The Show:
Planetes wraps up with the sixth volume, ending the series on
a high note. This final installment ties up the story in a very satisfying
manner. One of the best series to come out in recent memory, the
ending is just as good as the rest of the program.
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.
Not everyone is happy with the development of space though. The
Space Defense Front is a terrorist group that doesn't like the fact that
only the first world countries are getting the benefit of the exploitation
of the moon. With the first manned mission to Jupiter being prepared and
a high level political summit taking place on the moon, the SDF is certain
to launch an attack.
This Volume:
With the international summit taking place on the moon, the SDF launches
their attack, but not where people think. Instead of attacking the
summit itself, they target the Von Braun, the new space ship that is being
built to take mankind to Jupiter. The attack is well planned and
orchestrated, and the terrorists manage to send the ship crashing into
the moon. Straight toward the biggest city on the moon.
With people worrying about the destruction of Sea of Tranquility city,
is there any hope of someone rescuing Ai who has taken an escape capsule
to the moon and is stranded there? With only a finite amount of Oxygen
and a wounded Clair to take care of, Ai has some tough decisions to make.
This final volume has a lot of excitement and action and no small amount
of suspense. There are some surprising events that keep viewers guessing
and the show interesting. These last few episodes are the best in
the series, which is saying a lot.
The DVD:
Like the previous installment, this volume of 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 from the earlier volumes since
there isn't a second disc devoted to bonus material, but there's still
some interesting items. This time there is part 9 of the audio drama
and two more "digital comics", four panel comics strips (based on the show)
in Japanese with translations underneath. These were mildly amusing
but not more than that. In addition this disc has a collection of
10 textless openings and the textless closing for the final episode.
Final Thoughts:
This series made it onto DVD Talk's list of top anime series for 2005,
and it certainly deserves its spot. This last volume wraps the series
up nicely and is sure to please fans of the series. Highly Recommended.
Buy: