Mars Daybreak

Life on Mars is hard for those who live here. As the economy worsens, work becomes scarce and food becomes expensive and highly prized. Gram and his friends try to do the best they can but, he soon finds himself on the run with the most notorious pirates on Mars. The only problem is he soon starts to enjoy the adventures. Source: AnimeNewsNetwork.com


For an anime revolving around pirates and adventures in the deep sea ocean, its characters sure lack a whole lot of depth. They were not shallow, they just wasn’t explored enough, not even the lead character. Sure the anime explained the characters’ past and goals… in like under 5 minutes!
Character wise, it features a variety of characters which seems unique enough in terms of mech or space shows. There is a talking cat, a dolphin assisted by a humanoid suit, a cross-dressing pirate, and others to boot. However, it does seem like some characters are trying too hard. Up to a point they seem unnatural.

Gram River and Vestemona "Vess" Lauren obviously has a past and becomes rather predictable in having somewhat of a romance in the future. That’s not a negative though; the development of their romance was acceptable. Gram River’s character is too optimistic and Vess is just plain hot-headed. A pretty good match if you ask me. Lol!


Scripting does have the feel of a rather old anime. Pretty obvious it’s from 5 years ago. Back in the days when characters didn’t need thorough depth and silly faces were all the comedy an anime needed. One point I like is that they didn’t over-immortalize characters. Yagami for example, as strong as he is in a mech, without it he is pretty much defenseless and will submit to some ass-kicking.

I like the mech designs, nothing overly fancy. Yeah sure it doesn’t have huge planet destroying guns or mountain slicing blades but that’s what gives it a touch of reality.
Another welcomed setting was how pilots control their mech remotely. The idea of having pilots controlling mechs through cables or remote instead of being in the cockpit seemed like an underused plot. Most of the time, whenever a mech gets destroyed, the pilot might as well just be dead, which makes things boringly predictable.

Animation looks clean and clear with solid lines and single toned fillings. Combined with the liveliness of the pirates, it does help relaxes and get you in the mood. Best of all, it is consistent throughout the series. It takes little to enjoy the opening theme, "Take Back" by G B Shelter, with its catchy beat.


Good introduction episode and showed great potential during the start of the series. Although it’s pretty much fillers, fillers, fillers, a slight hint of build-up, fillers, fillers, fillers, last story plot. Lol! Too many episodes were wasted on just delivering pointless action with little character build-up. Some fillers, like the ghost ship episode, are just way too pointless without any depth whatsoever.
Yagami’s hidden motive near the end of the series were a welcomed change in pace. For a moment I thought the anime was finally ready to get down to business, opening up a more serious plot and setting. Well, I was half right.
Somewhere before the last storyline, Gram finally starts talking about the past. WTF?! Suddenly talking about the memories of the past when Gram didn’t even think about it in the last 20 episodes. Not only that, the past played no role towards the development of the story.
It’s good that they didn’t leave anything hanging by the end of the series. It had a good conclusion where everything was well tied up, as mediocre as it may be. Good attempt overall but lack the plot and build-up. At the end of the day, it might not be anything spectacular, but with just enough of everything thrown in, action, comedy, mystery? It will still manage to entertain the less demanding viewers.


Mars Daybreak / Kenran Butoh Sai: The Mars Daybreak
Rating: 4-Stars
Torrents: BoxTorrents.com

I thought for a moment it would be cool if there was a mech action figure collectible for Mars Daybreak but then again, it’s going to be difficult to stand with those add shaped feet (optimized for underwater travel)