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Mars - 18+
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- !!!Spoilers!!! -
There are two superficial ways to describe Mars that come to mind: (1) the covers tell you nothing about the story and (2) almost everything bad that could happen to the characters happens.
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Do you know how there are those books that are written by famous authors and have absolutely nothing on the cover but the title and the author's name? I really hate those covers. I think they are rubbish for getting new readers engaged. If you do not know the author, why would you pick up some random book? If the title is really interesting, maybe you would, but generally it is just not interactive enough. The back cover usually has reviews and praise rather than any information, although I know reading the back of a book sometimes ruins the whole thing, and little notes about what else the author wrote are not always helpful. Well, there is a style of cover for certain manga series that I would say falls into this category somewhat. They are covers that have the series name, the author, and a random picture of a character. The character is usually in some high fashion outfit and pose, like a model in a magazine, even though it has nothing to do with the story. Yes, this gives you a glimpse of the artwork, but it really does not give you any idea of what the story is about. If that snippet of art and the title do not grab you, why would you pick it up? Luckily, Mars is an interesting title and the artwork is very unusual and ethereal. Series like Beauty is the Beast, Marmalade Boy, and The Wallflower fall into this group as well. I know that it usually is because the series' style can be hard to sum up in a cover, but I still think it makes it hard on the reader. All the series I just listed are good and clearly have interesting names to draw you in. I just wanted to bring it up.
(Picture found on Google Images)
The story of Mars by Fuyumi Soryo follows two characters: Kira and Rei. The storytelling perspective goes back and forth between them, only occasionally deviating to other people. In the beginning, they are both juniors in high school. Kira is the quiet, artistic girl who has no friends and lives with her mother. Rei is tall, attractive, talented at sports, rides a motorcycle, and is terrible in school. They end up meeting properly for the first time when Rei happens to ask Kira directions to the hospital one day in the park when he is on his way to see a friend who lost his leg in a biking accident and she draws him a map on the back of an old sketch she had drawn of a mother and child. He notices her at school, since they are in the same class, and begins pestering her. By paying attention to her, he realizes that their teacher has taken a liking to the quiet girl and begins trying to take advantage of her. In the end, they make an interesting agreement: Kira will finish the art piece of the mother and child for Rei, and Rei will protect Kira and be her model.
Things start to get crazy very quickly. There is something new and dramatic happening every few chapters, and we learn more about the characters' difficult pasts. The teacher cuts the brake lines on Rei's bike, an ex-girlfriend of Rei's threatens to smash Kira's fingers, the drawing of the mother and child is stolen and used by another student to win an art contest, Kira cuts school for the first time to visit Rei at his crappy little apartment, and all within the first two volumes. After that, we start to pick up on the deeper problems.
(Skip the next two paragraphs to avoid the most major spoilers.)
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Kira's father died when she was young, and her mother got married when Kira was around twelve in order to provide a better life for her daughter. Tragically, the stepfather took a liking to Kira and raped her many times before Kira's mother finally moved them away from him. Kira accepts that she will probably never be able to attend art school because it is too expensive. However, her mother still works too hard and collapses one day at work. Kira is very worried for her mother's health due to how much she struggles to keep them comfortable, but is horrified to learn that her stepfather heard about the collapse and came to visit. Out of exhaustion, Kira's mother accepts the man back into her life. Kira decides to grit her teeth and try to believe her stepfather's apologies for what he did years ago, which causes a huge rift between her and Rei for a time. A short time later, however, her stepfather becomes very controlling and tries to hold her down again. Kira hits him with a clock and runs to Rei's place, thinking she killed him. They find out with much relief that she did not, but she refuses to return to her home. From then on, she lives with Rei and they begin to feel their way through a new living dynamic. When Kira first revealed to Rei that she had been raped by her stepfather, she also told him that she had come to see all men as evil, dirty creatures like that man. To get through each day and the stress of being around men she felt she could not trust, Kira would imagine mutilating and murdering them as a coping mechanism. So incapable of showing strength in real life, she would let go in her mind. However, she says that she never thought of Rei in that way. He never seemed like a threat, even though he had a reputation for being a troublemaker and a womanizer.
Rei's mother tried to kill him when he was a toddler, since she had some terrible, undiagnosed mental illness that led her to commit suicide not long afterward. Rei and his identical twin brother Sei were then raised by her wealthy businessman husband, who in all likelihood is not the boys' real father. Their mother had an affair with his brother, a motorcycle lover who died in an accident, and the boys resemble him. The knowledge that he was an illegitimate child led Sei down the dark road to suicide, aggravated by the fact that his more popular brother Rei more or less stole his girlfriend Shiori. By the end of the series, the true reasons behind Sei's suicide, which Rei blamed himself for and went through lots of psychiatric treatment to deal with, are never fully understood, but it seems that the quieter twin may have wanted to get a little of the attention he felt his brother got too much of. Rei is highly intelligent and used to have the best grades in school, but stopped caring after Sei died, turning to a thug-like existence made dangerous by his reckless nature. He dreams of being a world class motorcycle racing champion, but his father (his wife's mother) wants him to become the heir to his company and stop making him look bad. Kira's attempts to bring the two together often bring up more conflicts, but eventually Rei's father admits that whatever the case may be they are blood relatives and he loves him. He warns Kira many times throughout the series that he is messed up, but they both take comfort in the fact that neither one of them is in perfect mental health.
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(Fewer spoilers from here.)
At first, Mars seems like it will be the story of a popular guy who falls in love with the one girl who is not interested in him. This is not the case. Instead, Kira seems to fall in love with Rei very quickly. He opens her up to a world that she has been afraid of for years, and she rises to the challenge in ways no one expected out of her. She impresses Harumi, Rei's ex-girlfriend, when she stands up to her bullying and they become friends in volume two after Harumi admits that she was never as serious about Rei as Kira clearly is. She was in denial about the darker parts of his personality, while Kira seems to soften his violent edge. Rei's friend Tatsuya also becomes a key part of the group. He had a crush on Kira for years, but never really had the guts to talk to the shy girl and actually gets together with Harumi before too long. There are some crazy characters who live in Rei's crappy apartment building. Shiori, the pretty, spoiled girl who left Sei for Rei, comes back trying to get Rei to date her again. Rei's father sees a painting that Kira did of Rei in an art gallery and comes back into the picture. Rei's cool and composed stepmother shows up to see what the situation is, ruffling Rei's feathers. The story follows Kira and Rei finishing high school and trying to navigate the adult world while various people get involved, including a seemingly sweet boy who may be a psychopath.
(Picture found on Google Images)
When I said that everything bad seems to happen to these characters, I did not mean literally everything. Kira does not get pregnant in high school, none of the parents we meet die, and Rei does not lose any limbs in a motorcycle accident. What I mean is that the fifteen volumes are littered with conflicts that the characters have to deal with. Some of them really are strong enough to pull the couple apart. Kira and Rei do not spend all fifteen books falling in love; they actually become a real couple by the end of book two or so. Their relationship is not meant to be flashy, although it draws a lot of attention, and they really do enjoy each other's company yet have to work through real life issues. For example, when Kira first moves into Rei's apartment, he does not want her to have to work. He wants to take care of her. Kira spends all her time cleaning, doing laundry, and watching TV with nothing to do, so Harumi actually has to scold Rei for not thinking about how bored and useless she must feel simply because he wants to be a strong man for her. He takes Harumi's words to heart because he and Kira really are friends as well as lovers. She gives him some comfort in a world he had thought was very cruel, and he does the same for her. Rei calms down when Kira is there, and Kira become more adventurous around Rei.
(Picture found on Google Images)
The art style of Mars is very beautiful. The characters all look a bit like models, which is perhaps why the cover art is the way it is, but not so much so that it is distracting. Everyone is lean and has a gorgeous face with big, shining eyes. Kira is not at all tall and usually dresses in a fairly conservative style, which changes a bit after she meets Rei. On the covers she looks very confident, but a lot of the story features her looking more worried or shocked. If there are any downsides to Mars, it is how often Kira makes shocked faces that can be a little hard to interpret. Pretty much everyone else is a bit more expressive, but Kira does her share of smiling and crying too. Rei's design is nicely dynamic. He is a character who is very good at smiling and covering up his pain with confidence, which comes across well. He also can be very scary when he is angry or broody. Separately, they do not really seem like they would look good as a couple, but there is definitely a certain charm to them.
Kira being threatened by Harumi
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Mars is essentially the story of two people who had entirely given up on personal connections. Even the people they were closest to knew next to nothing about their deepest feelings, and they have both felt that humanity has showed its ugliness to them many, many times. They have no intention of falling in love or being anything beyond friends—Rei even tries to set Kira up with his friend Tatsuya early on—but there is a certain attraction that overcomes their fears. As strong people, there are moments where a problem seems insurmountable, but they always find a way to work around it or compromise eventually. They do their best to take care of each other without holding each other back. Kira supports Rei in his terrifying dream to be a racing champion. Rei pushes Kira to pursue art, her greatest love and talent. Their personalities are like gifts to each other, and they are both frequently amazed that their potentially dark nature has not scared the other away, as they feel this will push everyone away. The very best parts of the story are when they make a discovery about the other, and learn to accept it as part of them.
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