As a kid, I always had a fascination with space. And not the fiction space (like Star Wars), but real life human efforts to go to outer space. Sputnik, NASA, the moon missions, the Voyager probes, the space shuttles, EVA, zero and low gravity environments, etc. As I grew up, this fascination slowly faded away (while the school system tried to mold me into the perfect citizen...).
In some sense, you can say we, as a people, also lost this fascination of space. The drive to explore and conquer it. In fact, its likely that we think of it as a waste of precious resources, given the Challenger disaster in 1986 and, more recently, the Columbia disaster in 2003. So in many ways, my loss of the fascination of space may just reflect the whims of society in general, despite the efforts of great movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Apollo 13.
PlanetES (Or ΠΛΑΝΗΤΕΣ, Greek for "wanderers") was a hidden gem that suddenly awoke that fascination in me again. Created and produced by Sunrise (Cowboy Bebop, Vision of Escaflowne, Gundam Wing, Inuyasha) and Bandai Visual (Macross, Harlock Saga, .Hack series, Patlabor movies), it aired in Japan just 2 short months after the Columbia disaster in 2003. PlanetES offers a fascinating view of humanity and great political and personal drama between countries and people in the year 2075, all in a package of 26 episodes.
Discussion
A good part of PlanetES is that it is a hard science-fiction series. Unlike most science fiction anime, this is a science nerd's wet dream with how much it pays attention to scientific detail and accuracy. From realistic physics, enforcing simple concepts like momentum, the laws of motion, center of mass, having no sounds in the vacuums of space, to biological issues, such as leukemia and other cancers from prolong exposure to the radiation in space and how does the human body grow in an environment like on the moon, where the gravity is 1/6 of earth's gravity. The series even explores more advanced concepts such as Kessler Syndrome and several psychological issues.
In addition to the study to detail in the sciences, this series also goes to great lengths in political and economic details. For example, at some point, an alternative to oil was found/developed as an effective and cheap fuel source. What ends up happening are that countries that were dependent on oil as an income are suddenly destitute. Predictably, those countries suddenly collapse as their economy dies and become areas of heavy civil and military unrest. In other words, they become hotbeds for terrorists. I found this to be a rather bold statement especially in light of recent history.
Keep in mind, I described all of the above, but all of it is from the subtext in this series. It brilliantly keeps all of that detail from being in the limelight. Another major highlight is the animation and sound production. Again, a move towards realism seems to be the key here. Characters actually look human; it stays away from the exaggerated and super-cute features and movements that many animes do, much in lines of The Twelve Kingdoms and Monster. Space stations and ships are quite detailed inside and out; you'll see many functional features like bars to use as handholds to propel or stop you in the zero-g environments; space stations have rotating sections to simulate gravity. There is some very seemless use of CG, especially with space stations. The music won't win any awards; in fact, I find the the series took a very bold move with the opening and ending themes fitting to the mood of the series as a whole rather than designed to be pop-chart toppers, the exception being the amazing ending piece for the last episode of the series (Much like Cowboy Bebop ended with a different song). The Japanese voice acting was excellently done (I'll be getting the DVDs soon to see how good the English dub is). Background music fit the moods very well, and tended to be light orchestral and piano pieces, and occasionally a chorus. The sound effects were downright amazing. From the whirs and clicks of mechanical arms, the thunk when a ship docks with a port, to the dead silence of space, occasionally with chatter or even just breathing over the communications system, all of the sounds worked real well at immersing me in this out-of-this-world environment (Ok.. yeah, that was literal...).
Ok, now that I've described the excellent technical features of this series, let's get to the really good stuff... The story and characters. Yes, all of that technical information above are used to frame and portray what starts out as an episodic slice-of-life series much like Cowboy Bebop. For the first two-thirds of the series, we are treated to a series of rather self-contained shows that establishes the characters and their relationship and interactions with each other. The character development is very good, and some of the characters even go through some minor changes. We even get a few themes that are highlighted in each episode. In fact, I'd say that these are some of the best set of episodes outside of Cowboy Bebop and Kino's Journey that I've seen. Basically, we are introduced to a division of a large conglomerate that is relegated to the collection of space debris. Yes, essentially, space janitors (like Roger Wilco in the Space Quest games, if you will.. 
). Like janitors on earth, these space janitors are treated as the least important part of the company despite the hazardous work they do to pick up "space debris", or objects such as unused satellites or parts that drifted off of space construction efforts that now threaten space stations and ships around the Earth. The very first episodes tended to highlight the importance of picking up this debris to further the exploration and conquer of space by mankind but the middle episodes branched a bit off of that. One of the highlight episodes (or the worst episodes, depending to who you talk to) is the moon-ninja episode. Sure, these guys watched far too much ninja movies and Naruto, but if you're in an environment with 1/6th of the gravity of earth and you're able to leap incredible distances, who wouldn't want to play ninja? 
I found this episode incredibly funny, though many expecting a completely serious anime will most likely be turned off. On the other hand, a few of these episodes are rather poignant. A couple of these are incredibly sad.
I have to take a moment here and also comment on the directing work. There are a many shots that are quite breath-taking: a shot of the earth, a sunrise silhouetting an astronaut from behind, a buggy driving on a road that crosses the Sea of Tranquility on the moon. Most of these shots also include the characters performing their mundane tasks without noticing this majesty, and PlanetES takes full advantage to play off of that irony. Now back to the plot line analysis.
Unlike Cowboy Bebop and Kino's Journey, though, the last third of PlanetES is where the real meat is. The transition from an episodic series to a cohesive arc is very sudden, but now, all of those themes that you were introduced to earlier, are now looked at in even more depth. This is a storytelling method that is not much different from how Haibane Renmei does it. And like in Haibane Renmei, the main perspective of the series slowly shifts from what seemed to be the main character to the real main character. Though they went through some changes before then, and a few romances were starting to bud up before, now those characters are put to the meat grinder, and those romances are strained to their limit. Yes, these characters go through some serious change, and not always for the better. Some people felt that some parts late in the series felt contrived and out of character, but these viewers seemed to have forgotten something; these characters were human. Rational and illogical humans. I never felt that anybody truly did anything that a real person wouldn't have. I may have not liked it. I may have thought some of them took the wrong choices, but they never felt inhuman.
And when it came to the climax and epilogue, I have to admit, I teared the first time I watched it, and my eyes watered this time too. I cried because the ending fit and was completely appropriate to me. It didn't cop out, but followed through to a conclusion that provided a simple answer. An answer that is repeated all through-out the series. An answer that seems so naive and idealistic that the first time I thought it couldn't be right, but my second run through this series not only confirmed this, but I can't argue against it. There's some powerful philosophical discussion occurring in the subtext that I don't have the time or energy to write it out, yet.
Conclusion
PlanetES is one of the best recent anime that I've seen to grace the Japanese screen. The region 1 DVDs are currently being released in the U.S., and you can bet that I'll be buying them, and the manga (which the anime follows a modified storyline). If you can appreciate hard science fiction, like political and personal dramas, don't mind a bit of romance in the mix, and want very human characters, this anime of a glimpse of humanity's near future comes highly recommended from me.
*Note from Nick: This was originally a forum topic in the Mechacon forum I wrote on December 24, 2005. I'm reproducing it here (with some spelling and grammar edits).
