So, this is not my typical fare. Planetarian (also known as Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet) is a short anime, consisting of just five episodes, on average a little short of 20 minutes. It’s more the size of a movie which, while I do hope to take on more in the future, is not what I typically review. Still, some variety once in a while is fine.
Planetarian is also a title that tends to come up if you delve into robot stories in anime, one of a few that I haven’t covered that’s consistently referenced in discussions of others I have perhaps addressed. I’ll avoid naming other names right now but suffice to say, for such a little thing, it seems to have left a big impact on a certain crowd.
The show takes place in a future city. Thirty years before the main present of the series, near the start of “the war”, the city was hit by a plague bomb and evacuated, leaving only its automated defense systems to watch over the crumbling ruins or, more relevantly, to keep out scavanger-types called Junkers, who search for just about anything usable.
In this world, Yumeimi Hoshino is a humanoid robot who was tasked with maintaining a small planetarium. Left behind when the people who employed her evacuated, she has waited decades for what turns out to be the arrival of one such Junker.
She… has a few bugs, pretty much existing in her own little world that comes off as endearing, but air-headed in a specifically robotic way. After the Junker stays for a projection because it’s easier than arguing with her, he discovers that the Planetarium projector is broken, and though he dearly wants to get on with his life, it seems that he can’t say no to Yumeimi’s weapons-grade adorableness, causing him to turn back and help her put on a show.
What follows involves… mostly Yumeimi and the Junker having fairly quiet conversations where she doesn’t quite get sarcasm but he slowly becomes less sarcastic, as he stays for a few days attempting to work on the projector.
From this, the main attraction of Planetarian is clear: Yumeimi’s character. In many ways, Yumeimi is a good deal less human than many other technically robotic characters. She clearly processes and compartmentalizes information in a way that’s different from humans. She knows, perfectly, the passage of time, but she has no understanding of how the past and present are actually different. When she’s confronted with information outside the range of her understanding, she neither is altered nor confused by it; it just seems to go in one ear and out the other, except for the part where she can, easily, recall it in a technical sense. In a sense this makes her more human moments, like a recording of the past when she asked her doting former keepers if there was a robot heaven, more precious, because it’s something rare and different. The idea that she could even be curious about such an abstract thing is quite notable given her normal mode of operation.
It’s also revealed that, no, Yumeimi has not been continually active for thirty years: she only has enough power to be awake and capable one week out of each year, so her hours for this cycle are counting down.
That’s not ominous at all.
In any case, the repairs are completed, and Yumeimi is able to deliver her special projection for her lone “customer”
However, the strain of running the projector kills the power, seemingly for good. This isn’t addressed right away, and instead Yumeimi seemingly in ignorance offers to escort the Junker to his car since he’s “not feeling well”.
During this trip, the Junker softens further, getting the idea that if he can convince Yumeimi that her wish to serve humans is stronger than her bond to the particular planetarium, he could get all the parts needed to start running a traveling planetarium show with her. The one thing standing in their way? A giant stompy robot tank.
After a dud shell means not taking it out easily, the Junker gets pinned down, seemingly trapped against it, until Yumeimi arrives. She distracts the thing, giving him a chance to get the shot off… but it’s small guns shoot her in half in the process.
Thus, the majority of the final episode is essentially Yumeimi’s death scene. Damaged beyond hope of repair with what’s left of her batteries draining in minutes, she and the Junker say goodbye, going over her memories, dreams of heaven, and hope for good relations between humans and robots as what’s left of her slowly slips away.
This is over ten minutes, and if it were done with any less skill than it was, it would really drag. But the whole show was quiet conversations, mostly in rainy and gray environments, so when it wants to turn this on, it’s one that could really get the waterworks going. There’s no cheeky turnaround either. She does entrust the memory card that contains all her thoughts and memories to the Junker, thinking (or hoping) she could be installed into a new body some day, but we (as he) know that such a thing isn’t bloody likely on a ruined Earth ravaged by nuclear and biological warfare.
Thus, as Yumeimi falls silent for the last time and the Junker limps on having exchanged his previous sentimental trinket (a pendant with a constellation) for the memory card, the credits roll and the world goes on. In the final stinger, the Junker is found by others, and introduces himself by a new profession, seemingly interested in carrying on Yumeimi’s love of the stars.
So, again, this is a show that’s basically the length of a single movie. In fact, there is a movie version even as I concern myself with the OVA. There aren’t going to be the same sweeping movements you get in bigger, longer shows. But in my mind, there’s a solid baseline of well-crafted melancholy supporting two really great scenes: Yumeimi’s projection in Episode 3 and her death in Episode 5. One of these is a moment of wonder and hope, the other is and incredibly sorrowful moment with some emotional silver lining in the hopeful nature of Yumeimi herself.
Because, after a fashion, Yumeimi reveals that there’s already been one miracle for her: she had come to the conclusion that no human would ever come to the Planetarium again, and kept on by declaring that to be an error with her logic. Even as she realizes that the world was broken and not her, she seems to take solace in the fact that, against all odds, a human did come.
I think the reason Planetarian gets brought up a good deal is that it is very emotionally effective in the short running time. It breaks out its brightest colors, and its darkest, and it knows how to use them. I don’t think the death scene would have been effective without the lighter scenes of Yumeimi being a goof or giving her projection show, but at the same time those would have been nothing without the whole post-apocalyptic vibe shading them.
As short as this review is, I should probably just cut to the chase: Planetarian gets an A. It’s hard to ask for more out of its concept, it gave us one of the best robot girl characters (and yes that is a list long enough that being in the top echelons is meaningful) and it gave use a scene that would have easily busted into the Sad Moments list if I’d already been familiar with it. If you don’t mind some quiet times with a side of depression, do yourself a favor and check it out.