Whenever a newfound anime fan starts their journey, seasoned veterans often suggest—solicited or otherwise—universally acclaimed series that can be completed over a weekend. Such titles would include shows like Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Death Note, and every anime fan’s favorite anime, Cowboy Bebop. While knowing where to start is easy, figuring out where to go next can be tricky, especially when you’re fiending for an anime that hits the same vibes as Cowboy Bebop. Luckily, Crunchyroll has just the thing with an underappreciated gem of a sci-fi anime called Planetes.
Regarding contemporary anime, Vinland Saga by Makoto Yukimura is widely considered one of the medium’s most moving stories. Much of its charm is how it turns power fantasy tropes of a warmongering Viking named Thorfinn in its first season into a meditative character study where he seeks redemption for his crimes against humanity in its second. Although this narrative shift might seem straightforward in text, Yukimura’s seinen anime has sparked a renewed admiration for storytelling among anime enthusiasts who’ve only experienced shonen power fantasy series where violence is celebrated. Most anime enthusiasts, myself included, recognize Yukimura solely for creating Vinland Saga, but his earlier work, an anime set in space, also showcases his writing talent. Its fundamental themes, settings, and character development make it an ideal successor to Shinichiro Watanabe’s Cowboy Bebop.
Planetes, created by Cowboy Bebop and Gundam studio Sunrise, is a 2003 anime that officially released on Crunchyroll in October. Unlike Cowboy Bebop‘s eclectic crew of bounty hunters traversing the depths of space in 2071, Planetes is set closer to Earth in 2075. The series further grounds itself by tasking its team—who could be mistaken for background characters in any other series—with clearing space debris orbiting Earth from commercial space travel. Essentially, they are glorified garbage collectors toiling over other people’s messes.
The narrative centers on a blossoming romance between Ai Tanabe, an inexperienced recruit, and her arrogant mentor, Hachirota Hoshino, who aspires to own his spaceship. However, their crucial task of ensuring the safety of space travel is hindered by the significant obstacle of their department’s lack of funding.
Unlike Cowboy Bebop, whose episodes are mostly one-off adventures in different places with a rotating cast of side characters you’ll never see again, Planetes‘ central locations are Earth, the crew’s ship, and a space station on the moon. Likewise, each episode follows the crew as they uncover the backstory behind varying pieces of debris and encounter commercial travelers and high-brow crew members. These characters’ ranges are as realistic as they are eccentric. Key among them is a gaggle of middle-aged white men who really like Japan, a moon-born girl whose body develops faster than her mental age, and eco-terrorists who make an excellent point justifying their crimes. This gives the show a sense of familiarity with its ensemble cast and makes their recurring presence (or lack thereof) hit hard as the story progresses.
The series also features a substantial amount of drama, with the crew members clashing as much as they collaborate. My favorite episodes include those where the crew grapples with honoring a 2024-era astronaut’s request to have his ejected casket sent into space or returned to his distant family on Earth, a South American engineer’s fight for recognition of his spacecraft amidst a conflict on Earth, and a crew member grieving his wife after a stray screw breaches the window of a space shuttle, setting the stage for the show’s narrative.
Planetes is unique because it centers its equally mundane and fantastical sci-fi concept on a story that questions the romanticized ideas of space exploration. While space travel is commonplace in Planetes, the show doesn’t shy away from portraying it as a privileged act. Planetes‘s narrative effortlessly pulls a Simpsons by calling out how rich pariahs like Elon Musk would ignore what happens to the rest of the world—deemed too poor, non-white, and working class to pursue the pie-in-the-sky dream of occupying Mars—by putting them at the dead center of its story.
Throughout the show’s 26 episodes, Yukimura’s writing highlights how commercialized space travel comes at the expense of impoverished nations’ tangible fossil fuels or the dying embers of the working class’s human spirit. Yukimura’s writing strikes a balance of being soul-stirring while injecting the story with moments of levity, so it’s not a huge bummer to watch. It also helps that the show’s atmospheric score is similar to something from the Mass Effect soundtrack.
That said, if you’re fixing to find a new sci-fi anime to lord over your hipster anime friends as some good shit, be sure to add Planetes to your watchlist on Crunchyroll, or purchase its Blu-ray set because physical media is the way to go.
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