Mars by Fuyumi SoryoMars by Fuyumi Soryo is absolutely won­der­ful. If your look­ing to start with a romance-centric manga title this would be per­fect! If your just look­ing for another good manga read then you should get Mars. Awe­some work here and I’ve only read three vol­umes and I already love it. Nath loves it as well, too. If your curi­ous about romance with a title like Mars well there’s a lit­tle story behind that. The title of the manga comes from the “God of War” from Greek mythol­ogy. You remem­ber that don’t you? I’ll explain more on that part later. So, why do we love Mars?

This is a story of oppo­sites attract. It’s a story of the bad boy who likes the quiet, shy, goodie-two shoes girl. Kashino Rei is a bona fide bad boy. He smokes behind the teacher’s back, he rides a Ducati motor­cy­cle to school, he’s rude, arro­gant, has bad grades and plays bas­ket­ball to pay for his bills. Then there’s Kira Aso who is an artist who likes to keep to her­self. When they first meet, Rei is rude to her. He laughed at her and made fun of her name. So she doesn’t like him much.  One day at the park she has the unfor­tu­nate luck to run into Rei again. He asks for direc­tions to the Med­ical Cen­ter and instead of telling him the directions, Kira draws him a map, hands it to him then leaves.

How­ever the turn­ing point in their rela­tion­ship comes when Rei looks on the back of the paper and sees a draw­ing of a mother and child. He is touched by the photo and the tal­ent. The the next day at school, he remem­bers her and com­pli­ments Kira on her artis­tic skills and from there a ten­ta­tive friend­ship is established. 

How­ever, there are other girls who are vying for Rei’s atten­tion espe­cially Humari. She is Kira’s rival.  One day, Humari and her friends cor­ner Kira and bully her about her rela­tion­ship with Rei. They threaten her and tell her to stay away from Rei. Well, so much for the advice.  The next day, they all see Kira rid­ing with Rei on his Ducati motor­cy­cle. Rei had said to Humari that he never lets any­one ride on it but makes an excep­tion for Kira who hap­pens to be his first pas­sen­ger. Kira knows that this will only draw more unwanted ire against her but she doesn’t care and why should she? She has Rei to pro­tect her.

I could go on and on about this series but I don’t want to spoil it all for you. I’m only on vol­ume three and there are 15 vol­umes in this com­pleted series. The art­work is really, really nice. Dia­logue is clear and leg­i­ble. This series is char­ac­ter dri­ven which is what I love about it. It has plenty of humor­ous moments, plenty of emo­tion and feeling. Rei isn’t really a bad guy inside. Beneath the sur­face he has some seri­ous bag­gage. His mother died when he was young so it’s just him and his father. 

However, he moved out and is stay­ing on his own and that’s rough finan­cially for him. People make fun of him assum­ing that he is just a knuckle-head with no edu­ca­tion or com­mon sense but they are wrong. He made the high­est score on the entrance exams but his grades suck. He plays excel­lent bas­ket­ball but doesn’t want to join the team. He is fas­ci­nated with a girl that every­body thinks is an eye­sore. Rei is his own per­son. He even mod­els for Kira and when he notices the Greek statue of Mars in the art stu­dio, he kisses the statue and Kira is fas­ci­nated by him. Their scenes together are really nice. The author shows how these two have a con­nec­tion. A bond between them that nobody but these two can under­stand. I love the inti­macy that they share together. It is just one of the best manga’s I’ve read where the rela­tion­ship between Rei and Kira is the com­plete focus here.

Nobody has ever been able to get under Rei’s skin or armor but Kira. Her strength makes him feel as if he can do any­thing. Of course he gives her grief and resis­tance but Kira is per­sis­tent and per­sua­sive as only she can be and she is only one he lis­tens to. She has that much power over him. That much influ­ence to make him a bet­ter per­son and he seems respon­sive and open to the changes in his life thus far. Unfor­tu­nately, Rei also has the need for speed. He loves motor­cy­cle racing. He wants to race pro­fes­sion­ally and that could be dan­ger­ous. A friend of Rei’s lost his leg in a rac­ing acci­dent so I see that to be a poten­tial prob­lem in their rela­tion­ship later. But who knows?

This is a must read for all manga fans. I love the char­ac­ters, the story, the draw­ings. It just evokes a lot of emo­tion from you and the dia­logue seems real­is­tic. It’s teen-age love and angst but very engag­ing and very enter­tain­ing. Thanks Nath for the rec­om­mend on this one. Score.  My grade, A. It is rated for T for Teens. Kisses only so far. Go read it.

Since I didn’t have any­thing new to post for Mon­day, I thought I’d re-post one of my favorite manga series, Mars. It is com­pleted at 15 vol­umes and is excel­lent and highly roman­tic and a bit angsty.

Tech­no­rati Tags: , ,