Terra Formars manages this parity pretty well, with a few exceptions, and this is coming from someone who likes their manga/anime as "realistic" as possible. All the essentials are there: good, sometimes great art, a productive premise, and a good clip to the pacing. What weighs it down is the drastic case of same-face, entirely too many characters ('cause this is a VIOLENT manga, and characters DIE, usually just characters we don't know or care about), and a lot of solutions coming down to deus ex machina, the plot saying so, or the infamous power surge through yelling. The last (current) part is a real slog, and I don't have a huge interest in continuing.
But enough about the bad stuff! I enjoyed the plots attempts, even if not always successful, to branch out into geopolitics and greater themes of our place in the universe and the uniqueness of humanity. On a personal note, the score is probably a bit inflated because I love all the taxonomical and biological information and art that is central to the idea of the manga. Also watching roaches, dressed like 60's gangsters, doing kamikaze air plane assaults.
Final score: 6.5 out of 10.
