Planetarian: Chiisana Hoshi no Yume

It is thirty years after the failure of the Space Colonization Program. Humanity is nearly extinct. A perpetual and deadly Rain falls on the Earth. Men known as "Junkers" plunder goods and artifacts from the ruins of civilization. One such Junker sneaks alone into the most dangerous of all ruins—a "Sarcophagus City." In the center of this dead city, he discovers a pre-War planetarium. And as he enters he is greeted by Hoshino Yumemi, a companion robot. Without a single shred of doubt, she assumes he is the first customer she's had in 30 years. She attempts to show him the stars at once, but the planetarium projector is broken. Unable to make heads or tails of her conversation, he ends up agreeing to try and repair the projector...

(Source: Steam)

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Planetarian: Chiisana Hoshi no Yume
Sequel:	Planetarian: Hoshi no Hito
Prequel:	Planetarian: Snow Globe
Character:	Kaginado, Kaginado Season 2

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Characters & Voice Actors

Hoshino, Yumemi

Main

Suzuki, Keiko
Japanese

Kuzuya

Main

Ono, Daisuke
Japanese

Kurahashi, Satomi

Supporting

Satou, Rina
Japanese

Kanchou

Supporting

Taki, Satoshi
Japanese

Mikajima, Gorou

Supporting

Kushida, Yasumichi
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Cook, Justin

Producer

Aoi, Hiroyuki

Producer

Miyajima, Kouhei

Producer

Herek, Samantha

Assistant Producer

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Ending Theme

	1: "Twinkle Starlight" by Sayaka Sasaki (eps 1-4)
	2: "Hoshi Meguri no Uta (星めぐりの歌)" by MELL (eps 5)

Reviews

Jul 23, 2016

Kashirou

Recommended

"Planetarian is an one in many futuristic possibilities of our world."

Humanity is almost extinct due to some type of biological attack 30 years ago. Out of the people left some are called "Junkers", who scavenge for foods and goods from the destroyed cities to survive. Now one such "Junker" Kuzuya is searching for supplies in one such ruined city called Sarcophagus City, escaping from some bots he enter into an old military facility where he meets a robot who has been on sleep for almost 30 years.
...

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Aug 4, 2016

Veronin

Mixed Feelings

After nearly a decade of reading and watching Key's works, and now having finished Planetarian's unlikely adaptation, I think I have come to accept that Key does not appeal much to me anymore. I have aged and moved on since those times, as has the anime industry and its community, and no longer feel all too impressed by what their stories had to offer.

At the same time, I recognise that not everybody began watching anime at the same time. Some people have only just gotten into the medium in recent months, and so they may not yet be acquainted with Key's works. For these ... people, there is still value to be found in Planetarian, for it is actually a surprisingly well-produced, if brief and heavy-handed tale. I cannot feel much of anything towards it, but maybe someone, somewhere, will feel that same fire and emotion I did all those years ago.

Planetarian's soundtrack, much like the rest of Key's catalog, is excellent, and the art direction, particularly during the projection scene, does a solid job of creating atmosphere and making time and space truly feel vast, with humanity's greatest achievements flashing before the Junker in the blink of an eye. Hoshino is also, fortunately, not treated as eye-candy or some sort of waifu fantasy, as her mechanical (and somewhat creepy!) eyes make it clear that she is a robot and not a living and breathing human being. She is cute, but she is also a genuine character with purpose in the story. While there are issues to be had with the content of Planetarian, the execution of said content (in the context of an adaptation) is certainly worthy of praise and difficult to fault. It's a very solid production all-around. All one needs to do to understand the difference in quality between a poorly-directed anime and a well-directed one is to compare Planetarian to Rewrite, the other ongoing (and perhaps somewhat abysmal) Key adaptation. Planetarian is leagues better, and is about as good as any fan of the source material could have hoped for, really.

But I do not know if that is enough to sway most anime-only viewers. The story is a nice, heart-warming little thing, but there is not much there with regards to depth and meaning. You will watch it, perhaps get a little misty-eyed during its dramatic conclusion, and that is where it ends. You will move on, get on with your day, and find the next thing to watch. A good anime or visual novel-- indeed, even a good story in general-- should have something to say or give to its readers. I am just not confident that this short little tragedy qualifies as that something.

Even though the conclusion is a bit more low-key and reserved than other Key works (particularly Angel Beats), it still falls much into the same issue of being too dramatic for its own good. It so desperately wants to make the audience cry, but with scenes such as Hoshino lamenting how she cannot shed tears (and the rain so conveniently falling into her eyes as if she were actually crying), it becomes a bit difficult to take Planetarian's cloying conclusion all too seriously. I loathe the term "forced drama" as it is not a valid criticism, but those who have used it to attack Key works in the past will absolutely find more reason to use it here. I would personally have liked to see a less artificial ending without so many unnecessary theatrics. The potential for a great story is here, with its bleak, post-apocalyptic setting, but Key overthrew and missed the strike zone with Planetarian.

It was somewhat disappointing to see the protagonist in the anime being a young-- no more than twenty-five years old-- jaded dude. If Key really wished to drive the emotional punch at the end, with the Junker regaining part of his humanity, it would have been much more powerful were he an older man who has been through and seen a lot of the new world. The anime does not sell me on his character being an emotionally broken and hardened soldier-- he just seems like a bit of an ass most of the time.

Planetarian would also have benefited from being a movie instead of an ONA series, as the gaps between episodes (even if it is only as much as clicking on the next episode and sitting through a couple minutes of logos and advertisements) make the experience feel rather disjointed. Planetarian is meant to be a single, continuous story rather than a series marked by chapters and episodes. If you ever have had to pause a movie in the middle of your viewing for hours or days at a time, you will know just how much it ruins the experience and how difficult it makes it to feel much of anything during the climax, what with all the build-up gone and wasted. This is what it has felt like for me to watch Planetarian on a weekly basis. Anyone with the privilege of watching the anime after its airing is highly recommended to do so in one sitting, assuming they want to get something out of it.

I may have been more excited with the concept of a Planetarian anime were it not 2016. The decade of the 2000's is a part of the past, and both the anime and visual novel industries have moved on from when Key was in their heyday. They have not released a new story in over five years, and seem more interested in having anime adaptations and remakes produced instead of something fresh and new. So I have to ask: do they intend to be the new Type-Moon, endlessly reliving its glory days and refusing to move on, or do they wish to regain their status and become relevant once again?

This is a world where visual novel masterpieces like Sakura no Uta and Full Metal Daemon Muramasa now exist. The industry has surpassed Key, and now Key needs to catch back up before they fade to dust.

Will they? Can they?

A part of me remains skeptical.

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Sep 1, 2016

SirDooblay

Not Recommended

It's a good thing Planetarian was only 5 episodes long because I don't think I could have slogged trough 12 episodes of this series. The synopsis spoke of war, a "Sarcophagus City" where "Junkers" would scavenge for lost artifacts, and a glorious planetarium worth repairing to see it's wonders. During the series, we get the littlest snippet of only one of these things.

Story: This story is a snooze fest. The main focus of this story is boring and ultimately doesn't pay off at all because of how long it takes to come to ahead. Other scenes, including the series conclusion take what feel like ... ages to finish and don't nearly reach the emotional payoff it was looking for. Everything feels disjointed, and alot of potential was wasted on these drawn out scenes. I wanted to see more of this city, I wanted backstory on this war, I wanted to see more about Yumemi's creators and what happened to them. I wanted to learn why Kuzuya was a "Junker", and what led him to live this life. I want to know why it's constantly raining. I want to know why there are robots on the street that attack people as they see them.

Characters: Seeing as though there are only 2 characters that get significant screentime, It would be very important to develop these characters into people you care about, people you want to see succeed. Unfortunatley, Planetarian woefully misses on this point. The lead character Kuzuya (who's name I had no recollection of whatsoever) is a dull, boring character who's decision making skills are as bizzare as his attitude. In the first episode, he is entirely and thoroughly annoyed by our other lead character, Yumemi. Despite showing utter disdain for Yumemi for the entirety of the episode, he decides to stay and help fix the Planetarium she has been residing in for over 30 years. They develop a "friendship" that feels entirely forced for the sake of giving the viewer something to care about when the series comes to a conclusion. Yumemi gets a pass for me. She is a robot dedicated to assisting customers that come to the the planetarium. She spouts off information as if it were another day, blissfully unaware that there are no people left to come and see her presentation. Her actions and motives make sense, which is enough to make her OK.

Art: The art is the best thing about this series. It's clean, has good rain effects, and the Planetarium scene is well done enough, however short it was for the amount of setup it took to get to that point. The character design is effective enough for the setting.

Sound: The sound effects were realistic, with special attention to the constant rain during outdoor scenes. The music was serviceable, but not very memorable. The main characters VA work was good. Jill Harris and David Matranga fit their characters well. There wasn't anything that stood out, save for a few lines from that Matranga that impressed me.

Planetarian's only saving grace is it's clean art style and decent voice acting. The story and characters are dreadfully executed and extremely forgettable. You'd be better off avoiding this one.

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