Retrospect in Retrograde: Shin Seiki Den Mars

Previously on the Mars 45th Anniversary Retrospective:

"Simply put, the Mars OVA went into production with all of the best intentions, and the director & writer certainly had grand ambitions with it, as you don't claim to surpass Yasuhiro Imagawa's magnum opus without actually intending to do so. However... KSS couldn't even show enough leniency to allow for more than just two episodes of Mars. What we got is extremely solid & shows a lot of potential, but it's all completely unfulfilled."

Following the cancellation of KSS Films' OVA adaptation of Mars after only two episodes, would you believe that there weren't any other direct adaptations of Mitsuteru Yokoyama's works for the better part of an entire decade? Yeah, aside from the remaining three episodes of Yasuhiro Imagawa's Giant Robo OVA series coming out from late 1994 to early 1998 (yes, the last episode took nearly three years to finally come out), there was seemingly no interest whatsoever in Yokoyama's catalog when it came to anime. The drought would end in the early 00s, though, with Yokoyama being chosen to be part of an interesting group of anime that were being produced & aired on AT-X.

Each episode has a different eyecatch,
but the first is the best one, by far

First broadcasting on Christmas Eve of 1997, Anime Theater X/AT-X is an anime-focused offshoot premium channel of TV Tokyo that's available in Japan via satellite, cable, or IPTV, with one of its main appeals being that it can air uncensored versions of anime that TV Tokyo itself can't. From mid-2001 to mid-2003, though, the channel tried something interesting by introducing the "AT-X Chomei Sakka/Famous Author Series", which took seven iconic mangaka & produced ten brand new anime based around various works of theirs, with the majority being based on lesser known titles; the actual quality of these shows ranged wildly, though, from really good to really bad. Specifically, the authors chosen were Leiji Matsumoto (Cosmo Warrior Zero, Gun Frontier, Submarine Super 99), Shotaro Ishinomori (Genma Wars: Age of Mythology), Mikiya Mochizuki (Wild 7 Another), Go Nagai (Demon Lord Dante), Ken Ishikawa (Beast Fighter: The Apocalypse), Takao Saito (Barom 1) &, relevant to our focus, Mitsuteru Yokoyama, who received two brand new anime. The first was late 2001's Babel II: Beyond Infinity, which I saw some of long ago & found really bland (though the OP theme by Lapis Lazuli is excellent), while the second was late 2002's Shin Seiki Den/Tale of the Divine Century Mars. What's interesting about this 13-episode anime, though, is the fact that the person hired to write the entire series was Keisuke Fujikawa, the very man who wildly reinterpreted Yokoyama's original 1976 manga into TMS' Rokushin Gattai God Mars in 1981, with promotional posters even advertising this as a sort of crossover between Yokoyama & Fujikawa; I mean, even the new anime's title made sure to include the kanji for "god" in it.

I had originally reviewed Shin Seiki Den Mars back in October of 2011, but it's one where I went solely off of memory, barely said anything of substance about it, & didn't even bring up Fujikawa's involvement; this is perfect for a Retrospect in Retrograde re-review. So with full knowledge of what the original manga is like, & how its previous attempt at a direct adaption come out, let's see how the final adaptation of Mitsuteru Yokoyama's Mars truly fares, especially with the writer of God Mars behind the script.

The anime doesn't outright state humanity's
atrocities, but it at least shows some of them.

A new island off the coast of Japan has suddenly emerged due to a submarine volcano eruption, with the country calling it "New Heisei Island", and a reporter named Iwakura does a live news report of it via helicopter. Against all logic, Iwakura & the pilot notice that a young man is somehow on the newly-emerged island, who is promptly rescued & taken to a hospital in Tokyo, where he's deemed physically fine but has amnesia. Meanwhile, in New York City, six men gather together because of the news of this mysterious man, who they call "Mars" & has apparently awoken earlier than expected; one of them, Rush, is sent to Tokyo to meet with him. Rush abducts Mars from the hospital & reveals that they're both humanoid aliens with superhuman strength & speed who have been sent to Earth to judge humanity & if they might become too dangerous, should they start expanding out into space. With Mars' awakening, a giant robot named Titan also awakens & starts doing a recon run, but is soon destroyed by a combined Japanese/American naval effort. Titan's destruction, however, awakens Gaia, another giant robot that Mars is meant to command to blow up, destroying Earth in the process. Mars, however, refuses to do so, partially because of visions he's having of a young woman in a desolate, red wasteland that pleads for him to not destroy Earth; Mars keeps these visions to himself, though. Rush decides to give Mars ten days to reconsider, and if he still refuses to destroy Earth, then Rush & his "Observer" compatriots will hunt after Mars with their "Six Gods", giant robots of their own that individually can destroy entire countries, as killing Mars will result in Gaia's self-destruction & Earth's annihilation.

The various anime in the AT-X Famous Author Series came in various forms. Some were completely original productions, simply using their namesake manga for just the general concept & nothing much else, while others were more along the lines of straight adaptations, but with some changes or additions implemented; Beast Fighter: The Apocalypse was even an alternate universe sequel to its manga source! Shin Seiki Den Mars is definitely part of the latter category, as the intention here was seemingly to finally adapt Yokoyama's original manga into animation from start to finish, and it's easy to see just by looking at it. Mars once again has his red hair & white blazer/blue shirt combo (after the 1994 OVA changed things up), the fourth Observer is back to being a guy again (after the 1994 OVA gender flipped him into a woman), and Iwakura is once again back in his full glory (after being split into Reiko Yamaguchi & Ogaki in the 1994 OVA). The story starts just like the manga, with Iwakura doing his live news report & discovering Mars on the island, while the stuff with Titan doesn't happen until the end of Episode 1 & the majority of Episode 2. The sixth Observer properly talks with Mars & tries to convince him to follow through his original mission, and is willing to give Mars some leniency to learn more about human history first. Finally, the Six Gods are given all of their respective introductions & plot points; everything else wasn't covered by the OVA, so the comparisons end there. Without a doubt, the story seen in Shin Seiki Den Mars is, by & large, the same exact story that Mitsuteru Yokoyama created back in the late 70s.

That being said, there are still various changes to be found, the majority of which are rather minor but do have different amounts of relevance. For example, the changing of the island's name from Autumn Island to Heisei Island indicates that the story was moved ahead to the time of the anime's airing, rather than maintain the late-70s time period the manga took place in, so instead of the general populace huddling around a small TV to see something like Titan's destruction & Gaia's subsequent attack on the Navy, it's now shown on a giant wall-sized display made up of numerous smaller screens; this was likely done just to help keep the story feel relevant to modern society. Also, instead of Mars being the one who asks for 10 days to research human history, it's Rush who gives Mars that time, and he has to explain why to the other "Observers"; it's a minor detail, but an interesting one. Of course, you also get modifications done solely for the sake of time, like Mars being abducted from the hospital rather than from the home of the hospital director & his daughter Harumi, who are now given the last name of "Yokoyama", in a nice homage to the original mangaka; I'm sure Mitsuteru Yokoyama got a good laugh out of it. However, Mars being abducted early now results in a minor plot hole, as Mars still comes to the Yokoyama's to do his research, despite not knowing of their generosity beforehand (or even really who they are), nor knowing where they lived; oops.

Also, we once again have a new set of names for the Observers that aim to kill Mars, though at least the Six Gods all get to keep the original names they had in the manga, minus the third one (which had no name originally). This time around, in Observer/God order, we have Hazard with Uranus, Hopper (yeah, the only one who actually had a proper name got a new one, too!) with Sphinx, Elint with Sensor Hunter (better than "Sally" in the Giant Robo OVA), Block with Sin, Accel with Uraeus, & finally Rush with Ra. To be honest, while they make for fine alien names, these feel more like aliases than actual names the Observers would have used to mix in with humanity during their time waiting for Mars' awakening, and that's only reinforced when you also consider how the Observers now meet up in the early part of the story. In both the manga & OVA, their meeting room looks completely standard & unassuming whatsoever, but in Shin Seiki Den Mars it's now a completely dark room, with all but Rush sitting at a giant half-moon table, and occasionally a giant display appears behind them, making it look as though there isn't any floor beneath them. Yes, this sounds absolutely like a blatant rip-off of how SEELE meets up in Neon Genesis Evangelion, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was the entire intention, despite it being notably at odds with how it's meant to be. That being said, the new names themselves are at least unique, and it's not like this is the only time these characters would be renamed in other Yokoyama-related works.

Easily the biggest change from the manga, though, comes in the form of that mysterious woman Mars sees in his visions, who is later named Muse. In the manga, Mars' determination to protect humanity from the Six Gods comes solely of his own accord & hope that, since humanity records the horrible things it has done to itself throughout time, the people of Earth can learn to better themselves for the future. In Shin Seiki Den Mars, though, Mars' decision to act as protector, rather then destroyer, comes (in part) from Muse's pleads that Mars show humanity leniency; he still trusts in humanity's ability to learn from the past, but it's no longer the only reason. Muse also ties in with Harumi's somewhat expanded role in the plot, as she looks very similar to Muse, giving Mars more of a personal stake in wanting to prevent Earth's destruction. Muse's involvement in the plot, however, plays little to no relevance until Episode 8, the second half of which is 100% brand new content. Specifically, the episode creates a brand new backstory for Mars & the Observers, having them as coming from the Capricorn system, while Muse is from Taurus, with Mars & Muse being star-crossed lovers; also, Mars & Rush are shown to be old friends. At the same time, this new backstory also brings with it a new wrinkle in the plot: Mars' memories. In the manga, Mars never regains his memories, which plays heavily into his actions all throughout, especially regarding the ending. In this series, though, Mars regains his memories after Episode 8, altering the reasons behind what Mars does from that point on... Which brings us to how Shin Seiki Den Mars ends.

First, we get more brand new content in Episode 12, explaining how exactly Muse is able to communicate with Mars during the plot, even if roughly 80% of what came prior to this (i.e. "almost everything but Episode 8") has just been her saying his name, plus a bonus line here & there. However, we also get even more backstory, but this addition also completely changes who exactly is at fault for the events of the plot, shifting the blame from humanity's inability to make peace with itself & "the other" exclusively to that of Mars' own kind. Not just that, but the final episode does in fact adapt all the way to the end of the manga... only for the eyecatch to appear at the 15:00 minute mark, followed by another eight minutes of brand new content to act as an epilogue. You see, Shin Seiki Den Mars doesn't actually deliver on the direct finale of Yokoyama's manga, leaving out the literal last two pages! Instead, it delivers an ending that one can say is technically a happier one, but also one that effectively denounces humanity as stupid & that we all just have to be given the opportunity to finally learn from our stupidity; to be fair, I wouldn't argue against that. Surprisingly enough, the ending to Shin Seiki Den Mars did stick in the minds of some people in Japan, enough of which at least to have gotten it included in a Goo Ranking poll from late 2016 about the most "miserable bad endings", with this anime slotting in at #12 (out of 48), right between Zeta Gundam & Cowboy Bebop, with a justification that isn't incorrect, but maybe a little harshly written. Part of me wonders if it's because of it being interpreted as a cop out compared to the manga, but I'll get to that reading in a moment.

In regards to the production side of things, the show was co-animated by Plum & Studio Guts, neither of which are super notable studios; Studio Guts, in particular, exclusively assists on productions. In that regard, Shin Seiki Den Mars' visuals are... fine. They aren't stellar by any means, and while you may notice a slightly awkward shot on rare occasion, usually for characters further away from the camera, the animation seen here is completely serviceable... and not much else. Leading the staff as director is Yoshitaka Fujimoto, an experienced episode director & storyboarder as recently as 2019, but in terms of being the director itself his resume is much more limited, with his most notable works being All Purpose Cat Girl Nuku Nuku, VS Knight Lamune & 40 Fire, Girl's High, & Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch; also, he's directed some hentai, like Body Transfer & La Blue Girl Returns. Overall, just like the animation itself, Fujimoto does his job perfectly fine, maintaining a good sense of pacing to the story, but once again it's nothing more than "he got the job done well". Meanwhile, the character designs by the mononymous mystery "Chiaki" (Barom 1) & mech designs by Koji Ito (s-CRY-ed, Psybuster TV) are both very well done, with Chiaki's designs sticking very true to Yokoyama's original style while also implementing some subtle changes, like making Mars look more like a young adult than a teenager. The same can be said for Ito's mech designs of Gaia, Titan, & the Six Gods, with the use of color in particular helping make the Gods look all the more memorable; Uraeus, at least, doesn't look like it has googly eyes anymore. Ito also did some storyboarding, directed the OP sequence, and handled some animation direction for the Six Gods. Finally, Shin Seiki Den Mars, like the entire AT-X Famous Author Series, is indeed a member of Akira Tsuburaya's Retro-Modern Anime Club Band!

As for Keisuke Fujikawa & his writing, outside of the names given for the Observers & the original plot points featuring Muse, he doesn't really mess with Yokoyama's original vision all that much, at least not until the very end. On the one hand, I actually don't mind giving Mars & the Observers some sort of backstory, and it was really a necessity since the manga was pretty light on characterization. Sure, Fujikawa removed some scenes & altered some bits around, but the removals were all for pacing reasons, and most of the alterations did make sense (some early stuff notwithstanding) & made for better storytelling in the long run. I mean, as little as the Yokoyama Family really did for the plot, it honestly was just nice for them to actually be in the entire story this time around, and we get just a little bit more of Iwakura, which is always welcome. As for the changes to the ending, I honestly feel that it was going to be done in some way regardless of who was writing, simply because the manga's ending is something that, quite frankly, can't be done again. The 70s were still an era where mangaka could be allowed some surprising freedom when it came to telling stories, and this is especially true for an icon like Mitsuteru Yokoyama; Mars' original ending is something that only he would be allowed to do at that exact moment. In turn, that makes the manga something that can retain a sense of legendary status, but when adapting it in a modern lens, especially for TV (& even in 2002), it just isn't going to fly with people like producers, TV executives, or even viewers. Personally, I think Fujikawa was brought on partially just for marketing purposes, i.e. "See how the man behind God Mars interprets Yokoyama's original vision!", but I won't exactly fault him for essentially crossing the finish line to a race, only to then immediately step back across so that it's still uncrossed, then turning 90° & going elsewhere. In this case, I'm sure any writer would be told to change the ending.

As for the music, we have Hiroshi Motokura (Ikki Tousen Season 1)... Who is probably best described as "the man who composed the music for all but one of the entries for the AT-X Famous Author Series", with the only seeming exception being Babel II: Beyond Infinity (which apparently credits no one). Motokura is joined here by the mysterious "AMAZeus", which previously helped him with the score to Demon Lord Dante, and then seemingly disappeared into the aether. Anyway, Motokura & AMAZeus deliver a good mix of orchestral & synth, giving each scene the right mood to match the situation, but otherwise it's not exactly a truly memorable score. It's not a bad score by any means, but much like the animation itself, it "gets the job done well"; I think it says something when the most memorable track is a short synth piece for the eyecatch. Essentially balancing things out, though, is the opening theme, "Hanazono Kinema" by Penicillin. In a unique touch, the portion that the anime uses for the OP is actually the second half of the full song, so it starts with a strong guitar solo before going into the bridge, followed by an interesting soft-spoken alternate bridge, and finally the hard rock finale. When combined with the lyrics about finding it hard to move away from an old & long love, it honestly is an extremely memorable theme song, even if its connection to Mars is slightly tenuous. Also, the OP footage amusingly shows Titan firing missiles from its elbows & Uraeus sports dangling arms, neither of which actually happen in the show itself. As for the ending theme, "an eternity" by ALLEY:A, it's a slow soliloquy of a ballad about eternally wishing the best for a loved one, matching well with Muse being the focal point of the imagery seen, but otherwise is nothing more than a decent song that "gets the job done well" in being a contrast to the OP theme.

In comparison to the staff filled with (mostly) lesser known names, however, the voice cast is actually rather strong & filled with a few fan favorites. Leading everyone is the venerable Tomokazu Seki as Mars, and he just nails the character perfectly, hitting all of our lead's emotional beats, including his love, his anger, and all of his sorrow... Yes, I went there. Following him is the equally celebrated Takehito Koyasu as Iwakura, who understandably doesn't get to ham it up much here considering the role, but he likewise delivers an great performance & sounds totally believable. Then we have Yumi Kakazu (Kula Diamond in The King of Fighters) & Yuki Masuda (Yuri Sakakibara in Sakura Wars) as Muse & Harumi, respectively, and while neither get a ton to really work with, they do good jobs when it really counts. For the Observers, we have Kazuhiko Nishimatsu (Frio in Ristorante Paradiso) as Hazard, Junpei Morita (Kunihiko Morita in Judgment) as Hopper, the late Hajime Koseki as Elint, Koji Tobe as Block, Kazuya Ichijou (Foh Rafine in B't X) as Accel, & the legendary Jouji Nakata as Rush, who all also do well. Interesting to have Nakata essentially lead a bunch of smaller name seiyuu & even a couple of voice over artists for Hollywood movies here, but it allows for a neat variety. Finally, we have Hikaru Hanada as Prof. Yokoyama, and what I swear is a cameo by Nobuyuki Hiyama as a nameless resident of Tokyo in Episode 11. Hiyama's name is nowhere to be found in the credits for that episode, but the three lines this character gets sound very much like him, so either Hiyama was simply not credited for what was essentially a quick cameo (he could have just been at the recording studio for another project that day, and simply helped out for the fun of it), or someone just decided to imitate his iconic vocal style really damn well.

Twenty-six years after Mitsuteru Yokoyama first debuted Mars in the pages of Weekly Shonen Champion magazine, it finally received an adaptation that can be considered "complete", and overall it's honestly not a bad series & is one that I would recommend if you're curious. However, Shin Seiki Den Mars is certainly not without its faults. While the story itself still holds up to this day, it's housed within a production that doesn't really aim for anything other than "getting the job done", at least in terms of animation & musical score (minus having an outstanding OP theme), though the vocal talent at least delivers on their end. Also, the original content written by Keisuke Fujikawa can probably be best described as "controversial", as while the added backstory for Mars & the Observers is cool, the inclusion of Muse does muddy up some of the themes that Yokoyama had in mind, namely about holding humanity responsible for its obsession with violence. And, of course, there's the whole thing about the altered ending, but I'd argue that such a thing was always going to happen, regardless of who was behind the scripting pen, though you can certainly argue about the execution itself; even my decade-prior self felt that the show "could have been done better".

Still, Shin Seiki Den Mars is by no means a show to avoid, though it's availability is a bit awkward. Though having received two separate fansubbing efforts, neither have gone any further than Episode 9, leaving the final four episodes to old bootleg "HK subs", which while not terribly translated still aren't ideal. Meanwhile, Media Blasters had actually announced a license for this show back at Anime Central 2002 as part of its old deal with Enoki Films (seemingly predating it even debuting in Japan!), but a release never happened in the end, and it's still technically available for licensing from Enoki, under the amusing alternate title of "Mars the Terminator". With Discotek still releasing the occasional Enoki license here & there, most recently with Submarine Super 99, I think it's fair to say that Shin Seiki Den Mars may eventually happen, and I'd be happy to add it to my collection.

As for the 45th Anniversary celebration of Mitsuteru Yokoyama's Mars, I guess there's really only one way to properly end it...

GAIAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anime © 2002 Mitsuteru Yokoyama・Hikari Production/Shin Seiki Den Mars Production Committee