English in Japan is still poor even in the future where space exploration is common. Just like mine.

This is a review of another random anime downloaded from KAA, Planetes. The next review after this will be even older than this one. Watch this space.

Story:-
Set up in the futuristic space age, a fresh graduate joins a crackpot team that specialized in collecting space debris, and an epic story that combined the genres of humour, romance, slice of life etc as the crew members deals with real-life issues such as environmental damage, deepening divide between rich and poor, terrorism, biomedical ethics and more. It is almost like the lesser version of another space opera I reviewed earlier, Legend of Galactic Heroes.

The story quality is nowhere near the one Legend of Galactic Heroes has, but other factors helped in making the anime shine. For example, the character development for main members of the team are done very well. The flow of the story is helped greatly by the superb directing, glossing over the storyline even more. Ending is excellent too. The only complaint I have is that the plot comes up relatively late in the series, although earlier episodes serve up as padding for the main dish that only appears in the last third or so of the series.

Character Design:-
It will not blow your mind away, that’s for sure. Although some designs of the spaceships here can be questioned for sanity.

This is the latest model from Motorola RAZR series. Complete with a solar panel for infinite amount of stand-by and talk times. Definitely superior compared to the overhyped Apple iPhone because this baby can use custom ring tones. Contrary to what you may think, this is not a spaceship! Honest!

Voice acting:-
A strong point of the anime. All the main characters of the anime, especially the members of the debris cleaning team, has great voice actors/actresses. Outstanding are both of the leading characters. Not up there with the standard that Nodame Cantabile has set, but nevertheless still awesome!

Music:-
The OP theme is forgettable, but the ED theme is decent and the OST is excellent.

Animation/Direction:-
Another strong point of this anime. The animation is fluid even in scenes that can do with CGI (there is none as I can see). And as I say above, the directing is superb in all areas, whether in story presentation, control of storyline flow, realization of original scenes such as the spacewalk scenarios and last but not least, the action scenes.

Conclusion:-
9 out of 10. A must watch for space buffs who can stomach some serious issues that the anime deals with.

One of the antics that the team members of the space debris collecting team will do for money.