Chikyuugai Shounen Shoujo

The Orbital Children is a long-awaited misfire from Mitsuo Iso, the sublimely passionate and creative writer behind Dennou Coil, an underrated classic in terms of mid-2000s scifi anime. Orbital Children takes a great deal of inspiration from its predecessor, which somehow ends up being one of its weakest points; it feels like a heavily degraded version of the show people love. Nearly every aspect of The Orbital Children feels shallow and pretentious, although this could mainly be blamed on the length (or lack thereof) of this anime. Dennou Coil had a fully realised world, likeable and nuanced characters and themes that were explored over a ... 26-episode storyline, while Orbital Children is a theatrical release (or a 6-episode anime if you watched it on Netflix). It’s understandable that a feature-length anime film lacks the burgeoning plot of a two cour television series, but Orbital Children is 3 hours long, and it makes almost no use of that inflated running time.

The story is simple: a bunch of generic, annoying self-inserts get stuck on a space station that’s been sabotaged by unknown forces, and they have to work together to escape. None of them progress past being cardboard archetypes for children to self-insert into; rather, they just get more baffling and uninteresting as the show moves on, culminating in an ending that takes wish fulfillment to a new level. Touya is one of the strangest main characters possible for a show like this; he’s nihilistic and cold towards Earth’s humans because he believes they all consider cybernetically enhanced space-born humans a waste of resources, and through some gap in logic he wants to program an artificial intelligence to move past its technological limitations and wipe out the planet. Essentially, he’s Char Aznable but not cool. He gets less irritating later but still radiates preteen angst up until the finale. He gets stuck on the damaged space station with his psychic best friend, a fucking tiktok girl and her easily impressionable brother, and Taiyou, who is the most annoying character in the entire show and an excuse for United Nations propaganda (which still exists in the future for some reason). There are adult characters but none of them have much of an impact on the story outside the incredibly obvious, unthreatening strawman antagonist whose motivations are entirely decided by “it’s prophecy, it doesn’t have to make sense!” which doesn’t make for a compelling adversary, especially when the reveal, 99% of their character development and their death happens in the span of a single episode. There’s also some senile dude in a mascot suit. I think they were aping Pino from Ergo Proxy but I can’t be sure.

The Orbital Children tries to tackle futuristic dilemmas such as the nature and evolution of artificial intelligence, space colonization, and humanity’s need to curb their own progress with all the introspection and self-awareness of a fax machine. 99% of the dialogue during “philosophical” scenes is pseudointellectual babbling that amounts to absolutely nothing and comes to a total of zero conclusions about any of these quandaries. There is no wisdom being dispensed here; instead the writing team just wanted to stuff as much fruitless dialogue into the script as possible to sound intelligent so people will go “Wow! It’s just like Evangelion!” which the show actually tries ripping off in the last 20 minutes with an absurdly tryhard ending that would have been profound if anyone involved with the writing of this series knew what the fuck they were talking about. Instead of being like Dennou Coil, which knew when to space things out and keep viewers attention spans, Orbital Children is full scenes of characters spouting their ideologies at each other in the most lifeless way possible.

The entire series feels lifeless, as a matter of fact, and I’m not sure what happened. Iso’s input was great in Dennou Coil; we got a feel for the world through the way it was framed, through the energy and color of the series. Maybe it was the 15 year span between the two series, but Orbital Children feels largely like it was put together dispassionately; characters are constantly off-model, the direction and cinematography are bland and colorless and even the soundtrack hardly anything special. Within the first episode I counted at least 10 shots being repeated within the same 3 minute scene with little to no variation. It was just shot reverse shot every time someone spoke for the entire slog of a first episode. Iso is talented, no doubt, but Orbital Children feels like it was something he either worked on out of necessity or something that was completely butchered during production, which seems to be the more likely candidate (14 pages of storyboards were apparently cut from the second half of the show). Even Iso’s attention to detail seems to be missing; how does a man renowned for being so meticulous and passionate about science fiction forget that fires can’t start in space? Half the series feels like nonsense. Rather than a calculated, insightful anime about the near future we get talking AI space rocks, drones firing digital lasers at each other and literal fucking magic for some reason. And I know Dennou Coil leaned into pseudoscience at times, but it felt natural because of the setting. It even managed to inspire real-life breakthroughs in virtual reality because of just how well-conceptualized and intuitive it was. The Orbital Children lacks that kind of prescience. I have to make the assumption that Netflix had a hand in turning the series into the final product we have, because it doesn’t feel right. It feels like something groundbreaking could’ve come from this series, but it was curbed and turned into something safe like the artificial intelligence in the show itself. There’s something strangely ironic about that.

If you're one of those people who really likes to study the nitty-gritty of animation, like key animators or in-between animators, you've probably come across the name Mitsuo Iso. Mitsuo Iso is an animator who started out working for Studio Ghibli as a key animator. Iso worked on various animation cuts for Only Yesterday, Ocean Waves, Porco Rosso, Perfect Blue, and even some fights in the End of Evangelion movie. He even did animation for the very first Digimon movie! In 2007, he created his own original anime called Dennou Coil which, while not necessarily a mainstream hit, is considered an underrated masterpiece. I haven't ... seen Dennou Coil, but I plan to one of these days (HIDIVE, why'd you have to take it off?!). But after Dennou Coil, Mitsuo Iso didn't try to make other projects since then, as apparently even back in 2007, corporations were apprehensive about creating completely original anime, especially anything not based on an existing source like a manga or light novel. But just this year, Iso made a comeback with a very ambitious set of movies called Orbital Children, which just dropped on Netflix. Fans of his work were excited, and since I found it was only going to be six episodes, I figured this would be a good time killer. I'm not normally into heavy sci-fi stuff, especially if they're filled with a lot of technobabble that flies right over my head (Keep in mind, I'm a 28-year-old woman), but I'm a sucker for good animation and well-developed characters, and Iso apparently did both with Dennou Coil, so maybe Orbital Children would turn out great!

...Yeah, I have words for this. In case you couldn't tell, I didn't like Orbital Children. And I really wanted to like it! It even had a great start! In the year 2045, space travel, AI, and technological advancements are commonplace, and the most recent scientific marvel are children born on the moon, though their lifespan is shortened due to some snags. One day, a group of kids win a contest and get to go to a space settlement to meet the children born on the moon. Unfortunately, a rogue comet hits the settlement, trapping them in space. Although the kids don't quite get along at first due to Touya's insufferable nihilism about humanity, they're going to have to work together if they even have a sliver of a chance of surviving. But this is really an oversimplification of things...mainly because one of Orbital Children's biggest flaws is that it tries to tell a really, really huge story in the span of just six episodes, and it really doesn't work. For one, technobabble and exposition is just dumped on you in literally every single episode, almost non-stop, giving you very little time to even process one concept it introduces before moving on to the next one within two seconds. And this series has a LOT of ideas: Intergalactic terrorist groups, AI comets, moon children, some mystical space prophecy, AI drones, the list goes on! There's just so much this show covers in the span of six episodes, and because they're just thrown at us at a breakneck pace, they're all unable to be really fleshed out, and I couldn't have cared less about them because the show would rather overload my brain with all the concepts and ideas it throws into a blender. Episode 4 in particular is guilty of this, as it just throws concepts at you over, and over, and over, with seemingly no end in sight, making it a real slog to go through!

But surely the characters can carry a story like this, right? Well...sort of, at first. Honestly, none of the characters other than Touya get fleshed out beyond one basic character trait they have. Mina in particular is just a social media obsessed teen who's way more focused on getting clout than, y'know, actually giving a shit about her situation, even as she gets locked in a space chamber and nearly dies from lack of oxygen! She does make for great comic relief and has some great funny faces, but that's really all she's good for. None of the other characters have much to their name, and even one of the villains who gets revealed later doesn't do much other than spout a bunch of philosophical babble about some space prophecy she's obsessed with. Konoha is little more than the wise, sickly waif who's there to spout philosophical rhetoric before possibly dying beautifully, and the adults don't do much except worry about the kids. To be fair, I actually did like Touya's progression through the series. He starts off as an insufferable, edgy misanthrope who believes Earth-born humans are inferior to moon people and that they should all die, but changes his worldview throughout the series and becomes nicer at the end. Though I wouldn't blame anyone for dropping the show because of him alone.

True to form, the animation is definitely the highlight of Orbital Children, with bright colors, detailed backgrounds, well-integrated CGI, and fluid movement typical of Iso's pedigree. The OST is nice too, if not very memorable. However, other than those two things, and Touya's development, everything else about Orbital Children is a mess. Like I mentioned before, the story is supposedly about space kids overcoming disasters and getting back home to Earth, but most of the meat in this show is taking up by overly pretentious technobabble and philosophical waxing that doesn't get utilized beyond blatant plot conveniences and Deus Ex Machinas to get out of whatever corners the writers wrote themselves into. We never get a sense of what the characters are like beyond their immediate situations because the show refuses to explore them in favor of, yet again, pretentious science and philosophy that's only shoved in there to make the series seem deeper than it actually isn't. Say what you will about something like, say, Astra: Lost In Space, but I feel that show did a better job of telling the story about kids trapped in space and trying to get back to Earth, because it knew to keep that as the focus, and gave a shit about fleshing out its characters, even if it didn't always succeed. Basically, Orbital Children bit off way more than it could chew and suffered as a result.

Also, one another thing: Episode 5, did you SERIOUSLY feel the need to shove in a scene where a child accidentally gropes an older woman's boob?! And right in the middle of what's supposed to be a tense, suspenseful scene, at that?! Whose idea was it to throw that in there?! Because shoehorning horny comedy into a serious scene does not fucking work!! It did nothing to further the story, completely broke the tension, and was absolutely unnecessary! It's almost like someone felt scared that nobody would give Orbital Children the time of day unless they put in one scene of a woman's boobs getting grabbed! "Hurr durr, nobody's gonna like this on its own merits, so let's throw in a kid groping an older woman! Heehee, that'll bring in viewers!" IT WILL NOT!! You could cut out that scene and absolutely nothing would be lost! If anything, it'd make the entire episode better because there wouldn't be out-of-place horny humor to kill the tension in what's supposed to be a very serious, tense sequence of kids about to die out in space!! Seriously, why is this even a trend?! The whole boob groping gag needs to fucking die forever!!

Okay, that's enough of my angry soapbox. Sorry Mitsuo Iso, I really wanted to like this, and you've made a lot of great things. But Orbital Children is not one of them. Had it cut out a bunch of the useless technobabble and pretentious philosophical bullshit and focused on maybe one or two of the concepts it introduced, it would have been much better. I wanted to care about these dumbass kids and root for them, but I just couldn't. There are reasons why I normally don't gravitate towards hard sci-fi anime, and Orbital Children was definitely a reminder of that. If you like Orbital Children, cool, more power to you, and if the show being on Netflix will get Iso more attention, or even allow him to make more original anime, that's great! Iso has gone on record saying that he had to fight tooth and nail just to get Dennou Coil created, and I'll always have respect for creative people who will fight to the death to make sure their creations are not only made, but seen, even in an incomplete form, no matter what obstacles they had to face and compromises they had to make. We all know what happened with Stars Align. But as far as original projects go, Orbital Children is absolutely not the best Iso has to offer, and probably wasn't the best way for me to get introduced to his directorial work.

If you like hard sci-fi, feel free to check it out, but if you're not into lots of exposition dumps, philosophical ramblings, and over-the-top sci-fi that overloads you're brain, give it a miss.

Much build-up, yet for nought.

Near-future Sci-fi has an interesting place within the wider genre. Unlike the standard swathe of works, which take concepts at the edge of our understanding to unique extremes, the aforementioned is typically more about embracing that which can be and that which already is. It's less anticipating what may come, more celebrating how far we already have. Obviously and inevitably, that telegraphs the biggest misstep one can make in such stories; leaping into ill-fitting high concepts that play havoc with the preceding tone and stakes. The relevance of this fact is no clearer than it is in The Orbital Children.

Whilst initially ... leading with some decent central ideas, and a cliché-though-not-unwelcome premise, this, as suddenly as flicking a switch, turns to a shocking mess once the halfway mark is crossed. The creator's knowledge of that which they chose to bring up is put into question, then promptly answered to be sparse. All the more of a mockery, that makes it, since in such a subgenre, diligent research is imperative. Which only makes me wonder, why even pick such an environment for the story? Well, that I'll get to.

----

So, as mentioned, the story is something everyone's seen before, but not something that's been truly exhausted. Theme is a similarly standard affair, initially appearing to discuss class and disability, but that's only true for roughly three episodes, before being abruptly thrown out of the window in favour of critiquing fictional ethics toward an Artificial Intelligence. The obvious flaw is the disconnect between these two avenues of the story, feeling less like a natural progression of a single narrative, and more like one that petered out and another that barged in to replace it. Underneath this, though, is the far worse issue; that the latter portion is of insultingly lower quality. It's contrived, ignorant, and poorly told. I'm quite convinced Iso Mitsuo does not even know what an AI even is.

The characters are a much brighter point, though. The protagonist is simple but functional, with a clear personal journey, though a predictable one. His sister is not too interesting, but works as a weak point for him, and there's an attempt for this to be matched by the other pair of siblings in the work. But amongst these, there's one that just doesn't fit. A weird mascot costume that doesn't speak, seems to appear out of nowhere, and whose explanation and presence is even more nonsensical. It's a groanworthy example of damning inconsistency.

----

As often, there is nothing of note to mention in regards to production, so I'll instead cut to design. For the most part, the environments and outfits appear logically functional, which can be praised. They are, however, rather indistinct. As I write, I struggle to recount which location was went to when, and what each character really looked like. At times, also, this seemingly reasoned approach fails, most notably in regards to the mascot character and the way AI is portrayed, both of which I have touched on earlier.

Another area of great disappointment is in the poor pacing of the thing. Towards the middle, a weird pattern emerges - an idea is abruptly brought up, and equally abruptly gets called back to. It's as though the staff forgot to set things up earlier, so quickly try and do so before it's too late. Though, frankly, it is. Similarly, I must note how the runtime is essentially squandered where one would expect it packed. Without speaking too much about the individual events of the conclusion, the final episode feels incredibly tacked-on, compared to those that preceded it.

----

I posed a question earlier. Why was this made to fit this precise subgenre, when there doesn't seem to be much passion for it? After parsing through the highs and lows above, I can only really conclude that it was what Mitsuo thought was expected of him, be that as a result of his earlier works, or simply after musing over what sounded like a good pitch. I cannot with a clear conscience fault him for that, but I must turn my nose at what was created. And really, that sums up my experience viewing it, too. It mean well, I'm sure everyone involved did, but they didn't even come close to managing it.

Improvements are rather simple. Lop off most of the second half, bring in something more in line with the established tone, and adjust the first to fit. And recommendation, well, a simple, deadpan "no" should do.

This show is the definition of the meme "Mom i want Evangelion", "No, we have Evangelion at home"

They have the monster patterns and predictions, and mentally ill kids (streamer and grown up in a space station "alone").
I don't really remember what happened in this show, but the pink bunny thing is super creepy thing once it's revealed and that ruined the show for me (also the plot is insane bad trying to be Evangelion mysterious and clever without doing any of that)

The kids are also not really interesting, none of them have any unique things about them or interesting, they are just the ... expected one dimensional group, the main kid is edge kirito (SOA) vibes but boring (more than kirito somehow).

The animation is average, nothing interesting and not really good some times, the 3d is not great also. The sound track is forgettable .

I wish i remembered more about this show to criticize, but it's just so forgettable.

The story had a really good potential and that's what interested me in watching the anime.

However,

I.Understood.Nothing.

The story was confusing, there was not a character that was actually interesting, moreover, half of them were annoying and they did try with leaving us with one cliffhanger and that was the only time I did not have to pause between episodes but every other episode I watched just to finish what I have started.

I expected more from the adults since, in order to be able to go to space, you should be very well trained and prepared but, to me, it seemed as if they were on ... the same level of knowledge as the kids.

Of course this shouldn't stop you from watching the anime and I hope it leaves you with a better impression.

This show is bad next to Dennou Coil and equally as miserable on its own merit. I saw an interview with Iso where he said that the role of science fiction was to predict the future. This is somewhat true, but science fiction has other roles. One of those is to comment on the present. Part of what made Dennou Coil good was that it did both of these things: it presented a hypothetical future technology in such a way that it could represent other, real life technologies and the results of them becoming a part of society that people take for granted. Dennou Coil ... discussed the blurring of the line between your digital self, your physical self, and your spiritual self. It discussed the nature of the relationship between children and technology. It was easy to think of different 'readings' of or ways of understanding the point of the work. It was rich and complex.

The Orbital Children trades complexity for complication. It treats every single plot thread with deadly seriousness. The lowest stakes? One person dies. The highest stakes? Literally billions of people die. There's no space for anything to have emotional resonance because we're too busy being bounced around a plot that hinges around everyone nearly dying almost all the time. The mechanics of the world--AI hack battles, how gravity worked--may not have been realistic, but they were imaginative and fun. What I found unbelievable was the idea that it was supposed to have an emotional plot at all.

Then, there's the prediction of the future itself. It's... hmm. Similarly, I don't really care about the realism of the politics. What I do care about is how a fundamental message of the series is essentially that autocratic rule and fascism is bad unless orchestrated by a fascist AI, and if the fascist AI does anything wrong it's because of the interference of humans. It is also enamoured with the idea of gaining superior intelligence being the hallmark of a superior being. In real life, this sort of obsession usually orbits around eugenics, and I find it frankly uncomfortable, especially in a series that talks at great length about "population reduction" being necessary without actually concluding that it isn't possible. By the way, that's also a myth, usually bandied around by people who want a scientific-sounding excuse to commit... eugenics.

The Orbital Children smells of the kind of all-too-popular futurism that's perfectly happy to barrel ahead with planet-killing activities until a technological saviour materialises out of thin air. Because even when science fiction is trying to avoid commenting on the present, it inevitably does so anyway. The future it formulates requires the organisations it's critical of to develop superintelligent AI to save the day. It requires their continual existence. It justifies them as it shows them to be callous and corrupt. Something is wrong with that. Something is wrong with depicting that very present horror as not even a prelude but a prerequisite to a happy ending.

I did not like this show. I found it very frustrating, and I think it's a shame that a spiritual successor to Dennou Coil would be as hollow as this.

*on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being lots of spoilers, this review is probably a 2*

TL;DR: The Orbital Children is an anime that is visually stunning but falls short in every other category, like logical concepts, character development, sensible plot, and understandable terminology. Overall, it feels like a waste of three hours. I would not recommend this to anyone who watches anime for enjoyment.


First, let me get it out of the way. The graphics/art/whatever you like to call it is excellent. In the first episode, there's one shot where you see the empty void of space and Earth, and it looks so good. I ... have no complaints there. That being said, art only compensates for a small part of what this anime lacks. Next, I'll go into depth about what I don't like/understand.

1. The concept is poorly thought-out. Please don't ask me why space is even involved in this. I'm not complaining: space concepts are generally pretty cool. However, I don't really understand why it needs to be in space in the first place. Additionally, the anime attempts to become a futuristic-style action/drama. How do they fight in the future, you may ask? Apparently, it's through hacking. Visually, it's as dull as it sounds. The lack of effects during the "fight" scenes failed to give me even the slightest excitement, simply because hacking "fights" are a dumb concept. It's too complicated to create interest in two people typing something into their hands and then having a monitor explode in the background, or something similar to that.

2. If character development was a pool, a child could swim in it. That's how shallow these characters felt. I generally base a good show on remembering the characters' names. I barely remember any of the names, and I just finished it about 10 minutes before writing this review. Here are the recurring characters and their development throughout the show.
- A girl who livestreams and attempts to be Internet famous—no meaningful development.
- Her brother is a timid nerd/genius—no meaningful development.
- A girl with implants in her head who is constantly weak—no meaningful development.
- The most character development seen is in Touya and Taiyou (I just looked their names up, in case you were wondering). Touya initially hates everyone from Earth because he was born on the moon but eventually thinks people on Earth are OK. Taiyou is a strict rule-follower but breaks some rules to save humanity. Insane, right? I think I've seen more growth in withering plants than in these characters.

3. Terminology and story are significant flaws that ruin the entire show.
"The satellite is closing on the orbital of Mars with a comet approaching at -20 degrees while the gravitational pull is continuously breaching the warp gate continuum."
See what I did there? I mashed the mumbo jumbo vocabulary that I know from my limited knowledge of aerospace engineering and tried to make an understandable sentence. That's what this show feels like, albeit there probably are some real space-related scientific terms. But as someone who is absolutely terrible at physics (ironic with the name, right) and has no experience whatsoever with space engineering, I have no clue what is going on in the show. It seems like there's so much that's explained/mentioned, but none of it is actually explained well. Generally, some things in the first episode often go unexplained, and that's OK. I've come to realize that in most shows, they will come back to explain it. Not in this one. You will have tons of questions that are either completely left unanswered or explained poorly. Now, I might be able to attribute some of my incomprehension to the notoriously bad Netflix subtitles. However, in the end, I still think the terminology and the story plot are way too complex for many people. It could have been an average show if it made sense to the average viewer. Unfortunately, because almost zero percent of the show made sense to me, it was dreadful to watch. It made me question why I was watching the show in the first place. I even skipped in 2-5 minute increments in the last episode, and I hardly ever fast-forward when watching an anime.

There are some other things that I had issues with, such as the attempt at a deep and meaningful conclusion. However, I have already gone long enough. The one element that sticks out like a sore thumb from the surrounding garbage is the art. If you're into making the beautiful anime AMVs and that sort of thing, this would be a great source of content. Otherwise, avoid at all costs. Don't watch for enjoyment.

English.
I don't know if it has happened to you that there is a series which starts very badly but as the episodes progress it improves, well that's what happens with this series, if you get past the first 4 episodes you may like the rest and I think that's the biggest problem with the series, you necessarily have to overcome 4 episodes for it to start to get good, it is not a story that deepens its characters but it is quite entertaining after those 4 episodes.
The animation is fine, it is neither good nor bad, I think it is a standard animation in the ... anime genre, the characters are only important, 2 of the young people and the nurse, from then on the others are useless or may not contribute nothing to the plot just his presence.
The truth is that I don't think there is anything else to highlight about the series, finally I will say that it is not worth it because you have to watch almost more than half of the series for it to start to get good and I think that is a great Negative point (I know I said it before but it's to emphasize my point), if you get past it you will find a pretty decent story but nothing more.

Español.
No sé si les ha pasado qué hay una serie la cual empieza muy mal pero mientras van avanzando los episodios va mejorando, bueno pues eso pasa con está serie, si súperas los primeros 4 episodios puede que lo demás te guste y ese es creo el mayor problema de la serie, necesariamente tienes que superar 4 episodios para que empiece a ponerte buena está, no es una historia la cual profundice en sus personajes pero si es bastante entretenida después de esos 4 episodios.
La animación esta bien no es ni buena ni mala creo que es una animación estándar en el género del anime, los personajes solo son importantes 2 de los jóvenes y la enfermera, de ahí en adelante los demás no sirven para nada o puede que no aporten nada a la trama solo su presencia.
La verdad creo que ya no queda nada más a destacar de la serie, por último diré que no vale tanto la pena porque tienes que ver casi más de la mitad de la serie para que se empiece a poner buena y eso creo que es un gran punto negativo (sé que ya lo dije antes pero es para recalcar mi punto), si lo superas te encontrarás una historia bastante decente pero nada más.