A kid raised on Earth discovers he's a weapon designed to annihilate the planet he loves. That contradiction is the entire show: Mars fighting what he was born to be, not what he chose. The giant robot isn't a tool he pilots, it's his other half, the alien bomb ticking inside him that grows stronger every time he saves the world he's supposed to destroy. Sixty-four episodes means this show has time to let that slow horror accumulate, to make you feel the weight of loving a home you were engineered to obliterate. By the final stretch, you're watching a kid who never asked for any of this negotiate what it means to be both the savior and the threat. The mecha battles matter less than the face of someone choosing humanity again and again, even when his own body is the timer.

In 1999, as humanity begins pushing beyond the solar system, Emperor Zule of the planet Gishin sets out to conquer the galaxy and sends a baby named Mars to Earth to wipe it out. With the infant comes Gaia, a giant robot carrying a bomb powerful enough to destroy a whole planet. Mars is adopted by a Japanese family and named Takeru. Seventeen years on, he has come to love humanity and refuses Zule's order to set off the bomb, but Gaia will explode if he ever dies. Gifted with psychic powers, Takeru joins the elite Crasher Squad to fight the Gishin alongside his friends. His father secretly built five more robots, Sphinx, Uranus, Titan, Shin and Ra, which can join with Gaia to form the giant robot Godmars. The war also sets Takeru against his brother Maag in a mecha action drama.