I'm only twelve episodes into this series and it's already moved up to one of my top 5 TV series. Planetes is of the more realistic variety of anim and it follows the workers in the Debris Section of a large company; they spend their days recovering or de-orbiting the space junk of the last 120-odd years of space flight to prevent it from colliding with and damaging functional space stations, artificial satellites and manned spacecraft. While the job itself is dangerous, underpaid and tedious, it is used as the device around which the characters develop, in particular the main characters Hachirota "Hachimaki" Hoshino, who's goal is to own his own spacecraft one day, and Ai Tanabe, the department's rookie who is learning how to conduct EVAs.

Most of the character development happens after episode 4, the earliest episodes used to get used to the cast, and it avoids common anime character archetypes, letting a more natural development unfold. Also great about this series is how it handles space flight in a very realistic way, including orbital physics, spacecraft design, and there being no sound in a vacuum. Through it all, the series manages to capture the spirit of what drives many people to the edge of the know universe, people's motivations, behaviors, etc. and the spirit of space travel while remaining a fun series to watch.

Planetes is a show that takes itself seriously, but does not leave out the joys of life, and I strongly recommend to lovers of space, science, and well-written characters.

Opening sequence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfd3NujZq0k

sounds almost like a prologue for SS

HOLY CRAP. This series keeps getting better and better. I just watched episode 21 and while I won't say the plot, the show has really been building on what I thought would be 1/2-episode characters and has been building plot lines covering socio-economic, psychological, technological and a whole boat-load of other -logicals. Even one of the plot twists I didn't see coming until the episode it happened in.

Watch this show.

So far they have yet to attack the peaceful comet-creatures in the Oort Cloud or start a war against kangaroos.

Where can I watch it?

I just finished the last 3 episodes today. ... I don't want to use the "so much win" meme pic, so I'll just leave it at that. >.>

How many episodes have you watched? If you've watched any of them at all and are not joining SkyTitan aboard the troll train, that is.

Eh, I'd go a bit more before writing it off. Like I said, most of the development takes place after episode 4.

It's a show that lends itself to marathon viewing.

But at least you're not on the fail boat with Titan (even if you didn't elaborate on your opinion.)

Now I'm curious as to what direction you think the story will go. Without having read any synopses or watched past a couple of episodes. If you have read them, well that would just ruin the whole show anyways, so.... eh?