PLANETES is a five volume manga series. Or four volumes. They’ve numbered it 1, 2, 3, 4-1, and 4-2. So take your pick. The mangaka is Makoto Yukimura or Yukimura Makoto. Again, take your pick.
This review is of the first three volumes.
The first volume starts off interesting. There’s these two people travelling together on a shuttle. And I think they’re both guys, but it turns out they’re not. I would have that problem again later, but it was most striking in this first scene. Well, so there’s an accident, and the woman dies. And then it’s 6 years later, which is really annoying. Because now I have to get oriented all over again, with new characters.
So these new characters are space junk gatherers. Can you hear the Klingons yelling at Scotty that the Enterprise is a garbage scow? I can! But, really, you don’t want all that space junk cluttering up the orbits. It’s a real hazard. Kills people who look like guys when they’re really girls.
Plot? Well, one of the main character’s coworkers is all broody because of that wife he lost back on the first few pages. And at the same time, there’s eco-terrorists going around blowing up smoking rooms. Because astronauts need places to smoke their cigarettes, y’all!
Continue reading “J’s Take on PLANETES Volumes 1-3”
I’m the one who suggested we read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith, for October, in the spirit of Halloween. So of course it figures that I’m the last one to finish it, and not until December. It was a hard slog. Not quite as hard as Point of Hopes, but less things compelling me to keep reading. I definitely would’ve abandoned it after a few pages if I wasn’t obligated to keep going.
From the front flap: