Mars is a story about the schools ‘tough boy’ who one day, was asked by the teacher of the classroom to change seats so that he now sits next to the artsy silent girl that people have a tendency to forget about. Guess what happens? Suddenly, they fall in love and then! She gets bullied from keeping the schools ‘hotty’ to herself. I honestly don’t want to go on.

The story is just a seating change, make-out sessions and ultimately sex with a virginal girl by a player. Yes, the author tries to add depth to the story but it’s so obvious where the story was heading that the author might as well not have bothered because it doesn’t make a noticeable difference. And the thing is, it’s not like they TALKED before getting serious (because the lead girl is apparently too shy for coherent speech), it’s just ‘oh! He talked to me today about the directions I gave him!’ and then ‘I think I love him!’.

And to Blackbird fans, I know you will be disappointed because Harada, Misao isn’t the only girl on the block who’s clingy beyond reason and worse for the fans, Misao unfortunately isn’t the only one who holds the honorary Boo-Hoo-Cryin-For-No-Reason Award. Aso, Kira has this disgusting habit of trying to water the neighbourhood’s plants with her tears; for free ofcourse (seriously, man, the crying was too much). I started wondering if she had to take medication to stop fungus and bacteria from growing near her eyes because her crying would most definitely create a breeding ground for mould. However, the author tries to give reasons for some of the crying, you know like ‘he made me feel courage’ which is obviously a very reasonable reason to cry buckets of tears all the time.

Now that that’s over, let’s look at Kashino, Rei, other than his ‘looks’, he plays ‘cool’ like he’s a macho macho man: his ambitions are to party, have sex with as many of the opposite gender until he dies of AIDs and be popular (this was actually based on his answer to a teacher). Wow, he must have won the Mr. Universe award with that speech. Other than his suicidal tendencies, which naturally Kira reforms, there isn’t much to him except his obsession for motorcycles which would have been cool… If it weren’t for the nauseating plot.

The art was the saving grace for the plot, yes, I agree with you that the characters looked like white coloured bed sheets with black pen drawings for eyes and facial features however, the eyes were VERY detailed. I think the illustrator had to put ice on their knuckled after drawing some close-ups of a character’s eyes. On the other hand, although I said the eyes were detailed I never supposed they were realistic, in fact they don’t even have pupils (yes, very scary).

In conclusion, what were you THINKING when you thought that you MIGHT want to read this. Please, readers, I know you want to entertain yourselves but don’t waste your time: there’s a big difference between time wasting and enjoying yourself. If you care for sanity, logical sense and just sense, don’t read this. Read a Manga with a plot that gives an actual realistic cause for a relationship not just a seating change (it even sounds sad) and check if the author had remembered to draw pupils for their characters before starting to read.