Welcome one and all, to the review for one of the worst anime ever (still has not surpassed Magikano for me though). Anyway, ironically for unlucky review number 13 we will be covering Mars of Destruction. I will do my best to withhold choice words, but this anime is not worth 20 minutes of your life. Beware of minor SPOILERS, I guess, though there is nothing to spoil.
Now, without further ado, let us begin the review.
Summary: Some time after a space mission to Mars ends in destruction, strange monsters called “Ancients” begin appearing around Tokyo. A group of specialists consisting of three girls and one troubled young boy must fight the Ancients until they can come to understand exactly what it is they are fighting. When one of the Ancients tells them that they are the true invaders of Earth, they must search within themselves to grasp what truly is reality. -Anime News Network
Plot: 1/10
The plot of this anime does not exist. All the scenes and plot points are really just jumbled together, feeling very disconnected. Things mostly just happen in the show, no lead up and no real explanation for anything. Even when they try to pull a “plot twist” and explain everything, it makes no sense and has no lead up. It is just out of thin air.
Characters: 1/10
Characters in Mars of Destruction lacks any depth. For all the girls, just change hair color and style, and then they all have the same personality, which is to say no personality. The male has a hint of a backstory, but still has no personality (though he is a wuss). The characters are dull, boring, and any other words that essentially mean useless. They even fail to react to any situation they are in beyond simple gasps. The monsters have more personality, motive, AND development than any of the actual characters.
Animation: 2/10
As to be expected, the animation is also terrible. It lags at several points, which was the biggest annoyance to me. The gore and explosions look more like someone spilled paint on the animation and the animators decided to run with it. The action is hilariously slow and bad. The backgrounds are more interesting than any of the moving parts of the show, and the backgrounds were blurry!
Soundtrack: 2/10
The soundtrack was okay for the first few minutes, but quickly went south. I can even tell you what the soundtrack is: classical music. It makes no sense and does not fit with the show whatsoever.
Themes: 1/10
To put it bluntly, the show attempted to have themes, but failed miserably. The two themes I can say it tried to have were teamwork and survival. The teamwork theme does not pan out, as the guy basically does all the work. Survival is a bit closer to hitting a mark, but the general populace of Earth seems relatively undisturbed by the monsters crawling around. The anime creates no sense of danger or urgency there should be for a survival theme, or the horror genre. The only horror in this anime is how horrible it is.
Final Score: 1.4/10
Final Grade: F
B-Ro’s Take
Mars of Destruction gets a lot of crap from the anime community but I have to say it deserves all of it. It is hands down the worst anime I have ever seen, even the anime that I have dropped are better. The animation was awful, it looked like it was in slow motion. And speaking of awful the sounds sounded like they were done in a tornado. Also there was no characters, they were so undeveloped and that they should have just decided to have no characters at all. Usually for a bad anime here is where I say a few things that were good about it, but this anime had nothing except for the fact that it was only one episode long. Out of 10 I would give this anime a 1, only because that is as low as I let myself rate an anime. Yes, I am saying that a 1 is being generous. If you think that things can be so bad that it’s good, do not try this anime it is so bad it is bad! I don’t recommend this anime to anyone. I cannot stress this enough DON’T WATCH THIS ANIME! – B-Ro
LowKev’s Take
As you probably would have guessed, I tend to like most anime I watch, though I have intentionally avoided a lot of “bad” ones. All of my reviews here have been rather positive, even for shows that have a lot of problems like Itsudatte my Santa and DearS. Then comes this anime… If you’ve heard of this one, you’ve probably heard of it because it is considered one of the worst ever made. But what if I liked Mars of Destruction? What if I was able to find the good even in this which has been so universally panned? Well, mark this in the record books everyone, because even I can’t say this was any good. It’s only 19 minutes long, and yet tries so hard to establish this deep conspiracy alien armor suit plasma rifle head exploding story… Complete with a twist that surprises you only in how it manages to make the show that much worse… But maybe the soundtrack can save it right? Nope…. Not at all… The soundtrack is pretty much (if not all) Beethoven. This kind of works in the beginning, and then the fighting happens… The music selection just makes the conflict cheesy and hilarious. It doesn’t help that this OVA has some of the most awkward fighting I have ever seen. It just makes you feel weird rather than interested or excited (as I’m sure it was trying to do) Worse yet, the musical pieces suddenly switch with no warning or transition. It just awkwardly cuts of one song and starts another. I could’ve lived with all Beethoven music if done properly, but this terrible editing and placement of the songs just oozes of laziness and mediocrity. Perhaps this was made with the intention of “so bad its good”. If so, it succeeded in some parts. The girl’s head exploding in a volcano of terrible looking blood was hilarious. However, even watching it with RishRaff and B-Ro, a lot of it was just painful and lacked the humor required for so bad it’s good. The animation is off as well. I honestly can’t recommend watching this full anime, even though it’s one episode. Just find the clip of the girl’s head getting shot off, watch for your enjoyment, play Resident Evil (which has a Beethoven piece, Moonlight Sonata, as a part of one of its puzzles), and watch Engaged to the Unidentified or Amagi Brilliant Park again, or watch Serial Experiments Lain, an amazing anime with Sci-Fi elements.
Final Comments: Mars of Destruction accomplishes the impossible of failing on all fronts as an anime, or as entertainment in general. This anime is so bad, it is out right atrocious.
Thank you for taking the time to read the review. Do you agree or disagree with what you’ve read? Leave a comment, and be sure to follow us for more reviews. If you want to support us more, like us on FaceBook or follow us on Twitter. The next review we will be doing is Fruits Basket.
RishRaff Anime Reviews 