Planetes

A mature low sci-fi drama set in space? "Sign me up!," or so I was thinking when I started this series. Unfortunately, my hopes were dashed within the first episode. The plot in a nut shell is fine; it's a simple slice of life set in space, musing on various aspects of the human condition. Zoom in any closer than that, though, and the cracks start to appear. The show is preachy, to say the least. Every episode is some vehicle for the author to set up straw men and knock them down to carry a shallow message across. ... Every character that stands opposite the crew of Debris Section in some way is a cartoonish caricature of a human. Expect antagonists to be obese, old men with shockingly little tact, to a self-destructive point. They will say the worst possible thing with little care for advancing their own cause only to make it that much easier for the heroes to rebuke them (and how they do!) It's almost as if the author has a bias! The only unfavorable conflict in which both sides even come close to being given a fair shake is the major one toward the end, Hachimaki's inner-turmoil regarding loneliness. However, this conflict is resolved with a deus ex machina that completely invalidates the entire point. Now, I should mention at this point that most of the stances the show takes on various issues are generally agreeable. People ought come before money, it's not good to shut yourself off from others, and all the other self-evident sentiments that are repeated ad nauseum in Japanese media. I'm not particularly taking issue with the show regurgitating these themes you've doubtless seen hundreds of times before (though it IS a point against it.) What makes this so infuriating is the way in which these themes are presented. I've already mentioned the straw men that unfairly and poorly convey the opposing viewpoints, but what makes it so much worse is that the heroes that topple these effigies are the most obnoxious, sanctimonious naifs you could write. Tanabe is a self-righteous, nosy, bitch who constantly intrudes into others' lives and can't let anything go without making sure everyone knows her opinion on it, and won't leave it at that, either. It's not just enough for her to make her beliefs known, she won't drop an issue until everyone else kowtows to her. The worst thing is that she is almost unfailingly portrayed as "correct." Same with basically any other member of DB-12, although she is by far the worst. I'm not saying you can't create holier-than-thou characters, in fact, it would be odd if characters didn't have some flaw. But when you put them on a pedestal and are completely oblivious to the fact that their flaw is grating, you shouldn't be surprised when the audience is turned off.

To make matters worse, the show makes a grand blunder that the authors probably didn't foresee. The show supposedly takes place in an international setting where all the nations are coming together, but the business and social climate is distinctly and emphatically Japanese. The series spends it's entire time tearing down traditional Japanese norms such as the extremely rigid adherence to hierarchy and caste, notions that have long since evaporated from Western civilization. A foreign audience will plainly see the ills that the showrunners, being stooped in such a society, must think are some hidden truth. The show acts as if these refutations of Japanese society are some revolutionary theses. It would almost be quaint if the show weren't so damn pious about it, as mentioned previously.

One final note, is that there (unsurprisingly) is a romance between Hoshino and Tanabe. This plot thread raises its foot and firmly stamps its boot upon your head. It's obvious, it's unoriginal, it's absolutely uninspired and bland, yet it's given the full treatment of any romance. It's presence is constant and will keep coming up to make your eyes roll, and it NEVER goes away. If you decide to watch this, despite my firm insistence that you not, at least understand that I tried to warn you.

The soundtrack is not so great either. It's mostly serviceable, save for one thing: cringe-worthy Engrish vocal tracks. It's easy to ignore or even appreciate the ambient music, but when these silly songs come around, it's hard to hold back laughter.

To it's credit, the anime LOOKS spectacular. The Blu-Ray specifically is absolutely gorgeous, and if it weren't for the artstyle, you'd think it was made just this year. The clean visuals are an undeniable glimmering star in an otherwise vacuous sea of nothingness.

To summarize in case you just want the bottom line, this anime is an immature treatise the author(s) cooked up, conveyed via mostly insubstantial one-off short stories that are a dime a dozen. It could have been so much more but it's brought down entirely by the pompous egos of the dewy-eyed writers.

This is a slow anime in the beggining, in which nothing happens, and too fast paced in the second half, in a way that may confuse one.

There are a bunch of annoying characters (Tanabe and the whole comic relief crew, I'm looking at you guys). Also, the relationship between the Debris team is not well made, and there is not enough time to build the characters that are very important in the final part of Planetes. They also didn't take enough time building the main couple.

Another confusing thing is that sometimes there is a lot of attention to little details to make the space atmosphere ... believable, but at the same time you can never be sure on whether there is gravity or not. I'd think that nowhere in the ship has gravity, but sometimes it seems like they walk like they would in earth and in others they float. It bothered me a lot.

I think Planetes is a season too short, or they could have used the episodes better, instead of throwing useless fillers. The "slice of life in space" has major flaws due to lack of attention to details and the policits/action part in the end is confusing.

I'd not recommend this anime.

Saw the whole thing a few years ago, had my gripes, but ended up liking it for its flaws. Come a month ago and an attempted re-watch and suddenly through the mystery of time it has turned into utter garbage. I made it to episode 6.

The animation, superficial of a concern as it might be to some, was my number one problem. I have no idea what the budget was but with competent directors you can make up for that with stylization and clever sleight of hand, so there is really no excuse; the overall problem is production incompetence. People turn into blobs when the ... camera shows their whole body, many scenes in zero-g are a somewhat clever but obvious way to save on costs as static cells of people are dragged lateral by mouseclick, up and down, all around, which is good, in an indirect way, as much of the time when someone actually moves it looks like a scribble, the line work inconsistent and the physics too weightless, in an extreme, to be a realistic lack of gravity. The character designs when consistent are overly reliant on solid colors, and the voice-work matches only because it sounds flat and often clashes, as if consisting of single takes; everything looks and sounds lazy and ugly.

There is underneath all of that a juvenile approach to storytelling, almost unworthy of analysis because of how much effort it takes to tolerate its visual telling. Although I'm aware the series becomes less episodic, it still follows, in a broader way, the formula of these early episodes:

Characters who consist as human beings of one trait (idealistic newcomer, out of touch manager, vicious fat blowhard, rich spoiled tween) interact with each other in sentences which are entire summations of the paragraph that consists of their world-view, so that they can be negated by the ideology of the characters you're expected to sympathize with more, though they are developed further than the antagonists in no way but through victories granted by plot contrivance. Reality works in this apparent way: characters are exceptional people, and thus matter, or they are living under the failure of an unfulfilled dream of being an exception; in one instance a five year old is threatened by knife-point and her distraught parents try to persuade the would-be killer that her life is worth continuing because one day she might be a famous pilot, a perfect wife, etc.

Later on, when there is the sense that a main plot kicks in and the concerns become more nuanced, the actual difference is that this view of human nature is protracted and the end result subverted when it is no longer sustainable; the grand moral message the main character arrives at is in straight terms, 'Friends matter more than being the best.' The train of thought isn't carried onto its logical conclusion, in a theoretical final scene which takes place after the last frame, where the main character slams his forehead, realizes the following and, I don't know, cries to swelling woodwind music: human nature is not so mathematical that any example of an exceptional person you can name arrived there by genetic and fate-based predestination, or alienating friends and becoming a distant, obsessive asshole. But in the philosophical framework of Planetes, regular people do not matter until through a 16 episode story arc a main character arrives at a logical fallacy that justifies their choice in a giving up/never giving up universal dichotomy.

So there is no point suffering through the formula in micro.

Too many times does a character walk on screen and speak to the viewer, outlining the plot, begging for the emotional reaction the plot requires to succeed.

Too many times the main female character begins to speak in an abstract way about love, which I remember ceasing at some point, by the third time it happens done so without commitment, the writers seemingly aware of it sounding like nonsense, so that she accosts someone and quickly a character begins to introspect, the camera wanders away, there is some distraction, until finally she gains characterization in the realization that inner feelings do not transform exterior reality, which is the psychological definition of the conventional route a well-adjusted person takes in maturing from the toddler stage into adolescence.

Minor characters, come the last episode, still consist of one-note impossibilities. A manager is incompetent in all ways for the sake of punchlines, though by the end suspension of disbelief that a functioning workplace can result renders the entire, cosmos-wide setting implausible, grants nothing a sense of being real and lived in.

The aforementioned little girl who is kidnapped spends her episode being a cute child, so that we feel bad her parents (they tell us their reasons as if we're in the room and have demonstrated our ignorance) meantime spend the episode conspiring to kill her; instead of being a regular child, she is naturally hyper-vigilant in being sympathetic, and her lines could just as well consist of:

Hohoho, I sure love being alive~!

Uwaah, life is so fun, I hope it never ends~!

Most damning of all for anything animated, there is no reason for this to be animated. Sure, if it were live-action, there would be a high cost attached to the sets and to emulating the conditions of space, but nothing which happens in the series breaks the physics of the real world or expresses anything unique that requires the intervention of pen and paper.

This is another entry in the class of anime which attempt to be 'more than a cartoon,' but in the end fall short of the depth of soap opera. Its only distinguishing feature is that it consists of the the weaknesses of two mediums at once; there is less of a reason for Planetes to exist than the worst examples of Shounen anime and bad live-action television.

Planetes is a show I wanted to love.   If I step out my front door, turn left and throw a tennis ball as far as possible, it would land in the parking lot of JPL, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, where virtually all of America's unmanned spacecrafts and probes were designed and built including Voyager, Viking, Mariner, Galileo, Cassini plus all the Mars rovers. 

My father was the Chief Scientist of JPL for almost 15 years and I love all things relating to space exploration.   I was supposed to love this show. 

Watching great anime is like feasting on your favorite dessert, savoring all ... the delicious flavors (characters) and then looking forward to the next scrumptious bite (episode) when you're finished. 

But watching Planetes is like reading the printed recipe for that favorite dessert in a cookbook instead of eating it.  

Fans of the show universally say, "the first 10 episodes start off slow, introducing you to the individual characters, then later episodes build on that as the relationships grow."  

In reality, each of the first 10 episodes feel like a line from the list of ingredients:
1 overly optimistic wide-eyed female MC
1 brooding abrasive male MC  
2 inept managers who act as comic relief
1 chain smoking female supervisor who fills the void left by the inept managers
1 mysterious Russian with a sad backstory hinted at.
2 eggs
1/4 tbsp salt

The next 6 or 7 episodes feel like the recipe instructions on how to combine those ingredients:

Combine secondary characters into a low regarded debris removal section and stir until thoroughly mixed.
In a separate mixing bowl combine optimistic female MC with brooding abrasive male MC until the later is softened.
Heat 1 inept manager until he is forced to stand up for himself, thus winning the approval of his family and co-workers.
Take mysterious Russian and flash back to his tragic past until sympathy is thickened.

But by the time we get to the heart of the story, when the combined ingredients should be tossed into the oven to bake at 375 degrees until golden brown, the whole recipe just falls apart.  The ingredients never fully mix and end up separating like oil and water.  After taking so much time to develop the crew of the Debris Removal Section as a cohesive unit, they just drift apart in angry, mean-spirited ways. 

The storyline suddenly shifts from debris removal to the first manned mission to Jupiter and all the subsequent political machinations, office politics, terrorist threats and astronaut competitions end up feeling like they substituted salt for sugar in the desert recipe.  It just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

STORY
It is a uniquely Japanese concept to explore "the mundane within the extraordinary" and Planetes, aka "Garbage Men in Space" bills itself as another prime example.  Combined with the near universal praise for this series and I was really looking forward to it.   Many fans of the show say how much Planetes makes you think about the social implications of space travel and the cost/benefits of exploration.  Unless you are an infantile socialist, this could not be further from the truth.  

The characters hold childish, petty and often violent perspectives.  In the world of Planetes, there are a few wealthy countries like the U.S. and Japan that explore space while poor, 3rd world countries are all but excluded from participating.  Citizens of those third world countries who rise through the ranks and become astronauts end up being terrorists-in-waiting because they believe that the money being spent will only benefit first world countries.  Therefore they seek to destroy the Jupiter spaceship, kill everyone living on the moon and end space exploration once and for all.  

PHILOSOPHY
First of all, the United States and Japan can spend their own money on whatever they want.  The idea that a third world terrorist thinks that the U.S. and Japan are morally obligated to feed the poor and solve the social ills of all other countries first before exploring space is absurd.  Second, all the terrorists want to do is destroy the human space program, as if crashing a prototype spaceship into a lunar colony (killing 120,000 people in the process) will somehow help their suffering countrymen.  Finally, the idea that the space program only benefits the few countries involved in it is an embarrassingly naïve misunderstanding of reality.  For the creators of this show - who display an incredible depth of knowledge of space crafts, rockets and famous astronauts - to not grasp how patently wrong this premise is defeats the purpose of the show and its so-called philosophical explorations.

I recall a friend of mine telling me his belief that the Apollo missions to the moon were a waste of money because, "What did we discover on the moon that was worth the expense?"  The answer is simple: absolutely nothing.  Nothing ON the moon truly helped mankind as a whole. But GETTING to the moon drastically improved the lives of billions. Without the U.S. space program the world would not have cellular phones, micro-processors, satellite communication, GPS, cutting edge medicines, freeze dried foods, (and most importantly, pens that can write upside down). 

These advancements have helped the entire planet.  Third world countries would never have been able to build out cable or fiber optic networks buried in the ground to provide fast, reliable communication to every remote town and village.  It would forever remain an impossibly expensive dream.  But today, these countries currently rely on wireless and cellular satellite technology that would not exist without the space program.  In fact, some of these poorer countries have BETTER communication systems because they have one single, ultra modern standard using the same satellites and tech that first world countries use, while wealthier countries have a blend of 80's era cable, 90's era phone lines as well as modern wireless - all competing for subscribers.  To those poorer countries, upgrading their "infrastructure" is as simple as getting a new phone, while in the U.S. legacy systems remain after decades.  (You want proof:  As I type this review from Los Angeles, I have mediocre cable TV, slow DSL via ATT's copper phone wires and Verizon 4G cellular.)  

I have no problem with philosophical debates on controversial topics and enjoy unique perspectives I may not agree with.  But the terrorism and violence espoused in Planetes as a valid means of effecting change is beneath the dignity of a pro-science show about realistic space exploration.

[MILD SPOILERS AHEAD...but only ones that reveal how annoying the show can be.]
    
CHARACTERS
AI TANABE (FEMALE MC).  Tanabe starts off as so self-righteously annoying that I almost stopped watching after episode three.  In an early episode, the debris removal team retrieves a casket belonging to an old astronaut buried in space that failed to break free from Earth's gravity.  The astronaut's surviving daughter asks that the casket be sent out into deep space as initially planned.  But even though it's Tanabe's first week on the job, she violates direct orders (and the relative's wishes), goes back out in space without permission and threatens to burn the casket in the atmosphere if her team doesn't agree to return the casket back to Earth for a proper burial.  Why?  Because of LOVE, silly.  She believes the corpse in the casket changed its mind and no longer wants to drift in space alone forever, even though we learn in flashbacks that the astronaut was a distant, aloof man who barely spent time with his family.  And with eyes filled with tears, holding the casket above her head, while floating in space, Tanabe proclaims that people are supposed to be together.  You and I would be fired if we did someting this stupid...but Tanabe melts everyone's heart and her 'demands' are agreed to.

HACHIROTA:  The male MC is...a dick.  After a poorly crafted pseudo-romance with Tanabe, his outer shell is melted away revealing...an even bigger dick.  He has a massive chip on his shoulder that only grows larger as the story progresses and he pushes everyone away.  Frankly, we never truly learn why.  He's just...a dick.  Despite his romance with Tanabe, when the Jupiter mission is announced he resigns from Debris Removal to apply for a coveted astronaut position without telling anyone.  And that's the end of his relationship with Tanabe and his affiliation with the section.  We never again have an episode where Debris Removal works together.  And when Tanabe calls to ask him how he is doing he treats her like she's a nuisance.  

I can see where people who watch all 26 episodes (like myself) can feel a little better by the end.  The last 2 episodes wrap up most of the storylines in rather sappy, melodramatic ways, but they are totally unmotivated.  Imagine your boyfriend or girlfriend bails on you without a word, disappears for six months, then you almost get killed in a terrorist attack trying to visit them one last time to make sure their last hateful comments to you weren't true, only to be ignored for another several months as you recover from nerve damage and have them show up to say they finally realized that the two of you are "connected" because "all things in space are connected."  Would you accept their marriage proposal?  Didn't think so.  

FEE:  Fee Carmichael is a fun chain-smoking character who really keeps the Debris Removal Section together.  She pilots the ship, aka The Toy Box, and makes sure everyone does their jobs.  Unfortunately, she is not given much of a storyline.  She basically acts as the glue that keeps the other crazy, selfish or lazy characters from causing too much trouble too quickly in the show.  Character change in Planetes almost always means changing into a worse version of yourself - so Fee's lack of change means we still like her by the end of the story.

YURI:  Yuri Mihalkov is another great secondary character with one of the best story arcs in the series.  He is very quiet, private, rarely laughs and works as if he is actually looking for a particular piece of space debris.  Over time we learn his secret and the reasons for his pain.  We then watched him overcome these hurdles and move on as a better, stronger person.  At first I thought the entire show would follow his example.  Had they done so, it would have made for an excellent series.  

The premise for Planetes is that in the near future, there is so much space junk in orbit that it is effectively clogging the interplanetary lanes to the stars prompting the formation of debris removal teams.  In the prologue, we see a commercial spacecraft destroyed as a result of a single screw traveling at high velocities.  [SPOILERS AHEAD]  A woman watches in horror as the  screw shatters her window, killing her and almost everyone on board.  We later learn that she is Yuri's wife, and he had just given her a small compass as a gift.  Yuri spent the next several years searching for that compass in space - trying to find some final link to his wife.  The episode where he finds it - and the risks he takes to retrieve it - is one of the most emotionally rewarding in the series.  After finding it, Yuri's personality changes, but he still feels trapped by his past.  In a later episode when they take a trip to Earth to the home of Hachirota, the compass is accidentally destroyed by Hachirota's brother.  Instead of being angry, Yuri feels relief and launches the compass back into space on a small rocket he helps Hachirota's kid brother build during their vacation.  This is Yuri's final  step in the healing process.  He honored his wife by finding the compass but let the pain of her death go by sending the broken compass back into space.  It's the perfect way of saying, "I just needed to see my beloved one more time, hold her in my arms and say a final goodbye to her."  Sadly, once Yuri's character traverses his arc halfway through the series, he - much like the broken compass - just floats around in space doing nothing until the series ends.

NONO:  Nono is a sweet teenage girl who was born on the moon and can never live on Earth because her body has permanently adjusted to the Moon's low gravity.  She lives in the moonbase hospital, constantly undergoing tests because she is one of the few moon babies.  Because she is a minor character who is not given her own storyline, she is loveable and kind.  That said, her kindness doesn't really rub off on anyone - especially Hachirota - who has the most screen time with her.

CLAIRE RONDO:  One of the worst parts of the writing is how many of the characters' personalities and morals turn on a dime to fit the inconsistent whims of the story.  For 23 episodes Claire is written as a hard working woman from a third world country who scrimped and scraped her way to the top.  She volunteers for difficult assignments just to keep proving herself and climbs high up the corporate ladder.  But after taking on too much work, she starts making mistakes and is then demoted to the Debris Removal Section.  Next thing you know, she's a bitter terrorist, not caring whether she kills the very co-workers who stood by her side during her demotion.  She's then inexplicably painted as a sympathetic character who Tanabe risks her own life to save.  In her final scene, Hachirota visits her in prison where she is given a 10-year prison term for the attempted genocide of 120,000 moon residents.

HAKIM:  The exact same thing happens with Hakim Ashmead, a top ranking security officer who befriends Hachirota early on.  Both were tutored by a great man named Gigalt who taught them to be hard working, professional, upstanding gentlemen.  Hakim helps the crew of the Toy Box out of many close calls and ends up resigning along with Hachirota to try out for an astronaut position on the Jupiter mission.  Oh, yeah, I almost forgot...he's actually a terrorist who badly damages the ship with explosives.  Even worse, Hachirota is in a position to stop him not once...but twice, but can't seem to pull the trigger to disable or kill him.  For the record, Hachirota never displayed this sacred view on life when it came to helping or saving innocent people, so for him to be so haunted by the prospect of killing a man hellbent on murdering tens of thousands is ridiculous.  Even more absurd is how Hakim ALWAYS escapes.  Remember, he is on the Jupiter spaceship which is under tight security.  He plants a bomb, detonates it as Hachirota hesitates then magically shows up several episodes later on the moon where he recruits Claire.

GIGALT:    Much like Fee, Yuri & Nono, Gigalt is a great (minor) character who stays true to himself.  He ends up contracting cancer from radiation exposure (a common occurrence in space) and pleads with Tanabe not to tell his pupil, Hachirota.  Before his death, Gigalt finds out his other pupil, Hakim, is a terrorist and the look of devastation on his face is truly tragic.  But in a later episode, Hachirota is given a camera with Gigalt's final recording  where Gigalt gives him the most important advice possible:  Every man needs a home port.  In the end, Hachirota visits Gigalt's grave before leaving and promises to take a photo of Jupiter with the same camera so that Gigalt may experience it.

WERNER LOCKSMITH:  This guy makes Elon Musk look like Mother Theressa.  This is the guy in charge of the Jupiter spaceship.  He is a sociopath who doesn't care how many hundreds of people die as long as his Jupiter mission stays on schedule.  He deliberately puts the lives of all the astronaut-trainees in jeopardy.  He lies, covers up the deaths of hundreds, refuses to be transparent with the world about what his true intentions are and cares only for himself.  In all honesty, people this corrupt and morally bankrupt just don't exist (well...other than in the White House from 2016-2020.)    

I am not a contrarian who like to hate on popular shows. I am truly baffled by the high ratings and look forward to hearing other people's opinions.

This is easily the drabbest anime set in space I have seen up to this point. None of the storylines are interesting. This is about collecting junk in Earth's orbit. Who tf want to see that. I will give the anime this, some of the realism was a breath of fresh air because other Space anime usually have nonsensical science around them (although that's what makes them fun). The two leads are annoying. I do not care about their stupid romantic drama that is littered throughout this series. I do not give a shit about them at all. Overrated ass show. I just can't keep ... watching this.

I was more entertained by watching those goddamn 10-hour loops on youtube than this fuckin show.

I hate Tanaka, srly so stupid kid omg. The story is so slow, i dont like that girl reaction and another characters. Believe i dont recommemded this crap, i can't watch another episode more.

Planetes has a good idea but some characters destroy this interesting idea is so sad, but Tanaka is the bigger problema in this anime, dont watch this trash.

Seriously, the personalities of some characters leave a lot to be desired, especially that of the protagonist and even worse the rookie Tanaka, who does whatever she wants and wants everyone to think like her by shouting, she is a horrible character

Of course I respect everyone's tastes, but if you told me this was a joke anime, I'd believe you. I hated this show.

This is going to contain spoilers for Planetes, but you know what? Who cares. It's bad. There's the review. Don't watch it. Not even for "haha wow this is so bad" laughs. It has a handful of moments at best. It's bad and gets worse as time goes on. And it's so, incredibly, unbelievably boring.

I'm a guy who likes things that are boring. One of my favorite games? Civilzation 3. I play on the map TETurkhan's Test of Time. It's a game that ... takes dozens of hours to complete. I adore it. It's slow and plodding. I liked Meek's Cutoff, a movie about being bored. I even like slice of life animes that are boring. There's something fascinating about trying to find beauty in the mundane parts of reality, it's often a failure but I can enjoy the attempt. Sometimes characters have cool moments, sometimes it can be very sad.

This is none of that. Planetes is nothing. It is an absence of everything. I sat down and watched 26 goddamn episodes of this thing and I can't name you a scene from it outside of the general "they're in space?" It's unbelievable. Literally beyond my comprehension. And it has a 97% like on Rotten Tomatoes. Average user rating 4.6. What the fuck is wrong with these people? where do I even start with how bad this is?

Most people probably missed what is the worst moment in the series so.. let's start there. So this sh*tpile has an episode where one of the characters goes to confront her ex-husband. Who may be a terrorist I guess? frick if I know. He's a terrorist who comes to a space station and takes a detour to meet with his ex-wife. You know what? Who cares. It makes no sense. This sucks. That's not the worst part. No, the worst part is her freakin' rant about how miserable he made her. There might be a video of it somewhere but frick me if I'm going to find it.

This poor voice actress. She wasn't that good, typical bad monotone early 2000s dub job, whatever. Not her fault, nobody could save this script. Whole point of her rant was that she was forced in to prostitution. You know how they convey how horrible it was? Not by the girl crying, not by her showing emotion in any way, not even by hinting as how horrible the life was.

She talks about how she was forced to get piercings all over. And if she didn't she was beat up.

I'm sayin' again If you told me this was a joke anime, I'd believe you. Do you get her rant? Piercings = whore. Get it? No? Of course you don't, it's garbage! Who sits down as a writer and goes "how am I going to convey sexual violence against a woman without outright saying it? Euphemisms? Imagery? Crying? Trauma? Nah. Piercings." No words. No freakin' words. This bullsh*t is all over the place. Later episode, guy is trapped in space alone. Mind you, we don't see him get trapped there except in a low-budget flashback. That might be exciting. No, we just see the aftermath. So what happens? Well, naturally he gets PTSD.

Except that they don't call it PTSD. They call it Space Loss Syndrome. I even checked to see if that was some obscure disease, but nope, found jack shit. They just made up a new word to describe PTSD. Why? Why not just say "dude was in a traumatic experience and has PTSD and now needs therapy." Oh, and he recovers from it. Not through therapy that we see, but by seeing a space engine. Anything can be fixed by remembering how awesome space is.

Well that’s annoying. But you know what? It's not even the little things. Oh no no no no. It's everything.

"It's a romance show more than anything else." The two characters are never shown kissing. It happens, but they literally put the camera right behind one character's head so that we don't see it. Why? Also that comes halfway through the series, with hardly any build-up. The kiss is supposed to be like a big scene. Yes it's not how romances work but it's when the guy gets the girl in a romcom. And it's a kiss. They aren't having anal or somethin', it's a small romantic gesture that helps us visually see characters emotions towards each other. Oh, and that starts up a love triangle that lasts a single episode. Why have it? Why not just not have the love triangle? Why put in story elements that don't get used, you freakin' people goddamn you all.

I can't even begin to convey how stupid this is. A character thwarts a terrorist plot because she wants to have a cigarette. Not comically, by ramming a spaceship in to a satellite. Unemployed people dressed as ninjas save a woman from a burning building. There's a whole episode revolving around a woman born on the moon who looks 18 but is actually 12, and the main male character is I think attracted to her, but it's HARD TO TELL BECAUSE THEY DON'T CONVEY EMOTIONS AT ALL. ohhhh good gracious almighty.

Planetes falls apart on a technical level too. Character's face change shape between scenes, and I suspect the reason it's set in space is so that they don't have to animate walking. Characters slide through frames, there's occasionally sound in space but not all the time. Music is almost non-existent and when it shows up is pretty freaking terrible. Character voices are the same 10 voice actors who voice act everyone, they do their best I'm sure but this was directed by someone who was unwilling to show two characters kissing so they aren't exactly dealing with a visionary. The art style is like a bad copy of Ghost in the Shell. Might even be the same company, and I'd certainly believe it if you told me. It's just terrible on so many levels.

I've just never seen anything so devoid of everything. There's literally nothing here. No joy, no passion for the series, nothing. Just some writer masturbating to their shitty space fantasies. Fantasies that freaking suck shit too. It's half an accurate representation of space and half a comedy, and as a result it accomplishes literally nothing. Of all of the anime that aren't failed comedies (a.k.a. the worst), this is it. This is the worst. Beyond this is only bugger-off trash. Do not watch Planetes. Ahh 97% like on Rotten Tomatoes. Shitt 8/10+ on other sites. What's that. Also, you know what? The plot goes no where important. The main characters get paralyzed and recovers in an episode. My brain melted.

I was more entertained by watching those goddamn 10 hour loops on youtube than this shit show.