With no spoilers:
When i watched vinland saga and after that read the manga, i thought i've seen too much of yukimura's greatness i won't be surprised by his works anymore. But man i was wrong, this mangaka kept blowing my expectations and never ceased to amaze me with his incredible ideas and art work. In this essay i'll be reviewing another masterpiece of probably my favorite mangaka (along with urasawa), a piece of art that managed to achieve, in only 4 volumes, what most of manga are unable to do in 15 volumes. This is a review of Planetes written by Makoto yukimura.
Before getting into the heart of the matter, i want to clarify something about the adaptation of the manga done by sunrise studio. The anime and the manga are in my opinion two different pieces of art, sur the anime did adapt almost half of the manga and picked up a lot of yukimura's ideas, but the way things were done are completely different : the anime focused more on the plot, made things more thrilling with the terrorists plot line and added a bunch of new characters for more comedy and enjoyment, while the manga was more about the characters and their problems, and through their development the writer made of his manga a philosophical reflection about life and humain beings. For my standards, the anime was good, but it was lacking the depth of the manga and some new content was unnecessary. The manga in my opinion is way better in almost every aspcet, but this is a matter of preference, so i will recommend who ever reads this review to see both of them and then decide which one is better for him.
As for why people should give this manga a try, i think planetes contains a bit of every thing that people except to see: it has realistic characters that reflect human condition , great character development, amazing atmosphere in a futuristic setting that is not that different from our current world, incredible world building with the use of some elements of physics, very good use of drama and comedy, incredible art work, and most importantly an amazing take on life problems, on human nature, and several themes such as space exploring, the meaning of one's existence, where do people belong in the universe, loneliness and the influence of the others, racism, human evolution, love and what it truly represents.... The manga may not contain a lot of enjoyment elements but for those who are looking for quality writing, for great story telling and for some real subjects of reflection i highly recommend this manga.
With potential spoilers:
Planetes, unlike other space stories , isn't about exploring new places in the universe nor about space battles and stuff like that. It's actually a reflection on the world as we know it in a space setting. it's a take on human situation and life problems that we face every day transmitted in a futuristic fictional universe that reflects and incarnates a lot of aspects of human nature.
The setting in which yukimura chose to tell the story represents the desire of humanity to find better places where to live, her will to unravel the mystery of the unknown, her greed to control everything, her continuous march towards evolution. It incarnates one's desires and regrets and shows the insignificance of his existence compared to the whole universe, but also his value among the other humans. The space, as yukimura portrayed it, can have different meanings depending on the character :
for Hachimaki, it's the place where he finds out what truely matters to him, it's the place that showed him the lies he was blindly pursuing, it's the place that taught him that earth is space and that wherever you are in the universe you can't stop being a human who loves other people.
For Tanabe, it's the place where she can overpass her limites and show what she is capable of, it's the place that incarnates her freedom as a human being and where her philosophy of love impacts the others in the best way possible.
For Fee, space is the place where she can finnaly be herself, it's the place where she can express her rebellion against how things are and the place that got her rid of all the regrets she had about her life.
For Yuri, it's the place that taught him that one should always go on living no matter what happens, even if you loose your loved ones, life always has something for you, and even if you can't find answers to your questions you can continue living without having to answer all of them.
For Locksmith, it's the place where his ego and his ambition of a scientist find no limits. For Goro Hoshino, it's the place where shines his nature of taking new adventures. For some random astronauts it's the place where they truly belong, and for others it's the place where they escape from the hell they were living in.
It's incredible how rich Planetes world is, how it reflects every character's nature and personality, and how much connections between characters it provides for the writer.
Now talking about characterisation and character development, and unlike the anime, yukimura gave a lot of time to show the back stories of the characters, their motivation and their thoughts about the world. He focused on every one's problems and develop them to find potential solutions, with simplistic plot lines and very natural events.
He managed to show Hachimaki's psychological struggle against the fear of being alone in space after the accident while collecting debris. he brilliantly portrayed his inner conflict between his egoistic desire to let everything behind him and go to jupiter, and his attachment to earth and Tanabe. He also done a fantastic job showing Hachimaki's realistic depression in space, his reflection about his existence and how he was able to surpass this situation and find the right answer to his problem.
We also got to see Tanabe when she was little, how she was adopted by the Tanabe who gave her love and tenderness, how she impacted their life and how she intuitively developed affection for others the same way she was given unconditional love.
Fee's backstory with her shunned uncle gave her character more depth and served as a back-up to her development when she was fed up with the futility of her work as debris collector and when she started her rebellion against her superiors and her old life.
Besides, another thing that shows the greatness of this manga is the huge amount of themes discussed in this 26 chapters: i'm still impressed of how yukimura was able to touch on a lot of life questions and problems in only 4 volumes leaving the reader in deep reflection about the matters . The idea of belonging to a place, to an ideology, to a religion, to humanity, to the universe is brilliantly presented in harmony with the narrative. The idea of love being what truly defines human beings, the fact that people can't change everything in the world, the limits of one's ambition, the absurdity of war, the injustice and the racism that still exist in the world, how people can live outside the social standards.... All these ideas and questions are present in the dialogues between characters and their monologs, in a way to portray their personalities and to conlude their character arcs meaningfully.
There is also some great amount of physics and scientific knowledge in this manga. You can find the Kessler syndrome, the zero gravity, the impact of low gravity on the body, cosmic radiations, spacial leukemia...
So for science lovers, Planetes is a real treat.
To finish this review, in my opinion Planetes is nothing short of a masterpiece, i don't think there is plenty of other short manga that can be so rich of themes and messages, with incredible setting and world building, drawn with so much details and care, and telling impactful stories with well written and developed characters . Such a manga is created only once in a long period of time, and i think we should be grateful we had the chance to witness this piece of art.
