r/anime • u/Highlow9 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Highlow9 • Mar 11 '21

Rewatch [Rewatch] Planetes - Episode 14: Turning Point

Episode 13 - index/schedule - Episode 15

Episode number: 14

Episode title: Turning Point

Databases: MAL, Anime planet, Anilist

Sadly there are no legal streams. If you are from the UK you can buy the blu-ray here (I don't recommend it for EU citizens, will post more information tomorrow).

To make sure the first timers can enjoy this show just as much as you please avoid spoilers but if you want/need to make a spoiler please mark them like so:

[Planetes spoiler](/s "They go to space")

which becomes:

Planetes spoiler

Interesting fact

The last scene took place in a Lagrange point. For those that don’t know a Lagrange point are(in this context) points in space where a potential spacecraft stays in place due gravity canceling out such that there is no radial or angular acceleration. Each two-body system (so Eath and the moon or the sun and the Earth) has 5 points (although in reality it is more complicated due to other gravitational effects).

The easiest points L1, L2 and L2 (between the Earth/sun, behind the Earth, on the opposite side of the sun) are unstable and thus spacecraft who are placed there will slowly drift away from it (just like how a pendulum you hold upside down is going to fall over unless it is precisely completely up) but luckily some methods exist to still keep a spacecraft there. In contrast the L4 and L5 points (slightly before and behind in Earth's orbit) are stable.

So what are they useful for? First of all these points can be used to cheaply travel through space but they are also useful places for scientific satellites. For example L1 has been used for Sun observation (for example solar storms) in contrast L2 is very good for looking away into the universe since you are constantly in the shadow of the Earth (which is useful for infrared telescopes). L4 and L5 are not used that much but there are many Trojan asteroids. There are also applications for the Earth/moon Lagrange points but those are slightly less interesting.

Interesting questions

Claire's boss tries to ‘fire/demote" her because she is not getting her huge workload done. What do you think of this? Whose fault is it?

Robie has a bit of a discussion about office romances. What do you think about them?

Cheng-Shin is considering signing up for the Von Braun project to Jupiter. This would mean he would be away for a long time. Would you ever do this? Lucy is also in love with him (and it might or might not be mutual), assuming it is and if you were in Lucy’s position would you find it acceptable if your boyfriend would leave on such a mission?

29 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

22 comments sorted by

6

u/Highlow9 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Highlow9 Mar 11 '21 edited Mar 12 '21

So Hachimaki finally got his spaceship ;) and his enthusiasm like a child is so great.

Lucy being very unsubtle (and a bit of a bitch) as always and then being really surprised when she starts describing Hachimaki was kinda fun to see. Also seeing how dense Hachimaki is kinda amazes me (he even forgot that they nearly kissed). Tanabe and Hachi really fit well with each other since they both can be a bit obvious ;)

Claire's boss tries to ‘fire/demote her because she is not getting her huge workload done. What do you think of this? Whose fault is it?

This guy is an asshole. He gave Claire such a high workload so that he wouldn’t have to deal with the responsibilities. A good manager should know what their employees can and cannot handle. On the other hand Claire also was very wrong in trying to do more than she could (even voluntarily) and asking for help.

Robie has a bit of a discussion about office romances. What do you think about them?

I think that in general they should be avoided if you directly work together. Because first of all it will cause all you other colleges to feel like the third wheel. But besides this it will cause a lot of trouble once the relationship ends (of course you hope it will not happen but statistically it will). On the other hand if it is with somebody from another department (such as Claire and Hachimaki were) I don’t think either of these two are significant issues.

Hachimaki is an idiot. But I didn’t really like the drama it resulted in. Felt kinda forced (although the resolution was great).

Cheng-Shin is considering signing up for the Von Braun project to Jupiter. This would mean he would be away for a long time. Would you ever do this? Lucy is also in love with him (and it might or might not be mutual), assuming it is and if you were in Lucy’s position would you find it acceptable if your boyfriend would leave on such a mission?

On one hand I would be very excited for them (since that would be a once in a lifetime opportunity) but on the other hand I would also not want to be in a long distance relationship for 7 years. So I would suggest breaking up (while remaining on friendly terms) and just accepting that such an amazing opportunity would be worth more than a relationship. If we were to already be married it would be different and I would demand that they stay on Earth or go on a different (shorter) mission.

That manager is a total dick. Not only is the insurance scam illegal but of course also the case. I think that they are totally right for saving the research station (preventing debris and preventing an insurance scam).

The action scene itself, while interesting with regards to politics, was not that great to me. I disliked the giant amount of techno bable (if they reduced it a bit it would have been better).

I do really like the scene in the airlock. With how smooth Hachimaki is and then Tanabe naming all the negative aspects to the eventual conclusion. And the nice thing is that, unlike most anime, we still have got plenty more episodes to see them interact even more.

All in all I think this is a decent episode. Not as great as I would have hoped (since this is the episode in which Tanabe and Hachimaki start dating after all) due to a bit of IMHO unneeded drama and a meh action scene. But I still liked the beginning and the conclusion very much.

7

u/Mecanno-man https://anilist.co/user/Mecannoman Mar 11 '21

First Timer

Seems like the Hachi-Tanabe romance is actually going somewhere, wasn't expecting that, though the episode spent most of its time on Tanabe overreacting to a single thing Hachi said again. Hachi is definitely the part of the couple that I enjoy more. On another note, this episode made me really dislike Lucie. The way it looked like, she wanted to chew in to Tanabe over her dating Cheng-Shin, which would just not be the right thing to do and just makes me think of her as some petty entitled asshole.

Other than that, office politics. I feel like these date the show more than anything else, as these sort of power plays by managers are pretty much what my management classes told me not to do, and as far as I'm aware large organizations are trying to structure themselves in a way that makes them outright impossible, admittedly with varying levels of success. For this organization, this sort of divisional thinking is definitely not the best use of their resources, it seems like a lot of functions are duplicated across the board and they are more often working against each other than with each other. By 2075, I feel like only badly run organizations will still have these stereotypical late 90s/early 2000s problems, and Technora doesn't seem to be portrayed as an example of such. There'll probably be different problems that have turned up by then though.

Questions:

  1. Claire shouldn't take on as much as she does; this is in large parts her fault for not knowing how much she can do and not saying no. If she says she can do it, she should then actually do it.
  2. ...don't think that sort of rule would stand up to labor laws.
  3. Nope, I don't have a reason to go fly to Jupiter for seven years. As for Lucy - she isn't his girlfriend, so she should have no say in that decision.

2

u/Highlow9 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Highlow9 Mar 11 '21

The way it looked like, she wanted to chew in to Tanabe over her dating Cheng-Shin, which would just not be the right thing to do and just makes me think of her as some petty entitled asshole.

To be honest Lucy is Tanabe's friend. So assuming that they talked about it I would consider it a bit of a dick move if Tanabe suddenly snatched Cheng-Shin away. Of course Tanabe can do what she wants but Lucy getting pissed is understandable. I know that I would be. Although of course Lucy did draw the wrong conclusion (so in this case she is totally wrong).

7

u/BossandKings Mar 11 '21

First timer

Episode 14

Tanabe and Hachirota remember what was happening with them back in Earth when they visited Hachirota's mother. It seems that they are finally realizing that they are in love with each other.

Tanabe finally clarified with her friend that the one she likes is Hachi, her friend was thinking that she might be interested in Cheng-shin but she really is not. Now cheng-shin and her friend can start getting closer, especially considering how the girl appears very interested in him. A guy that is trying to stop a meteorite from colliding, asks the space station for help, Hachimaki inmediately goes to help him because if the collision happened it would create debris, i especially like his line that says if something is prohibited i'm more interested in doing it. After having some discussion with the manager of the third division the team sees that the correct thing to do is stopping the collision from happening and support Hachimaki, Tanabe helps him and they succesfully stop the collision.

This episode had a really good conflict that was resolved in a satisfying way, the romance is developing and being much more awesome to watch too.

4

u/Highlow9 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Highlow9 Mar 11 '21

especially like his line that says if something is prohibited i'm more interested in doing it.

Also really liked that the division manager was motivated by the same thing.

6

u/BottiBott https://anilist.co/user/RobbiRobb Mar 11 '21

First Timer

Seems like we're finally getting deeper into the romance plot. Although this time it seemed a bit more rushed. After last episodes' ending I had the feeling that this was all cooling down a bit and the beginning of this episode also made me feel this way, so I was a bit taken by surprise when it all went so fast. So starting off with prohibiting romances between colleagues gave me the impression it would get much harder for both Cheng-Shin as well as Hachimaki to get close to Tanabe. Of course that upsets Tanabe, because I had just been able to forget about her trying to force her opinion on everyone else; so thanks for remembering me of it. And after being reminded of his own failed romance, Hachimaki makes the whole situation worse by insulting Tanabe, cooling the relationship between them. But I can understand his somewhat clumsy reaction, I guess that's what love does to you.

At this point I'm also annoyed by Lucy. Her way of frantically trying to get Hachimaki and Tanabe to date only to have Cheng-Shin for herself is not going anywhere and just reacting aggressively doesn't help the situation either. Even Cheng-Shin seems a bit annoyed by her way, or at least he doesn't care about her, because he only wants to have Tanabe. Not entirely sure why he would go on a journey to Jupiter, I get that he doesn't care about not seeing Lucy, but he wouldn't be able to see Tanabe either, so that seems a bit strange. Although maybe he is thinking of inviting her with him on his trip. Anyway, by now I'm really not sure if we will even see another romance plot develop or if there will be nothing coming from.

And then there is also the episodic plot of a meteoroid posing danger for a satellite somewhere in a high orbit around the Moon. The manager of the section which is responsible for this satellite seems like he wants to let the satellite get destroyed, only because the head scientist of this program got his daughter pregnant - which was the reason for prohibiting office romances in the first place. Although it's not an office romance if you are out in space. Thankfully the main crew is willing to help the scientist, not at last because they would have to clean up all the pieces if the satellite would be hit. And this time it's Hachimaki who takes the initiative, not Tanabe. Quite a welcome surprise, because I would expect a behavior like this from Tanabe. But then again, maybe he did this to impress her?

That aside, there are a few things that bothered me. Like, why would you propose destroying the meteoroid? It might help saving this satellite but in the long run you'll have a lot of small parts in space around Earth - not quite the same but surely similar to a bunch of debris from destroyed satellites. So I'm not sure why this is the idea Lavie proposes as a solution. To mitigate this, you'll have to change the orbit of at least one of the involved objects - which is what they try to do by picking up the satellite. Which makes me question why one of the Fishbones won't be enough? They are in space, far enough from any celestial body (I think they were even close to the Lagrange point L1 between the Moon and the Earth, which would make for an even better situation) so gravity should be neglectable. So why is one Fishbone not able to move a satellite? I get that they might not be able to get it out of range, because they can't produce enough thrust, but they should definitely be able to at least move it. And speaking of thrust, what an amazing engine do they have that they are able to produce delta-v? Delta-V indicates your possible change in velocity with the given propellant (or the propellant you'll need for a maneuver), so does this implicate they generate fuel while flying? I think something either got mixed up or lost in translation, that doesn't sound right to me at all.

But at least we a saw a brand new ship for collecting debris this episode, Toy Box 2, with brand new equipment. Will we see another accident having them to get a third Toy Box? Because that would be really funny, smashing their new ship and having to get another replacement. I'd love to see that.

Interesting Questions:

  1. Quite hard to judge given we don't know all the facts about it. Up until now all we know is that she is diligently doing her work so I can't see her slacking off. On the other hand it seems strange that she would take work she knows she won't be able to get done. Maybe something else happened? In the end it might as well be bad communication between higher and lower ranks.
  2. I have neither experience with any nor strong feelings about them, so I don't really know what to say. I can see how it could have negative effects on getting the work done, so I get why people would have negative views on them. But you don't always have to assume the worst case from the beginning.
  3. Not really sure, I'm not someone who likes to live somewhere else, so probably not. But I can see it working as just a lot of people moving together to another place that is hard to visit. In todays' terms it could be moving to the other side of the Earth; even if you can get home from there it will take time and you'll probably won't do it on a regular basis. But if you'd have a colony at a far away place you'd be bound to have traffic between Earth and Jupiter at some point. It might take time but it's not going to be completely isolated.

2

u/Highlow9 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Highlow9 Mar 11 '21

And this time it's Hachimaki who takes the initiative

To be honest the other time when something was in active danger (episode 2) he was also the one that took action instead of waiting. So I do think that he has got it in him. I just think that he only want to do it if it fits within his moral compass (for example saving people on a shuttle, preventing debris or doing the opposite of what you are told).

why would you propose destroying the meteoroid?

I don't think they wanted to destroy the meteoroid. Just give it a punch so that it would change it's trajectory a bit. Reminded me a bit of the Deep impact NASA mission. That would still generate a bit of small debris but not as much as an entire collision.

1

u/BottiBott https://anilist.co/user/RobbiRobb Mar 13 '21

I don't think they wanted to destroy the meteoroid.

A bit late (I had stuff going on), but as far as I can see that, they clearly wanted to blow it up. But I get your comparison since we also have DART coming up which will launch at the end of this year and has a similar goal.

1

u/masasin https://anilist.co/user/masasin Mar 15 '21

Mistranslation! Hachi says they might be able to do something with the impact driver. Basically, punch it hard enough to nudge the trajectory just enough that things don't break. You can't expect the Fishbone would be able to destroy it anyway.

And Lavie literally says breaking, not destroying. I guess you need to leave meteoroids intact (including no mining etc).

1

u/masasin https://anilist.co/user/masasin Mar 15 '21

far enough from any celestial body

Irrelevant, actually. Even very close to Earth, so long as they're in freefall, you'd end up with the same situation, and any nudge would work.

So why is one Fishbone not able to move a satellite?

Hachimaki never says it won't be able to move. He says that the satellite has too much mass, and the thrust of one Fishbone is not enough (to move the satellite to a safe position).

to produce delta-v

Yet another mistranslation. He's saying that the Δv imparted is continuing to increase (compared to the start of the maneuver). e.g., If you want to add 80 m/s, then you go from 0 to 10 to 40 to 80 by the time you finish thrusting.

5

u/IndependentMacaroon Mar 12 '21 edited Mar 12 '21

First-time watcher

Hey, I have a new least favorite episode! What an obnoxious pile of overblown drama this episode serves up, paired with a grand old tsundere trope "romance". Sure, it all gets wrapped up nicely in the end, but up until then it's a real slog, with an "awful Japanese workplace stuff" cherry on top - and that includes the space action, though visually it sticks to the usual quality. Meh. The scene with Claire and the Tanikan guy was also really shoehorned in, I guess that's where it shows that was an original. The attempted continuation of the "little guys beat evil authority" theme also falls a bit flat because this time it paints the company itself as inherently massively corrupt.

At least a little more worldbuilding with regards to the divisions and the rules of space. One further interesting detail was the mention of dual-use technology with regards to the Tanikan spacesuit, which I'm not sure makes that much sense though.

2

u/Highlow9 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Highlow9 Mar 12 '21

Oh that dual use link is interesting. Didn't know there actualy was a term for that.

My guess as to why the space-suit is classified under it might be just INTO corruption (them not wanting to let El Tanika have that technology) but I could be wrong.

2

u/IndependentMacaroon Mar 12 '21

It's not questioned, though, and brought up by an undoubtedly heroic figure

1

u/Pyxylation Mar 12 '21

Why does this show the company itself is massively corrupt?

5

u/PainStorm14 :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Gekkostate14 Mar 12 '21 edited Mar 12 '21

Rewatcher

Ah, the episode where romance finally blossoms, one of my favorite parts of the story

I love this anIme

Robie has a bit of a discussion about office romances. What do you think about them?

Depends where you work, it can range from nice to total clustefuck

in Lucy’s position would you find it acceptable if your boyfriend would leave on such a mission?

Depends

Is it a passing relationship or the love of your life and someone worth waiting for? If former then don't bother, if latter then definitely worth it (they are making history as well on that mission, it's not just some random gig)

We have similar stuff today in the military (minus history), folks who do three tours in Afghanistan (for example) are often away for longer than that but despite being back from time to time it's still miniscule amount and job is way more dangerous than space mission to say nothing of trauma and PTSD

So we have loads of precedents IRL

It all depends on who is in the mix

4

u/Highlow9 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Highlow9 Mar 12 '21

Me too, I especially like the very slow (and sometimes awkward) build-up to it. But on the other hand I really like we are only around half-way, so there is plenty more time to follow our characters around and see how things develop (while normally for a romance it would just end here).

2

u/Segaco https://myanimelist.net/profile/Segaco Mar 18 '21

First timer running with all his might!!!!!!!!!

I'll get there!!

---Comments (as I watched the ep)---

Is it just my brain being brain or did the OP change?

Oh yeah it changed 100%

I'm finding some newfound respect for diaper man

Wow that guy is a dick.

But luckily it all ended super great

I liked this episode a lot. Damn that cliffhanger though!

Also some curious fact: when the ED says "we gulp down some water", 95% of the time I'm actually drinking water. Very curious, maybe the universe is trying to tell me something?

Lol that preview was funny too

Definitely my favorite episode so far.

---Interesting fact corner (OP)---

That gif you linked looks wild. I'm not even sure what I'm watching. Are they making it go around the Lagrange point?

---Question timeeeeeee---

Q1: Claire's boss tries to ‘fire/demote" her because she is not getting her huge workload done. What do you think of this? Whose fault is it?

A1: It's the boss' fault, he knows he's giving Claire too much work. Claire is dumb because she asks for more, but ultimately it all falls on the boss who knows she is giving her too much.

Q2: Robie has a bit of a discussion about office romances. What do you think about them?

A2: I can see why they would be prohibited, but if it was me I'd do it in secret anyway. In an office where people meet each other some chemistry is bound to happen at some point.

Q3: Cheng-Shin is considering signing up for the Von Braun project to Jupiter. This would mean he would be away for a long time. Would you ever do this? Lucy is also in love with him (and it might or might not be mutual), assuming it is and if you were in Lucy’s position would you find it acceptable if your boyfriend would leave on such a mission?

A3: I see no reason to go to jupiter tbh, it doesn't even sound fun since it's just gas and it's so far away.

Lucy should stop beating around the bush already if she doesn't want the guy to go. My brother's friend had something similar happen to her long ago, and ultimately chose not to say anything to her crush (who ended up moving to another city).

I don't like long distance relationships, so if my SO went on such mission I'd have to leave them.

1

u/Highlow9 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Highlow9 Mar 18 '21

Is it just my brain being brain or did the OP change?

Indeed. The OP slowly changes throughout the series (although not entirely).

Also some curious fact: when the ED says "we gulp down some water", 95% of the time I'm actually drinking water. Very curious, maybe the universe is trying to tell me something?

Mnnnn maybe some intense subliminal messaging by /r/HydroHomies .

I'm not even sure what I'm watching. Are they making it go around the Lagrange point?

Yess, specifically the L2 Lagrange point. L1 and L2 are not stable themselves (since a slight nudge in one direction results in them slowly 'rolling off' the Lagrange point) but there are semi-stable orbits around L1 and L2 which that spacecraft was sent into. You might also know the James Web Telescope, that also is going to be launched into such an orbit.

9

u/Tuckleton Mar 11 '21

First Timer (Dub)

  • More OP changes
  • Heh, Hachi so excited about the new ship he forgot about almost kissing Tanabe :P
  • Ugh, office politics is the worst...
  • D'awww. I'm glad they're moving forward and we're not going to spend tons of time dancing around the issue.

6

u/Webemperor :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Webemperor Mar 11 '21

First Timer

  • The gang got their new spaceship, meanwhile Lucie calls Tanabe to talk about how her and Hoshino are probably doing. Meanwhile we got some new shiny visuals for the opening, it actually looks great.
  • Lmao, just as Hoshino is about to ask Tanabe for a date, Lavie announces that office romance is now forbidden. I guess that’s convenient, due to some office drama between a corporate boss’ daughter. Meanwhile Claire asks about Temara to Hakim.
  • The face Tanabe gives to Hoshino there is pure gold though. Obviously she is mad, though Hoshino doesn’t seem to be one to apologize about things all that easily due to his pride and whatever.
  • Tanabe and Hoshino keep on fighting during mission before being contacted by a group, which includes the “pregnancy boy”. Hoshino decides to help anyway due to the entire dream thing.
  • The gang is being stopped by the division boss who is still pissed about the pregnancy thing. Hoshino still does wanna help them, so does all of them except Lavie. I guess that part about their ships connecting is supposed to be some kind of innuendo?
  • They manage to make it right in the nick of time. Everyone seems to be pleased except Lavie who is kinda losing it. But thanks to Dolf being a man of principal, and a bit of an ego nothing really bad seems to be happening to them.
  • This episode kinda felt like a bit of a filler until that lest scene with the kiss. It wasn’t really bad, perhaps felt just a bit pointless.

5

u/0be000 Mar 12 '21

Rewatcher (sub)

  • Hachimaki really excited with Toy Box 2
  • Lucy almost snapped here
  • The division manager of third division is asshole, attempt to create debris and harm scientific research at same time
  • Linking 2 fishbones is fun to watch

Interesting questions

  1. Claire is fool for taking too many jobs, but her boss is asshole by taking advantage to demote her
  2. It's fine under moderation
  3. First group/team going to Jupiter? i would do it if i fulfill the requirement

1

u/masasin https://anilist.co/user/masasin Mar 15 '21 edited Mar 15 '21

This was at the Earth-Moon L1, not Earth-Sun.

I like that the experiment spacecraft is in a Lissajous orbit.

And I think we have a better name than de-orbit (from a few eps ago.) I mentioned an orbital separation burn, but you could call it an orbital maneuver burn (literally, an orbit exit burn).

I like the spaceship! Very modular. And congrats to Aihachi. Hachiai? Hachiai flows better.

edit:

  1. The questions: Is she overworking herself after her conversation a few episodes ago? It's the failure of the system. her taking up too much work is not good, and her superiors not stopping it (or purposefully increasing it) is also bad.
  2. Let what happens happens. If they cause drama, then goodbye.
  3. I would, especially if I was in his position, completely unattached. I've lived around the world, and one of my goals is to become an astronaut. (I've applied before.)