Forum - View topicPlanetes manga
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kolibri
 Posts: 712 Location: Vancouver |
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Since I've been hanging around here for 100 posts or so, I think it's time I'd start my first thread... And since I've just finished reading Planetes manga by Makoto Yakimura I thought I'd share some of my thoughts about it. We watched Planetes anime recently and I was thoroughly impressed by it, and it immediately climbed up into my top 3 favorite anime ever: not only does it have the most realistic and workable sci-fi environment I've ever seen in any TV series (let alone anime), it's also got a wonderful cast of real, sympathetic characters, emotional relationships and a strong message. Since I generally prefer original manga over any anime, I knew I had to get my hands on Planetes manga too and I had high expectations for it. Tracking it down wasn't exactly easy - of five volumes three have apparently gone out of print so I had to get them second hand, but once I had them I read them all in two evenings.
Since this is mostly a comparison between the anime and the manga, I'm going to assume you've seen the TV series - if you haven't, there will be big spoilers here (go and watch the series and come back, yes yes, it's that good). For those who haven't read the manga but are interested, I'll put the big manga spoilers into spoiler-tags so you can keep on reading, but I'll leave general commentary and common plot points untagged... if you want to avoid all manga spoilers go and read the manga and come back. So, with these warning is mind, here we go. It's rather long. Many of the recent hit anime series have been extremely faithful to the original manga, and in case of something like Death Note the manga has been copied to the screen almost line by line. Not so with Planetes, the manga is actually fairly different from the anime. To start with, the characters actually look pretty different - you recognize them based on the general characteristics more than appearance, you know the one with the headband is Hatchimaki, the black girl is Fee, the blond guy is Yuri and so on. In general I like Yakimura's style - he's got a very simple realistic style that reminds me of Naoki Urasawa (of Monster fame), clean lines yet faces are very expressive, and great detail with the backgrounds. There are many anime-only characters, I was really surprised that some of the best characters in the anime were absent from the manga: the office crew (along with the whole office) Myers, Lavie and Edel are missing, and so are Claire and Cheng-Shin and all Tanabe's friends, but most of all Gigalt-sensei who was the glue between Hatchimaki and Hakim doesn't exist in the manga at all. The events in the manga start before Tanabe gets on board Toy Box, although all the events in the first volume are episodes in the anime, only with Tanabe included. I guess the anime wants to use Tanabe as the viewpoint for the viewer and we see the story though her eyes, even though it's really Hatchimaki's story. In the manga Hatchimaki is very clearly the central character, and even does some "I" style narration in the first volume - he's maybe not quite as personable (he's much more the person he becomes in the anime in it's latter half) and very early on starts to dream about going to Jupiter, in fact the second volume already deals with Von Braun, third is about Hatchimaki's existentialist crisis. I know they were making the anime before the manga was completed so I know why they are different - here I'm more interested in how and I'm comparing the differences as I see them and try to think what worked for me in both. And I'll be honest, I was disappointed. Since the anime was so incredibly fantastic, I was expecting the manga to be the same and more, and it just didn't reach the same heights for me. One of the most touching aspects in the anime was Tanabe's and Hatchimaki's relationship - in the manga it kind of appeared somewhere in the second volume and I just didn't feel it in the same way. In the anime I loved the Gigalt-Hatchimaki-Hakim triangle and in the manga spoiler[Hakim just appears in Von Braun as a trainee, and we never get a sense of the two men's relationship and why they have the pull towards each other. The superbly tense scene between them on Von Braun where Hatchimaki is about to kill Hakim is completely watered down in the manga - how Hakim and the whole Space Defence Front just decide to pull back because Tanabe says so? Please, that was just plain lame!] Then we come to the last three volumes (numbered 3, 4.1 and 4.2 - for some reason) and the mostly manga-only material. And this is where the manga really shines. I love the background stories spoiler[about Tanabe's parents, Hatchimaki's birth and Fee's brother and her son. I love Fee's rage against the machine, how she finds courage and herself.] I found the anime ending where pregnant Ai is left back on earth with Hatchimaki's family incredibly sad - she was going to have a baby and raise it by herself, and when Hatchimaki was coming back he would have seven-year-old child and a wife that he wouldn't know and who probably wouldn't really know him... what kind of future is that? I prefer the manga ending spoiler[where they do get married - and Hatchimaki's whole thought pattern and reasonings are beautifully laid out here - but that Ai continues to work with her friends on Toy Box 2, and to make new ones. I love the little running gag of everyone still calling her 'Tanabe' although she'd like to be called Mrs. Hoshino. And I love how Hatchi thinks of her daily and sends her messages, and likewise... very silly but that made me happy. And I get a big kick out of the fact that in the manga it's Fee who has the motorcycle, and Hatchi's just got a bicycle!] And I like Goro Hoshino better in the manga - not that he's a nicer person, quite the contrary in fact, but maybe just because of it. Maybe the different approach for the different medias too could be condensed down to two themes. For the anime it was about communities and people, about inequality and big lines. For the anime it was much smaller scale, it was about individuals and their existential crisis' - for Hatchimaki spoiler[it was about realizing that he couldn't be alone], for Fee spoiler[it was about realizing that life without doing the right thing wasn't worth living for.] Word about the quality of the manga and Tokyopop's treatment of it (we ended up talking about Tokyopop's quality recently here). Generally I was pretty happy with it - each volume had color pages, and the last one had several, not just two in the beginning but some in between too. Especially the color pages in the last volume where spoiler[Von Braun finally reaches Jupiter and the astronauts are shown against the huge orange gas giant was really nice] - colors weren't the brightest but infinitely better than black and white would have been. All volumes come with extra pages of general space exploration information, some real, some are the fictive history of the Planetes timeline - these were really nice too. There are some sloppy language blunders that bothered me a bit, like Hakim's name was spelled 'Hakimu' that didn't make much sense, or that Technora was spelled 'Technola' at places even though it reads 'Technora' quite clearly on their overalls. All in all I think the quality was acceptable. So to sum it up? I have to say I prefer the anime in this rare case. It was more touching, more heartfelt. I think the manga is very good too, and it's definitely worth the price should you come across it. Thanks for reading  And I'd love to hear other people's opinions!
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NovaReon
Posts: 4 Location: Finland |
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I have read the volumes one and three (couldn't find two anywhere) and based on what I've seen so far, I like the anime better too. Make no mistake though, the manga is very good nevertheless and I'm going to get myself the remaining volumes if they don't run out before that.
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darkhunter
 Posts: 2992 Location: Los Angelas |
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Eh, the manga was a lot better than the anime imo, probably because I read the manga first. The story got straight to the point and was memorable, the character were nicely done and there wasn't too many silly filler slap stick comedy moment. The first chapter itself really set the tone. I lalso really like the moon/beach chapter as well as Tanabe's childhood story. And of course Volume 3 was really good.
As for the anime, it started getting predicable. It seem like it first part of the episode start out as some comedy type situation to set up the situation and the second half it got serious conclude the story. There was a lot of forgettable episode, like the "making a filming" episode and the one where the ship got hijack. The slapstick comedy got cheesy after a while. The Characters were fustrating because they were poorly adapted (such as making Yuri into some animal loving freak) and the relationship between Hachi and Tanabe seem so cheap. Last edited by darkhunter on Fri Jan 26, 2007 2:39 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Doctor who
 Posts: 103 |
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I've only seen the first few episodes and read the first volume but if those are any indicator, yeah the manga is leaps and bounds better. Slapstick "comedy" just didn't work, and the characters were just not fleshed out at all. I still plan on picking up the rest of the volumes eventually.
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kolibri
Posts: 712 Location: Vancouver |
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This happens to me a lot - if I start with the manga I don't enjoy the anime. And I can certainly see how that would have been the case should I have read the Planetes manga first... But what I liked about the anime were the things you disliked  I liked all the light fluff and humor with Hatchimaki's and Tanabe's relationship and how it slowly evolved - in the manga there's no real attraction, they just get into each others' nerves. Characters generally are different for sure: Tanabe was certainly more of an airhead and Hatchi was more of a clown, but neither bothered me that much. Yuri is a minor character in both manga and anime and I wouldn't say he was that much different in the anime, even with the animal husbandry hobby. But manga-Fee totally kicked anime-Fee's ass - she is one of my favorite manga characters ever, in the anime she took more of a back seat.
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