Mars Daybreak 9/10

Ahhh. Swashbuckling adventure under the high seas of Mars. I always enjoy a good pirate adventure.

Mars Daybreak aired in 2004 and spanned 26 episodes. This show has some really great visuals. The backgrounds, CG effects, and mechs all look very cool and are extremely well done. The character designs are also terrific and everything is well animated and consistent throughout the series. While I wasn't a huge fan of the OP or ED the in-show score was well above average. Finishing off with the VA's, considering the huge cast, Mars Daybreak does an excellent job providing unique voices for all the characters and they were all great.

It's the future and Mars is populated, has an atmosphere, and huge oceans. Having no military of it's own it's "occupied" in a sense by the Earth military and pirates sail in submarines across Mars raiding the various floating cities. Enter the Ship of Aurora, the most wanted priate vessel on Mars and famous for it's Robin Hood-like behaviour. Our main character is Gram River, a laid back hero who's a great mech pilot, great chef, and takes care of 2 little kids while working odd jobs. He gets picked up by the Ship of Aurora during a raid and decides to join the crew so he can earn some cash.

Now meet Vestemona "Vess" Lauren, a new navy recruit who's been assigned to a unit on Mars whose orders are to capture the Ship of Aurora and put an end to the series. Vess is a hot-headed mech pilot from a rich family on Earth who is disgusted by the situation she's in since the Mars branch of the Earth forces aren't the most "professional".

After a few episodes of introductions and various run-ins with the Earth forces the crew of the Ship of Aurora begin to search for an ancient Martian treasure that they find out about from Gram's pendant. The rest of the series has the Ship of Aurora dodging the Earth forces and other pirates while they search for the treasure. What it is isn't quite clear.

While the whole treasure hunt is great the part I liked the best about this show is the relationship between Gram and Vess. It seems that they grew up together on Mars as orphans and one day Vess was adopted by a rich family on Earth and was taken away. When she sees how Gram has become a pirate she freaks and goes crazy trying to catch him. She gets arrested by the military for disobeying orders multiple times and even ends up joining another pirate all in an attempt to catch him. She gets SO mad it's hilarious and Gram is somewhat indifferent to the whole thing EXCEPT for that when he first meets Vess again early in the series, and she has him at gunpoint, he gets away by giving her a huge kiss and shocking her into inaction. It's always a nice change to see the female lead all flustered and hiding her feelings behind a mask of anger rather than the guy. When she gets mad she gets MAD and it's pretty funny, she really gets homicidal.

With the great look of this show and the story I liked I have to strongly recommend it. It misses out on a 10 because the VERY end was missing something though 95% of it was great.