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Synopsis

As man has ventured out of Earth’s atmosphere he has left a lot of crap floating around. At orbital velocities, even something as small as a screw could cause major damage if it collides with a passenger transport ship. This is a job for the Debris Section, garbage collectors of the skies.

Their newest recruit is Tanabe Ai, who like so many young people is determined to go into space, even if it means hazardous conditions and low pay, even if it means wearing a diaper and being laughed at by, well, pretty much everyone who isn’t in the Debris Section.

Impressions

This may very well be the gem of 2003. Even before the first episode ended, I could see that Planetes is a very mature anime. It is also difficult to classify or pigeonhole into a common anime genre. While it is science fiction, it doesn’t appear at this point that Tanabe (a Ghibli-esque heroine) will be called on to save the world by piloting a giant robot.

The artwork leans more towards realism than most anime. Hand-drawn art is blended seamlessly with vast amounts of 3D. The animation from Production IG is impressive for a TV show, and I don’t just mean the action scenes in space. Even the scenes which are primarily dialogue often show character movements from people not involved in the conversations instead of simply rendering them as frozen manequins in the background.

Lest I be misleading, the show has at least as much slapstick and general goofiness as it does serious content. I mean, upon her arrival in the “basement” where the Debris Section is housed, she is greeted by a man wearing, from the waist up, a space suit, and from the waist down, diapers.

It’s hard to pin down the charm of Planetes. The show is episodic with no underlying story arc at this time. The series is quiet, with no flashy fights or monumental conflicts for the fanboys, just a glimpse into the lives of a few odd but likable blue-collar workers. I find it absolutely captivating.

Random Thoughts

Planetes is Greek for Wanderers and the origin of the English word planet—duh.

The Debris Section is located at the “bottom”—both literally and figuratively—of a spinning space station much like the one in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. I don’t know where the bottom is.

Also, while the third law of motion holds true for maneuvering in zero-G with wrist thrusters, it is inscrutably ignored when throwing a punch or bouncing off a floating comrade. Well, I guess that level of consistency would be asking too much. Still, Planetes makes a decent effort at Newtonian physics, so it deserves applause.

- 2003-03-02 19:08 -