Review: PLANETES

 This month we're reviewing science-fiction manga, and you'd be hard-pressed to find one that's more "hard" sci-fi than this one.

PLANETES (Puranetesu), by Makoto Yurikuma.  First published in 1999 and first published in North America in 2003.

PLOT:

In 2074, humanity has finally ventured beyond Earth, thanks in no small part to the discovery of practical nuclear fusion and the beds of helium-3 needed to fuel it.  One of the side effects of all the increased space travel is an increase in space junk orbiting around Earth itself, where every piece is a potential threat to every ship and satellite that passes by.  It's up to lowly junk collectors like Hachi, Fee, and Yuki to collect this low-orbit garbage while dealing with the highs and lows of their everyday lives.

STORY:

As I joked above, Planetes is some of the hardest sci-fi manga you'll find in English, a story that is based as much as reasonably possible on the real world science of 1999.  The most outrageous it gets is having both nuclear fusion and Martian colonies, and even those are handled as seriously and scientifically as possible.  Of course, the most interesting choice Yurikuma makes with this series is not to start on one of those colonies or make his protagonist some sort of illustrious astronaut but instead with a crew of working-class trash collectors on a busted-up ship, all of them doing their best to work together in spite of their many issues.  If nothing else, it sets some very humble expectations.

In many ways, this first volume is a slice-of-life workplace story with a sci-fi filter.  Hachi, Fee, and Yuki all come from different places, grapple with different traumas and desires, but most of the time it's just about them trying to get through their days without fighting with one another, managing the health effects of long-term living in space, and keeping their hunk-of-junk spacecraft from falling apart.  It's not just about the vibes, though - Yurikuma delivers a lot of subtle character building through those conversations (along with the occasional, quiet flashback).  Planetes might be unassuming in its presentation, but that doesn't mean it isn't a well-crafted story.

ART:

That same quiet, mundane tone is echoed in the art.  The character designs are mostly realistic and great attention has been paid to the spacesuits and other space tech.  The same level of detail was put into the backgrounds, capturing not just the run-down side of this not-too-distant future as well as the beauty of space itself (be it from the perspective of Earth, the moon, or from orbit).  Overall, Planetes has a refined, mature look that befits the story it's telling.

PRESENTATION:

I originally read the Tokyopop release, which was one of the few times I ever saw color pages in a regular Tokyopop book.  It also included a single-page essay that was basically a primer on the basics of rocket science.  Admittedly, the Dark Horse omnibuses are bigger, generally nicer-looking, and feature a more refined translation, although I have yet to see what (if any) differences there are between the previous paperback omnibuses and the hardbound ones that came out last year.

RATING: 

Planetes may have the trappings of hard sci-fi, but at its heart it's a very human story.  The fact that Yukimura can manage all that as a writer while drawing a lot of complicated tech and beautiful spreads of space is just proof of what a great mangaka he already was, and a lot of the good qualities of this series would carry over to his next big hit.

This manga is published by Dark Horse Comics and formerly by Tokyopop.  This series is complete in Japan with 4 volumes available.  The single volumes from Tokyopop and paperback 2-in-1 omnibuses from Dark Horse are OOP; the 2 hardbound 2-in-1 omnibuses are currently in print.