Planetes

One of my favorite animes. It's a slow burn, believable science fiction. On the surface, it's about... garbage men... in space. But it's really about a lot more than that. So good.

The rank stupidity and immaturity of the characters with the incredibly annoying dialogue style makes it unwatchable. I love the sci-fi elements of it, but characters who all have a mental age of about 7 make it feel like a weird mashuup of dialogue for children inside very adult plots. Part of the awful dialogue comes from that oh-so-authentic literal translation from Japanese to English that makes every quickly uttered sentence just sound inane.

peak escapism for me

Low-key hard scifi with believable, humanized characters and storylines that don't shy away from mortality, social inequality, and other mature themes.

Terrorism is good sometimes.

The protagonists can be a bit insufferable at times, but flaws and all it feels very human. It benefits greatly from being a hard science sci-fi. It grounds the characters and the story, making it feel very realistic to what our potential future could be. And in that realistic portrayal, this anime actually challenges the status quo. I do wish there were more hard science series. Seeing the characters maneuvering with air thrusters is satisfying.

Those extra characters they added in only served to piss me off.

TV: for the longest time my absolute favourite anime series (only now equalled by Chihayafuru). For some reason also criminally overlooked, or apparently unknown in large part. PLANETES is a really solid hard sci-fi drama series with long arc-based characterisation and brilliant animation. Supports rewatching again and again due to the narrative depth. Lovely characters. This is kind of HBO equivalent pacing so be prepared to watch several episodes (and maybe restart again once you're hooked!).