When in the ancient Greece era, spectators were going to watch a theatrical play, in most cases under the title of it, there was a disclaimer, as we call it today: A tragedy, or A Comedy, or A farce. This disclaimer eloped immediately the crowd hinting already the ending of it. If you go to watch something called Medea, well there is a high chance that Medea dies. Tragedic exposition is a totally different concept than Drama. If we want to take it to the core Drama can refer to its original word as Italian Dramma, an over-depiction of situations. Drama tends to overemphasise the use of over-the-board narrative, guiding the reader or watcher to empathize and cry. Clannad after story or Ano Hana definitively represents the realm of Drama. Mars Red is a tragedy. We know since frame one that most likely the main character will die. And he does.

The original Mars Red story was a staged recital. It is very important to understand this to highlight the strength of the show, its weaknesses, and the overall reaction.

What is a stage recital? It is a mis en scene of a piece where the actors are standing in front of the viewers in theatre and reading (interpreting), the script. There is no action, theatrical pieces due to budget costs tend to not portray wars on the stage.
In the case of Mars Red, most likely (I have not read the script) the fights or certain battles that we see in the anime were post-narrated. As in Richard III we know there was a battle, we know that a certain character was defeated. Unfortunately in being an anime around vampires, Mars Red has suffered due to the necessity of portraying such events - as actually all the battle part is extremely badly executed - simply because there is a high chance they were never scripted.

We are in the Taisho Era, the aftermath of The great Meiji Restoration, and Japan was coming out from a war with the Russians. In this period strong nationalism grew as a great majority of the Japanese population did not like this extreme westernization the country was going through. This aspect of nationalism, war, and resentment towards the west is exposed openly in the show. In this society, there are vampires (one of the most abused tropes ever) and we met our Code Zero Unit composed mainly of “domesticated” vampires who fight other vampires. Nothing new. The core of Mars Red is not the fight but the tragedy behind the characters.

The Taisho Period is my favourite period of Japanese history as it gave birth to giants of literature. Futon by Tayama Katai shocked the country and depicted the inner thought of an old teacher having sexual impulses towards her young student. Akutagawa was hardly arguing against the new way of Japanese Culture; Soseki-sensei (even though he started in late Meiji) was leaving to humanity his last manifesto under the name of the masterpiece Kokoro. Just to quote the most famous one. It was a tumultuous period and a precursor of immense tragedies to follow (the second world war). Setting the script into that period was the right choice, as theatre too was growing up influenced by some western ideas. In 1904 Italian master Giacomo Puccini debuted with his majestic masterpiece Madama Butterfly completely set in Japan. It was something never seen before in Europe.

An outstanding beauty sets the beginning, she is declamating a famous monologue from tSalomé by Oscar Wilde, she is talking to Jonakaan her beloved one. The light is theatrical, a warm spot falling from the top. The viewer of this outstanding performance is Yoshinobu Maeda a devoted colonel who later will become head commander of the Vampire Unit. He is a human. The person in front of him is a real actress who died on stage and turned into a vampire. The entire episode follows this atmosphere. In a scene when Maeda is walking with a subordinate, there are even light spots enhancing who is talking. Misaki, the name of the actress, was the fiancée of our Maeda, they never met before and she became a vampire in her last seconds before dying just to be able to show him her beautiful Salomé.

Tragedy.

Intense characterisation. Sawa is a cynic vampire who lived for 300 years, Takeuchi represents the Mad Scientist, Yamagami is a low-ranked vampire who is an old comrade of Maeda and is a middle-aged man, and finally Kurusu, unfortunately, the weakest one. He is depicted as the usual good dude typical of any anime and technically talking he is the main character.

I have watched vampire shows in all possible manners, Hellsing, Vampire Knight, Noblesse, Rosario+Vampire, and most notably Blood+, but the psychological depth of the cast of Mars Red is really unique.

Let’s take Takeuchi. He is a researcher and a scientist, just by accident he got transformed into a vampire, but he is not gloomy at all, actually the entire opposite as according to him - finally, he can have all eternity to do research, to maybe find a cure to people’s diseases, to see the evolution of humanity.
Sawa on the other hand is more cynical but he too wants to live eternally as he can see what humans are able to achieve.
He is wonderfully depicted in the last arc as he breaks his solitude by taking a partner in with him (a girl). But still maintains this cynical aura behind him; he even kills vampire kids, because they are fragile and condemned to be kids for eternity. He is cold but not merciless.
Yamagami, on the other hand, had a wife who is still alive and in episode 6 he decides to end his own life, he was simply tired of such a life.

What is bad in Mars Red?

Useless tropes are put in to please fans. Needless to say that market is market and unfortunately we have in Mars Red a couple of tropes that are totally out of context put there just to please.
Tenmaya (the trap), Aoi (the annoying noisy girl), and the design of Sawa (basically a rip-off from Tokyo Ghoul). I’m not sure if it was this way in the original script or if it was just put there as mere fanservice.

“It seems that they skip forward and did not tell us”.

This is one of the most common comments complaining about the lack of connection between the chapters of the anime; in particular the passing of time in various episodes. This is a theatre escamotage. As mentioned, not all in theatre is shown. Three Sisters by Chekhov in few scenes extends through years and in between the acts time has passed drastically. Through the staging, we understand what happened in the meantime. In Mars Red, we have the same in particular from episode 10 till the end.

Allow me to dedicate a final segment to the most beautiful character in the show: Deflot. - an almost millennial noble vampire who resembles a kid and is to a certain extent the Deux Ex Machina of this tragedy. Someone who intervenes only to solve issues when the main protagonists are lost. He is an actor, who lives in the imperial theatre only to go on stage every evening and: “Dying finally on stage.”

And Deflot himself salutes us with the epilogue inviting us all to live and putting down the curtain.

Mars Red is not a perfect show, is not a tear-jerking vampire show, and we do not have bishounen or overdramatized romance. It could have been much better without those “fanservice” addition and maybe with fewer fights but that’s how it is.

It is, by all means, a beautiful tragedy.