Shin Seiki Den Mars

Shin Seiki Den Mars, released in 2002, is an anime television series produced by the animation studio Plum. It serves as an adaptation of the classic science fiction manga Mars created by Mitsuteru Yokoyama, the legendary artist also known for works such as Tetsujin 28-go. The series reimagines the narrative of an alien scout sent to Earth with the intent to determine if humanity is worth saving or if the planet should be destroyed, reflecting the mid-twentieth-century anxieties regarding nuclear proliferation and global existential threats that permeated much of Yokoyama's original source material.

The design and production of this series sought to translate Yokoyama’s distinctive, mid-century aesthetic into a modern early-2000s animation style. While the studio focused on updating the visual language for a contemporary audience, the series was received as a niche entry in the canon of Yokoyama adaptations. Critics and fans often analyze the work through the lens of its faithfulness to the source material's philosophical inquiries, marking it as a deliberate attempt to introduce the foundational themes of the original 1960s manga to a new generation of viewers.