Planetes Recommended

Publisher
Bandai
Director
Goro Taniguchi
Production
Bandai, NHK, Sunrise
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
26 episodes
Year
2003

Planetes - Volume 1

By Joseph (Joe) Wood
29th Sep 05

Most fans of anime will have an internal radar that tells them what good/great titles are out and which good/great titles they should keep their eyes out for in future. Titles that may have appeared on your radar may have been Full Metal Alchemist, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex or Cowboy Bebop to name a few. Yet every so often, a title can slip through this radar, a title that is just as good if not better than the ones on it, a title that gets overlooked because nobody has heard of it, and a title that can give you a serious slap in the face when you underestimate it.

Planetes could very well be one of these titles. I’d heard next to nothing about this title, and saw a trailer for it a few weeks before getting a copy of the first volume. The trailer (which was just the opening credits) didn’t leave me feeling like this could be any good. In fact, I wrongfully and shamefully thought it would be similar to Stratos 4…

In 2068 a small screw, floating round the Earth hit suborbital passenger ship “Alnair 8” resulting in a terrible accident. This disaster awoke the world to the huge problem of space debris, millions of which is in orbit around the world. To prevent another accident and for the future of space development the removal of the debris has become a priority of Earth.

2075 and Ai Tanabe a young girl who is disillusioned with the life of an astronaut, joins the Debris Section of the Technora corporation’s space station, which is nick named “Half” Section by most of the other Technora employees. Ai quickly sees that Debris section is not the gallant and sexy affair she thought it was, the work is hard, the section is understaffed (it only has half it’s allotted personnel hence the nickname) and underpaid, and to top it off it’s staffed with a bunch of misguided misfits. There’s Hachirota Hoshino or Hachimaki as he’s better known, Hachimaki’s quick temper often gets him into trouble, but underneath he’s really a nice guy, he also dreams of buying his own spaceship, Fee Carmichael the chain smoking captain of the debris recovery ship toybox, and Yuri Mihairokoh an animal lover who looks after pets of people on the space station. These and the other characters (who don’t really play a major role in this volume) all are extremely likeable.

The first volume contains 5 episodes of this 26 episode series, episode one see Tanabe join the debris section and her first mission, episode two sees the debris section encounter debris that Hachi failed to stop when he first joined the section. in the third episode, our crew encounter a man whose coffin was sent into space, but what should they do with it now, Tanabe believes that the body should be taken back to Earth, but the others don’t see it that way, in episode four debris section encounter a spoilt rich kid who could easily get them fired, but the kid is such a brat and Hachi constantly comes very close to punching him. In the final episode on this disc, our guys are on their way for a vacation to the moon, but on the way, they encounter pickpockets, movie directors and depressed families.

The episode descriptions might not sound much, but I’ve purposely done this as I was so blown away by the humour in the episodes even thought the situation is almost deadly serious. Tanabe reminds me of Noa from Patlabor, and not just cause of their similar appearance but their personalities as well. The animation is stunning, and if any CGI is used (not counting views of the space station) then it’s hardly noticeable. The music is also top quality providing just the right score for the serious moments, and comedy. While there doesn’t seem to be any development of an overall plot there are a number of suggestions that all is not right with the world, the organisation INTO is mentioned several times, and often negatively, there’s the suggestion that it’s a unwanted military force. My two primary concerns for this series are, where this going to lead is, and can it keep fresh. The five episodes on this disc are quite different from one another and all are great in different ways, but I’m not sure that the series will be able to keep this up for a full 26 episodes.

Planetes was a nice extremely welcome surprising change from what I was expecting, hopefully the rest of the series can keep up. One to put on the radar!

(NOTE: The cover image here is for the region one version, I'll change this as soon as I can find the region 2 cover)

R2 DVD Notes

Features: English and Japanese 5.1, English and Japanese 2.0, English German French Dutch Subtitles, Trailers, Translation Notes, Character Bios, Director's commentary (Episode 1, Japanese with Subtitles). Clean Opening and Closing Animation.

Release information: Publisher: BEEZ Out: September 26, 2005 Classification: PG

Notes: The Extras add to what is already a great package. The Clean Opening and Closing and Trailers are nothing exciting to write home about. However the notes on translation such as the meaning of "Sempai" are a nice touch that other series might overlook to include. The dierector's commentary is also rather intresting if you don't mind reading it rather than listening to it as it's only avaliable in Japanese with english subtitles.

-- Joseph (Joe) Wood 29th Sep 05

Planetes Images