⚠️ This review contains spoilers for Volumes 1 to 5.
Fuyumi Soryo's manga career had an unlikely start – as an artsy fashion college student, she earned an honorable mention in a manga competition after entering to raise money for a fashion contest. Mars, which would become her most popular work, was first serialised in shōjo magazine Bessatsu Friend from 1995 to 2000 before being published as 15 manga volumes from 1996 to 2000. Despite the shōjo genre's bubblegum trappings, Soryo became known for exploring darker, more psychological themes in her work.
While Mars fell out of print several years ago, it has enjoyed a recent resurgence; it was adapted into a live-action series and film in Japan in 2016, and ComiXology and Kodansha Comics brought the series back into digital circulation in 2019. You can read it now via a Prime Reading or Kindle Unlimited subscription or buy it on Kindle (Amazon actually did good in this case).
What's it about?
'A bad boy can change a good girl forever...' Kira is a shy art student who struggles to connect to her classmates and is terrified of boys. Rei is a rebellious motorbike racer and school delinquent chased by all the girls. To Kira, he might as well be from, well, Mars. However, when Kira asks Rei to model for her art project – and, to everyone's surprise, he says yes – their lives become intertwined. But Mars has another meaning – the Roman god of war. And through their unlikely connection, Kira and Rei gain the strength to battle the demons from their past and learn to love each other – and themselves.
Things I liked
Admittedly, I've been going through something of a shōjo dry spell; I've opted for more mature stories for years now, and high school drama is typically an instant turnoff. But something about the muted tones and simple character focus of the Mars covers made me break this spell, putting me in mind of the chic pastel minimalism that first drew me to josei series Honey and Clover (intended for a more mature audience and one of my long-time favourites).
The art style has a characteristic 90s flavour, all doe eyes and endlessly long limbs, but there's an element of realism, too, reflecting the everyday focus. The retro style might not be to everyone's taste, but, while I'm slightly biased as a shamelessly nostalgia-inclined 90s kid, I found it dreamily beautiful and at times breathtaking. In particular, Soryo captures characters' moods and expressions with nuance to the point where I was even able to distinguish between Rei and his identical twin brother, Sei, when he is first introduced.
Unlike many other shōjo manga of its time, Mars avoids the magical girl/transforming heroine trope and is instead firmly rooted in reality (albeit a hyper-dramatic one). As a sucker for slice of life, this immediately drew me in. The characters are flawed, with surprisingly hefty emotional baggage that informs their personalities and actions, and Soryo doesn't shy away from exploring darker themes from the get-go, including bullying, sexual abuse, mental health and suicide.
Despite this, there's a sweet innocence to the blossoming relationship between Kira and Rei that I found refreshing. Unusually, Mars side-steps the frustrating stasis, misfires and false starts of eternally unrequited or unrealised love that shōjo romance so often leans on (or the toxic seesaw of on-again/off-again relationships in the romance genre more generally). While I'm only five volumes deep, so far, Kira and Rei consistently support each other's passions and work to try to understand each other despite their differences, something of an oddity in the romance genre.
Despite an initial intense magnetism (which, let's face it, isn't too farfetched when adolescent infatuation is involved), their relationship also develops at a realistic pace, with moments of simple yet moving tenderness, like when Kira ties her hair ribbon around Rei's wrist as a good luck charm in return for his bracelet. Or when Rei asks Kira to kiss him even though they're on the phone before starting his big race as he can 'feel it if you do it with love'. Or when Kira is too shy to see Rei's reaction to her painting of him, so he describes all the things he likes about it to her later instead. I lingered over these panels, and their heartfelt wholesomeness reminded me of the giddy early days of my own high school relationship.
Things I didn't like quite so much
For all its emotional maturity, no one could accuse Mars of being short on drama. Some of this can feel quite contrived, like the introduction of a highly punchable face from the past in Volume 4 who hasn't previously been mentioned apparently just to stir up complications between Kira and Rei.
Indeed, much of the drama stems from the past, meaning that the obstacles the couple face aren't so much organic developments but obviously planted plot devices, resulting in various flashbacks and scenes of exposition. After the initial reveal about the tragic fate of Rei's twin, further twists connected to his past – Rei pushed Sei? Their dad isn't actually their dad? – feel a bit tiresome as they don't have any meaningful ties to Rei and Kira's present reality.
I'd much rather see them deal with, for example, the more realistic fallout of Rei, the most popular guy in school, breaking from his established social group to hang with Kira, a widely shunned outsider, which isn't really addressed but would surely alter their social landscape more radically. While Harumi, Rei's last fling, bullies Kira out of jealousy, this quickly blows over and the two even become best friends soon after ('Hey Harumi, remember that time you threatened to smash my fingers in with a barbell if I kept seeing Rei? Haha, yeah, me either.'). Meanwhile, Rei doesn't experience any real resistance to his sudden interest in Kira.
It's possible that more natural developments directly connected to the characters and setting emerge as the series goes on, but the soap-operatic 'Who's the daddy?' cliffhanger at the end of Volume 4 almost made me give up on Mars altogether.
Despite the series' avoidance of certain shōjo cliches, time has not been as kind to other aspects, particularly regarding gender. Disappointingly, Kira is extremely submissive and passive for at least the first few volumes, with Rei habitually stepping in as her (slightly blood-tainted and initially victim-blamey) white knight. This is especially glaring in Volume 1, making this weaker for me than the following volumes – quite the drawback for a series opener in an age of limitless content.
While I have since discovered that a Good Reason for Kira's shrinking violet tendencies emerges later in the series, this might put modern readers off from persevering, especially since much of the focus rests on Rei's motivations and complex character for the first several books. Everyone seems obsessed with him, and, while he is exceptionally pretty and quite possibly my hair idol, balancing this unhealthy focus with more early insight into Kira would make for a more compelling, well-rounded narrative.
Other lowlights include Harumi's short-lived turn as the 'crazy' jealous ex-girlfriend; Rei's other ex-girlfriend, Shiori, threatening to kill herself without Rei; the descriptions of motorcycle racing as something only a man can truly understand on an instinctual level; and Kira's dogged support of Rei's dangerous racing habit. And, as Shojo Corner points out, Rei has a, frankly, worrying tendency to solve problems with violent outbursts that he himself acknowledges but Kira never really questions or challenges, which can feel jarring when immediately followed by a casually romantic scene. While this is maybe intended to show how she 'gets' him like no one else, instead this comes across as, at best, naive and, at worst, doormattishly accommodating.
Does it still hold up?
For all its problematic aspects and contrived drama, Mars' strengths lie in its simpler moments of human connection. In particular, Soryo is able to convey the characters' intense emotions with wordless simplicity through small actions or looks. The crestfallen look on Rei's face when he wins a Tiffany necklace for Kira but is compelled to give it to Shiori instead. Rei squeezing Kira's hand to reassure her when she's feeling out of place at a lunch gathering. Rei overcoming his embarrassment to cry in front of Kira, who cries along with him (to the point that they both need a drink) after he confesses some of his darkest fears to her. These touching little moments elevate Mars beyond a run-of-the-mill melodramatic shōjo, giving it depth and relatability.
They're also what's driving me to keep reading to see how Kira and Rei's relationship will grow and challenge them further personally. These might seem like tame plot elements to some, but there's something quietly radical about a book for younger readers that focuses on the emotional growth, psychological trauma and all, of its characters rather than wacky misunderstandings and gimmicky misadventures. This certainly isn't a series that cuts its emotional impact with much comedic relief, but it's nevertheless light enough to lift you out of a lockdown-induced reading funk.
Ultimately, with each other's support, the protagonists strive to become better people. Kira opens up emotionally and artistically and begins to see herself as someone worth fighting for, and, through fighting for Kira, Rei shifts his focus to someone besides himself and reconnects to a softer, more sensitive part of himself. This is something, I think, that has the potential to still resonate with readers today, over twenty-five years later.
If you liked this, please consider fuelling my next post by slinging a cup of coffee my way.
↓
Comments
Post a Comment
Did this post tickle your pickle? Let me know in the comments below.