in later episodes.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Erstin's unexpected popularity among fans of the anime led to her surviving in the manga continuity, and actually being a member of the main Power Trio.
Sara Gallagher is nicknamed "Batman", for her black Robe that resembles Batman's outfit.
"Manshiro", for Manga!Mashiro for obvious reasons.
Fanon Discontinuity: Those who take the series seriously tend to ignore what little "plot" there is in My-Otome Zwei as much as possible, and advise others to do the same.
Mimi is not the most pleasant individual, especially considering that she's willing to let Aoi die for her loyalty to the queen], but her backstory (her father losing his job, becoming an alcoholic and dying) and her own eventual death are quite tragic.
Mashiro as well, although through Character Development she becomes just a straight Woobie. She comes off as a Royal Brat at first who has no qualms with causing trouble for others, but she's not the actual princess and she's rather insecure about that. She starts feeling guilt over the suffering that Windbloom's lower classes feel, especially after she's forced into exile and is starving with the Windbloom refugees.
Arika and Mashiro have a bunch of moments together in the later episodes that border on romance scenes where they encourage each other to keep going.
Erstin with Arika and Nina, particularly Nina. In one scene in the pool, when a water monster slithers by her, she assumes Nina is feeling her up, but bashfully tells her that If It's You, It's Okay. She also sends Nina and Arika a letter saying that eve though she was told not to make any friends at the school because she was a Schwarz infiltrator, she still found herself becoming close to them.
Aoi and Chie. When Nao asks why Chie was in town the same night she captured some thugs who were attempting to rape Arika, Chie jokingly replies that she had "a date." After Aoi almost dies performing her Heroic Sacrifice for Mashiro, Chie visits her in in the room where she is being treated, and is overjoyed when she regains consciousness.
Moral Event Horizon: For Nagi, the point where he shoots Sergey and then ties him to the Harmonium, and then forces Nina to run it to keep him alive. For Tomoe, her organization of the Attempted Rape scenario, which thankfully failed.
Saved by the Fans: The popularity of Nao and Shizuru's "Earth" incarnations prompted their return as heroes in this second season.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: While the peasant citizens of Windbloom's grievances against their kingdom's government are presented as justified and are indeed understandable, their intense disdain for Mashiro can easily come off as unwarranted given how they seem to blame her specifically for all of their problems simply because she's the queen. This forgets that in all the years they'd suffered in Windbloom, Mashiro was not truly ruling the kingdom since the start of the series she was still merely the princess, and as a still fairly newly instated queen she is naturally inexperienced in the role and is still a child. What's more, the citizens violently gang up on Aoi and delight in seeing her fall to her apparent demise all because she's Queen Mashiro's personal maid(partly because she's loyal to her and partly because she has a decently-paying job unlike most of them), as though all those even remotely associated with the queen deserve capital punishment for things they might not even have any culpability in given the low status and limited options servants like Aoi actually had.
Unpopular Popular Character: Shiho is considerably better liked by the fans than her HiME counterpart, but it’s revealed in the sound dramas that she is by far the least popular Otome among those that Backstage sells merchandise for, especially after her fairly humiliating outcome from the incident in the pool (which was mostly her fault).
Viewer Gender Confusion: Gal is female, but given that she's a Cyborg and her voice is distorted, it's hard to tell.
The Woobie: Erstin. She was becoming friends with Arika and Nina despite trying to avoid becoming attached to anyone at the academy, but knew the "black letter" from Schwarz would come one day and she would become their enemy.
Manga
Complete Monster: Sergey Auguste Taiki is the true mastermind and a far cry from his anime counterpart. In the backstory, he brainwashed Mai Tokiha and Mikoto into becoming his minions, and used Mai and Kagutsuchi to burn down the village where Arika Yumemiya and the male Mashiro lived, killing nearly everyone inside, then raised the male Mashiro as a pawn. As the Prime Minister of Windbloom, Sergey orders military expansion, bringing mass unemployment. He manipulates the Schwarz and Grand Duke Nagi Dai Artài into causing chaos, and upon revealing this, he orders Mikoto to kill the heroes, resulting in Nagi sacrificing himself—to his amusement. Feigning loyalty to the real Mashiro, Sergey helps her take over Windbloom, making his rule even harsher than before and allowing his soldiers to torment and rape the citizens. He unleashes the Dark HiME to kill the heroes, resulting in Nina Wang and Erstin Ho grievously injuring themselves to save everyone. When the heroes confront him, he traps the male Mashiro in a nightmare, forcing him to relive his brutal bullying, while trying to force Arika and Nina to kill each other, then betrays the real Mashiro and controls Fumi Himeno into killing her, before stabbing the male Mashrio. Finally, he transforms into a giant monster and engulfs Windbloom in darkness, intending to destroy the world that he feels is filled with lies. A total madman, Sergey is said by the male Mashiro to love no one, not even himself.
Moral Event Horizon: Most of Sergay's actions after his being revealed as evil qualify, including killing Mashiro when she is no longer useful, trying to destroy the world and almost killing Manshiro.
