Review of Terra Formars

I will give Terra Formars credit for its setting. It is just unique enough to make you interested in its premise. The story is just there as a backdrop, an enabler for the gory action if you will. It mentions some political intrigue in passing, setting itself up for potential twists, but never bothers going deeper into it. It gives the plot some flavor, but requires a second season to deliver on it. The sound did its job for me, the music and voice-acting in particular sticking out as good. The art however does need to be addressed. The design of the cockroaches is too campyto be scary, which is why I would have preferred had they kept them in the dark, rather than the stale CGI army we got instead. The cockroaches also kinda look like racist caricatures of black tribesmen, which I hope I'm not alone in noticing. The rest of the character-designs however gives the viewer plenty of variety to enjoy. For those who think this is nothing but graphic violence I would also argue that the action-scenes knows how to play up the sensation of characters flying at high speeds and performing great feats of strength.

Where Terra Formars does show that it has bite and not just bark, is in its characters. At the start, the characters are too thin to really work when they are fighting as a team, and I would go as far as call the writing incompetent during the first half. But once the latter half of the show comes in it slows down greatly, fleshing out the characters in ways that was a welcome surprise. Had the show been more focused on the characters' personal stories early on, I think this show would have been far more hit than miss.

Overall I give Terra Formars a 5 for being an enjoyable show to fans, but very uneven with just as much good as bad things in it.