** Below this line this review contains spoilers **
The first half of this series is something you as the viewer feel you can take or leave and not feel like you're missing anything.
While you might think the show is about garbage collecting in space from it's synopsis and other reviews. It's not really about that at all. The backdrop of space and collecting debris as part of a space corporation is really just a setting for the characters in the show to develop. This show is enormously character driven, it's really 'all about the characters'. The performances the voice actors give are excellent minus perhaps the episodes related to the ninja characters.
Planetes is just about human beings at work in the corporate world in some future version of our real world just now we have access to space.
So why should you watch it? What really saves this show is the characters. The characters ARE enjoyable and the second half of planetes is what really makes planetes worth watching but the more intelligent viewer will have serious problems with suspension of disbelief. I will explain my problems with the show in regards to intelligent viewers.
The main problem with planetes is planetes lack of focus. There is too many characters and side stories going on with planetes world that are all in some way interesting. So what happens is you end up with lots of under-developed characters and gaps in the story that give planetes and unfinished feeling despite becoming a really enjoyable show through the second half.
The 26 episodes seem rather tiny to fit in all the different characters and their ambitions, relationships and goals. You can feel throughout planetes that the directors of planetes unfortunately really wanted to develop other characters besides Hachimaki and Tanabe but didn't know how to go about it intelligently or didn't have the budget (I lean towards budget). More intelligent viewers will be left wanting more background and character development of certain side characters that never end up being shown. So you are often left hanging about characters you wished we had more info on.
The next problem is the poor writing of the two main characters. The poor writing plus the lack of focus by the directors by having so much going on in planetes creates a problem with the show that many might miss. It makes the romance between Tanabe and Hachimaki unreal and cracks start to form in minds of more intelligent viewers.
Despite Tanabe being a wonderful character to watch, the odd way in which their romance develops feels awkward because of certain events and it just subtly sticks in your mind that something feels off about the main characters. Pretty much everyone by the end of planetes should end up loving Tanabes character because her voice actors acting was just fantastic but there is some seriously bad cringe worthy writing with regards to these two characters in the second half of the show.
The writers of planets giving Hachimaki (tanabe's love interest) the goal of going to Jupiter tended to throw off the whole romance between the two characters, it just creates this feeling of unrealism that Tanabe would wait and endure 7 years apart from the man she loves. In the real world practically no normal human being would do this without moving on to some other love interest to get on with their lives.
The next problem is the way Tanabe herself was written as a character, she's written to love Hachimaki and early in the show she comes off as unrealistically stupid about man/woman relationships and they end up dragging out her stupidity for too many episodes. She seems kind of like a nun from a convent so when the two get together they end up making an odd couple. Tanabe seems written too innocent/pure and unbelievable as a female character when it comes to relating to the opposite sex. Despite all the other positive characteristics she has that I ended up loving about her throughout the show, some of her behavior and dialogue she was given comes off as completely artificial at behest of the writers.
This forced artificiality is what breaks the viewers suspension of disbelief in regards to tanabe as a character and more intelligent viewers may end up disliking that tanabe's interest in Hachimaki seems too fake/forced to be believable.
Other then the above problems the show really picks up during the second half and planetes is one of the 'must watch' anime series. My only beef with it is the emotional impact of the characters on the average person causes the average anime viewer to overlook serious flaws in the story. Planetes is a very flawed masterpiece and the more intelligent you are the more flaws will be apparent.
