English Dub Season Review: Mars Red

Overview:

In the year 1923, a vampire crisis takes Tokyo by storm. Provoked by the illegal trade of “Ascra,” an artificial blood source, the population of vampires begins to rapidly increase within the city. Under orders from Lieutenant General Sounosuke Nakajima, the Special Forces Unit 16 gathers vampires within the military to create a new undercover vampire-hunting unit known as Code Zero.

Our Take:

This is a really hard show to do a season review of. In a lot of ways it ended up being a disappointment but at the same time, it was definitely a good surprise. I would recommend watching it at the very least. Let’s go over what it struggled with first.

The pacing was a huge problem with this show, especially in the latter half. Things happened at such a breakneck speed that I felt like I was getting whiplash. There was one character that turned traitor. There was no hint or buildup that I thought it was a completely different character, to begin with. Also seeing the main villain go from a complex mastermind in one episode to bumbling and scared in the next was… odd to say the least.

I loved the characters but if I had to put them in the good or bad pile it would have to be bad, only slightly though. Not all characters are created equal in this. Kurusu who is arguably our main character barely gets any development. There are a few moments here and there but not enough. One character got some pretty good moments but then they died early on so that felt like a waste. To me Suwa, Maeda, Aoi, and Defrott got the most development but all at differing degrees. Kurusu was pretty much relegated to the “He’s the most powerful and that’s all you need to know” category.

For the most part, those are the negatives, they just happen to be pretty big ones. I personally loved the characters but there was definitely room for improvement. What didn’t need improving was the animation though. Signal. MD did an awesome job and what we got was one of the more unique and stylish animes in recent years. It felt more subtle and everyone had more realistic features than what we usually get out of an anime. I also really liked the fight scenes even though I understand that since the vampires were moving so fast there wasn’t much to “animate”. They still did explosions when the fighters would connect and I thought that was a cool touch and really enjoyed it.

I would say the biggest bright spot, for the dub at least, was the voice talent. For one there were a lot of big names in this one and not only that but they put in great performances. Aaron Dismuke puts in a good performance as the troubled Suwa that I really enjoyed. Zach Aguilar plays another main character and while he didn’t do bad by any means this felt very by the numbers to me. I think that was more an issue with the character than his performance personally. I saw that some people weren’t a fan of how Caitlin Glass did Aoi in this. Aoi is a journalist and she gave her that accent you would see from a 1930’s era reporter. I really enjoyed it and Aoi as a character but you might not like it.

The biggest surprise to me was Sean Schemmel as Maeda. In his first non-Goku Funimation role in a long time, he did phenomenally. I mentioned this in a few of the episode reviews but I couldn’t tell it was him. I didn’t believe it was and I read the cast list before I watched the show. Maeda is so gruff and no-nonsense that I was really impressed with how he handled the character. Maeda disappears for quite a bit in the second half so we don’t get to hear him as much as I’d like but he definitely made his presence known.

I am a huge romance fan and this show really showed some promise. I think for the most part it did a good job with it but it just kind of fell flat. Sticking to its stage play routes it definitely had a bit of tragedy to it. Maeda and Misaki were your typical doomed lovers with Misaki turning into a vampire. That one was okay even though I am not a fan of tragic romance it was at least conclusive. With Aoi and Kurusu however, it was anything but conclusive. I just took it as he’s a vampire now and will fight the rest of his life and Aoi will become an old woman before he’s done. I don’t know if I just wasn’t smart enough to understand the message they were trying to give but I wasn’t a fan.

One cool little detail this show had was including a real historical event. The 1923 earthquake that rocked Japan happened during this show and it almost spelled doom for some of our heroes. I always like it when real events get mixed in, in fiction. Ultimately this was a good show that was kind of a sleeper in a pretty jampacked spring season. What disappointed me most was how strong it started but then finished weakly. I would still recommend it to anyone who’s a fan of historical fiction, vampires, or stage plays.