Terra Formars

With the space program attempting to travel to Mars, 21st century scientists were tasked with warming up the planet so that humans could survive on its surface. They came up with an efficient and cost effective plan of sending cockroaches and mold to the surface so that the mold would absorb the sunlight and the insect corpses would serve as a food source for the mold.

It is now the year 2577 and the first manned ship to Mars has landed on the planet and the six crew members are ready for their mission. But what they find are giant mutated humanoid cockroaches with incredible physical strength. The crew members are easily wiped out, but not before sending a transmission back to Earth. Now, humanity will send elite warriors to exterminate the mutated bugs and claim back Mars.

(Source: MangaHelpers)

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Background

Terra Formars has been published in English by VIZ Media under the VIZ Signature imprint since July 15, 2014. It has also been published in Spanish by Ivrea since December 2013 and in Brazil by Jbc since July 2015.

A live-action film of the series, directed by Takashi Miike, was released on April 29, 2016.

Terra Formars has been on a hiatus due to the author's poor health.

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Related Manga

Spin-off:	Terrafo Police: Bakkamon! Derukui-ka 24-ji, Kyou no Terra Formars wa Oyasumi desu., Terra Formars: Mousou Kunrenki - Oshiete! Michelle Kyoukan, Terra Formars Gaiden: Rain Hard, Terra Formars Gaiden: Asimov, Terra Formars Gaiden: Onizuka Keiji, Terra Formars 1
Side story:	Terra Formars: Lost Mission, Terra Formars: The Outer Mission
Adaptation:	Terra Formars: Bugs 2-hen, Terra Formars, Terra Formars: Revenge, Terra Formars: Earth-hen

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Characters

Davis, Michelle K.

Main

Hizamaru, Akari

Main

Komachi, Shoukichi

Main

Eringrad Garcia, Marcos

Main

Asimov, Sylvester

Main

Kandley Stewart, Alex

Main

Reinhardt, Adolf

Supporting

Newton, Joseph Gustav

Supporting

Onizuka, Keiji

Supporting

Asimov, Alexander

Supporting

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Jul 24, 2013

Polyphemus

Not Recommended

Preliminary (41/237 chp)

"I bury those cock-a-roaches"- Tony Montana

Terra Formars is a halfway decent Gantz knockoff that is interlaced with Japanese nationalism and general xenophobia as rabid as it is unsubtle, pushed to such a ridiculous extent that it's not even offensive anymore. Okay, it can get a bit offensive. Most of the time it's just eye-roll-worthy though. I won't even get into it...

The concept of Terra Formars is that cockroaches were used in the terraformation of Mars (bad-title origin hint) and within five hundred years they have evolved into savage and violent black humanoids who wear no clothes and use primitive weapons like some kind of African ... tribesmen. They sometimes are referred to as "those black shitstains," and they have nappy hair plus exaggeratedly broad facial features, but hey guys, hey, no racial. Squads of good bug people are sent to exterminate these filthy bad bug people once and for all. What's that? You think this premise sounds like that of a comedy? Mayhaps that of an old "so bad it's good" campy sci fi horror flick? Preposterous. Terra Formars is serious business, guys. Real serious. Or at the very least, it completely ignores the fact that it is fundamentally absurd in its scientific inaccuracy and physical impossibilities, squandering any potential it ever had along the way, and it then uselessly attempts to force the audience to take it seriously anyways. The plot would be better if the author didn't try to explain anything scientifically, but he unfortunately seems to be under the delusion that he is an intelligent and distinguished evolutionary biologist, or at least that he has the first clue what he is talking about. Just in case you were wondering, he actually does not have a single clue what he is talking about. A simple "just because" or "aliens" explanation like in Gantz would have served the plot far better.

The characters are all cliché and none of them are significant in the slightest. Terra Formars attempts to create tension by killing the vast majority of the characters off, but this tactic is rendered entirely ineffective when the audience simply does not have any reason to give a flying fuck about those characters in the first place. The dynamics between these characters are consistently recycled and this, among other things having to do with the manga's general lack of variety, makes Terra Formars feel incredibly repetitive, a problem that its oft proclaimed spiritual predecessor, Gantz, only came close to suffering from in the very end, and that was for far more forgivable reasons.

The artwork is laughable, in a literal sense. Character designs are repetitive along with being anatomically inaccurate; female characters are only there to provide poorly drawn fanservice and ryona. That said, the real issue with the art is the cockroaches, the "scary" antagonists. The facts that the antagonists are all identical and all possess the same recycled faces and expressions could be partially overlooked were they not so ridiculous in appearance. I have a large album of pictures of them saved on my computer, because they are just that hilarious. This manga would be far superior in quality and infinitely enjoyable was it a slice of life about the cockroach people forming a club at school, drinking tea, running in the street with toast in their mouth, and perhaps even engaging in a steamy and moderately comedic romance with the cutest misunderstood bad boy in school. That concept would properly play to the, admitted few, strengths of the artwork, which clearly do not include terrifying imagery or fluid action. Unfortunately, we instead get stuck with a half-assed plot and pointless fanservice.

This manga is filled with psuedo-depth and characters (plus the irritating word of god narrator who also spiels on about nets and insects and pretentiously quotes barely-relevant scripture) who muse, redundantly and at great length, about the fascinating (except not actually) relationship between cockroaches and humans. You see guys, it is simply so genius and profound that you probably completely missed the complexity and intricacies of it; the roles of the two species have been reversed. We used to kill them just because, and now they kill us......just because!!!! Dun dun dun. Right? Get it? Got it? If this concept is too difficult for you to understand then, don't worry your pretty little head over it, the cast of flat and often identical characters will spell it out for you over and over again, in the same exact way every single time, of course. Sound deep? Sound interesting? Insightful, perhaps? No? Good, because it actually isn't.

Gantz may have had a bad ending, and you might want more, but, for the love of god almighty, do not be tricked for one moment into thinking that Terra Formars ever comes anywhere close to being as good as Gantz was in its prime. It lacks the self-awareness, quality art, satirical nature, characterization, immediate general appeal, pervasive camp, creativity, variety, and sense of humor that made Gantz good. All of that being said, even if the humorous nature of the manga was completely unintentional, and the antagonists were lame, they did offer a bit of entertainment. Terra Formars does have something about it that moderately entertained me and kept me reading despite, or maybe even because of, it being extraordinarily bad in an objective sense; just for that, I will go ahead and slap on two extra points like the generous and forgiving critic that I am. I give this manga four offensive racial underto- points, I meant to say points, out of ten. Read chapter one of Death Face if you want a more enjoyable, touching, and profound story about cockroaches.

Additional comments:
Germans do not name their kids "Adolf" anymore. Just saying. I have a distinct feeling that “Nazis” is all the author knows of Germany and “Communists” is all they know of Russia.

Also, I have a hard time believing that geopolitical relations have barely changed over the course of five hundred years. The battle between Capitalism and Communism in real life progressed more in a decade than it did in five hundred years in this manga. In fact, nothing about the atmosphere of the series is futuristic in the slightest; that kind of advancement in time will have massive changes in culture, not just technology. The “futuristic” technology does not go much past space travel and gene splicing either. This all shows a huge lack of imagination, depth, and vision.

Additionally, the mere assumption that an insect's strength and abilities in proportion to its size would be retained were they scaled up to humanoid dimensions ranks among the dumbest things I've ever heard. A bit smarter than "people die if they are killed" and "I will be hokage ninja master believe it," and yet a little bit dumber than "fun things are fun."

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May 18, 2013

Jazze

Recommended

Preliminary (36/237 chp)

omg this manga. this manga is just... wow... talk about despair-inducing.

in a nutshell, the manga is about human-sized cockroaches who were sent to live on mars so that humans could colonize it in 500 years but the humans definitely didn't plan for them to be human-sized and... evolve to be intelligent as well. so, if you dislike cockroaches, insects, bugs, anything like that in general -- AND THE GORE -- well, i recommend that you should not read the manga because lord, there's so many references to bugs.

the suspense is so great and i love how the art is so action-oriented -- it just ...

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Dec 12, 2013

King_of_Heretics

Recommended

Preliminary (27/237 chp)

While I do'nt find this series to be a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination,i do'nt feel it entirely deserves it's bad rep either

story 6/10
the story itself is lame.....but creative nonetheless i do'nt recommend going in with too high of expectation cuz the premise on its own is'nt anything special but come on we've seen much worse...though i gotta admit they do push the bug philosophies a bit too far

The story itself is divided into 2 parts (3 if you include the 1-shot)

The Bugs 2 arc (Which covers the first volume) follows the bugs-2 ship and it's crew of rejects/outcasts that recieved the BUGS ...

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