This anime is the closest I have ever seen, to a legitimate thesis of philosophy, even other giants like Ghost in the Shell and Attack on Titan can only compete for second place. I am saying this from the perspective of someone with formal education in philosophy, specializing in philosophy of science and history of science. However I'm afraid it's not as big of a praise as the word "philosophy" often entails, I mean philosophy is great but so are other things like sakuga or anime tits, hence I do not consider this a 10/10 show.

bonus points for real philosophical discussion

This slight/no spoiler review will be focused on the philosophical ideas being discussed in the show because that's what I feel like I can bring more value but let's start with a short overview. I was initially hesitant to watch this because I'm gonna be honest, it has an obvious lack of "plot", even thought I immediately had a feeling it would have a great story. Luckily I ended up starting it, and immediately binged all in one day because I was so impressed by the range of real philosophical questions being brought up.

#The bad
It has two major weaknesses (other than the lack of "plot"), the first one is presentation and visuals, this is an average looking show with an uninspired look. I'm sure they tried to be historically accurate but you'll see plenty of nonsense in the background art like concrete floors, incorrectly scaled wooden beams, and overwhelming volume of pure stone buildings etc. Animation also tends to struggle, there's this scene where the two characters are walking in planetary orbits to explain how this works to the audience but there's almost no animation, you can't really see the orbit because it just fades from one frame to the next with such a big gap in-between. I should also mention the swords that show up a lot in the second half, they're just cursed, they look like they're from a garbage isekai show....

Second big weakness is the story can sometimes get very convenient, very contrived, in service of the message or philosophy but still. Even early on in the show there are moments I was just like ok now he's probably just gonna trip over and die isn't he? And then that's exactly what happens. It doesn't happen with every turn of the story, just some of them are much more obvious than others. The second half of the show is especially guilty of this problem to the point I feel like I'm watching a Start Wars sequel and hearing that iconic theme of the Force in the background, guiding our characters to do the most convenient thing, or else the plot can't continue.

The real philosophy

This historic fantasy can serve as a legitimate university level introductory course on the philosophy of science, it directly dispels many misconceptions I feel like the lay person is likely to have about the scientific revolution. It also expertly presents argument for and against each of the topics, in good faith, so that the thinking audience is able to properly evaluate the problem for themselves.

The real world shift from Geocentrism to Heliocentrism did not happen overnight, the process took centuries and the show expertly presented various reasons why this was the case. For example a single orbit of Saturn takes 30 years, even a lifetime of dedicated observation data would not be sufficient to give you a second orbit around to confirm your hypothesis. Imagine the difficulty when records could only be hand written into physical books which may be eaten by ants before the planet has completed a single orbit.

Have you thought about how did people even observe planets in the first place? It's shown here, you basically take a protractor with a stick on it, aim at the star and read the elevation, that's it. All you get is how high it is in the sky, and which direction with a compass, and then if you were rich maybe you can get a rough time. So which do you think will be easier, simply plotting this down on a sky map, even if it's a bunch of swirly lines? Or also having to take into consideration the position and spin of the earth as well as your position on it, so that you can transform this observation into coordinates relative to the sun? All without computers or even mechanical calculators?

Another fantastic example is when the author predicted the reception of the work, and already built counter-arguments into it, yet people fail to see it. There is no shortage of people saying this story is about the pursuit of “Truth”, that “Truth” can’t be silenced, much like how the “wings of liberty” is symbolic of AOT even though the show is almost a critique of that idea. Admittedly this is getting into serious philosophy but just hear me out.

They are not "Seekers of truth"

Do you think scientists are after the “Truth”? Do you think Heliocentrism is “true” whereas Geocentrism is not? If that’s the case you need to pay extra attention when watching is show. I’m not going to spoil the show but I will spoil the philosophy here for you, scientists are NOT after the “Truth” because there is no such thing, because even if there were, we cannot know it. Think about the following arguments:

-The earth is stationary because it feels that way
-The earth is spinning because it looks that way
-Atoms exist because the gauge on this instrument reads that way

You see the problem here? They are all mere interpretations of our senses, you think something is true because it looks that way. Therefore just like Geocentrism, there is ALWAYS the possibility that looks can be wrong for uncountable possibilities. Heliocentrism is a better theory than Geocentrism, but it isn’t the “Truth” or the final word on the universe, there will never be that final word. So what are the scientists even doing? What are the “seekers of truth” in this show going to do about this realization? Watch to find out.

I also love the involvement of the philosophy of faith and religion in this show, again these are real problems people still debate over today, and you can get a glimpse of that from an anime, isn’t that bonkers? Better yet, the show draws a genius parallel between religion versus atheism, and the debate over the model of the universe. You see both religion and Geocentrism are beliefs based on authority, whereas Heliocentrism and atheism are beliefs based on empirical observation, and so they actually share many arguments for or against. There are also plenty of instances where a character takes some middle ground position, not because they are compromising, they just believe it’s the best position and will argue with characters from both other sides. You will certainly not find a naive “boo religion bad, science so good scientists so smart, reason rulz!” narrative here.

#In the end
Real world scientific ideas often have a rather long period of dormant growth that will be forgotten as soon as the person credited as the “inventor/discoverer” shows up. While this person is often also a major contributor, this show reminds us to not forget about the other lives and struggles spent to bring humanity as a whole to this verge of new discovery. It is exactly like how Newton said it, standing on the shoulders of giants, this is the story of those forgotten giants.

The original Japanese title of the show is チ, which is just phonetic symbol with many possible interpretations like:

地, The Earth
千, A thousand, or very large number
知, To know
血, Blood
痴, Foolishness
智, Wisdom

If that seems a bit ambiguous and even contradictory, yea that’s kind of the point I would say.