Planetes is probably one of the most impressive debut works in the manga world thus far. Yukimura nailed it with the art and intriguing cast of characters, creating compelling drama out of a somewhat vague premise about debris collecting in space. Vague it may be but since I’ve always been highly interested in space exploration and space physics, Planetes caught my attention faster than hysterical feminists offering me a free blowjob.

The story is fairly basic and straight forward – we follow a crew of space debris collectors amounting to 4 main characters and many well characterised secondary characters. Planetes is very much a character driven manga. The struggles these characters go through, their philosophies and motivations are the staple sources of drama. Yukimura specialises in expressing human emotions like no other, whether it’d be through the art or dialogue. The obstacles Hachimaki in particular faces throughout his attempt to achieve his goal are compelling. He started off as a very unlikeable, stubborn fellow but he along with the rest of the crew grew into more revised personalities by the end. Fee in particular is my favourite character. Her flashback was touching (I cried) and her past experiences greatly affected her way of thinking. Outside of the realistically accurate technicalities depicted in the story regarding space travel, manning spaceships and what not, the personal lives of the characters add a more grounded feel to a manga which revolves around lifting your filthy ass off the ground into orbit. While all this may seem to paint Planetes in a very serious tone, it’s far from that. Character interactions tend to be very light hearted with very good comedy thrown in every now and then. They all seem to bounce off one another effortlessly. While most of the characters are fairly likeable for the readers, one individual in particular is portrayed as an asshole. Those who read the manga probably know who I’m talking about (he wears a suit usually). His actions may seem selfish but even someone like him has his own ideals and reasons for doing what he does. This goes to show how well thought out and developed the characters are.

The most impressive aspect for me aren’t the characters however, but the number of themes this manga touches on in such a short run-time of 27 chapters. The cast being multiracial, holding different beliefs and ideologies, one would think racism would be the last thing that’s explored in the story. Well, it is looked upon and it’s done very nicely. A lot of socio-political commentary is present, which helps add another layer of tension and importance to on-going plot events; uncommon for a slice of life type of narrative. The science and space related scraps forming the setting and premise tend to be more background noise with characters being at the forefront. Yukimura also seems to fancy writing about questioning the existence of god quite promptly, a theme he explores in his other work Vinland Saga too. These are just a few examples of the vast array of thematic narration found in Planetes.

The art is another notable part of the manga that improves with each chapter. The first couple of chapters are average and the art comes off as sketchy but after a while the artwork becomes one of the strong points of Planetes. Some wonderful 2-page spreads are to be found. Unlike other sci-fi works of similar nature, Planetes isn’t very descriptive with the technology the story is centred on as the art and illustrations do most of the explaining. Fear not, you won’t be burdened with 4 pages of text informing you on how astronauts piss or shit in space, just one or two panels showing Tanabe making a few stupid noises in the bathroom is enough.

The best way to describe Planetes as a whole is that it’s short and succinct. No chapter is wasted, every page is used to add some sort of characterisation with engaging dialogue and good art.