Video Backlog: "Planetes"

Publisher: Bandai Entertainment (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Dub and English Subtitles
Length: 26 episodes x 25 mins
Production Date: 2003 - 2004
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

Story Outline: 106 years after man first set foot on the moon, humankind has finally made a permanent home in space. However with nearly 120 years of human spaceflight, the earth is surrounded debris of pieces of spacecraft. Even something as small as a nut can do damage, especially when it’s flying as 8 metres per second. To combat this problem, teams of debris are employed to clean up areas and salvage anything which is useful. The Technora Corporation, like other private institutions, have their own team to remove space junk. However like in most corporations, they’re at the bottom of the food chain. Other sections refer to them as the “half section”, as they have only half the number of staff they should (the other half not being granted due to budgetary concerns). Ai Tanabe, a female trainee in her early 20’s, is the newest member of the debris section, but finds her expectations don’t meet the reality of the job. The managers are somewhat incompetent and other staff are rather odd ball to say the least. Their ship, the Toy Box, is a rickety old piece of junk. Tanabe clashes head on with Hachirota Hoshino (nicknamed Hachimaki due to his ever present headband). Tanabe is an idealist and lacks experience with Extra Vehicular Activities (EVA for short, meaning working outside a spaceship). However due to many circumstances, both of them become attracted to each other. But their budding relationship will be tested on many levels due to numerous incidents, some which could lead to a temporary end to manned space exploration.

Mini Review: I pretty much ignored this show when it first came out on DVD. I’m not sure why as I love hard sci-fi. This show has that in spades. Everything to do with space flight is very realistically represented. External shots of space vehicles and the lunar surface are only accompanied by silence. The show also depicts the difficulty of humans living in space with radiation and muscle loss due to zero gravity. While the initial episodes give the impression that the show would only focus on the debris collection, it soon shifts into other bigger storylines such as the activities of the Space Defense Front terrorist group and a planned mission to Jupiter. This also leads to some very interesting issues and concepts being raised such as how the first world treats developing nations, the huge sums of money spent on space exploration while major social problems such as starvation are still unsolved on Earth. Tied up in this is Hachimaki and Tanabe rather platonic relationship. Tanabe is such a likeable character, but highly idealistic. I found Hachimaki to quite unlikeable initially, but as we delve deeper into his psyche, I came to sympathise and like him. The majority of the cast are really quite well fleshed out and often there are entire episodes dedicated to their backstories. In particular Fee, Claire, Yuri, Hakim and Cheng-Shin are really developed well. There are a few secondary characters which are nothing but caricatures, but generally they aren’t too distracting.

On the minus side, there are a couple of early episodes that are just plain silly such as the Ninja one, but I soon forgave that as the show headed into more serious drama territory. However these couple of episodes do let down the show, especially as at the core of the show, such high emphasis is placed on realism. But when viewed as whole, the show is pretty amazing. There are so many ideas and concepts here such as politics within a large corporate organisation, relationships in a high pressure workplace, terrorism, politics between the first and third worlds, personal ambition over everything else, corporate responsibility, self-doubt, grief and psychological drama. Instead of being a complete mess, all of these elements work in harmony with each other. It makes for some rather tense viewing at times. Bandai Entertainment’s complete collection is missing the bonus DVDs for the first three singe DVD releases (they shifted to single disc releases from volume 4). This means all of special features from the first three volumes aren’t here, including the first five audio dramas and most of the interviews at NASA's Orbital Debris Program which detail what happens in real world scenarios with space junk. However the core elements are here such clean openings, so I don’t mind missing out too much. Overall this was such a great show. I didn’t have much in the way of expectations for it. Easily this is one of the best shows I’ve watched in a long time 8.5 out 10.

Remaining Backlog: 19 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).