Review

Not Much Substance, But What Style! A Review of Catblue: Dynamite

Nick — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 10:41:55 -0500

I had never heard of Romanov Higa or of his ROMANoV Films before. His previous claims to fame, Urda and TANK S.W.A.T. 01, neither of which I never heard of, were largely panned by reviewers. Ridian, in a review on AnimeNfo, said that Urda, among other problems, suffered from "the rather cheap and cheesy writing". Romanov Higa's latest film released on December 2006 on the web, Catblue: Dynamite, still holds this quality. But this time, that cheesy writing actually added to the full effect of this 40 minute film featuring a blue-haired catgirl who can wield three guns at once; Catblue: Dynamite was heavily influenced by 70s exploitation films. Though I haven't seen many of those myself, I did show Catblue to a few friends who are big fans of those types of films, and they were amazed. Everything in this cell-shaded CG animation, the 70s muscle cars, the amateur English voice acting, the very well used disco music, came together into what became a highly entertaining, if a bit shallow, action-thriller movie.

Animation

The biggest thing I have to say here is that this is the first time I've watched a complete cell-shaded CG movie where the style actually works quite well. The characters look very good (Especially Blue) and the backgrounds are well modeled, though someone with a very picky eye could lodge a minor complaint that sometimes the characters stand out from the environments they're in instead of looking like they're a part of it, but you can also say that it looked like the characters were standing in front of a blue screen, which would work perfectly in line with the anime's homage to old b-movies.

Though the character's faces may not have looked as detailed as a hand-drawn animations, Romanov Higa really takes advantage of CG to do things that would be prohibitively expensive to do with hand-drawn cells. Not only are the action sequences (of which there are many in the 40 minute run) very well executed, the dialog scenes actually shined in many ways. Props have to given to the character animation work, as the characters move and feel like real humans. I understand that motion capturing was used; I don't know how extensively it was used in this movie, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if they also used motion capture technology during dialog, as the characters emote, gesture, and move around like a real actor. In addition, the camera has little shakes and movements, as if a cameraman is shooting the scenes with a hand-held camera. This is really apparent when I watched the movie on a big screen. These are rather little things, but they add up big in addition to the well chosen camera angles when it came to me enjoying the animation as a whole.

Then there are the cars. It does seem apparent that somebody at ROMANoV Films is a fan of 70s muscle cars. I have a passing interest in automobiles in general (I tend to appreciate engine technology much more than car body styles), but I have to admit that the cars in the film are outright eye-catching. I will have to get one of my car-fanatic friends over to watch the film and identify all of the cars for me.

Sound

While reading my intro above, you might have noticed where I wrote "the amateur English voice acting". Yes, the anime was actually dubbed in English and has Japanese subtitles. What I've been reading was that Romanov Higa got a few of his friends who spoke English natively to voice act the parts. And to take it a step further, Higa doesn't have a full grasp of the English language himself; he wrote the original script in Japanese, translated it to English, then told the voice actors to ad-lib the dialog. This is something almost unheard of in the animation world, but the result was something much, much better than I would have expected. This ends up with some real charm and chemistry between the main characters. They may be amateur, but the banter between the two "mules" is just golden to me.

Be warned, as a part of being influenced by exploitation films, the dialog is filled with much cussing. Keep the young ones away if you don't want to expose them to it.

Moving on from the voice acting, we get to the music. And to enjoy this 40 minute film, you will have to be able to endure much disco music. Fortunately for me, I actually like disco at times, and I really dig the offerings in this movie. There's also a theme that I can best describe as "70s detective generic quiet" theme and a "wailing guitar" theme for the few slow scenes in between the action. All of the music was appropriately used and really worked well and making the animation feel like a 70s film.

The sound effects were top-notched. From the firing of automatic weapons fitted with sound suppressors to the engine roars and tire screeching of the car chase, I have absolutely no complaints with the sounds used.

Story

This is probably the weakest part of the movie, given its approximately 40-minute running time and that more attention was brought to the action and the characters, but at least Romanov doesn't try to cover too much. There's a subtitle shown after the opening credits that announce that this is "Episode 05", and looking around on the official site for the movie shows that 8 episodes were planned. Hence, it looks like Catblue: Dynamite is only one piece of a larger story. The movie does do a good enough job of introducing us to the characters and giving a bit of backstory to keep me interested in it.

What we are presented in this one is that Blue, apparently the feline-femme-fatale, was meeting up with Bill and Roberto, a couple of mules (drug couriers) to get some information about something called "Red bird". The setting is somewhere in the U.S. (I've never was able to establish where, but I think in New York City somewhere), the time period was in the 1970s. Blue, as a cat, has the ability to see and talk to ghosts, and one name John Doe accompanies and assists her. They get attacked by a group of masked men led by a woman named M who is after a Frank Sinatra tape that are in Bill's and Roberto's possession. Action ensues.

There's a bit more to the story than that, actually, like how Blue came to her current form, but I have to keep some things left without spoilers, as little it would really add to the movie as a whole (Though I will add that it's always "old asian guys" that give mystical advice to characters in those old 70s exploitation films).

Characters

While the story here is sparse it's the main characters and their interactions with each other that Catblue really pulls off well. The banter between the antagonists and protagonists isn't as good, but is quite cheesy. The dialog works well with the style of film this animation is influenced by.

First up is the main feature: Blue. Cute and deadly. She's another form of the martial-arts-knowing akimbo-guns-wielding female characters often found in b-movie action thrillers, but in cat-girl form. Her part in the group is largely like a mercenary, as she takes jobs to protect (and possibly kill) people for money and information on a person referred to as the "Red Bird", but she still manages to befriend the other protagonists through her work. Blue is a character who is difficult not to like, though she won't garner much sympathy from the viewer (except possibly for one part when she's reminicing a bit). I especially like her because she's not the normal catgirl found in anime. She's not overly cute, nor is she hyper-sexified, but just a little of both with a sassy attitude that really isn't all that rare in American action films but that is fun to watch. Her cat side gives her some heightened physical and martial arts abilities, and the fact that she can fire a gun or wield a sword with her tail along with both hands makes her even more deadly against multiple targets. In fact, I'd say she's part New World monkey with what she can do with that prehensile tail. I have to give props to the animation job with her; the modeling, cell shading technique, and the little animations (like her wiggling her ears or how her tail moves) were quite excellently done.

John Doe is a ghost who accompanies Blue. You see, part of Blue being a "cat" is that she can see and communicate with ghosts. He often performs recon for Blue (as normal humans cannot sense his presence) and will catch recently killed spirits for Blue to interrogate. Seriously, I like John's character a lot for his wooden acting. Not just the voice acting, but the actual character model animation gives a feel of an amateur actor trying to act. I don't know why I get a kick out of it; maybe I appreciate the extra effort the animators took to give that feel. Still, it's pretty apparent John isn't just a tool for Blue, but he also gives words of encouragement and allows Blue to speak openly with him. There's also some less apparent clues to extrapolate their past, too.

Then we get to the characters that I feel are the stars of the movie, Roberto and Bill. They are both "mules", or couriers for a cocaine smuggling operation, but as a pair, they are two of the more entertaining characters I've seen in animation in some time. They show an implicit trust with each other, even if they often get into the same arguments. Neither are superhuman in any form, just regular joes in a dangerous career trying to make a living. Also, the voice acting and character animation for both are perfectly suited for their roles.

Roberto is the older, calmer, and the defacto leader of the two. He and Blue know each other from a job Blue did for Roberto's younger sister, Alicia. The official site's cast list (or at least the Google translation of it) seems to suggest that he's a Vietnam War veteren. He also narrates the scene leading up the the opening credit. Roberto is reasonably resourceful when he's placed in a stressed situation.

Bill is the younger of the two, and probably in his twenties. He's also engaged to Alicia, much to Roberto's chagrin. Liable to panic, some of the other character's time is spent calming Bill down. Much of Roberto's annoyance with Bill stems from Bill constantly calling him "brother".

M is best described as a minor boss in a longer story. Her role is to attempt to get something from the protagonists (in this case, a Frank Sinatra tape) and get into some kind of one-on-one fight with the main protagonist (in this case, Blue). Her voice actress used a very flat style of acting her role, and I found it works very well here.

Outside of the masked goons that work under M, we have Charlie who plays a small role at the beginning of the movie, and the unfortunate cook who was at the restaurant that gets attacked at the beginning.

Value

Many of the elements present in Catblue: Dynamite would have killed a greater anime, like the bad voice acting or the paper-thin plot. But it all comes together in what was a very entertaining ride for me that I've rewatched many, many times since I first stumbled onto it.

Yeah, the movie is shallow. It's an action-thriller featuring a catgirl mercenary set in the big city American 70s. There's no deeper themes or messages present. The anime still does leave quite a few clues so that you can make your own interpolations and connections about the characters themselves. There's hints of a much larger conspiracy looming in the background that the film never explicitly explained.

Catblue: Dynamite got my attention with the eye-candy and gimmicks, but I am honestly wanting to see more of this. The 40-minute animation announces itself as "Epsidoe 05", and poking around at the offical site for the movie shows a plan for 8 episodes. I am not fully sure what kind of audience this was made for (not sure about how well the Japanese audience would take it, but I did read that an American audience was planned during production), but it's found at least one member in that audience here in the U.S. who wants to see it. More, actually, as the local friends I screened this to absolutely loved it...

Oh, as a side note, keep an eye out for the Engrish that pop up in a newspaper clipping at the end of the movie... Funny stuff, there.

Makoto Shinkai's Byousoku 5 cm - Episode 1: Okasho (Extract of Cherry Blossom)

Nick — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 21:45:08 -0600

Warning: Extreme fanboy gushing ahead!

The following is the initial review for the first episode of Makoto Shinkai's Byousoku 5 Centimeters that I wrote on AnimeNfo with images inserted and some minor changes and edits to fit a more permanent format, as I will update the review on AnimeNfo when I see the rest of the movie. I'll most likely do a complete review of the full movie on this site.

On with the review!

Overall

"The Speed at which cherry blossoms fall. Five centimeters per second"

Though the full 3-part movie of _Byousoku 5 centimeter_ is not due to come out until March 3rd in Japan, Yahoo! Japan decided to release the 1st episode of the movie (titled Ohkashoh, or "Extract of Cherry Blossom") as a stream to Yahoo! Premium members and Yahoo! BB members on February 16th. I had resigned to not seeing the movie until later when the fansubbers get a hold of the DVD release, but I had forgotten of the power of the internet!

Needless to say, I somehow found myself with a raw of the stream. Initially, I watched it twice without any subtitling or any translation help...

And I was astounded. What I was seeing, even through a reduced-quality stream, was amazing. Shinkai and his animation team manages to outdo his previous movie's animation quality ever so slightly. But more importantly than what I was seeing was how the movie made me feel. The imagery I was seeing on screen, the music created and played by TENMON, the voice-acting, and the bits and pieces of what I could make out of the Japanese I was hearing seriously moved me. It moved me enough to make me watch it twice in succession, and get me to put off watching it again while I chewed on what I just saw.

The third time I watched the first episode, this time with a printed transation in hand (Like old school anime fans! Before there were these silly fansubbing groups!), confirmed what I got as the basic story: Young boy and young girl in the same elementary class like each other. Then they get separated as their families (or something) need to move, so they keep in contact via phone or letter, and occasionally meet each other by train. One day, before the boy has to move even further so that they aren't just a train-ride away, he goes to see her one more time. Unfortunately, the day they choose to meet was the day the sky decided to dump a large amount of snow...

This time, Makoto Shinkai presents the straightforward drama without any sci-fi framework. This should help make the episode much easier to relate to for most (And truthfully, Shinkai wasn't very good at expounding on the otherwise extraneous sci-fi elements in his previous movie, as solidly planned as it was).

By far, from the 28 minutes (Including ending theme and preview of the next episode) I just seen, this is Shinkai at his best. I cannot wait to get my hands on a DVD of Byousoku, and this movie may push me to get a HD-DVD or Blue Ray version (in addition to spending the money to support such a setup!), DRM be damned! I can only hope that ADV continues their excellent dubbing work of Shinkai's movies for the U.S. audience.

Animation

The animation in this episode has surpassed what Shinkai had acheived in _The Place Promised in Our Early Days_. The characters seemed to be a bit more refined than his previous work, though people might still complain about how generic they are. If anything, I can see the Miyazaki influence in how Shinkai's characters look.

Sound

The sounds of trains, the chirping of birds, and the sound of snow falling from a tree; quite... trance-like. Especially with TENMON's piano supporting from behind and the voice acting help with expressing the innocence and love between the two main characters.

Seriously, TENMON is the other half of Shinkai. Without the soft, emotive piano and orchestral pieces framing the scenes, Shinkai's work would not be nearly as effective is it normally would be. Plus, as Shinkai uses music and ambient sounds very well, he also makes sure to go without them at times; silence at the right moments really make those moments stand out.

The ending theme is something quite different from the normal ending theme Shinkai uses; this one is a soft-rock song called "One more time, One more chance" by Masayoshi Yamazaki. When I first heard it in the preview trailer, I was a bit questioning about how appropriate it was for a Shinkai movie. After seeing the movie, that doubt has been erased.

Story

Episode 1: Okasho (Extract of Cherry Blossom)

Though the heart of _Byousoki 5 centimeter_'s first episode is a very simple love story, Shinkai's presentation of it isn't quite so simple. The main story is about Takaki going on a trainride to meet with Akari before he moves even futher away, where the snow conspires to keep them apart. The setting is early 1990s Japan. Punctuating events during the train ride are Akari's monologues of her letters to Takaki and his memories of their times together.

It is very amazing is how well Takaki's frustrations of the train delaying him from their meeting is telegraphed. Even without the translation, the building up of this tension was relieved with such a perfect ending to the episode.

One thing about the relationship Takaki and Akari that I've noticed that it was portrayed in a way that I've rarely seen anime portray love.

Character

Both main characters just started junior high school in this episode. Both Tohno Takaki and Shinohara Akari seem so mature, yet maintain a sense of innocence for children of that age, it seems.

They met in the same class in a Tokyo elementary school. As Takari says, "Akari and I were a lot alike spiritually, somehow." It seems both were rather small for their age and not very active. They would rather be in the library than outside. And it seem they were teased by their classmates.

A few other characters make appearances, like Takaki's sempai, his mother, or the train ticket attendant, but they are really just part of the setting.

Value

There's several motifs that Makoto Shinkai uses in almost all of his work. Trains, telephone poles, and movement of light on objects are three of the most common one. The most common theme he uses is time and distance, which he uses here. The Japanese in general are big on cherry blossoms, and Shinkai's the same in all of his work, though in this case, the title pertains to them ("Byousoku 5 Centimeter" translates to "5 centimeters per second"). There's also the act of placing a hand on a window (usually on a train) that I've noticed that Shinkai uses in past works.

In this one, Shinkai uses a new metaphor, the flight of the bird. One of Takaki's last internal monologues reveal that metaphor rather subtly.

I don't know if there's any fansubs available, but I cannot wait to get my hands on an official, licensed DVD. Signed would be nice, too...

[At least one fansub has been released of the first episode (*cough*I was a small part in that happening*cough*... No, don't ask how to get it...)]

Welcome to the NHK - Review

Nick — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 21:09:53 -0600

When watching anime, sometimes I find learning about different aspects of Japanese society to be quite interesting. For me, trying to compare Japanese customs and viewpoints to American counterparts is an enlightening exercise; I often enjoy these miniature anthropology and sociology studies. So when Welcome to the NHK showed the life and mind of a NEET (Not in Employment, Education, or Training) and hikikomori (a person suffering from acute social withdrawal), a situation that was somewhat unfamiliar to me at first glance yet was quite applicable to many people I knew of in their 20s and 30s who were unable to move out of their parent's houses (or had to move back) for various reasons in recent years, I absorbed this world that GONZO animated with glee.

This 24-episode series centered around the life of Tatsuhiro Satou, a 22 year old man who had dropped out of college in Tokyo and shut himself in from society for three years. The series does a wonderful job of visualizing his delusions, this main one being that the organization called the NHK (Which is the acronym for the Japanese TV channel and broadcasting station Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai) which Satou believes to be called the Nippon Hikikomori Kyokai and is the source of a mass conspiracy to turn people into NEETs and hikikomori. One mysterious girl named Misaki Nakahara looks to break Satou of his hikikomori ways by forcing him to agree to a series of lectures as part of her "project". It is implied that she does this as part of a program to help hikikomori, but in the end, this is revealed to not be the full truth of it. There's also Satou's neighbor in the apartment complex, Kaoru Yamazaki. Satou was the sempai of Yamazaki in their high-school Literature club. Satou's sempai in that club, Hitomi Kashiwa, was the original person to start Satou on the "conspiracy" path.Misaki Nakahara

The series touches on many aspects of Japan's darker subcultures including and related to NEETs and hikikomori, such as internet suicide, otaku, lolicon, and video game addiction. Satou goes through a lighter version of all of these issues, but the series puts forth people that are much further along these addictions and issues that Satou, such as Yamazaki being the otaku and lolicon addict. Strangely enough, Yamazaki is one of the most stable of the series main crop of characters. Satou's sempai, Hitomi, is an example of a person who seems to have "made it" well, but she suffers from severe depression, and takes drugs (such as sleeping pills and anti-depressants) and attends online meetings to help her cope. Satou's "savior", Misaki, is arguable the most psychologically scarred of the bunch, but that fact is only hinted at until the very end of the series. As it is, her plight was the most interesting to me, and the series satisfied me in the revealing and resolution of her situation.

Welcome to the NHK is a dramatic-comedy. Most of the comedy happens early, especially with the weird glimpses into Satou's mind, but the series moves onto hardcore drama mode in the middle and second half of the series. Those looking for something to laugh at should stick to the early episodes and bug out when the internet suicide arc comes into play, as the series as a whole takes a much more serious tone from that point on. Those that want a fairly good drama with some laughs might enjoy this one, especially if they are interested in Japan's societal issues. This was probably one of my more favorite series to watch from the 2006 year.

Tatsuhiro Satō

Animation

Being a GONZO production, the animation varied wildly in terms of quality. Though the series features some great shots (I.E., when Misaki was first introduced), there were several parts where I was re-playing them when I thought my computer was really jumpy playing those scenes, but that was just how poor the animation was for those points. All in all, a moderate effort by GONZO, who I find to be rather inconsistent in their animation quality overall.

Sound

The voice acting was good, I found, and had no qualms with how the characters were casted in the Japanese dub.

Where the brilliance lies in this series was in the music. Especially the ending theme of the first half of the series. The opening theme isn't bad by far, and the ending theme in the second half fit the rather serious and more somber tone in the second half of the series, but that rock-opera-metal ending theme in the first 12 episodes was real head-banging fun! Combined with some rather wacky visuals, it took my attention as one of my favorite themes this year!

Story

This is a character-based drama, hence there isn't a whole lot of story and plot to really speak of.Kaoru Yamazaki

The series can be split up into separate arcs (I.E., the internet suicide arc, the Satou gets hooked on online gaming arc, the pyramid scheme arc, etc.), but the series really isn't all that well defined as most animes would be, especially when many of the arcs are intricately tied together. For example, the suicide cult arc leads nicely into the online gaming arc, especially as Satou initially approaches it to make money through sales, but that arc is tied to the pyramid scheme arc as Satou meets up with someone that he initially met online.

As is the case, I find the storyline to serve the character drama well. Especially with the resolution of Satou's condition. It is actually a simple answer, though some may find it on the harsh side. Still, the phrase "when out in the ocean, it's sink or swim" highly applies.

Characters

The characters in Welcome to the NHK seem to be an eclectic mix of types who I could identify real-life counter-parts with. As the series is filled with people that, as one of the side characters mentions, won't be doing anything great that would bring them fame. Instead, we see the types of characters that it would seem that Japanese society would look down on. We have the generic hikikomori in Satou. We have the otaku in Yamazaki. We have the depressed in Hitomi. We have the person stuck in the clutches of a pyramid scheme and another hikikomori who is addicted to online games in a couple of other minor characters. By far, though, I found Misaki to be one of the more interesting characters, especially her past and why she chose Satou for her project.

Hitomi Kashiwa

Value

For a glance into Japanese society, I found Welcome to the NHK to be a wonderful series to watch. As a pure drama, I found it got a bit too melodramatic at points for even my tastes, but it was a good watch. As a comedy, I found it had it in spades early on, but the series loses that as it becomes more serious and somber.

Really, this is a fairly difficult series for me to recommend unless you know or experienced some of the issues presented in this series. I am curious about reading the light novel that this series is based off of, but I may have to settle for the manga based on the novel that was translated and brought into the U.S. fairly recently. I might collect this anime when it is licensed here, though.

Welcome to the NHK gallery!

External Reviews

Nick — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 16:13:46 -0600

This is a page of links to reviews I've written elsewhere that will probably be not transferred to this site. I might put up re-written reviews of these animes here, though.

Reviews on AnimeNfo.Com

My Profile Page on AnimeNfo.Com

Anime Title	Average
.hack//SIGN	6.0
12 Kokuki	10.0
Azumanga Daioh	7.0
Berserk	9.5
Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan	4.0
Chikyu Shojo Arjuna	5.5
Cowboy Bebop	7.5
Dirty Pair	6.0
Elfen Lied	6.0
Full Moon wo Sagashite	8.0
Grave of the Fireflies	9.0
Grenadier - Hohoemi no Senshi -	6.5
Hachimitsu to Clover	7.5
Haibane Renmei	10.0
Ikkitousen	4.5
Ima, Sokoni Iru Boku	9.5
Infinite Ryvius	9.0
Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien	6.0
Kino no tabi ~the Beautiful World~	9.5
Kumo no Muko, Yakusoku no basho	9.5
Laputa: Castle in the Sky	8.0
Last EXILE	7.0
Mahou Shoujo Tai Alice	8.0
Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto	8.5
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind	7.0
Planet ES	9.0
Rahxephon	8.0
Rose of Versailles	8.5
Samurai 7	7.5
Scrapped Princess	6.0
Seikai no Monshou	9.0
Seikai no Senki	8.5
Seikai no Senki 2	9.0
Seikai no Senki III	6.5
Serial Experiments Lain	8.5
TEXHNOLYZE	9.0
Vision of Escaflowne	8.0

Other Reviews

Dummybump's Short Review of Welcome to the NHK!

In Space, A Bolt Can Screw You

Nick — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 22:59:39 -0600

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).