Planetes

• The detail - It's incredible. Even things like spacesuits are given tons of little details. This isn't Gundam and their skin tight flight suits. These suits require diapers and have oxygen issues and even smoking is addressed as their Captain is a cigarette addict.
• The background plot - We even learn about the temp and what her background is before coming to Tech Nora.

• Well it broke my Anime Rule #4 (The first character is the most important). Tanabe was shown first (and last BTW). She isn't the main character. Hachimaki is.
• The Ninja's - There to provide some comedy relief, but what happened to them pissed me off greatly.

A really good anime title needs to have a well-written and interesting story, well-developed and interesting characters, good art and good animation. Fortunately, those in charge of Planetes manage to get things right with very few flaws.

I'll start the characters, who make things work so well. We start with Tanabe Ai, one of the two core characters for the show. She is more of the focus in the first half of the anime as we are introduced to the world of 2075 and life on the space station through her eyes. As a new employee and an idealistic young woman, the writers do an excellent job of introducing the viewers to the "coolness" of living and working on a space station and the wonder of working in space, even if the job is picking up the debris that is in orbit going back to the first space flights. Ai's idealism is a tad annoying at first, but she does grow up pretty quickly as she learns her job and discovers some of the harsh realities of life.

The other core character is Hoshino Hachirouta (aka: Hachimaki or Hachi), who is Ai's senpai on the job. He's a 3-year veteran of the Debris Section and is very good at his job. His dream is to own his own ship, despite being ridiculed by others. Hachi is the son of a very good space engineer, so he is often refered to as a thoroughbred. After a mutual respect developes between he an Ai, that eventually turns into something more which leads him to a conflict since his first love is space.

The other supporting cast are very strong and mostly well developed. Fee is the captain of the Toy Box which is an old ship used to haul the debris. She's a big smoker, and through her, a storyline about terrorist blowing up smoking rooms in space stations and on the moon, becomes very funny. I never thought a terrorist story would ever be funny, so hats off to the writers for this. The only character in the Debris Section that gets little development is the chief, who along with the co-manager, are mostly there as comic relief and a way of poking fun at Japanese management.

Claire is a character who gets good development, but her character wasn't handled quite right. It is clear from the begining that she's a go-getter, which is why she broke up with Hachi in the first place. So she's taking on more and more work, despite upper-management concern that she may be taking more than she can handle. Then she's dropped for a bit, so we don't get to see her struggles to meet the obligations she's imposed upon herself. It isn't until later when she's already gotten in trouble for "making some mistakes" the she is brought back. I feel that her story would have been better had that piece of her life not been neglected. But this is a minor complaint.

The story is well-crafted. One of the strengths of the series is that events from one episode often play a role in future episodes, much like real life. So even when the minor character Nono-chan (who's quite the scene stealer) has a single episode that other series might not come back to her, she comes back in a normal, natural way since she's confined to the Lunar hospital and a couple of events have characters go back to that hospital for treatments. And she has an important (even if she doesn't know it) part to play at the end of the series, so the time spent on her earlier was certainly worth while. But more than this, things like office politics, terrorist attacks, accidents, or other events aren't just resolved at the end of an episode. There's aftermath to deal with or consequences of some kind to address. This kind of story-telling is one I really enjoy.

The romance between Ai and Hachi is nice without being overdone. The attraction happens naturally and they eventually come to address it and progress slowly. When Hachi begins the testing process to become a crew member of the Von Braun, the relationship is certainly strained. However, I like how the writers dealt with this.

While the show is set between 2075-2077 (if my math is right, since a lot of time passes in the final two episodes), the technology level feels very realistic. I can believe that by 2075, we have some manned space stations. I can believe that there would be a small city on the moon, especially if materials are found to replace oil as an energy source. I can believe that humans would be working on making the round-trip time from Earth's moon to Jupiter in 7-years. The gravity the others mention comes from a very real source -- centrifugal force from the space station(s) rotating. Thus the place where the crew works has gravity while the crew quarters are weightless. Futher, I liked how the director had no "space noises" for thing like rockets firing or the like. It helped make everything seem so real.

The writers look at certain issues without becoming preachy (at least it didn't feel preachy to me). The biggest issue would be the terrorists' "rich get richer and poor get poorer" tripe as a reason to stop all space progress. The writers attempt to give the terrorist point-of-view some validation by citing the millions of people who starved to death in 3rd-world countries while countries like America and Japan spent money to go to space. However, the writers also show that even if Earth were to eliminate the use of evil oil, there could be very negative results from this action. Also, the writers point out (very correctly in this reviewers mind) that no matter what new energy sources the world comes up with or how clean, there will be those violently opposed to it.

The writers in addition to looking at the wonders and joys of space, look at the very real negatives too. The exposure to radiation of extended time living and working in space can cause cancer. The writers also address (though not in great depth) the stress on families when one member (husband or wife) has to spend many months or even years away from home. And the writers take a look at the problems that happen were children to be born someplace not on Earth. The writers also take a look at the risks of accidents and the deaths that can result from that, even management decisions regarding such accidents. There's the harsh reality that sometimes, people will die and that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one. Of course, there's the issue of all the debris in Earth orbit going back to the time of the first space flights. With all of this and terrorist attacks, do we press ahead with space travel? I found all of this very compelling and another big plus to the series.

Another thought occured to me. While this show is set in the future and mostly not in Japan (though there are a few episodes with side-trips to Japan), the show is VERY Japanese. The way the company is structured is clearly based on typical Japanese companies complete with the office politics, middle management, and lower management actions. As such, the use of "senpai" or other Japanese honorifics are certainly not out of place here.

The art and animation are really good. The character designs aren't bad, but aren't anything special either. And the music fits the series quite nicely.

Bottom line: if you are looking for a good, well written story with well developed characters along with a lot of drama, a bit of romance, comedy, action, and the true sense of wondrous adventure, this often overlooked anime is right for you.

Last updated Thursday, July 06 2006. Created Sunday, June 18 2006.