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 5

By Joseph (Joe) Wood
28th Apr 06

The penultimate volume of Planets holds no punches as suddenly things begin to take a different direction to what you would probably be expecting.

Dolf is transferred onto the Jupiter project, and the new head of third division is certainly not one of Debris Sections biggest fans. With pressure from above our celestial garbage, people have to work even harder in order to turn the debris section around. Therefore, when they come across a dangerous space mine they decide that they have to collect it whatever the cost. Fresh out of this situation, Hachimaki decides that he has to quit so that he has a better chance of getting onto the “Von Braun” and the seven-year mission to Jupiter. Cheng Shin also decides to try out, as does Hakim who quits his job as well. As the testing begins, it is obvious that this is going to be no walk in the park as the man behind the Jupiter project decides the only way to test people for real life or death situations is to have life or death tests. The testing takes its affect on Hachi, who begins to become more and more distant from everyone including Tanabe.

As the series continues, previous elements seemed only to be sub-plots are coming to the forefront. The Space Defence Force, the terrorist organisation is mentioned more and more as it gears the viewer up for the coming events. The testing puts both Hachimaki and Hakim on a knife-edge, and one lot of testing proves incredibly tense viewing. As well as this, we see the return of Hachimaki’s other self, the darker personality that threatened to return in a previous episode (who has been given the nickname “Mirror”), which begins to throw away the idea that Planetes is going to stay the light happy comedic series it has been in the past.

That’s not to say that this volume is devoid of comedy, the first episode on this disc offers some great comedic moments, but as the volume goes on these seem fewer and further between. People who may have been worried that Planetes wouldn’t be able to cover a serious enough plotline should certainly have their fears remain unfounded as Planetes proves it can do anything.

There are some brilliant twists and turns, and the final episode is left on a fairly major cliffhanger. A truly breathtaking series Planetes is not something to be missed.

R2 DVD Notes

Features: English and Japanese 5.1, English and Japanese 2.0, English German French Dutch Subtitles, Audio Dramas/comics

Release information: Publisher: Beez Released: April 3rd 2006 Classification: 12 Running Time: 100mins

Notes: Compared to some of the other extra ladden volumes of Planetes, volume five's extras are minimal. Still the audio drama/comics are enetertaining side stories to the main anime (avalable in Japanese with subtitles only).

-- Joseph (Joe) Wood 28th Apr 06

Planetes Images