YMMV / Schwarzesmarken

• Americans Hate Tingle: Beatrix and Lise are the second and third most popular characters over in Japan but are hated over by many western fans.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Beatrix, who is either considered a monster who enjoys her actions, on par with Axmann below, or someone who is not worse than what would be required of a State Sec agent given the dire circumstances, and for whom it is nothing personal (except for her dealings with Irisdina).
  • Theodor is either considered to be justifiably paranoid and ruthless, or a completely crazy and unlikable Villain Protagonist. This has only become worse since his voice actor confirmed him as being the Master in many peoples eyes(see the Fanon entry below). Many fans also find him lacking when compared to the prequel's hero, Jürgen Bernhard.
  • Katia, whose naivety is either adorable or completely out-of-place.
  • Anet is either liked for being cute and fiesty or loathed because, especially in the anime, she is responsible for 4 of her squadmate's deaths in someway due to her recklessness.
• Broken Base:
  • The anime is shaping up to be this among LN and VN readers, similar to the adaptation of Rumbling Hearts, which it shares a director with. In particular, the anime's rendition of Irisdina, Katia, and especially Beatrix, Lise and the whitewashing of the NVA's "moderate rebels" are a huge Berserk Button for fans of the source material, inflamed by the director's statements that he made the adaptation's story to be more black and white "to pay due respect to the victims of the Stasi", the in-real-life existence of which he only learned during the adaptation's planning stages.
  • Oh boy, the anime verion's ending involving Irisdina's death has been shaping up to be this due to how contrived and non nonsensical it was considering that rather getting a bleeding out Irisdina to the hospital Theodore and her decide to WATCH THE SCENERY AS SHE DIES. Not to mention that infamous moment wouldn't have happened because fans pointed out how stupid it was for Annet to throw her gun to Iris to kill Axeman rather than do the deed itself, which gave Axeman plenty of time to kill Iris.
• Complete Monster: Lieutenant Colonel Heinz Axmann, one of the highest figures in The Stasi of East Berlin, is a selfish, sadistic officer who keeps a hold on Berlin with an iron fist. Any hint of dissent is ruthlessly quelled, with Axman ordering purges of entire families. The hero of the story, Theodor Eberbach, was tortured by the Stasi with his family murdered, except his sister Lise. Axmann has young women, including Lise, raped, tortured and broken to make them into agents who use their bodies to seduce targets and murder them. During Lise's training, Axmann even had her execute civilians, before forcing her to murder the last children with a rock to "save bullets. " Throughout the series, Axman is willing to slaughter whoever he has to in order to keep his grip on Berlin and rule it through the Stasi, caring nothing for the state of the country he wants to rule.
• Continuity Lockout: A lot of the issue with the series in the Western fandom (and specially, the Latin American ones, due of the Latin American Spanish dub this series has) is that many of the subtle nuances require greater understanding of the Muv-Luv universe, which have never been animated or licensed for international release. While the series is able to be understood without reading the original VNs, a lot of the background and allusions are lost.
• Die for Our Ship: Fanfiction aside, since the Visual Novel introduces new endings, it's no surprise that the ending where Katia dies is loved amongst Irisdina X Theodore shippers.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Beatrix, though this might be intentional with the prequel and side-stories making her far more endearing and sympathetic than she is in the main story. It is worth noting, however, that her support base is much higher among those who have ostensibly read the entire series and its side material: she almost always comes out on top with Irisdina in the Japanese Schwarzesmarken heroine popularity polls, and between the two of them corner more votes than the rest of the contestants put together. Even the original creator, Yoshimune Kouki, professes that Beatrix is his favorite SM character. Her fans were disappointed that no ending of the second VN allows Beatrix to live even though Irisdina got that treatment.
  • Averted in many western countries, where Beatrix is generally loathed by many anime viewers as a sadistic sociopath.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Kurt seems to have become a One-Scene Wonder where despite his short appearance, has a great presence and manages to go out like a badass.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Gretel Jeckeln earned the name Homussar due to being physically similar to Homura Akemi.
  • As for Theodor, he is also called Masterdor by fans of the franchise in western countries (see the Fanon entry in the YMMV page).
  • Ketchupman or Colonel Ketchup for Heinz Axmann, for obvious reasons.
  • Sexstasi or Beato for Beatrix. Beato from a corruption of the pet name Jürgen gives her in the prequel and Sexstasi for rather obvious reasons. Even the official Kickstarter got in on it, labeling her dakimakura sample pictures with "Sexstasi."
• Fanon: Due to sharing physical characteristics, the same voice actor and the relative ages matching up very well, it is pretty much accepted in the fandom (both Japanese and non-Japanese alike) that Theodor is the Master. The Visual Novel adaptation reinforces this in its epilogue, especially given that all three endings have [[spoiler: someone close to Theodor dying and the reunification of East and West Germany being botched, rendering his efforts All for Nothing no matter what path the player chooses.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Those not satisfied with the LN or Anime adaptations may prefer the canon of the two alternate endings of the second VN.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Tactical Surface Fighter in Action #39, "Bake the Enemies", as well as other background material (see Continuity Lockout above), puts the lie to the upbeat and hopeful note Schwarzesmarken ends on, showing that far from the dream of Irisdina and Katia of a united Germany fighting as one against the BETA and an orderly evacuation of civilians, the BETA had overrun East Germany and much of northern West Germany in less than three months after the rebellion (causing not only a very chaotic evacuation of the populace of both Germanies, but also enough bad blood that the two nations remain separate entities in 2001) and are now on the outskirts of the main refugee evacuation point, Hamburg in the northwest, forcing a desperate, heroic rearguard action by US Army A-10s covering the fleeing ships and refugees.
• Iron Woobie: Katia, who despite losing her whole family in a purge, then seeing all the horrible things that happen, both on the battlefield with the BETA or in the shadows with the Stasi, remains hopeful and idealistic.
• Jerkass Woobie: Theodor and Sylwia.
• Narm: Many lines from the Brazilian dub are considered very cheesy mostly because how flat it sounds. Especially on this scene, where it was intended to be funny in the original dialogue, because Belke says "I will wipe your ass for you" in the original audio, but in the dub he said something that doesn't sound like "ass" or the translators became very lost. Due to this, the response of Circe sounded very odd to the previous quote as she actually said "ass", making that dialogue sounding very hilarious for people who didn't get the actual meaning of Belke's quote.
• The Scrappy: Lise for anime watchers. She won no points at all when she killed Pham
• The Un-Twist: Lise turning out to be a Stasi spy. After basically everyone points out how obviously suspicious she is and Theodor desperately wanting to believe she isn't.
• The Woobie: Most of the cast, but Lise stands out the most. She's so broken that she begs for Theodor to forget her completely during her execution.