sorry, it's 3 a.m.
Just finished the last episode of Planetes. Not sure what to think about it.
Edit: This post contains major SPOILERS. I actually highly recommend the series to anyone who likes sci-fi anime, so if you're thinking of watching Planetes it's probably better to skip this post. I'll throw up a non-spoilery review in the near future.
I enjoyed it throughout, but...I don't know? For some reason I couldn't help comparing Ai to Noa from Patlabor, and well...there's no contest. Noa eats Ai for breakfast. You know how character designers try to create the perfect spunky female character? Perkiness, naivete, optimism, idealism, endearing clumsiness - it all cancels out and you're left with a dead-boring protagonist. Love Fee (to bits), love Yuri (same), Lavie, Edel, Cheng-Shin, Hakim, Claire (holy shit I love this woman), even Lucie. Things got a bit weird with the terrorists, and then Evangelion weird with Hachi. Could we just once have a sci-fi series where someone doesn't have a psychological breakdown? Especially if the response from other characters is going to be, "I don't know what's wrong, I THOUGHT THESE PORK CUTLETS WOULD CURE HIM." And, ok, loved that characters were so diverse in race, nationality, and ethnicity, but the final fates of Hakim and Claire are kind of fucked up. Yes, yes, it's all part of the plot, but on a meta level it is sadly consistent with narratives of who gets happy endings and who gets prison and mental derangement.
I do think it is interesting that Planetes deliberately works in a major theme of first-world/developing countries, haves and have-nots, distribution of resources. To its credit, the series did not present Hakim's argument as wrong, per se, but, as this is a Japanese anime and Japan itself is a developed nation, imo the anime deliberately covered its bases and made sure the audience would not agree too much with Hakim's accusations of systematic international inequality. And oh god that epilogue shot of El Tanika and its still impoverished but newly hopeful refugees made me nearly ill. I don't know. I just wish that if a series is going to tackle this sort of issue, it would attempt to make a statement deeper than the usual "We feel bad for underdeveloped nations but violence is not the answer!" Planetes could have kept the diversity and left the rest. Really. I don't expect thoughtful social commentary out of anime, so it is ok to leave that entire can of worms unopened.
I did enjoy the series overall, and I'll probably write about the lovely parts of Planetes later. Starting with, boring though she is, Ai's consistently unflattering choices in clothing. Rock that pink sweater vest, girl!
Edit: This post contains major SPOILERS. I actually highly recommend the series to anyone who likes sci-fi anime, so if you're thinking of watching Planetes it's probably better to skip this post. I'll throw up a non-spoilery review in the near future.
I enjoyed it throughout, but...I don't know? For some reason I couldn't help comparing Ai to Noa from Patlabor, and well...there's no contest. Noa eats Ai for breakfast. You know how character designers try to create the perfect spunky female character? Perkiness, naivete, optimism, idealism, endearing clumsiness - it all cancels out and you're left with a dead-boring protagonist. Love Fee (to bits), love Yuri (same), Lavie, Edel, Cheng-Shin, Hakim, Claire (holy shit I love this woman), even Lucie. Things got a bit weird with the terrorists, and then Evangelion weird with Hachi. Could we just once have a sci-fi series where someone doesn't have a psychological breakdown? Especially if the response from other characters is going to be, "I don't know what's wrong, I THOUGHT THESE PORK CUTLETS WOULD CURE HIM." And, ok, loved that characters were so diverse in race, nationality, and ethnicity, but the final fates of Hakim and Claire are kind of fucked up. Yes, yes, it's all part of the plot, but on a meta level it is sadly consistent with narratives of who gets happy endings and who gets prison and mental derangement.
I do think it is interesting that Planetes deliberately works in a major theme of first-world/developing countries, haves and have-nots, distribution of resources. To its credit, the series did not present Hakim's argument as wrong, per se, but, as this is a Japanese anime and Japan itself is a developed nation, imo the anime deliberately covered its bases and made sure the audience would not agree too much with Hakim's accusations of systematic international inequality. And oh god that epilogue shot of El Tanika and its still impoverished but newly hopeful refugees made me nearly ill. I don't know. I just wish that if a series is going to tackle this sort of issue, it would attempt to make a statement deeper than the usual "We feel bad for underdeveloped nations but violence is not the answer!" Planetes could have kept the diversity and left the rest. Really. I don't expect thoughtful social commentary out of anime, so it is ok to leave that entire can of worms unopened.
I did enjoy the series overall, and I'll probably write about the lovely parts of Planetes later. Starting with, boring though she is, Ai's consistently unflattering choices in clothing. Rock that pink sweater vest, girl!