Warning! Spoilers ahead for Candy Flurry chapter 16!
The horrors that the Diamond Kingdom perpetrated against Black Clover's villainous Mars that transformed him into an ultimate weapon have also befallen a group of unsweet treat conjurers in the new manga Candy Flurry.
Unlike the many other unredeemable villains in Black Clover, how the terrifying Mars came to acquire his abilities is nothing short of an utter tragedy. Mars is the product of a massive experiment that he and many other children were subjected to in an effort to become their country's Mage Warrior. However, only one of the lab rats could assume this most coveted role. The kingdom chose its Mage Warrior based upon who survived the experiment, which culminated in a massive battle royale that only allowed one survivor. Mars' story is especially poignant as a girl named Fana with whom he formed a close bond during the duration of the experimentation process first turned on him at the start of the free-for-all, forcing the boy to kill her with a fatal blow.
In Candy Flurry, people who have eaten any of the company Cyndy Toytoy's limited-edition candies now possess the delicious ability to conjure their own sugared treats out of thin air and wield them as weapons. Most of the sweet-users who weaponize their candies in sour ways work alone, but an unnamed sinister group just emerged and began attacking a local high school where the protagonist Tsumugi Minase attends. Not much had been known about these mysterious villains until chapter 16 when it's revealed that they were test subjects during the early phases of Cyndy Toytoy's initial development of what would become the infamous hundred limited edition candies. It's therefore assumed that these villains were one of the first people to become sweet-users.
In the chapter's flashback, the reader discovers that Cyndy Toytoy had subjected them to multiple injections, the frequency of which increased over time along with the size of each needle. The scene Candy Flurry reveals transpires during the experiment's early stages as the sweet-user who later conjures popcorn can only create pebble-like substances. The spirits among these villains seemed high, especially as some of them expressed a desire and excitement to use their new powers for good. It can also be assumed that Cyndy Toytoy would ramp up the intensity of their experiments as a later scene shows that the government's interest in Cyndy Toytoy forces the employees to intensify their treatments regardless of if their test subjects die or if their expedited procedures result in unpleasant side effects.
Like in Black Clover, the fact that Candy Flurry shares the devastating pasts of its villains adds complexity to their characterizations, humanizing them and forcing readers to sympathize despite their unappetizing feats in the present day. Black Clover aptly chose to introduce Mars' backstory early on as well, so readers wouldn't rejoice as loudly upon his initial defeat. Unfortunately, Black Clover didn't follow the same formula with its villain Vetto, but probably so readers would focus more so on his terrifying demeanor like the series' heroes. Candy Flurry is obviously following in Black Clover's footsteps with Mars, though, the manga is possibly more directly influenced by My Hero Academia's villains. That series got so big partially because of how mangaka Kohei Horikoshi makes the League of Villains sympathetic.
Ironically, Kohei Horikoshi actually admitted that he originally didn't want to share the pasts of the League of Villains so as to make them more mysterious, but decided that as the manga continued, he felt compelled to explore their pasts. This was a smart move on Kohei Horikoshi's part, just as it was in Black Clover, and Candy Flurry will undoubtedly reap the benefits by following suit.