Planetes is a great show on the whole, but certain parts of it aren't looked at enough, particularly its ending credits. Through a triumphant-sounding song combined with visual imagery and impressive time-skipping techniques, every time you finish an episode, you're treated to cheery reminder of what drives the main character despite everything he goes through. Whilst he may grow older and suffer setbacks in his life, his childhood dreams still exist. And although he is far from fulfilling them in his current position, that doesn't mean he can't grab whatever he can get whilst waiting for the day said position now longer restrains him.
Whilst the ending only captures a small part of what humans go through whilst growing older and is never given physical form within the actual show, it is still an impressive piece of animation that shows exactly what you can accomplish with credit rolls. Most anime credits, whether they be openings or endings, are lifeless on a visual level – telling us nothing other than "this exists" without any actual meaning to its existence. Always saying "hey, this character is in the series" or "hey, we're foreshadowing a plot twist that will totally become relevant nine episodes in". Planetes' ending credits rises above those trappings and not only breathes life in its visuals, but even if you don't know the main character on account of never having actually watched the show, you can still get an idea of who he is and what you have to look forward to as you follow his journey of making it as a space garbageman just by watching said credits alone.
Most people skip ending credits after finishing an episode. If more of them were Planetes', they'd be less likely to do so.
Agreed. I hate when the credits are just clips of the actual show. I don't like the spoiler scenes and I don't like just watching things that already happened. I am a huge sucker for a lot of the music though haha. – Tatijana9 years ago