Terra Formars (2014–2016) User Reviews

pretty good...if you watch the uncensored version

[joelherro · 7/10 · 21 December 2014]

I don't know who censors these shows, but it gets so bad it's almost unwatchable. Pity too, because this is a good show.

Interestingly, there's no real central character, as in most animes. There's an ensemble of characters from different parts of the world, who have banded together to fly to Mars and colonise the planet. They have to battle giant, mutated, humanoid, super intelligent cockroaches (yes, really), who kill humans with the same indifference we have to killing cockroaches. The humans need to bring back some cockroaches to aid in developing a vaccine for some disease that's killing people on earth. That's the general premise of the show, and I thought it was interesting.

The problem is the execution. While the storyline is interesting, there isn't enough depth into it. A few more episodes and a better resolution and it could have been a great show. Without revealing spoilers, the ending only makes sense if a second season is planned. There's plenty of violence, but the censoring takes care of that. Worth a watch.

A disappointing 'bug hunt' anime

[Tweekums · 5/10 · 25 January 2015]

Set in a future where mankind has terraformed Mars something has gone wrong; during the process cockroaches were introduced and they have mutated into giant humanoid monsters dubbed terraformars! These attacked those who went to Mars five hundred years later. Decades pass before people will return to the Red Planet; this time they will be multinational team given the task of eliminating the terraformars, which have been linked to a plague on Earth. In order to have a chance the team members have undergone genetic modification which gives then the abilities of other creatures. As each of the team has different animal abilities they each fight in a different way. We later learn that the terraformars have also genetically modified so they are even more dangerous than first feared.

When I started watching this it was a little difficult to see what was going on much of the time as the version available was so heavily censored; thankfully things improved by episode three or four. The cast is fairly large and many got killed off before one could grow to care for them. With each member of the team and different terraformars having different skills it felt rather episodic with each one getting to show their ability each week; we even had a voice over explaining which creature's skills each had. The show has a rather muted colour palette and there are no cute moe characters which gives the entire series a distinctly gloomy feel. The end of the thirteenth episode suggests that there is more to come… although there have been plenty of better series that left things hanging as second series failed to materialise. Overall this was a bit disappointing; if you want to watch people killing space-bugs just watch 'Starship Troopers'! These comments were based on watching the series in Japanese with English subtitles.

Tryhard to be dramatic, still good action

[mynban · 5/10 · 23 April 2016]

This series tries hard to give the feeling 'Attack on Titan' has by presenting individuals fighting for humanity against an enemy with no fear/pain/individuality; but sadly has WAAAY too many holes in its poor plot and has poorly scripted attempt at connecting us with the individuals and their heroic sacrifices.

Most of the characterization feels like a needless filler, since they come right before character sacrifice him/herself. It is an attempt at us feeling something for what is about to come, but unfortunately does not do a good job in achieving that.

For the plot holes / poor script: **SPOILER FROM HERE** Characters are 100 people whose mission is to go to Mars, fight primitive cockroach/caveman hybrid enemy and capture samples to bring back to earth as a 3rd mission where first 2 failed.

Selected people go through extremely expensive surgeries to alter their bodies, and sent by extremely expensive spacecrafts. But for some reason fate of humanity is given at the hands of totally random individuals with no military experience/background or even combat tendency; whom are ONLY equipped with mutation based animal based powers which they are not even trained how to use in combat. They are not given even the most basic combat or formation training, and they do NOT have even the most basic weapons, let alone any military vehicles.

They are fighting against primitive cockroach/caveman hybrids on Mars. And that is the problematic part. Their primitive enemy uses tactics, formations, weapons (clubs and slingshots), yet highly advanced humans fight ONLY with bare fists, and whenever it is required to defend against enemy attacks they open up their arms and stand in front of each other to absorb the blow (and die).

Most basic attribute of humanity is its use of tools and intelligence against threats, yet we see none in this series. Good for action, but extremely poor in quality story telling we have enjoyed at series like Attack on Titan.

Awesome season 1

[Dart- · 16 February 2022]

I love the first season. Very good animation, battle and pace, it's a good shonen. However, the second season is very bad, the animation studio is not the same and you can clearly see it.

I had low expectations and was still disappointed

[dameon_green · 2/10 · 7 April 2020]

Both seasons are disappointing for different reasons.

Season 01: (4/10 Stars) Gore porn. I've seen reviews talking about how the brutality was key to the story and I'd buy that if they were consistent with it, the story was stronger and the brutality was logical.. Ripping someone spine out and then using it as a sword is just plain dumb. The one thing it did have going for it was killing off or crippling characters right as you "slightly" invested in them or they got interesting.

Season 02: (0/10 Stars) They took everything remotely good and flushed it down the drain. They strangely trying adding some Ecchi to the whole thing, cutesy word bubbles, blushing females flirting with the male characters, bad jokes and a complete lack of deaths (Other than random redshirts that have no names until after they die) Oh, and all the characters got insanely stupid, making criminally bad choices for what are supposed to be the elite of the elite..

Dont watch season 2

[SRnorway · 8/10 · 3 November 2018]

Season 1 is the best(uncensored) its amazing and the character building is fantastic. In season 2 they ruin everything great they built up. They change from a thriller-ish dark style which makes you actually fear the terraformars to a light and colourful world were characters who were hard suddenly went girly. They changed a lot like this and took away most of the good story they built up.

Simply explained watch season 1 and keep it as an open ending because season 2 is just bad...

Season 1: just plain not good

[nadblaster · 4/10 · 5 October 2021]

An incredibly interesting concept that is completely flushed down the toilet by awful execution. The art is pretty good and I liked the technical end of this anime but the writing and characterization were in most cases sub-par and in some cases genuinely bad. Near the end of season 1, I found myself desperately hoping that it would just end, as I just plain didn't care about any of the still-living characters or what they're doing, mainly because frankly they weren't doing anything except for punching monsters in character-unique ways.

In complete fairness, maybe season 2 fixes everything, but I never bothered watching it because season 1 was botched on so many levels. It's not a complete waste of time but I wish I had watched something else.

An excellent Anime and Manga

[mastr_shake2006 · 10/10 · 20 February 2015]

I was extremely impressed with the anime. I've fully read the Manga and noticed very little to almost no changes in the anime. It is one of the few anime out there that follows 98% of the Manga to the letter. It's also delivered non-stop action in the uncensored version along with a spot on back story for everyone just like in the Manga. I highly recommend others to watch the anime and to read the Manga in hopes for more seasons to come. However I still have to state to only watch it uncensored due to extremely graphic content consistently happening in almost every episode. If you like GANTZ, or other violent/action sci- fi, this is the series for you.

One of worst shows ever !!!

[ILJtheFirst · 1/10 · 21 March 2015]

Biggest waste of time of ever ! I wanted to see what happens, but this style of storytelling is a joke. This is as bad as Lost with all the flashbacks and terrible pace like Attack on Titan. A whole lot of nothing happens after 13 episodes, no depth to characters or plot, -10 / 10 stars.

Yes, the censoring is a bit extreme in the beginning few episodes. If you really want to see that gore, watch the uncensored episodes.

Introduce character name and animal, 5 seconds of action, more talking, 5 seconds of action, somebody stops to stare at a roach, roach effectively uses human tech (this is never explained), somebody gets killed, plot doesn't move forward, rinse and repeat.

Some of the worst shows: Glass Fleet, Melody of Oblivion, Pupa, Attack on Titan, Terraformars, etc.

Poorly written anime series even without the censorship

[badcgishark · 3/10 · 30 June 2023]

This series gained notoriety when it came out in Japan due to the unbelievable amount of censorship that was applied to episodes. Massive black circles would cover huge parts of the screen to block almost anything what was violent. The feedback was that the show was literally unwatchable this way and the series was a complete disaster with this incarnation. The series would soon find its way to CrunchyRoll in a completely uncensored form and, while it does have some novel ways it uses the high level of ultra violence in the show, the writing is just awful and this really is one of the worst sci-fi shows I have ever seen.

The plot makes no sense. Bug people have taken over Mars and are now going to come to Earth to kill humans. No weapons can harm them so Earth merges high-level human fighters with various bugs that has a 50% chance of death when done. These bug fighters are now on the way to Mars to kill the Bug people before they come destroy earth.

The story makes no sense. If guns and other weapons do not work, why not create Terminator like robots to destroy these bug people? It makes no sense that the earth bug people would somehow be stronger than killer robots would be, it is physically impossible for any type of hybrid bug fighter to be more powerful than a fleet of killing machine robots.

Either way, lets remove that plot hole, the series writing is awful. No characters are likable, the weird announcer makes the series seem like some 1980's Ultraman drek, and it just fails to be anything than a gore-porn crapshow.

Strong recommendation to avoid, 3/10.

A great take on sci-fi and action anime

[aiyobro · 10/10 · 11 April 2018]

Everything you loved from cheesy 80's movies, all the fighting and action of the JoJo series set in a world inhabited by mutant bug men from Mars, like in the old black and white horror movies people used to watch. If you don't like violence then this just isn't your show, not worth watching the censored version. But it isn't 'vile just to be vile' and it doesn't seek out fan service like other shows people watch that ruin the pacing with bad comedy or skin. SJW's will pull out certain scenes from the show to make it seem like there is an agenda, but it doesn't have one. It's a show meant for older teens who grew up watching Saturday mourning action shows in the early 90's, where the good guys go up against the bad guys. I like watching this more then DBZ super, naruto and bleach because those shows have gone on so long they're really just anime crap at this point, unlike shows like this or yu yu hakusho or Attack on Titan. The second season isn't bad either, again people just were pulling out scenes with no context and reading too deep into caricatures.