many changes, but the theme remains the same...

DVDs:


	• Planetes: Complete Collection Takehito Koyasu, Ai Orikasa Bandai, 2006 average customer review:based on 19 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Great DVD!! Fast Shipping!!

This was a great buy. It was shipped fast and was in great condition. I love the DVD and the box set came just as advertised. Thanks.

Finally a Realistic Futuristic Anime!

No sci-fi fan should overlook this title, no matter if they are an anime afficianado or not. Superb characterization and excellent voice acting lend to a likeable cast of characters. While this is not your one series, one plot style of anime, the stand alone style of the episodes works well for this series. My particular favorite involves a group of wanna-be ninjas living in a colony on the moon. It sounds odd...and it is, but it is hilarious nonetheless. What better than a shuriuken attack using not a metal ninja star, but a very small man contorted into a ninja star shape? I guess you have to see it to believe it!

The show sports some of the finest animation to date. Though the music is not very lively or dramatic, it works well enough.

Do not blow this off as a comedy though, there are great moments of sadness, conflict, despair, and suspense. A sure classic that is unfortunately going to be widely overlooked in the US due to the 'Space debris collection' job the characters are employed in and the lack of excitement generated by it. What a loss for those who do not view this gem.

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many changes, but the theme remains the same...

as a fan of the original manga, I was pleasantly surprised by the transition to anime; they've vastly increased the cast, and changed some of the emphasis in the plot to draw from additional themes like Japanese office ettiquette, behind the scenes corporate maneouverings and the messy state of geopolitics. Some elements seem to be there just to pad things out, others are actually quite interesting takes on the original plots. The Planetes take on life as an orbital garbage collector is as keen as ever, with a deft touch on the hard sci-fi angle (their discussions appear plausible without bombing the viewer with the underlying maths). there are worse ways to spend your time:)

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A good series but flawed.

If you like Hollywood Horse-feathers, I guess this is well done. Frankly, I think it should have been darker and grittier. The 'all you need is love to salve the hearts of the disenfranchised and dead' message is worthless. The dialog and plot are worthless for the same reasons. I have the same problem with this series that I have with most horror: if you have the antagonist down... kill him, cut his throat, put a bullet in his head and scatter his limbs to the four winds. If someone just slaughtered your friends: philosophical questions about what you should do now are answered. Period. Kill anyone responsible. The garbage hand-wringing regarding the cost of exploring space is specious at best. We're all dead no matter what may come, and all of humanity is dead if we don't get off this planet.

Planates is a well animated series; however, the annoying characters and their contrived moral confusion are not worth watching. I fail to believe that our descendants will not be smarter than this series. All or any one of us would not react in the fractious manners displayed in this series given the scenarios presented the characters.

Oh, gee, people are dying! They already are, and we still explore space. Oh, people are abused: that's not going to stop. And the abused and disenfranchised are not going to cease belonging to that group. I suppose that my dislike of this series is related to my love of its potential.

Planates could have been a great, gritty scifi series on par wiith Ghost in the Shell. But Planates springs for sappiness when GITS works toward: grit, plot, and characterization.

I consider this worth watching with serious reservations.

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An empowering space adventure

I'll definitely say this was an interesting series and I did end up enjoying it overall. At first it felt like the characters would really get on my nerves, but as I got into them more they got less annoying to me. Or maybe because of what they went through they got less annoying in the show. Either way, by the end of this series I was hooked and wanted to see what happened to them!

Planetes has a very unique premise in my opinion and the show works a lot more like a sitcom rather than action or a straight drama at first. A lot of the comedic factors are based on character personalities and how they deal with each other. This is usually based around arguing. The tension is based around their jobs, every day life, and what to do in emergencies. In Planetes we follow a group of interstellar garbage collectors. Apparently the garbage situation around Earth has gotten so bad that they need special groups called "debris haulers" to clean up space. Things in space can be moving really fast, even debris like a small screw, and if it hits a passenger liner in just the right spot it could blow a hole right in the ship! Unfortunately being a debris hauler is kind of a thankless job and this show takes place in a time when humanity is really just starting to expand into space. There are a few large space stations that house people full time and there are couple of moon colonies, but there isn't much beyond that, so humanity's reach hasn't gone too far yet.

The story really centers on a young girl named Ai Tanabe who gets her first job in space as a debris hauler. Some people might not like the way these astronauts kind of trivialized the profession, but if you think about it, once space travel becomes more of the norm and people living in space also becomes the norm, it's very reasonable to believe that concepts like inept middle management like we see on Earth are bound to follow! So that's sort of the world Tanabe gets involved with. The two managers of the debris section for the Technora Co. are kind of clueless middle managers. The real people with the know how are the grunt workers that Tanabe will be working with. It's kind of a spin off of office sitcoms, but in space. However, the show does have its serious moments, especially when the reality of dealing with upper management sets in. Greed and power are not gone now that humanity is in space. Not to mention there is a terrorist faction out there that wants to stop humanity from spreading into space! So while this series seemed to start off as a happy comedy it takes a drastically serious turn towards the end. I at first thought it would be marketed towards the fairly young, but by the end I can confidently say that it gets very adult themed or at least more mature like mid to late teenage years.

The overall message is an overly sappy one about love, but the anime goes through dark enough trials that I can kind of forgive this kind of a closing. There are a lot of messages that go beyond that of finding those who love you and this makes this anime even more worthwhile. One that I particularly liked was the tangent on following your dreams. Are you doing them on a realistic level, is it just an ideal, and are you afraid if you don't achieve them? These kinds of concepts kind of hit home to me, but I really did like seeing the character deal with those issues. I can't pinpoint where the show precisely changed from what appears to be a comedic sitcom to a deep drama, but it does happen. That may sound like a poor writing technique, but I think Planetes pulled this off well. It also allowed for some serious twists and turns that I never even could have guessed!

In the end the story has its very cheerful and hopeful moments amidst large amounts of tragedy that befall people. I like this very realistic approach, because it's not all happy fantasy out in space. It gives that touch of reality that not everyone in the world is benevolent and sometimes people just get lost. The harsh reality is that people do die and sometimes it's at the consequence of wanting to progress. Even in Planetes the human race is already looking beyond the moon and wants to harvest energy on Jupiter! So there's always a push for progression. So this is a pretty enjoyable series overall. It didn't blow me away and I wouldn't say this is the greatest thing I've ever seen, but it certainly did entertain me while I watched it. This is the first one I've watched that Bandai put out and I have to say that I'm a little less than impressed with the packaging. I like it in the sense that it definitely saves room because it's in a single oversized DVD case which houses all six discs. However, the quality of the products that Funimation and ADV put out are just better in my opinion. And for the other Bandai products I have there is also no booklet at all and I really like the ones I have that come with a booklet. Maybe it's just me, but I just think the other companies put out a better product. Either way, that really doesn't detract from the real quality of the show!

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