Mars Red is a historical anime, based in the year 1923. It follows the story of how Japan has been disrupted by a mysterious blood source that created a surge in vampirism infections, drawing too much attention and leaving the city in a state of emergency.
In response to the rise in infections, the government instructs its military to create its own vampire coven called ‘Code Zero’. These vampires were cultivated with the intention of being able to effectively get to the root of the problematic blood source and to cull the turned.
Led by Colonel Yoshinobu Maeda, Code Zero’s story unfolds as the purpose-built vampires come to terms with their new powers and identities, as they adapt from their previous human lives.
Mars Red is a newly released adaptation of the 2019 manga of the same name and is brought to life by the Signal.MD studio.
Let’s kick off the review…
Here is the breakdown of my thoughts and feelings about Mars Red after completing my first watch-through…
Art style / Animation
Kicking off with the aesthetic of the show!
Other than the vampy theme, the art style really attracted me. It is quite old-timey and definitely fits the historical genre of the story. All of the colours in the scenes are quite muted, but the red is always so vibrant. Overall I think it is an attractive show, and very on theme with the dark and dingey vibe, but also might not appeal to everyone for that very reason.
Pacing
I’m not going to lie, this show felt very slow! Overall there were 13 episodes, and it was based on the stage play written by Bun-O Fujisawa. There is also a manga adaptation of the play. I can’t speak for how accurate the anime is in comparison to the stage play or manga.
Around midway through the airing of Mars Red, I fell quite behind by a few weeks, I can’t explain it – I just fell out of interest, so take from that what you will. I think there was a good amount of backstory for some of the characters that really became apparent when certain sadder events happened in the show. I would say I understood about 70% of what was going on in the show, to be honest, the military aspect of the storyline felt kind of uninteresting.
Towards the end, there were moments where certain strings of story culminated and we see some cool developments with characters but overall I feel like it didn’t really salvage much of my interest.
Characters
The show has a decent variety of characters throughout but in my opinion, only a small number of them had memorability, focus and a good amount of depth. It’s a tough one because I think if there were more than 13 episodes there would have been more time to develop individual backstories, but I don’t think the story had enough spice to really keep me engrossed if there were more episodes!
My favourite characters ended up being Kurusu and Tenmaya.
Kurusu was a favourite because I found his personality a little bit relatable. He is quite timid and despite being an A grade vampire and being incredibly physically powerful, he sort of doubts himself and his ability. Over the course of the show, he began showing off his strength and broke out of his shell a lot more. Towards the end, he became an extremely important and meaningful plot driver in the story which I thought was really cool! The only issue I had was that it felt like it was all happening a bit too late in the game – I wish we had more action sooner!
I really liked Tenmaya’s visual design and his backstory. He is a shopkeeper for antiquities and is presented as a character that knows everything about everyone! He is one of the main benefactors for the vampire characters and is very open-minded yet protective of his clients. Tenmaya is a great plot driver, he is powerful, influential and strong despite being human and having a very unassuming yet beautiful character design.
Soundtrack
The opening theme below is called Seimei no Aria and is performed by WagakkiBand. Accompanied by the visuals, I think it’s a really pretty song, and I love the sound of the string instrument in the background – possibly a shamisen? Sounds pretty!
I don’t think the song really stuck in my mind, it felt like it fit the theme and feel of the show, but I don’t think it’s going up there in my list of favourite anime OP/ED’s!
The ending theme is what REALLY hooked me, I have been a fan of HYDE for a while, and as soon as I heard this I couldn’t get it out of my head. The upbeat metal/rock sound sets a really good tone for the show and definitely ended up reflecting the grittiness and darkness of the story. I added this to a bunch of my playlists and never go to skip it, so I think that is a big enough vouch for how great the ending is!
My overall thoughts?
Mars Red is extremely theatrical and poetic, which makes sense considering the show is filled with references to famous plays. I don’t think it was my cup of tea as it made it hard for me to follow at times since I don’t have an interest in literature in that way.
Aside from this, the heavy leaning military theme made sense, as it’s about using military-grade vampires to eradicate the growing vampire population. I think the military vampire unit worked well as a threat but felt kind of underwhelming to watch – I think it would have been way cooler if there were special types or maybe they had special powers or something. Just having brute force and being extremely robotic was kind of boring.
I enjoyed the parts of the show that were related to the main group of characters, seeing their development and learning about the vampire classification system. I just found it so frustrating because the storyline was trying to pack in so many different angles and random branches of the story that I mostly just felt frazzled. Hence why I ended up taking a huge break from watching it midway through and it has taken me this long to actually write a review.
Summary
Visuals
The character design was great and I love the commitment to the dark, gritty theme. The historical, dark vibes really made the more important characters more obvious and pop off. I dropped 1.5 stars as I think some of the animations were a little bit lacklustre and think there could have been a little more detail.
Entertainment Value
For me, there wasn’t enough of what I liked and at times felt very hard to keep up with. I felt out of watching midway through and it didn’t feel that great having to pick it back up again. Although towards the end, it started culminating and became a lot more interesting. Some of the characters I liked and wanted more from finally got the development I was hoping for, but I think that it felt a bit too late.
Rewatchability
Considering everything, I don’t think I would want to watch this again, and if a season 2 is released I can’t say I’ll be jumping to watch it. I really hope that if it does get a season 2 that the story is written in a way that isn’t jumping about and making it hard to follow. I gave it 2* as I didn’t hate all of the show, and wouldn’t tell someone to completely ditch it if historical/military/theatrical was their thing. Maybe the second time around I would be able to follow it better, but I don’t think it should need that for it to work.
Why not come and join in with the Mars Red discussion over on Twitter, let me know if you’ve watched and what you thought! Maybe you love Mars Red and totally disagree with my review? Or maybe you completely agree? Either way I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Thanks for reading!
The Anime Tourist
The Anime Tourist 