The first image of Makoto Yukimura’s Planetes features protagonist Hachimaki in a bulky space suit, staring up at nothing, standing on nothing. The earth lies vast and silent beneath him, but his eyes are drawn upwards, towards something we cannot see. Without the earth in frame, the scene would feel almost peaceful; in light of its presence, Hachimaki seems terribly vulnerable, as if he’s suspended on a glass surface over an endless abyss. The shot is likely Planetes’ most defining image; a composition that simultaneously conveys the vastness of space, our fragility as we hang in its grasp, and the mundanity of turning this inspiring, terrifying expanse into your garbage removal workspace.

It was wonderful to return to Planetes, having already fallen in love with the property during my thoroughly documented run through the anime. Yukimura’s story combines the thoughtful, character-first approach of a personal drama with ferocious sociopolitical commentary, consistently capturing the often unspoken costs of human progress. Even the manga’s fundamental premise speaks to its understanding of the consequences for our ambition. Having flooded space with trash in our rush to claim the stars, Planetes’ concerns itself with the plight of those left to pick up the wreckage, both in a physical and metaphorical sense.

Though much of the story’s structure is changed, both manga and anime open with the same key flashback, a sequence that immediately sets the stakes for Hachimaki’s labor. Space trash isn’t just a telling reflection of humanity’s nearsightedness and greed – it’s a genuine threat to the future, a vicious and utterly ruthless killer. Even the smallest scrap of a derelict satellite can destroy another ship, causing a chain reaction of cascading destruction. We aren’t just obligated to clean up after ourselves; we must pay for our past mistakes, or risk losing the future as well.

Of course, who actually pays for those mistakes is a key question, and one of Planetes’ core themes. The manga’s second chapter introduces us to Harry Rolland, a man who Hachimaki’s superiors describe as a genuine hero of space conquest. And indeed, Rolland seems to embody the spirit of a hardscrabble adventurer, urging Hachi to buck up and talking about how much harder they had it back in the old days. That pep talk comes only days before Rolland’s own death, as he trudges out to meet his maker on the lunar slopes. A lifetime sacrificed to the glory of conquest, and Rolland is ultimately used up and discarded, one more cog in a much greater machine. While other space journeys focus on ace pilots and captains and kings, Planetes concerns itself with the rank-and-file, the workers of the world. Its heroes are the people who fight every day to hopefully earn a slice of glory, but whose fate is to be used like Rolland, consumed until they are gone.

It seems appropriate that a manga so concerned with illustrating the true nature of human ambition within a capitalist system would fill itself with such vast, overwhelming visual compositions. The thematic smallness of its characters is illustrated through sharp visual contrast, as they are constantly transposed against the endless dark all around them, or depicted staring out into the great beyond. With Tanabe apparently making a much later appearance in the manga than the anime, it falls to the veteran Yuri to act as the story’s conscience, resulting in a far more contemplative, tonally ambiguous experience. While Tanabe is the plucky young rookie, Yuri begins the series working in tribute to his absent wife, giving these early chapters a heavy sense of solemnity, and even futility. Yuri’s stoic grief, self-deprecation, and preoccupation with his own purpose are all beautifully captured through Yukimura’s careful shading, and give the manga a keen sense of philosophical restlessness.

On the other hand, there’s Hachimaki. The manga reaches key beats of Hachimaki’s story with incredible speed relative to the anime, meaning even its first chapter features him dreaming of owning his own ship. Hachimaki’s fundamental nature is to be the kind of person capitalism needs in order to keep running – he is the dedicated worker bee, happily plugging away at his daily chores, certain that hard work will eventually lead to a reward from the system. And yet even he can’t help but steal glances at the hopelessness of it all, the structural obstacles standing in his way, or the impossible distance between his daily efforts and any sort of meaningful success. When he joins a new friend on the vast lunar sea, he can’t see the glory she does – he only sees a desert.

Planetes does not counter its critique of space colonization with any intellectually convincing argument. Its assessment of how capitalism and space flight will align isn’t cynical – it’s just true. Colonizing new lands will just exacerbate the existing economic hierarchies of earth, and picking up the pieces will be left to underappreciated classes who are ultimately discarded for their efforts. There is no “and yet” that will mitigate all of those cruel truths. What we have instead are two characters coming to peace with their lives in their own ways; Hachimaki through embracing the urge to strive he sees as the core of his identity, and Yuri through recognizing that he doesn’t need a greater purpose. All he needs is to work with people he cares for, and through doing so live with dignity and joy. Even within this manga’s very first chapter, we see the symbol that draws Yuri back from the brink, the symbol that will inspire Hachi at his worst moments – human hands reaching for connection, finding common warmth in the coldness of space.

All this on the manga, and I still have barely touched on Yukimura’s terrific art. Yukimura’s style is well-suited to a story like Planetes, balancing resolutely plain character designs against their intricately detailed mechanical cradles. Mundane character designs are the perfect choice for this story; these characters aren’t supposed to be heroes you can pick out of a lineup, they’re everyday people working everyday jobs. And yet, Yukimura is still able to draw great emotional range out of these designs, using detailed shading to pull nuance out of Yuki, Hachi, and their captain Fee. You really feel the profound intensity of Yuri’s grief, or the manic force of Fee’s anger, but even more mundane moments like Yuri being caught while lost in thought are articulated with uncommon grace.

And in contrast to these plain-faced protagonists, the borderline of space and human invention is illustrated in the most detailed and resonant of terms. The intricate details of ships and antennae naturally imply the fragility of their situation, and the collaborative force of human effort that got them here. While Planetes’ overt narrative often concerns itself with the terrible cost of the capitalist machine, its incredibly well-illustrated ships naturally imply the glory of contributing to something greater than yourself. Hachimaki’s belief in this dream may be misguided, but in the face of such marvels, you can absolutely see the appeal.

Planetes’ first volume ends on a validation of that dream, as Hachi’s fears of failure are swept away by the magnificence of mankind’s most advanced engine. Like his father before him and his brother after, Hachi and the grand quest are indivisible – as he lives, he must strive to go further, reach higher, see more. The fact that any such striving necessitates a platform, and that any such platform will be built on the suffering of many who will never be given a similar chance, does not mitigate the ache in his heart, the idea that he is incomplete unless he is moving forward. Hachi is a simple man, and explicating the geopolitical costs of space travel is perhaps not the best way to reach him. Perhaps Yuri has the right of it – philosophical disagreements aside, both of them are still human, and humans need each other. As his friend reaches out towards that blinding light, Yuri offers the prayer that has haunted human history, the encapsulation of our philosophical dividing line. “Don’t forget about us, okay?”

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