Planetes is the typical coming of age, struggling-to-find-a-place-in life with self and friends story set in the not-so-typical back drop of space. Specifically, in one area that one could consider the least glamerous area of space to be covering.
Planetes story isn't entirely new or original. It's a formula that we have seen before. A group of misfits that shouldn't really belong, who squabble or argue yet grow and mature with one another while facing the everyday--to the not-so-every day in space--troubles and tribulations life throws at them. No, the story might not be new, but the backdrop, the setting and the way the story is told with a mix of believable science fiction that ultimately helps a viewer ease into the plot.
The sound was a bit dated in some spots, but focus in Planetes (I'd like to think), wasn't really centered on sound and more with the characters and story.
Speaking of story, let me just preface everything by saying if full out action is to your taste, Planetes won't be something you'll likely finish past the first few episodes.The series starts out almost as if it were an episodic in fixed setting. The tales, at first, focus on individual stories and aspects of character's lives which may trick you into thinking not much is going to happen. Planetes is deceptive, however. There's a very major plot and immense story with a very interesting message lurking behind the series slow start--if you can stick with it, I recommend doing so.
The deconstruction and reconstruction of characters were a delight to watch, over all, I count this series as one of the better out there. The quiet one waving their hand in the distance while the flashier, louder, brasher and generally fluff-filled ones shoulder their way ahead of them in order to trick you into not paying attention to the quiet one.
This is a great story I recommend to anyone who enjoys slice-of-life, science fiction, drama, character building series.
The summary should be more like: A girl joins the zany, underfunded Space Debris Section of the Technora Corporation and has to learn how to safely use the equipment to collect scrap in space before it can drift into a commercial, or other, vehicle and cause another tragedy. While working with them, she encounters situations from terrorists to strange men cosplaying as ninjas and starts to fall in love with her space-loving co-worker.
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Story
Although the story started out with a girl protagonist, it's instead a rather interesting bait-and-switch as the protagonist is actually one of the male members of the Space Debris Section, Hachiroto "Hachimaki" Hoshino.
The first half of the anime, up through episode 15, tells the story of how the new hire, Ai Tanabe, and Hachimaki both butt heads and get along. There are missions the group have to complete to haul space scrap back, and there's a big focus on mentions of Hachimaki's dream to own a spaceship as well as the budding relationship between Hachimaki and Tanabe.
There are a couple sub-plots involving corporate politics, trickle-down economics/politics, and an anti-space terrorist group, but these scenes don't make up the focus of the anime.
...and then episode 16 happens. And then episode 17 happens. And suddenly, it's like watching a completely different anime with the same characters.
The story from episode 17 onward clears up any doubts that the protagonist is Hachimaki, and splits between his sudden urge to want to try out for a Jupiter mission crew, heavy corporate politics, and terrorists.
In short, the latter half of the anime has absolutely nothing to do with collecting scrap and attempts to make multiple political messages while playing political ping-pong.
The pacing was also terrible. Not just the second half of the anime, but even the first half often suffered from "too many hands on deck". As in, there would be two or more episodic "plots" occuring during a single episode, which made it difficult to follow along with everything which was happening.
Meanwhile, the pacing of the second half certainly carried suspense with it, but that was due to it revolving around anti-space terrorists.
Honestly, none of the political parts interested me. Give me political intrigue and I immediatley start to zone out; that's how interested I am in politics. I started watching this because I thought it was going to be similar to Patlabor with its zany characters and job-related episodes, but it couldn't even stay on track with its concept of "scrap collecting to keep space safe".
Instead, it attempted to go into this Technora corporate politics while not telling the viewer exactly who/what Technora does for the majority of the anime (leaving me to wonder why their scrap collectors, groups of people who were necessary to keeping space safe according to the narrated intro of each episode, had such a meager budget).
It also attempted to become more of space-police/suspense/thriller than about keeping space clean while struggling to get their division more funding. If the anime had just stuck to the baseline of aforementioned sentence, instead of trying to bring these astronaut space-collectors into a plot involving terrorists (which is more of a plot for a police anime), it would have honestly been more coherent.
The first few episodes were pretty good, and there were one or two interesting episodes afterwards...but once it started to turn away from its initial premise, particularly after episode 16, it just attempted to become so many things that it wound up not telling a complete story. It even has unresolved plot holes after 26 episodes.
The anime did much better when it was focusing on Tanabe and Hachimaki's relationship as well as the antics which the Space Debris Section got up to. 3/10
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Characters
This is a rough one. The very first episode made it apparent that the characters certainly had plenty of personality, and many were even weird or strange. This immediately made it interesting since I felt like I wanted to know more about (most) of these characters.
However, the writing of the characters wasn't exactly consistant for all of them, and after episode 16, many characters suddenly did a complete 180 in personality.
Some characters remained fairly consistant. One of which is the female protagonist, Ai Tanabe, who is a justice-loving and very opinionated girl who lives up to her namesake as she talks about love being important often (yet without being annoying about it). On the flip side, there are times when she acts almost meek and demure, which makes it difficult to pin down exactly what she's all about. And waiting for her to demonstrate something she learned...well, those moments are short lived when they actually happen.
Then, there's the pilot of the ship, the Toy Box, which takes them out to the locations to pick up scrap: Fee Carmichael. She's exceptionally good at her job, and is probably one of the smartest members of the group; able to pick up on things out of the ordinary. She's a heavy smoker, which sometimes causes problems (mostly just for her), and has a temper when crossed. Still, she's always looking out for her fellow crew members.
There are two more characters worth mentioning here. One is the chief clerk of their division who is a fun-loving and jolly guy, but is typically useless and does nothing most of the time. He's typically seen either engaging in goofy antics or eating.
The other...well, I have to apologize to the (JPN) voice actor if it's his real voice, because every time Arvind Ravi spoke it felt like tiny spears stabbing through my ears. Not only was his voice obnoxious, but his personality was obnoxious as well. Watching his antics for too long actually gave me a headache between his voice and just his character's over the top personality.
All the other characters...it's hard to describe them because they don't really develop in a positive way. Hachimaki starts to; he bounces between being a jerk and being a nice guy, but then episode 17 happens...
I'll probably be saying that a lot. His character, and many others, took an oddly dark turn as they did their 180 in personality.
Hachimaki suddenly went into the longest BSoD (Blue Screen of Death; also called the "Heroic Blue Screen of Death") I have ever seen, and it was almost completely a random thing; like someone flipped a switch from "hotheaded dreamer" to "closed off sociopath".
A girl who took pride in her work, was very logical, and did things by the book started to fall in grace instead of working her way up all because she's...from a third-world country? Yet, she had accomplished so much up until then and it seemed that she was really going places due to that. The second half turned her into a completely different person who became too preoccupied with the status of one's birth.
Another character (who I will not reveal for spoiler reasons) does something similar, only this character isn't on screen enough to really get a grasp of that "fall from grace".
The second half of the anime was not kind to the way the characters were developing. In the anime's attempt to turn it into a mix of political intrigue and police (terrorist) drama, it had many characters go down really weird (and honestly, out of character) moments and paths.
Some people might like the darker path the characters turned to, but to me it felt unnatural with the paths they had been following up until then. As I said before, some of them felt like the writer flipped a literal switch to cause them to behave in a way which just came out of left field.
On one hand, it certainly surprised me as I wasn't expecting it; after all the writing, reading, and anime watching I've done, I can typically subconsciously "see" where a plot and-or its characters is headed. This one managed to throw me for a loop, and while I typically commend any writing which is able to do that, I can't in this case because the change in these characters honestly just didn't make any sense to me.
These were characters initially made for an anime about protecting space via removing scrap, but were suddenly placed in a more hostile set of circumstances (corporate politics, terrorism, ect) which did not support their current character development or personalities.
Characters such as Lee and the managers of the Section didn't see as much screentime in that second half because their characters couldn't even really be wedged into the darker plot the anime was attempting. I couldn't stand most of the characters in the second half.
All in all, the characters started out alright and were even getting me to like a good many of them near the end of the first half, but then the story demanded something darker of them and many of them either became shadows or suddenly turned and became almost a completely different person.
4/10, and only for the first half.
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Sound & Animation
A couple points deducted from Sound for the voice of Ravi. The rest was fine; the opening and exit songs were good (I particularly liked the outro song), and the BGM carried the tone most of the time. There were occasional times when the music didn't exactly match what was happening, but ironically enough that sort of BGM arrangement flourished in the second half where the mood was more somber.
6/10. I'm not sure how the dub voices are, but if it's any better than the screeching of Ravi then I suppose add one point.
Animation...most of the time, it was fine. There were, however, times when the animation felt too stiff. The aesthetics might turn some people off, as well, especially if they aren't used to the sort of style of the (late) 90's.
There were some weird moments in the animation in the second half, with jarring transitions to flashbacks. They were obviously supposed to be jarring, but it made it difficult to tell what was going on.
Other times, the characters would just stand around and not be very animated. I suppose that captures more of the "realism" aspect (which the art style apparently was going for), but it also made some scenes feel a little flat.
Still, I feel that what it had was enough to keep me interested, and probably other viewers, so I'll give it a 7/10.
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Overall
I suppose I'd possibly recommend the first 15 episodes, but not much past that. And even the first episodes have pacing issues and worldbuilding issues.
I was confused about what Technora did, and there really wasn't too much emphasis of the scrap collecting process (where, apparently, scrap brought in by scrap collectors would be melted down in order to be remade into other products).
The second half of the anime was dark and suspenseful, and turned the characters into shadows of themselves as the anime played with plotlines outside of its initial premise...which wasn't a good look for it and had me grumbling (and getting bored) multiple times. It tried to be political; it tried to highlight corporate wars; it tried to include police thriller/suspense-type situations...and it forgot that it was supposed to be about making space safer via collecting scrap; not stopping terrorists.
Watching the second half was like being inserted into someone's weird AU, OOC fanfic; smack dab in the middle. I think that's the best way to describe the second half of the anime.
There were so many better ways that could have been handled, but I feel like if I say more then I'll just keep repeating my prior criticisms about the poor pacing in the first half and...whatever the second half was trying to do.
I don't understand what people saw in this, particularly after episode 16. This anime even had 26 episodes, and still left a couple loose ends. Sorry fans of this anime, but I personally cannot give this more than a 4/10.
Farewell Space Garbage Truck Yamma….. Oh, is that not the title?
Story - 5/10
The show starts off with a very innovative and interesting concept. After a little over One Hundred Years in space, the human race has gone on to build bases on the Moon and Mars. With all that new technology floating around, along with the thousands of ships and satellites over the years, comes a problem as old as man, what happens to the waste, specifically pieces of metal that are adrift, causing catastrophic damage to anything that it may collide with. Right in the middle of the solution to that problem sits our team, the members of Section Two’s Debris Section, or as they’ve been nicknamed “Half Section.”
Over the first few episodes they focus on the job of the team, as well as their newest member, Ai Tanabe. As the greenhorn of the bunch she’s teamed up with Hachirota Hoshino, or “Hachimaki” for short, one of the best E.V.A. (Extra Vehicular Activity) specialist in space. Together they do the physical work of actually collecting pieces of debris, heading out in space suits to bring in the haul. As the new girl, Ai is subject to Hachimaki’s tough love approach to teaching, wherein he believes screaming at someone works much better than taking the time to show them.
Through those first four episodes they try to use the time out in space to build the personalities of at least our two main characters, as well as their relationships with others that inhabit the space station.
Unfortunately things tend to fall off for the next almost dozen episodes, turning the story from a great space and sci-fi show, into a show unsure of what it wants to be. While the over arching plot of those next stories tends to be one of romance, each episode turns into filler that you’d expect for a series entering its hundredth episode, not its sixth. A random vacation episode and another about Hachimaki joining a group of “Ninjas” on the moon, are meant to showcase his bravery and risky behavior, but it has little affect on the rest of the series. They then include an episode that’s supposed to focus on the risks of being in space too long, a high chance of cancer, but it feels like a waste, as they do a much better job of telling the same exact story later in the series, and instead they should have focused on the point they ended on, that an astronaut has such a deep connection to space, they’d choose to live their last moment out in it’s darkness, than back on Earth.
Once the gang returns from the moon the show felt like it was getting back to where it should be, the job of clearing space for the safety of others. During this time we’re introduced to a few new important figures in the story, Hachi’s old instructor, Gigalt and his new protege Hakim. Both men work for the Orbital Security Agency, (O.S.A.) which is essentially the space police.
Soon after that meeting there begins a turning point in the show once again, now to a slight political thriller. With the colonization of space comes those who are against it, feeling that only the rich countries of the world will benefit from the exploration, and they believe instead that money should be used to help those starving and dying back on Earth. Their first attacks focus on placing bombs in smoking rooms across the solar system, but soon they attempt to take down the whole space station. Unwilling to allow that to happen, and a bit strung out from nicotine withdrawal, Fee, one of the members of Half Section’s team, uses a ship known as Toy Box, to ram the explosive laden ship back into Earth’s gravitational pull, protecting the space station, but destroying Toy Box in the process.
Again, instead of focusing on the new story taking place, we’re given more and more filler episodes meant mostly to joke around with the possible romance brewing between Hachimaki and Tanabe. A trip back to Earth to visit Hachimaki’s family does give a little insight into his drive; that he comes from a family of space explorers, but that still takes a back seat to useless plots, including an entertaining, but unnecessary, side story about Debris Section’s temporary secretary Edel, and one that’s supposed to show the shadier side of Technora (the company that runs the space operation) but which ends up not having any real impact on our story.
At this point the series starts to make the final dash towards the finishing line, which in our case is Jupiter. During a mission Hachimaki becomes untethered from his ship and floats off into space. Although he’s rescued, that experience leaves him suffering from a condition known as Spacial Loss Disorder, which causes him to be unable to mentally take the darkness of space without having a breakdown. After failing again and again at reacquiring his EVA license, the crew along with the help of Gigalt, has one last idea they think may help. They take Hachimaki to see the engine of the Von Braun space ship, which is set to head to Jupiter in the coming months, in hopes it reignites his desire to explore space. The experience does appear to return Hachi to his normal ways, but with one caveat, he starts to see an imaginary version of himself, one that constantly plants a seed of doubt in his mind by pointing out his failures.
None the less, Hachi decides to resign from debris section and take a risk at attempting to make it on the crew heading towards Jupiter. For the next several months he’ll be put through a series of tests that see if he’s capable of both withstanding the demands of the trip, as well being able to perform the tasks needed. He won’t be the only familiar face vying for a slot on the crew, as his old friend, and already accomplished ship pilot, Cheng-Shin will be trying out, as well as Hakim.
The competition is tough, but eventually Hachimaki and Hakim make it to the third round of testing, which takes place on the Von Braun itself. Here is where Hakim unveils his true intentions, not to be one of the first to travel to Jupiter, but to blow up the Von Braun before it can start it’s trip. His plan is partially foiled by Hachimaki, who sees Hakim’s attack not so much as one on the Von Braun itself, but on Hachi’s personal dream of space travel. In the ensuing chaos Hakim get’s away due to Hachimaki’s inability to pull the trigger, a choice that will haunt him for months to come.
Six months later the work to fix the Von Braun has been completed and they prepare for their unveiling, in conjunction with the first ever meeting of I.N.T.O. (those who back space exploration) big wigs in space. With all this ready to occur at once, the terrorist of the Space Defense Front decide that it would be the best time to make one final attack, one that will force the hands of I.N.T.O. With the local communications satellite hijacked, two teams lay siege to the Von Braun, one lead by Hakim and another by Hachi’s ex-girlfriend, Claire. Their plan is to crash the Von Braun into the moon’s biggest development, unless I.N.T.O. agrees that the resources of space will be divided equally amongst all the world’s countries, regardless of their monetary contributions to the program.
The two sides fight it out over several hours, with both taking massive casualties. One of those who appears hurt is Ex-space station employee Claire, but luckily she’s found by an oblivious Tanabe, and the two escape the ship, crash landing on the moon. Back on the ship Hachi finally gets his shot at redemption when he catches Hakim off guard, and while this time he was able to pull the trigger, fate step in and left him with an unloaded gun, and that’s where it all comes crumbling down.
No, not the ship, as I.N.T.O. gave in to the terrorist’s demands, and also were able to retake control of the ship and keep it from crashing into the moon. What came crashing down was any chance of the show becoming entertaining once again. As neurotic as this show was, there still was the overall space feel to it, but as it wound down it just become one hundred percent sappy love drama. Instead of focusing on the mission at hand, it’s two episodes that span well over a year, dealing with Hachi and Ai’s eventual relationship, a big copout to end the series.
For the most part I felt this series had such a strong base and great potential, but they gave up on that in order to make something with little originality. When they did get to areas that could have been interesting, such as the whole terrorism angle (even if I did think they tried to take the simpletons way of trying to justify it) they left it incomplete and just shoehorned bits and pieces into the story. No real storyline was ever developed outside of a bad romance plot with an ending you can see a mile a way. Making it all the worse was how that ending, much like the entire show, gave us absolutely no substance.
Animation - 7/10
One of the first choices that really stood out was that despite being set fifty years or so in the future, not much has really changed. Despite being in space, and having colonies on the moon, most of the people still dress the same and back on Earth vehicles and homes haven’t changed a bit. It may show a slight lack of vision, but I also think it helped keep you in the story and not paying attention to some fourth tier animator’s idea of what travel and entertainment will be like in the future.
I enjoyed that the animators did their best to try and make sure each person look unique and as if they were from different parts of the world, without being too comical. While the Chief was a little roly-poly, it was a nice change from the typical Six foot Eight musclebound American that these shows normally have. Likewise, even though they are supposed to come from fictional countries, you can almost tell where Claire and Hakim’s origin’s are meant to be, from their look.
The scenery is done pretty well for what it needs to be. As a space show almost everything falls into two categories, the darkness of space, or the sterile and metallic look of a space station. Despite the simplicity of the locations, they added nice little flourishes of detail here and there to add life to the scenes. The most visually dense areas of the show are the scenes on the moon. Between the detailed slum, the bustling city and the rocky surface, they made a choice to show that despite being in space, things haven’t changed much from the cities of Earth.
Sound - 7/10
The American distribution company Bandai actually did a very good job of putting together the English dub, one that I can honestly say out performed the Japanese cast (which I talk about on the Audio Drama Review.) Each voice matches it’s character’s look and demeanor almost perfectly, from the goofy Ravi, the level headed Yuri or the determined Hakim, every voice worked.
It doesn’t hurt that many in the voice cast have had giant rolls prior to this series, with the female lead Ai being one of the only relatively green VO actors in the cast. Despite these actors having previously voiced such big characters as Spike Spiegel, Milly Thompson, Hajime Saitou and Faye Valentine, they all delivered a performance that kept your head in the series, not imagining their voices from other shows.
The opening song isn’t great, but it’s uplifting nature does somewhat meld with Tanabe and the whole idea of people striving for greatness in space, it almost sounds like a song created for the Olympics. The ending song is a bit more poppy and not in line with the series itself, but does fit right in with what you’d expect for an anime.
Characters - 4/10
The two main characters of the show come across as having some of the worst qualities you’d want in a person, not to mention in a character you’re supposed to root for. While at times that could be over looked, it’s instead made worse by the fact both are highly unoriginal in their attitude and progression throughout the series.
Hachirota Hoshino is our male lead of the series, and he’s created more like a show’s sidekick. Brash, quick to anger and unable to traverse the mysteries of love, traits we’ve seen bundled up before in dozens of male characters from in series from Kenshin to GTO. His goal in life is to own his very own space ship, though no where throughout the series does he explain how he plans on doing so, since even the greatest debris collector wouldn’t be making that type of money.
For the majority of the first half of the season his character is split between two tasks, yelling at Tanabe or trying to make up excuses for not liking her. Towards the start of the back half of the series he begins to become a bit interesting. After having a slight mental break, due to being lost in space for a short period of time, Hachi has a revelation, that he wants to join the crew of the Von Braun, something he’s fought against for the previous few months. He now becomes a character with a somewhat attainable goal, and his demeanor changes from a clueless young man, to one determined to fly to Jupiter.
While on Earth, competing for the job aboard the Von Braun, Hachi’s whole personality does a one eighty. No longer does he feel like he’s part of a team, every move he makes, no matter who it hurts, is meant to get on that space ship. While he still holds doubts about his ability to make it, he really falls victim to his insecurities when, in an attempt to stop Hakim’s first terrorist attack, Hachi just can’t pull the trigger and save the ship. He holds onto that feeling of helplessness for almost six months, and the next time the terrorists attack, Hachi no longer hesitates to kill Hakim.
What he thought would cure his ills only made things worse. He see’s what this desire to be the best has caused and he tries to take his own life, which leads to an extended stay on earth to recuperate. While there he has a new epiphany, that Tanabe has been right all along, that everyone is connected and their love can overcome anything. This new found belief in life, along with Tanabe’s hand in marriage, carry him off to Jupiter with a new outlook…..and a completely garbage character arc.
Hachimaki’s counterpart is Ai Tanabe, a new recruit the space station, who’s test scores left her with the worst possible job, debris collector. Despite Hachi’s always negative attitude, Ai tries to be optimistic about both her job and life itself, believing love can eventually conquer all hardships. The writers could have made her a bit more tolerable if they had her positive attitude a bit subtle, but instead they laid it on thick, making her more of an naive optimist who believes in a world of rainbows and unicorns, because she isn’t intelligent enough to wrap her head around reality.
Instead of taking time to build Tanabe as a great character, that grows over time into a strong EVA pilot in her own right, they just have her spiral off into being a love sick girl, who only ever has her crush on her mind. Once Hachi leaves for the Jupiter program almost the entire extent of her airtime is spent jhaving her think about Hachi and missing him. The only time it did seem as if they were going to make her an interesting character, when she could have turned on Claire in order to save herself, she instead stayed as the boring idealist thinking love will come and whisk them off to safety.
The series really dropped the ball when it comes to the supporting characters. They give a few of them interesting back stories, and episodes of their own, but none ever get built into more than what feels like minor background characters. The entire secondary Debris Section crew are far more entertaining and likable than those who the show focuses on (a point that’s heightened when you watch the Audio Drama and realize it surpasses the show in entertainment value.)
The defacto leader of the group, and the person with the most potential, is Fee, the pilot of Toy Box. While they lightly touch on her background, they leave so much out there to write about her, such as her family back on Earth or her time working with Dolf over at his former company. She may not be a completely original character, the woman with a man’s attitude, but she at least was written as someone with a real head on her shoulders as well as some humanizing faults.
Yuri is another character, that despite getting his own stand alone episode, still would have been a great addition to the show if used more often. He’s a Russian member of the ship who decided to get into the area of debris retrieval after his wife was killed when a bolt pierced the ship she was traveling in. The calmest and most level headed of the group, he’s often seen taking care of the animals in debris section, many of which he’s belong to friends and colleagues.
Phillip Myers and Ravi, the Chief and Assistant Chief subsequently, round out the official Debris section team. Both are there primarily for comic relief, but at times Ravi has to act as the stern parent of the group, a task in which his rules are usually ignored. The one unofficially member of the section is temp worker Edel, who’s job is to be the secretary, but often she’s stuck doing any managerial work Phillip and Ravi fail at. During the season she’s given a small episode to explain her past and why she’s on the ship, all information who’s time could have been better spent on a character with actual impact on the series.
The next other group of secondary characters can be called friends and associates, most of whom play a major role in the series, but again don’t get the attention they really deserve. Most of these characters have previous relationships with Hachi and tend to shape the way he thinks and acts.
The first is Cheng-Shin, a long time friend who has actually succeeded in becoming a space craft pilot. He and Hachi always got along very well, until Tanabe came into the picture. After Hachi states he has no interest in Tanabe, Cheng-Shin makes his move, though it doesn’t last very long once he finds out Tanabe has a crush on Hachi. Things seem okay until he flunks out of the Jupiter test after attempting to help another candidate who was injured. Once back in the space station he starts to spiral out of control, he attempts to force himself onto Tanabe and eventually gets removed as a co-pilot from the shuttle. After working his way back up we eventually lose track of him, and like many other in the show he gets an incomplete story.
Another character who is closely connected to Hachi is his ex-girlfriend Claire. While Hachi is just a lowly grunt in half section, Claire is an important member of Control Section, the highest level of the space station. After meeting Hakim, and seeing a fellow countryman of hers taken into custody by the O.S.A., she decides to join the Space Defense Front and help pressure I.N.T.O. into (I hated having to just write that) changing their resource dispersement plans. After being injured in the fight to take control of the Von Braun, she’s rescued by Ai, and the two of them crash land on the moon. Unlike Ai, her oxygen consumption was minimum, so she didn’t receive any permanent damage from her time lost in space. After being arrested for her crimes, she decides to help the authorities so she would get released early and can return to her homeland and actually help those living there.
The last significant character is the aforementioned Hakim Ashmead, a double agent working for the Orbital Security Agency. Trained by the same man as Hachimaki, at first the two seem as if they’re destine to become close friends. During the tryouts for the Jupiter mission it’s revealed that Hakim is also attempting to board the Von Braun, and soon his friendship with Hachi becomes more of a rivalry, as he feels Hachi is a naive little boy just looking to play spaceman for his own benefit. The reasoning behind his change of heart towards Hachi becomes very clear, when upon finally making aboard the Von Braun, he attempts to blow it up. When Hachi proves unable to shoot him, he escapes and returns six months later to enact the final plan of the terrorists. When we last see Hakim, he’s attempting to sneak into the moon base to kill as many people as he can, but has a change of heart when a young Lunarian comments how the view from space makes all Earth’s countries look the same, causing him to rethink what he’s done.
Other characters have small yet important parts throughout the series, like Hachi’s old sensei Gigalt, Fee’s friend and former second division boss Dolph, and Werner Locksmith, the C.E.O. and brains behind the Von Braun. Each are given interesting plots that could be touched on at length, such as Gigalt’s time training Hachi or his work with the O.S.A., Dolph’s old company that Fee worked for, or Werner’s secret dealings and the choices he’s made to get the Von Braun up and running, but alas we get nothing of the sort.
Like the series itself, the characters fall apart because the writers can’t stick to one train of thought. Right when it seems as if a character is building some personality and becoming interesting, they fly off into something else. The weakest attempt at this is when they make Hachi, Cheng-Shin and Hakim all have essentially the same breakdown, with only Hachi getting an actual explanation to his return to sanity. If they laid off the filler and the repetitive episodes about Hachi and Ai’s love, they might have had something very good, but instead too many characters and potential plots were left on the shelf.
Overall - 6/10
While I did very much enjoy the series, it always felt like the creators were trying to sabotage themselves. The initial story started out so well, but then, minus a handful of episodes, it became a terribly annoying romance series. Once things picked themselves back up they decided to again throw in plots that just came across as out of place, created from thin air in order to try and insert a little drama.
The biggest turnoffs really came from the constant preaching, be it by Tanabe or the overall second half story, where they tried to use stale arguments that placed the terrorist as the real “good guys.”
In the end Planetes was a very very good movie, surrounded by very very bad filler. A story about a new worker joining a space crew, and falling in love with her superior, his struggles to succeed at his task of joining the Jupiter mission and even the added drama of the terrorist attacks, would work great within a two hour span. That story surrounded by fifteen episodes of bad romance, not so much.
What started out as a boring, episodic yarn turned out to be an exciting, smart thriller.
If it weren't for the first half of the series being almost completely worthless (despite what others may say, those episodes are not relevant to the ending), the score would have been far higher.
If you have a high boredom threshhold/nothing better to do, then you may not mind.
Regardless, I guess it was worth it.
Opening and ending themes are abismal, however.
Mi Inglish Is Tirrible but I'm trying my best, so my apologies if there is any error, I should fix them as soon as I notice them.
The Good Part
The Bad Part
Story (Superb)
I take my hat off to the staff of this show, I heard a lot of opinions about Planetes and never felt attracted since the premise sounded like a documental: the life of a work team who pick up spacial garbage. But.. I WAS WRONG!
Indeed, it is something simple, most of it is episodic, and some episodes are silly, you even have a lot of stereotypical characters, So I still find hard to believe how could they make this so awesome, but what they did is something I barely see on anime, and that is that they try hard to get the best of everything, You really become interest in their work because it is incredible detailed, realistic and damn interesting and we are talking about garbage men! They just don't focus in their job they had but in the world and moon situation as well with the same quality of details, in other words everything is beautifully explained.
As well, it has great episodes, BUTT its also have silly and far-fetched episodes and most of it is episodic. normally episodic means common life and the characters grow so slow cause they focus in entertainment and leave at one side the important characters development. It also have something I dislike, that is the far-fetched episode that normally are things I think they shouldn't have added since they doesn't gives anything to the plot, and I am talking about serious plots (silly ones may have all that they want). BUT this is different, all the episodes are worth it, even the exagerated ones, they are hell of entertaining and at the same time they make you to understand better certain situations and certain characters. You can feel how despite of being episodic everything flows natural as well the characters grow. And the best part, they don't forget about the past, all the episodes become relevant in the future in someway.
They develop something that was simple and complex, realistic and fantastic, funny and serious, superficial and deep, childish and mature. Science Fiction, Slice-Of-Life, Romance, Comedy,Political issues, and some bits of psychologic and action. And they give a proper focus to all this things I mention, and a hard thing when you have so many antonyms.
Animation (Great)
As well, they manage to do the animation as best they could, love the body and face design, all the expressions were neat and appropiate, they look realistic but at the same time dynamic. The "camera" angles were magnificent many times, The spaceships, and all the enviroments look great. They don't have iPads and that stuff, and the futuristic aspects doesn't seem to be as stunning as sci-fi shows, despite this, everything really looks like something believable, is not like Back To The Future II were everything looks ridiculous in the future, and this is what I loved about its animation.
Sound (Great)
Voices were excelent, all of them were made to fit their characters. Sound is also good, it nevers feels off.
Unfortunately I was careles, I did a huge mistake and didn't give the music section the proper attention before, Since well it doesn't has any theme so you don't go humming nothing about it since nothing is really catchy or something that you will remember always, I stated that before, but I make it look like if it wasn't great and that it was only good to give you the athmosphere, well that is also true, it always sets you in the correct mood, but everything is so beautiful made, it accomplish tremendously the purpose of what the music is for and that is to let you feel.
Characters (Superb)
The story and characters are pretty well jointed so it was hard to speak of one in specific, they were both great complement to each others. You get many characters based in stereotypes, but they all had succeed in being unique, memorable, and likeable, and not only that, but they did it with a big cast, the support characters received almost the same development as the 2 main characters. The presentation of them was outstanding, it takes you sometimes less than a 10 minutes to feel like you know some of them. And this is because of the presentation, cause if we talk about getting to know them, they do that very subtle as the anime goes on and at the end you can see everybody has fears, motivations, consistency. They didn't make it deeply but sure they have implicit complexity because of how detailed they were.
Enjoyment (Superb)
This wasn't even like they wanted to dedicate this show to any kind of audience, they just cared to make it good. And glad they did it cause they did it GOOD, they didn't leave any aspect disregarded, they focus on making everything to be accurate as they could and they didn't forget about the entertainment, It wasn't just laughs, indeed, I laugh a lot; you have serious parts, sometimes you feel intrigue, sometimes you feel curious, and a lot of many emotions, and they also did that GOOD.
Overall (Great)
A hell of show, amazing story, beutifully developed characters, something I will watch all of it again and again cause is far from being boring, And all from a very simple idea.
Got to love Fee, that woman rocks!