Planetes keeps going strong with the fourth volume.  This show about workers in space is fresh and new, discarding the trappings of other anime based in space and instead making everything as real as possible.  The show's attention to detail and well crafted stories make this a must-see series.

Series synopsis:

Ai Tanabe has finally achieved her dream of working in space.  Though she was at the bottom of her class and has no special skills, she somehow managed to swing an assignment on her companies space station.  When she gets there though Tanabe discovers that she's been assigned to Debris Section, know throughout the station as Half Section because they only have half the workers and half the budget they need to get the job done.  They are people responsible for collecting space junk that may be dangerous to other space vehicles and satellites.

Though their offices are in the basement in an old storage container, and the manager and second in command are idiots, Tanabe is excited about her new position and filled with youthful enthusiasm.  In addition to her two bosses Ai works with several people.  Hachimaki is her partner, a young man who desperately wants to own his own space ship, and teaches Tanabe how to work out in space.  Fee Carmichael is the tough female pilot of the spaceship they use, the 30 year old 'Toy Box' and Yuri is her first mate.  The Debris Section is rounded out by Edelgard a temp worker who doesn't say much and does all of the paper work for the section.

The work they do is hard, very dangerous, they don't have an appropriate budget, and everyone treats them poorly since they are just garbage men.  But the job is also important and saves lives, so Tanabe gets a lot of job satisfaction.

This volume:

Another great set of shows.  In this volume we learn a lot about Edelgard, the quiet temp worker who is very efficient and never smiles.  It turns out that she works a couple of part time jobs on the side, and is saving her money up so she can go to school.  She also has some skeletons in her closet that no one would have expected.
 
In the next episode, something horrible happens to Hachimaki when a solar flare disrupts communications.  Chasing after a piece of debris that had gotten away, he becomes lost in space for a period of time.  Everyone was worried that the radiation might have fried his nervous system, but he passes the physicals with flying colors.  That is until he has to go through a standard sensory depravation test.  Though he's been alone in space for years, now he can't stand being in a dark room all alone.  He's suffering from Space Loss Disorder, a psychological condition that will cost him his license if he can't beat it.

The Earth is trying to send an expedition to Jupiter too, a source of nearly limitless deuterium and tritium that can power the Earth's fusion reactors for years and years.  A new propulsion unit is being developed for the trip, the tandem mirror engine, and just about every man in space wants to be on the history making trip, especially Hachimaki.  The one person that the mission can't recruit is one of the top flight engineers:  Hachimaki's father.

Half Section gets into a big jam when a new director is assigned to their station, and one of the first things that he does is to disband the debris section!

I'm constantly impressed by this series.  The romance between Ai and Hachimaki is done very well, developing slowly over the series and never getting too romantic or overly sentimental.  The show can also get suspenseful in a very short amount of time.  Though they are going through the motions and doing their jobs, they are in space where a small mistake can have deadly results.  Both the stories and the animation are excellent, making is a great series.

With this volume, Planetes has been ramped down to single disc releases and we loose the clear plastic slip covers (at least the promo disc I received didn't have one.)
 
Audio:

This disc features the original Japanese soundtrack and an English dub, both in stereo surround sound.  I alternated soundtracks while watching the show and enjoyed both of them equally.  The English dub was very good, with the voice actors giving good performances.  They brought their characters to life without overacting or using fake accents.

The audio quality was very good.  The dialog was clean and the more subtle sound effects came through fine.  The sounds of the astronauts breathing in their suits were clear as were the engine sounds and background noises.  Overall a nice sounding disc.

Video:

The anamorphic enhanced widescreen (1.78:1) video looked excellent.  The lines were tight and the colors were bright and strong.  The show has a lot of fine details that come through well.  The clouds of Earth as seen from space and the plates that form Space Station 7 are all reproduced wonderfully.  The backgrounds have a lot of shading but banding wasn't a problem at all.  Other digital defects were also nonexistent.  Aliasing and blocking weren't to be found.  A really nice looking disc.

Extras:

The extras get pared down a good bit with this volume, since there isn't a second disc devoted to bonus material, but there's still some interesting items.  This time there is part 6 of the audio drama and a featurette on orbital debris where a NASA scientist shows the effects of small particles traveling at orbital velocity on mock space station hulls.  It was short but very also interesting.  The last bonus item is a deconstructed version of the opening where they show the individual segments that are put together to form the intro to the show.

Final Thoughts:

Another strong volume in a great series.  If you've grown just a tad tired of young kids piloting giant mecha machines, make sure you check this show out.  Extrapolating from where we currently are, this series has a firm grounding in reality that is nice to see.  Filled with engrossing stories and interesting characters, this program is Highly Recommended.