Character development in Planetes is the star. Characters, even minor ones, are given recurring arcs and genuine development - and their placement never seems trivial or forced. Just like in real life, you do end up interacting with people from all walks of life, and the relationships you forge over time with them shift and change, as do the characters themselves. Perhaps the biggest flaw of Planetes' nearest comparison - Cowboy Bebop - is that side characters, while memorable, rarely appeared more than once. Planetes grants us the rare gift of not only watching the main cast, but the world and the people in it grow as well.
There are ambitious questions tackled in Planetes - the distribution of wealth, our existential dilemma, and the role we're burdened to play in all of it. Do we owe it to Earth to make it big in the stars? Or do we owe it to ourselves? For the most part, Planetes handles these questions with a light touch, and doesn't pander or dumb down the situation at hand.
It's a shame that Planetes never achieved the widespread recognition it deserved. The series is a masterpiece, and the first one I've felt compelled to write a review for. Planetes is not a reinvention of the wheel or a stunning new concept - leave that to the vain and the hungry. It's a show about people - what we all are - and a fine example at that.
