Planetes is a Seinen Manga by Makoto Yukimura; published from 1999 to 2004 and his other work, Vinland Saga has been continuing since 2005. It's kinda amazing how all his time & effort he spent on research and his attempt to give a futuristic yet plausible view on space exploration, shows. It covers a wide variety of themes ranging from work-life & environmental to love & philosophical, all through space exploration with its somewhat of an episodic storytelling, following each characters lives & their views towards space.
One of the best things in Planetes is having mature characters. Not too over-the-sky & not too down-to-earth, it just humanizes everyone; the good & the bad, the intelligent & the idiotic, the badasses & the fools. They have some interesting stories to experience and the manga does an excellent job at pulling you into their mentality & letting you experience their views, and some of the interactions are just so fun to watch.
The art in Planetes is honestly breath-taking, and I especially liked the wide shots where it shows how tiny we're compared to the extraterrestrial & the infinite;
Space setting in Anime/Manga is very rare in recent times. Maybe its because of the massive popularity of Gundam in old times, space settings became very stale. Most recent works in space I've seen is The Orbital Children but it's mostly just a setting that didn't quite blended well with its actual story. Planetes uses this space as a stage really well and not just as setting but also uses it to explore some deep concepts.
Even in the far space, he is still a human. And he couldn't stop loving humans.
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