Planetes #1

Bandai

125 minutes
English/Japanese
English Subtitles
Released: 06/14/2005
Reviewed: 08/30/2005

I think it's no big secret that my preferences in entertainment haven't really matured since kindergarten. Just like when I was six years old I'm still primarily interested in things that involve robots, zombies, dinosaurs, ghosts. All the stuff that freaks a little kid out, and all the stuff that a little kid thinks are cool because they're bigger than him. Heck, some of these things have waste products are bigger than me at age six.

Added to that list should probably be space, for similar reasons. It's bigger than a kindergartener and it puts out sizably more waste than he could ever hope to accomplish. It's dark and cold and filled with all sorts of things that are just too cool to imagine. My limited view of space is tainted by crap like Robotech and Starblazers, where giant battleships, transforming airplanes, and promising alien encouters only served to sweeten the deal. Even today it's not hard to pique my interest just by appending the term "space" to sometihng. "Space Ninja", for example. Ninjas are already pretty awesome as it is, but imagine if they were in space. It's too cool to even imagine. I'm not sure I have the mental fortitude to withstand being sucked in by the fantasy.

But I'll try my best to concentrate on the matter at hand, you know, so you don't get bored while I'm off on my adventures.
Planetes, derived from the Greek word that basically means "planets", is surprisingly mundane. In space there are no Battleship Yamatos and there's no gigantic green aliens in battlesuits. There's no speedy jet fighters that transform into cool robots. When the characters do go outside they stumble orange in cumbersome orange spacesuits without the aid of the latest in homing missle technology. There are copious references to mundane facts like astronauts having to wear diapers, something you'd never see in the likes of Robotech. Planetes, without a doubt, is absolutely grounded in reality. Or, it's as grounded as anime tends to get anyway. I guess that means there's only one magical furry animal on the spaceship instead of thestandard five. The show spends most of its time exploring how gripe-worthy a job like trash collector is, which is a good break from foruteen year old transforming highschool girl warriors even if it's not exactly something you could place in the Science Fact section.

You kind of have to give Planetes the benefit of the doubt more than once. In the course of these first few episodes the trash collectors perform more than their fair share of death-defying feats, inclunding a near-death situation that manages to save the lives of more than a few people. With that in mind, the observant viewer finds it patently ridiculous when the show tries to throw its "under-funded" and "under-paid" angle at him. Without a doubt there are people in this world that are under-paid. Women in nursing homes working for $8 an hour without rubber gloves or cleaning supplies is one thing, but putting your life on the line in a hostile eviornment is another. It sucks if those women happen to catch scabies, sure, but it's not exactly burning up on re-entry.

The other issue is that our main character, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Ai Tanabe, gets away with murder on the ship. She questions direct orders from her superiors on at least two occassions and, as if that weren't enough, she goes out of her way to coldcock the CEO's son when he gets all uppity. No matter how desperate a job is for people who will work for minimum wage (which, as I've already detailed, makes no sense in the first place), I just can't see that kind of stuff flying.

I mean, there's guys out there that make a hundred thousand bucks a year working three weeks on a crab fishing boat. They're strapped to a rail in sub-zero degree weather for like twelve hours at a time and people can actually die doing it, but that's why they make the big bucks. In a real life situation, yes, these space debris people would work two months a year and burnout from the stress at 35. But twenty five minutes of characters driving around in Rolls and drinking Dom wouldn't make a very entertaining program. It's sort of just the sacrifice you have to make for the sake of entertainment.
In any other show these minor, almost invisible, flaws would just be glossed over. The problem is that Planetes, and its fans, have made it out to be such a super-real experience that all these things together stick out like a sore thumb. On the other hand, there's a dozen other space shows out there more concerned with the size of a teenage girl's bust than they are with any kind of realism. Amongst that quagmire of fan-based harem crap Planetes floats along, sitting pretty with its down to Earth ideals and simple, character-driven stories. Planetes is too stymied by its conventions to be great, but it's hard not to find something to like about it. "Space Garbage Collector" doesn't have as good a ring to it as "Space Ninja", but it's not bad by any stretch of the imagination.