Asterix/YMMV

• Americans Hate Tingle: Asterix in Corsica was ridiculously successful upon its release in France, and for a while it was the best-selling title in the entire history of the series (a title that has since been taken by Asterix at the Olympic Games worldwide, although Asterix in Corsica is still the most successful in the French language). In other countries, it wasn't exactly hated per se, but it was definitely one of the less well-received comics, since most non-French readers don't know enough about Corsica to fully understand the jokes.
  • Also the reason why Asterix and the Banquet was the last to be translated into English, as the publishers felt that Non-francophones would not be able to get all the French regional jokes.
• Non Sequitur Scene: Cacofonix's song in Asterix and the Big Fight. (Justified, though, as Getafix was absolutely off his gourd when it happened.)
  • So Cacofonix was holding out on the village all this time; he CAN sing decently!
  • A straight example in the animated Asterix and Cleopatra. "When you're eating well, you're well..."
  • Mission Cleopatre has one where the Relax-O-Vision provides an educational film on crawdads instead of the fight.
  • Asterix and the Falling Sky may qualify as a Non Sequitur Scene Episode]] due to everyone's memories being erased.
  • The singing bath scene in the animated version of Cleopatra serves no real purpose (except maybe animated Fan Service).
  • Quite a few scenes in Twelve Tasks (skull tennis, the subway, the circus scene...)
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Dogmatix was introduced as a visual gag in Asterix and the Banquet, and it was intended that he would not appear again after that book. He proved far more popular than Goscinny and Uderzo anticipated, however, and rapidly ascended to being one of the most important characters in the series.
  • Obelix, while Asterix' partner, is generally more popular. His lack of mental faculty, combined with his numerous catchphrase, childish behaviors, proneness to misunderstanding things make him a far more memorable character than the relatively bland Asterix. The authors picked up on it quickly, so much that except for the two very first books, Obelix almost always share the spotlight equally with Asterix.
• Jumping the Shark: Asterix and the Falling Sky is considered as the worst Asterix album by many, for good reasons. This album has aliens from outer space, a different and far less detailed drawing style, and on top of that the album is nothing but a gigantic Take That to mangas in general (Uderzo himself admitted this). Arguably, since René Goscinny's death, many critics were made on the quality of the new albums, but this one definitly cements the trope.
  • It doesn't help that, despite Uderzo's claims of the contrary, it may be his last story (unless you want to count the short story anthology for the series' 50th anniversary in 2009) given his age, and that, when selling his own share of Editions Albert René, he has apparently allowed for more Asterix stories to be made after his death. His own daughter accused him publicly on this.
• Magnificent Bastard: Caesar
  • Astérix and Getafix often lapse into this territory, to.
  • Ekonomikrisis, Dubbelosix, and Convolvulus all fit the bill as well.
• Memetic Mutation: Permit A 38 from The Twelve Task of Astérix, at least in Germany.
• Nightmare Fuel: The storm scene in Asterix Versus Caesar (the animated movie). Having Asterix nearly drowning in a dungeon, Dogmatix being flushed through the sewers, and Obelix desperately searching for both of them makes this easily the darkest moment in all history of Asterix.
  • The soothsayer in Asterix and the Big Fight terrified this troper when she was a child. It's the way he cuts up a fish to tell fate from it... and then uses it as a hand puppet. It should be funny. It's not.
  • The Place That Sends You Mad from Asterix and the Twelve Tasks (and an honorable mention goes to the Cave of the Beast beforehand). The House itself isn't that terrifying, but seeing the effects is, especially when there are some genuinely terrifying things among all of the kid-friendly crazies. Woman running down the street acting like a chicken? Hah—man, that's fun. Man with a Slasher Smile, following her with an axe and chopping wildly? Oh... God.
    • Not to mention the eleventh task, where they have to sleep on a haunted plain. Like the Cave of the Beast it's pretty disturbing until the moment Asterix starts to argue with the centurion ghost. At which point it turns into a Crowning Moment of Funny.
    • In one scene, Caesar pulls a genuinely creepy Slasher Smile, after pondering whether Asterix and Obelix will survive the next task. This is immediately followed by a shot of the senators trying to hide under the table, being just as creeped out as the viewers, brilliantly lampshading this, but not quite managing to serve as Nightmare Retardant.
• Values Dissonance / Unfortunate Implications
  • Various Nubian characters appear with quite dramatically stereotyped faces, and talk in a "Yes massa'!" faux-Southern-slave mushmouth dialect. This is particularly evident in the earlier books (when that kind of humour was generally more acceptable). But then, they are not the only ones.
    • Note that for Baba (the black pirate lookout), this is justified as being part of the spoof of Le Démon des Caraïbes, since the character he's parodying also speaks like that.
  • There's also Asterix and the Secret Weapon, where the character who introduces feminism to the Gauls is an unscrupulous Straw Feminist, and an all-female Roman army is defeated when the Gaulish women build a shopping mall.
• Villain Decay: Done to the Praetorian Guard in the course of Asterix and the Laurel Wreath. At first the plan to waltz into Caesar's Palace to get said laurel wreath is dismissed by Asterix because even with the potion they wouldn't stand a chance against them. Later on, on the other hand...
• Weird Al Effect: The pirates are a parody of another French-Belgian comic book series, Barbe Rouge, with the same characters reused. This series has become quite obscure nowadays, even in France and Belgium, and owes recognition mainly due to Asterix.
• Woolseyism: The much-loved English adaptation of the original French dialogue added new jokes whenever they wouldn't translate well—e.g. the character's names.
  • Due to the extreme levels of wordplay in the French originals, Woolseyism is essentially the only option. The English translators has said that because they could not translate the puns, they compromised by making sure that every page has the same number of jokes as the French original.
  • It wasn't just the English translation. Nearly all of the translation were extremely well done. See the Italian example above.
    • Essentially, the editors know they have to get top-notch translators for Asterix: it's a famous series, known for its puns and other such gags that need good translators.
    • In the Spanish versions of the stories, not only are the names mostly unchanged (since Spanish is a Romance language just like French), but the translation is absolutely hilarious and does use many Spanish expressions in place of the French ones.
    • Even moreso in the case of the Catalan version: since Catalan sounds like a mix between Spanish and French, it's probably the most faithful translation, since lots of puns can be translated more or less directly.
    • And let it be known that the Brazilian Portuguese version is also excellent!
    • And so is the Swedish one, and... let's just save some time and say this goes for pretty much all versions, okay?
    • However, there was also the terribly Macekre'd German "translation" Siggi und Barnabas, where the translator substituted the light-hearted humor with heavy-handed political Author Tracts. Goscinny and Uderzo quickly withdrew his publication rights.
    • Later, a new (and real) German translation was started, with the same high quality of other translations.