Planetes

Planetes #01 (Tokyopop, 2003). Planetes #02 (Tokyopop, 2003). Planetes #03 (Tokyopop, 2004). Planetes #04a (Tokyopop, 2004). Planetes #04b (Tokyopop, 2004), Makoto Yukimura.

Planetes is a series set in the relatively near future. We're starting to colonize space. Earth orbit is filled with factories, shuttles, stations and garbage. The Moon has seen the first children born there. And we're getting ready to explore Jupiter space.

I started this year with the intention of watching the Planetes anime. I had finished getting the series, thanks to the efforts of a relative last Christmas. I got through the first set, and started the second set, when I was sidetracked by the Planetes manga. I had read these a few years ago, having gotten some pretty good recommendations from a friend. After watching several of the episodes, I went back to the manga feeling that I was missing something...it turned out that the plots of both often are identical, sometimes change in details, and sometimes diverge wildly. So I wasn't crazy after all.

I don't have much experience with manga, other than to note with dismay how it seems to be crowding out science fiction at the bookstores. (Don't get me wrong. I love the fact that it is so popular, as maybe those that read it will move on to other science fiction. But...instead of expanding bookshelves or expanding into other areas, it cuts out the availability of what I read. And...if the trend collapses, how hurt will the SF shelves be? Will bookshelves be filled with other SF, or will the "bottom-liners" tar other SF with the same brush and cut back on all SF after the collapse?) At the start of each of these, I had to re-set my mind to read from the back to the front, and in reverse order on the pages.

The tales concentrate more on the human aspect. The characters in the manga are better drawn (so to speak) than in the anime (there is some pretty silly stuff in the televised version of the tales). And, there is a good chunk of good science in here as well. Nothing is wildly far out and the authors have tossed in some gritty details (how does one go to the bathroom in one's spacesuit?) that even the most gritty of shows in the American SF world have ignored.