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 2

By Joseph (Joe) Wood
21st Dec 05

laPlanetes volume one took me quite by surprise, I was expecting very little from this series only to be absolutely blown away at how good the first volume was. This does cause problems when coming to review the second volume however, that the second volume has expectations to meet.

Offering another four episodes, “The Lunar Flying Squirrel” sees Tanabe, Hachimaki and co. land safely on the moon. Upon visiting Tanabe’s holiday home in the Moon’s slums, she and Hachi are attacked by a strange group of lunar ninja’s. The episode pokes fun at Naruto and other ninja anime, but still despite it’s strange setting still manages to focus on characterisation. “Extraterrestrial Girl” sees Hachi stuck in the moon’s hospital, Hachi encounters a woman who tells him she hasn’t been to Earth for twelve years, whilst he and the girl get closer during his time in hospital Hachi can’t help wonder what could be wrong with her. “A Place to Cling To” after returning to the daily grind the members of Debris Section hears that Fee has been offered a job in Control Section. Wanting the best for Fee the decide to recover an extremely dangerous piece of debris without Fee, yet not everything goes smoothly. “Regrets” sees Hachi’s old mentor return in order to examine Debris Sections capability as an evaluation for the OSA (Orbital Security Agency). It seems though as if Hachi’s mentor has a secret.

To say that Planetes volume two is more of the same, makes it sound like a bad thing, yet this is not true, in fact, it is a great thing. The episodes mix everything you could ask for in terms of an emotional scale. They will have you laughing at the well-timed comedy moments, and forcing tears back in some of the more upsetting scenes. The episodes are continuous yet most of them can easily be watched out of sequence as most of the episodes are self-contained. This makes for great replay value, and also means that you can put the odd episode on for friends.

The extremely high production values of this series means that the visuals especially those when orbiting the Earth are spectacular. Many of the episodes seem to be of such high quality that you often forget you’re watching a series and think you’re watching an anime movie.

The second volume still suffers from problems though most of these are superficial. So far Planetes has managed to stay clear of repeating the same episode formula despite it being so easy due to it’s settings, but it’s not clear how long it may be able to keep this up and their doesn’t seem any definitive indication of where the plot may be going.

Planetes could easily be set to be one of the best titles on offer for 2005/6 but a lot hangs on it’s future volumes.

R2 DVD Notes

Features: English and Japanese 5.1, English and Japanese 2.0, English German French Dutch Subtitles, Trailers,Character Bios, Clean Opening and Closing Animation, Audio Drama 1 and 2.

Release information: Label: Beez Released: November 7th 2005 Classification: PG Running Time: 75mins

Notes: The auido dramas are little extra scence, the first one is more of a storyboard, where as the second uses colour stills. They are quite funny although you will have to have watched the episodes first.

-- Joseph (Joe) Wood 21st Dec 05

Planetes Images