Mars 8
Posted: December 27, 2011 Filed under: Mars Leave a comment »Fuyumi Soryo – Tokyopop – 2003 – 15 volumes
Ugh. I was hoping Mars wasn’t going to go down the sexual abuse by a parent road. But here it is. It’s dealt with in a fairly realistic way, in terms of how the character acts, reacts, and has help moving past it… except for the end of the volume, which was so terrible that it completely undid all the good story and character development and made me want to throw the volume in the trash.
Seriously! What parent would do that? What parent could forgive and forget, and ask their child to do the same? I was more than a little offended by that. It goes way beyond the usual suspension of disbelief in shoujo manga. I was really upset that Mars would do something like this. Then again, it is the most drama-filled path, so maybe I shouldn’t be that surprised.
Sigh. I don’t want to spoil this part of the story. The first half of the volume really does treat the subject of sexual abuse fairly realistically, and I was surprised by that. It wasn’t something to just be forgotten and completely ignored, and the characters really sit and look at it, and what it means to them. How it brings out inner violence, fear, et cetera.
But… ugh. That second half. I hated it. I just can’t believe that a story with character relationships and interactions this good would do that. The magic of Mars is that it is so believable, and it’s easy to get lost in its world. But not this time.
