"Little Brown Fox" wrote:Hm, this is the series' end, right? I think I saw a clip of the last few moments of the episode... Why does he fly away with Melchi like that? Where are they going? And while Yamanoue seems to have survived the accident, is he still alive at this point? You said he was captured by some villain, so...
In the end clip Mars is looking for Yamanoue. He was kidnapped. If this helps explain things, in the second last scene, Kawashimo notices that Miri’s worried about Mars. Kawashimo tells her that Mars won’t return until he finds Yamanoue and when the country (the one that Ropuras had control over) is stable, they will return to Japan. Adios did tell Mars and Melchi to team up; it shows that after episode 23, he does appreciate their sibling relationship. Melchi is also connected to Yamanoue because, technically speaking, he is his son.
Yamanoue in episode 8 was left for dead but they never found the body. The Japanese episode is also called “Where did Father Went?”, which hints that he’s missing more than he’s dead. Unlike the others at the weapon test, he hid in a truck which was the main reason he survived.
"Tetsuwan Penguin" wrote:Unlike Astro boy, I don't think the final episode of Mars was planned as such.
I wouldn’t say that the 1960s ending was being evoked nor that Tezuka wanted to end it this way because he wanted to move on from the 1960s anime. Jetter Mars’s ending has more unanswered questions but it’s mostly because they brought up Yamanoue again and it’s was somewhat ambiguous what Mars’s fate will be. (Kawashimo strongly hinted that Mars will return). Also, Tezuka followed up on Astro Boy’s ending through the manga. Thematically, I think the Jetter Mars ending fits the message of the series and it was well thought out. This episode shows that Mars and Yamanoue matured throughout the course of the series.