Terra Formars

Add to My List

Add to Favorites

Alternative Titles

Japanese: テラフォーマーズ

More titles

Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: Unknown

Chapters: Unknown

Status: Publishing

Published: Jan 13, 2011 to ?

Genres: Action, Horror, Sci-Fi

Themes: Gore, Survival

Demographic: Seinen

Serialization: Young Jump

Authors: Tachibana, Kenichi (Art), Sasuga, Yu (Story)

Statistics

Score: 7.23¹ (scored by 15,111 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #5637²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #323

Members: 49,957

Favorites: 927

Available At

Official Site

Resources

Wikipedia

7.23

Ranked #5637Popularity #323Members 49,957

MangaYoung JumpTachibana, Kenichi (Art), Sasuga, Yu (Story)

Add to My List

Volumes: /?

Chapters: /?

Edit
Synopsis

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)

Edit
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.

Edit
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, Terra Formars: Bugs 2-hen, Terra Formars: Earth-hen, Terra Formars: Revenge

More characters
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

Onizuka, Keiji

Supporting

Newton, Joseph Gustav

Supporting

Terraformar

Supporting

Reviews

Apr 14, 2024

CresusJohnson

Recommended

Preliminary (50/? eps)

What a wonderful surprise! Terra Formars is a superb Serie B science fiction manga. Imagine if John Carpenter had been born in Japan, he would have made this gem. This manga is a totally deserved success, even if I find its rating totally underestimated on this site.

It took me too long to try this manga but better late than never. Everything about this title works. From Volume 1, you get a big slap in the face. The themes are all there: action, horror, science fiction, tragedy, drama, gore, war and science.

The manga was on hiatus for years after volume 22, but resumed on 4 ...

Open

Gift

Jan 6, 2022

PixelB

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (200/? eps)

Terra Formars's quality drops massively after the first major arc: the Mars arc for a single reason.
It's no longer a survival manga. Terra Formars devolves to a pure action/shounen sort of fighting manga rather than a survivalistic horror. There's no tension anymore. I just feel like I'm reading DBZ or something.
It's true. Terra Formars does make me want to kill all cockroaches, but to what end does this result get achieved? It's simple. BS story telling elements. I looked passed the glaring plot holes in the earlier arcs and in the anime because the focus was more on the survival and action rather than the ...

Open

Gift

Mar 14, 2024

gbupp

Not Recommended

Preliminary (237/? eps)

Yikes. I wish I had trusted the negative reviews here more - but so often in the past I've seen negative reviews and they do not play out. This is one of those times that it would have benefited me to have trusted them!

The first important thing - the first 2-3 books in this series don't set the readers expectations properly. For longer series like this I tend to read the first two volumes before I jump in and the first two to three volumes of this are the best ones. The manga has its ups and downs from there in so far as being ... okay and being terrible.

ART
I will start on the art side of things. It is interesting but with two major problems. The mangaka cannot draw enough different unique faces for how many characters are in the story. They are great at general work but feel more like they need to be a primary assistant rather than the main artist. It becomes very hard to tell people apart as every guy and every girl kind of look similar outside of hair colors.

Worse though is a lot of the art is "implication". Whereas you would have 5 panels in other works explaining events, this will jump from panel 1->5 and expect you to fill in the rest. Not only does this make you sometimes pause and go "what?", it also leaves a significant number of events feeling unfulfilling. This isn't just fights, but character randomly showing up or people losing limbs where you have to just "assuming" it got cut off mid fight or something.

As the series goes on, I think the impact of computer assistance in the art style becomes more of an issue and makes the art feel boring. By about book 10 I felt no appreciation for it anymore and it was just a sprint to get to the end of the meager story.

STORY
Yep, it is edgy. Edgy isn't necessarily bad though, but this often is groan inducing. The book seems like it will have consequences due to how the first 2-3 books are written - but nope. Everyone of any consequence who dies will come back somehow through some introduced rule that seems to contradict all the other established lore. Everyone will have new abilities from nowhere (enemies and allies) without it being built atop something previously laid out. Just out of nowhere, the story will pull something from its pocket. This can sometimes a be a fun literary element if done in moderation and at the right time - but every book has something like this.

For how much backstory is dedicated to people, it often does nothing to really make you understand their motivations for often irrational behavior. Everyone gets a backstory page, and often they are boring and suck. Couple that with the aforementioned lack of impact to their predictive actions and the story really is a slog.

There are many threads going on at once - too many. It negatively impacts the story. It would be like hearing a song where the artist thought that more notes makes a better sound and just crammed as many of them together as possible without any real thought for how they should meld together.

CONCLUSION
Somewhere in here was a good manga. Book 1-2 had a good grove, and the story needed to be distilled and strengthened. Interestingly enough, Book 12-14 are also great as these books for whatever reason are both far more flesh out (both story and art wise) as well as being somewhat comical. The whole book is absurd but it struggles to hit a level of balanced between "seriousness and comedy" outside of these 12-14 books which works for it. If the author and mangaka had been able to take the fun that is in 14-15 and back it up with the story of 1-2 we'd have something worthwhile.

This is not though. Avoid it.

Open

Gift

More stacks

Interest Stacks

Weekly Young Jump - Current Series

by Fel_Rib

33 Entries · 13 Restacks

Manga Taisho Awards 2013

by DroopCoffee

10 Entries · 2 Restacks

Muscle mummy

by JugemJugem01

46 Entries · 127 Restacks

More recommendations
Recommendations

View All

More news
Recent News

Manga 'Terra Formars' Returns from 5-Year Hiatus in April 2024

The official X (formerly Twitter) account of Yu Sasuga and Kenichi Tachibana's Terra Formars manga announced on Thursday that it is resuming its serialization ...read more

Mar 29, 4:13 PM by Hyperion_PS | Discuss (13 comments)

North American Anime & Manga Releases for December

Here are the North American anime & manga releases for December Week 1: December 3 - 9 Anime Releases K-On! (incl. K-On!!, Keikaku!, Live House!, Movie, Ura-On!,...read more

Dec 2, 2019 3:58 PM by Sakana-san | Discuss (2 comments)

More discussions
Recent Forum Discussion

Hiatus or Ongoing? Seiidou - Apr 4	3 replies	by Seiidou »» Apr 4, 5:16 PM
Resuming serialisation from april 4 MegamiRem - Mar 25	2 replies	by Agelastus »» Mar 28, 2:17 AM
Subreddit for Terra Formars ReSeinen - Sep 1, 2022	0 replies	by ReSeinen »» Sep 1, 2022 8:24 PM
What happened to Terra Formars? ReSeinen - Apr 21, 2021	9 replies	by MoesianThracian »» Aug 16, 2022 3:33 AM
No one translating this? NHS-KEMISH - Apr 4, 2019	9 replies	by TheMangaManiac »» Jun 16, 2021 6:57 PM

Terra Formars
Edit

What would you like to edit?

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Available At

Resources

Edit
Synopsis

Edit
Background

Visit MALxJapan
MALxJapan -More than just anime-

Edit
Related Manga

More characters
Characters

Reviews

Interest Stacks

More recommendations
Recommendations

More news
Recent News

More discussions
Recent Forum Discussion

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Terra Formars Edit What would you like to edit? SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Available At

Resources

EditSynopsis

EditBackground

Visit MALxJapan MALxJapan -More than just anime-

EditRelated Manga

More charactersCharacters

Reviews

Interest Stacks

More recommendations Recommendations

More newsRecent News

More discussionsRecent Forum Discussion

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Terra Formars
Edit

What would you like to edit?

Edit
Synopsis

Edit
Background

Visit MALxJapan
MALxJapan -More than just anime-

Edit
Related Manga

More characters
Characters

More recommendations
Recommendations

More news
Recent News

More discussions
Recent Forum Discussion