First of all, as a non-native English speaker, I don’t guarantee my writing accuracy in this review, and I early apologize for the mistakes you might find in it. This review won’t contain any spoiler!
I discovered Planetes navigating in the top anime list on MAL, and the name as well as the image have intrigued me. I clicked to read about it, and I was surprised! 8.32/10 in average, some 10/10 in the reviews… This is how I decided to watch this anime, but at the end, I was quite disappointed. I saw the 10 first episodes very quickly, but I made a huge break to see the 16 others, and this shows that I was a bit bored during the first part of the anime… So let me review Planetes step by step.
STORY: 6/10
The plot promised a lot of things, and I’ll be honest. I didn’t like the first 16 episodes of this anime for a simple reason: I didn’t care. Although there were good ideas, I felt really unconcerned about the story. Each episode seemed disconnected from the last one… However, from episodes 17 to 26, the plot was way more interesting. The characters had a real goal, they were finally doing concrete things other than just doing their job (even though their job is interesting for two or three episodes, but after this I understood all its stakes). The final narrative arc was great! I was finally motivated by the story. Nevertheless, the main romance was mediocre. I’m not into romance at all, and I wasn’t involved in the two protagonist’s relationship issues. So I have the feeling that I waited sixteen episodes to finally watch something relevant, which saves the story grade. I must still confess that the plot raised some very compelling ethical questions about space travel. 6/10 is a fair score.
ART: 6/10
Not incredible at all. It’s a matter of taste, but I do not enjoy the character design and the general drawing style. For 2003, I don’t think it’s revolutionary, but it’s not horrible either. I did like the little transition in the middle of the episodes though (I don’t know what you call it). The level of detail was very low, and lightning was quite bad too, but the part in space was enjoyable. The graphic chart of the planets is an example of things that I appreciated.
SOUND: 5/10
In the beginning, I would have given to sound a fair 6, because the soundtrack was acceptable, without being incredible. BUT there was one song that spoiled the whole thing. I don’t remember exactly when it occurred, but there was a sort of flute, which was completely out of tune. I found that too bad, and this is why I decided to give the sound only a 5. Not horrible, not incredible, just average. Regarding the opening and ending songs, I found them fine. Sometimes the transition between the end of the episode and the ending song was rough, because it was a totally different mood, but I don’t think I can blame the anime for that, it’s just a bit disturbing.
CHARACTER: 7/10
Characters are one of the strengths of this anime. The stories of the different protagonists are often well presented. Some are sad, some explain their dreams… Many of the characters were developed in a good way. Lavie was funny, Yuri was touching... However, as I said, the romance part of the plot was pretty annoying to me.
OVERALL: 6/10
This anime was fine. Although I found its first part annoying, I enjoyed the other. The art and the sound are not amazing, the story has interesting aspects, but I found that the romance was ruining it. I personally don’t understand why there’s such hype around this anime, which even received an award, but if you enjoy Sci-Fi a lot, this might be for you (and many people found Planetes outstanding!).
