WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Mars Red Episode 4, “Unknown Song,” now streaming on Funimation.
In Episode 4 of Mars Red, Japan’s secret vampire squadron is sent to investigate the mysterious death of a prostitute in the Red Light District. The police believe she was poisoned — but at the moment of death, the woman was also a vampire. Episode 4 takes viewers to the decadent, deeply melancholic nightlife of Yoshiwara, painting sex workers with a tenderness and humanity rarely seen in the media of that period.
When Code Zero arrives in Yoshiwara, they divide the investigation according to each one’s skills. Yamagami gets the short end of the straw — as the lowest-ranked vampire he can recognize every higher-ranked vampire around him on sight. His humanity is still there, and vampires instinctively scare him. Maeda, Takeuchi and Kurusu survey the central pavilions. Suwa blends inside a brothel and surveys the street from a vantage point, hoping to overhear something that might lead them to the infection’s source.
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While his colleagues roam the streets, Suwa meets Akasato, the prostitute assigned to his room. After she offers him a pipe, a game and a song, Suwa finally pauses his surveillance of the streets and rests his head on her lap, asking her to take it easy. She asks his age, and when he answers with the truth — 300 years old — she jokes that she might be one of those vampires people talk about. Akasato herself just turned 15, and Suwa reflects that’s too young, but also too modern for him — although he was the same age when a pack of vampires drained his blood and left him to die.
Instead of being scared, Akasato offers Suwa her hairpin, asking him to return it when he comes back. Then she gently takes off his mask, which he always wears. He panics for a moment, shouting that he will lose control without it (he doesn’t) but relaxes again when he notices Akasato has fallen asleep from exhaustion. He tenderly tucks her into the futon before going back to watch the streets below from the windowsill.
The next morning, the police find six more victims — all in the Yoshiwara area, and all with bites of different sizes, which means there are several vampires attacking people. Code Zero heads back, but the vibrant Red Light District has changed. Akasato has disappeared, and Yamagami notices several people stumbling through the rainy streets on their bare feet, swaying like drunks. They are vampires, but closer to zombies than the intensely passionate rogues he’s met so far. These are mindless and seemingly deaf to his orders.
After fighting off a mass of zombie vampires in a temple, the exhausted Yamagami and Kurusu are left with a pile of bodies. It’s the dead prostitutes, routinely and unceremoniously dumped on the temple grounds and the quickly-killed zombie vampires. Looking around, they notice a broken barrel from which many blood vials are spilling out. The blood is tainted with a mutation of the vampire virus, likely the original cause of the zombie vampires in the Red Light District.
Meanwhile Suwa, still looking for Akasato, finds her lying on the ground, having been attacked by three hungry male vampires who try to flee when he approaches. Akasato had already turned, but was too young and weak to defend herself. Suwa sees the swollen veins on her temples and knows it’s too late. He can only comfort her before she passes away, so he returns her hairpin as promised, and asks the approaching Takeuchi to teach him a song — taking off his mask to sing it before she dies.
Mars Red traces a clear parallel between the treatment of prostitutes and that of vampires, particularly with Suwa: came into their new life at an extremely young age, became skilled at their trades (sex and death respectively) without any hope of improvement, found an imaginary safety within the walls society placed around them, and they were even killed by similar mindless monsters who prey on the young and weak.
Episode 4 of Mars Red looks at the usual treatment of sex workers in Japanese media and goes the opposite way. It shines a light on the humanity of these women with as much respect and reverence as the widow Tomiko received in Episode 3, turning what could have been a sensationalist, fan service B-horror into a lyrical masterpiece.
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