Planetes
Honestly I could just leave this review as the title and say watch it, because you should; you really really really should. Planetes is without a doubt one of the best put together animes I have ever seen. Everything and I think it’s fair to say that quite literally everything with Planetes is executed incredibly well. The characters, the stories, the music, the art, the way everything melds together, the betrayals, the twists, the descent into madness, everything…. I’m almost positive this is one of few on the must watch list and if not, something is terribly wrong.
Planetes takes place in the not so distant future, the year is 2075 and space development has reached an all-time high, Earth has colonized the Moon for resources, there are cities on the Moon and it’s really quite amazing. To keep the space development continuing along, the debris in space needs to be cleared out. This is the starting point for Planetes. You’d think that because debris can be so disastrous in space that the workers who take care of debris are rather well liked and appreciated, but no, not at all, they’re looked down on, the lowest of the low, almost like the scum of the working class, but that’s how the politics work. From the very first episode, I had full body goose bumps, intense emotions and even teared up (not because some mega sad things happen, I’m just a bit sensitive), all from the first episode; each successive episode was just as powerful and others more so. It’s really unique and incredible how life like and human the characters in Planates can be, although there are some minor things I struggle with, 97% of it is perfection.
Of all the characters we watch, two of them would be our super mains; the focus of Planetes rests on them and they are Hoshino Hachirota, also known as Hachimaki and Ai Tanabe. Tanabe is the new worker, the naïve, extra happy, full of smiles girl who has always wanted to be an astronaut, whereas Hachimaki is our veteran of the Debris Section, working for years and going nowhere, stuck in his current position. Tanabe is great, I fell for her character immediately, but with Hachimaki, I really disliked him and during the latter half of Planetes, really really disliked him. He’s obnoxious, loud, stubborn and incredibly annoying. Sure he has his soft sides and can be rather nice, with many episodes showing off these qualities, but listening to him yell at everything all the time, yeah….. He’s the only issue I have with Planetes.
The supports, of which there are many, are incredibly well handled. There are 26 episodes in Planetes and almost every single support gets an episode or air time where we, as viewers, can understand them and feel for them. The exposition that Planetes pulls off is rather remarkable because by the time you get halfway through Planetes, you seem to have a connection to all these characters, all these people. It’s also around halfway through that Planetes takes a turn in direction and begins to really throw plots and issues and arcs your way. The most notable supports, I’d say are Carmichael Fee, the pilot of the debris collection ship named “Toy Box”, she’s a heavy smoker and is the most experienced and level headed of the team. Mihalkov Yuri, he’s interesting; a member of the debris team, he has a lot of screen time and the reasons for why he acts the way he does is quite strong and emotional; he’s the calm and very kind member of the debris team and is very aware of the situations that occurs. Nono, a… well I can’t say, that’d spoil a very funny moment, but she’s pretty amazing and she happens to be quite the savior in both her personality and the unexpected outcome during the last episode, she’s one of my favorite characters in Planetes, even if she doesn’t get a lot of time on air, but she’s great fun. Rondo Claire, she’s one hell of a women, working her way up the work force ladder and trying to become something/someone important; not much more to say, but wow.
The art of Planetes, a lot like everything else, is quite sublime. Everything is incredibly detailed, meticulously drawn and in a very realistic sci-fi sense. The faces and face reactions though, that’s the spot light if you ask me. It’ll go from well-drawn and detailed to incredibly realistic, with lines drawn for every possible detail; sometimes even exaggerating certain areas of the face to emit emotions. There were plenty of times where I just kept thinking, “damn, this looks so different and so good”. It was a visual treat, in quite a different way from what I’m used to watching.
Music….. Incredible. Honestly, truly, the BGM, the ambient sounds, the way it all works is phenomenal. BGM is ridiculous, it’s perfectly executed and expect to hear a ton, I mean an absolute ton of music; there are so many great scenes that are flown straight through the stratosphere of perfection because of how well the BGM is played. The ambient sounds, incredible stuff; when scenes change from indoors to space, you go from hearing noises to nothing. These cut back scenes occur often, but every time they happen, it feels like you’re really in space, where sound doesn’t exist. Driving on the Moon only to hear nothing, then cutting to the communication radios and back again, this type of detail, which probably isn’t hard to do at all, is so well done and so appreciated; one of my favorite things throughout Planetes was hearing (or not hearing!) how the sounds changed.
As an overall package, Planetes is a must watch. It’s a great Sci-Fi anime, it’s a great Space anime, and it’s got good drama too. Its world is well realized and honestly, even believable. The progression from being sort of Slice of Life based to something “more” is well done, like seriously well done. I’d honestly say this is a must watch, you have to watch it, even with the dislike I have towards Hachimaki, I can’t give this anime less than a 10, it was a thrilling ride all the way to the end.
Note: I wasn’t going to talk about why I dislike Hachimaki, but if you’ve seen the show, then you know what happens around episode 16-17, right? (As I was typing this I got rather angry, so I did talk about it, all spoiler tagged of course) Well after those episodes I didn’t like him and his attitude/personality and the absolute crap he made Tanabe go through, screw him, seriously, what a selfish entitled grrrr, he’s lucky that Tanabe is a super sweet, extra kind, mega sincere and forgiving person, because I hated seeing him act the way he did to her. The sudden change of heart near the end of the anime, I’d honestly say lame, he was so far down the path of madness and descent, he just “happened” to change whilst drowning, c’mon, I don’t accept that for a bit. I really don’t like him and it’s probably closer to hate than dislike too, he may not be the worst person in the anime with what he’s done and sure there was a happy ending and all, but I can’t just forgive him like that, I just can’t. He’s lucky it’s an anime and the writers went the happy route, it could have been so bad otherwise…… grrrrrr. It’s even worse that I actually hated having to listen to him yell and bicker and pick fights and yell some more so much, Tanabe is a breath of fresh air in this regard.
9/10 (Yeah yeah, I said 10, but after that little note, it’s 9 now….grrrrr)
