Planetes

(プラネテス)

• Author: Makoto Yukimura
• Demographic: Seinen
• Premise: The decade is the 2070s. Earth has developed space travel to the point of making it accessible to the common person. There are large space stations orbiting Earth and a developed colony on the moon. Through this development, a new career path has emerged: space debris collection. The spacecraft Toy Box is one such debris collector, consisting of a small crew of people named Hachimaki, Fee, and Yuri (and later a woman named Ai). The series follows the lives of the crew, exploring their personal goals, experiences, and values as they navigate through this not-so fictional future.

This series is truly an underrated gem, and I’m extremely glad to have encountered it. Although a few of the plot points in the series are apparently infeasible in reality (such as the cost/benefit ratio of employing human space debris collectors), it is a hard science fiction story that truly makes you wonder whether this could be our reality in 50 years. It explores the possibility of unequal access to space resources, the consequences of space warfare, and the prolonged effects of the space environment on human bodies. However, as cheesy as it may sound, the main theme of the story explores the concept of love, using space exploration as a vehicle in order for the series to make its conclusion. I would recommend this series to a mature audience that enjoys the sci-fi genre.