This series is a masterly woven drama that spans so many distinct genres that it's hard to succinctly describe. This may be odd to say, but this anime's cover image depicted here doesn't do the series justice. It gives off the feel of a happy-go-lucky camping trip, when it's not that at all. This is a story of hope against all odds and the perseverance to cling to that hope. It's a story where hopes are made, broken, and born again.
Note: I'll be saying "this series" a lot since I don't want to repeat the title or make up an acronym for it. There are going to be a few spoilers here, but they mostly focus on the beginning of the story or are already in the synopsis.
Animation
The first word that comes to mind is "beautiful". The landscapes are gorgeous and completely immerses me into the story. The pristine land and wildlife conveys a subtle sense of nostalgia for the fallen Earth. It stood in blunt contrast to the technological world. Both the space colonies and planet were beautiful in their own way, the former just fantastical in the sci-fi sense, the latter stemming from an intrinsic appreciation of nature.
The animation itself is very good overall. There were some episodes in which the quality of the animation really surprised me, namely some of the sea ones. The art style is apparent in cover image, so I won't elaborate much on it. In comedic moments, you'll sometimes see trademark anime characteristics (e.g. large sweat drops), and Howard, being the goof that he is, often has over-exaggerated expressions.
Sound
I found much of the music very appropriate for the story. The theme song, in particular, radiates a peaceful hopefulness that fit the theme of the series itself. Actually, the theme song had several variations; I recall nostalgic version and a truimphant version. I'm a fan of the violin and viola, so I appreciated Menori's playing as well. That's not to say the music was all good; I didn't like some of the score during action scenes.
I liked all the voice actors, with the exception of Sharla. Her voice seriously annoys me. I will acknowledge that it does make her sound weak as intended, but it also just sounds fake, as if some old crone was trying to emulate a girl's voice. I really appreciated the voice of the protagonist Luna. It matched the spirit and agreeableness of Luna perfectly. Oddly enough, while I hated his guts, I also liked Howard's voice a lot too.
The sound effects are a mixed bag. Some just sounded fake, while others did their job well enough. In comedic moments, like the animation, they used less realistic sounds, which was fine with me.
Story
If you haven't caught on from my review intro, I consider the plot and execution of this series to be absolutely fantastic, bordering brilliance (with a couple exceptions which I'll note later). At its core, the plot is a "Lord of the Flies" gone good scenario, where the characters cultivate friendship and hope instead of savagery and despair. The story can be roughly divided into arcs, each arc having a different secondary genre (the primary one always being drama) - this is why it's hard to describe. It ranges from sci-fi school life to primitive survival to thriller to adventure to exotic sci-fi. Although I consider the ending arc to be somewhat weak, the rest of the arcs more than compensate for it. Unsurprisingly, the majority of episodes is devoted to advancing the plot, with only a couple of "stand-alone" episodes, and even then, those usually substantially advance character development.
One thing this series did really well was introduce many small mysteries that slowly become more and more important. For example, Luna's special abilities are very subtle and mysterious at first, but near the end of the series, they become major plot points. Not only mysteries are persistent, but places are as well. Consider the state of the shuttle they arrive in and you will see that the artists took great care to include all the accumulated damages to it. It keeps all the story arcs connected. The plot really moves. Not only do characters change, but settings change just as much. This isn't anything like those series which have a static "home base" which the characters all return to afterwards.
I enjoyed the first 20 episodes and the 30s episodes the most. I think the adventure and survival aspect is the strongest point (besides drama) of the series, and those episodes capitalize on those aspects. The sense of adventure, the embarking on a voyage full of mysteries and unknown dangers, just appealed to my love for fantasy.
The rest of the episodes had more action. This is not a bad thing per-se; it's just that I think the episodes could have been better executed. For example, there is an episode in which the characters and villains are in a race against time, but they never appear to be hurrying. It left me a sense of frustration ("if only they had ran..."). There was also this ongoing frustration that the kids were too naive for combat, in that even though they were in danger, the thought of killing their enemies never seemsed to cross their minds; there were a couple instances that they had a chance to kill an enemy but they never followed through with it. Nonetheless, I appreciated their tactical skills in evaluating the situation.
The last 10 episodes are the weakest part of the story. The story starts becoming noticeably unrealistic, in that external events are improbably happening one after the others. To elaborate, the story focuses a lot on what happened 500-1000 years ago, where the intervening years were relatively uneventful; then, in the span of a month, several major and likely improbable external events occur one after another. I won't spoil as to what those events are though :) This stood in stark contrast to the rest of the story, in which events or mysteries were slowly unravelled in a sensible matter that convinced you into believing it was realistic. As another reviewer noted, there was also too much foreshadowing in some of the episodes, making them too predictable. I also found the final explanation of Luna's abilities kinda lame; and I felt that her abilities were not utilized to their full potential in some ways. It's not that this arc is particularly bad; it's just that it doesn't compare to the rest of the story. It plot felt rushed towards the end (except the drama moments), and I wish the epilogue would have lasted much longer to tie up all loose ends.
Interleaved through the story are plenty of comedic relief moments. Unlike some other series which try to meld both gravitas and humor, I found the mixture in this series just right. The humor never jumped in at wrong moments and it never interfered with the drama. There is a character I found hilarious in the last arc, but I won't spoil who it is.
From a scientific and engineering standpoint, I was impressed. Not only did they get several scientific principles right, the new technologies introduced did not strike me as unrealistic. Although appearing magical, the way they - or rather usually Shingo and Chako - talk about and incorporate the technology was believable. The new tech wasn't just superflous either - they play important roles in the story.
Aside: The biggest problem scientifically was the biological aspect. Unless our biochemistry and tree of life is something that life naturally converges to, I find it extremely improbable that the alien life was so similar to Earth's. The fact that the terrans/earthlings could even consume food from the planet shows that the biochemistry of life there is practically the same as that on Earth; otherwise, they would have died from poisoning. I would spoil too much if I went on about this, so I'll just leave it at that. Nevertheless, I understand that the story wouldn't have been possible if the biological standpoint was taken or if you consider the unlikeliness of being transported to a planet supporting such life. And for that, I'm glad that they just ignored it. I'm pretty sure most people would be unsympathetic with a planet that supports a totally different biochemistry (no green forests, no cute mammals). I just pretended that it was a pre-civilization Earth.
Character
There's a reason I said that this series is primarily a drama. It has great character development. The characters fight for survival, suffer, and learn from their experiences. At the beginning, they had bad chemistry and were all clueless on how to survive. But unlike "Lord of the Flies", they had strong leaders to overcome their weaknesses and differences. They learn to cooperate and compensate for each other. Their progress is "visible" - very much so.
This series features a diverse set of characters: bright Luna, timid Sharla, stern Menori, cheeky Chako, subservient Bell, selfish Howard, genius Shingo, and independent Kaoru. Each character has his or her own psychological demons that they have to deal with. Luna, the protagonist, often serves an integral role in helping others out of their problems and uniting the group under a banner of companionship, even when she has her own problems to deal with. They are all children, and the fact that they learn to accept each other under such dire situations makes it all the more amazing. It's even more amazing in that this amazingness is believable, which just shows how well this series integrated its drama aspect with the plot.
As I have mentioned before, one of the main themes is hope. The characters find themselves in a desparate situation and they only have their own wits and hope to rely on. And while they are constantly improving their survival skills, their hope is like a flickering candle. Events happen that make them lose hope, until they happen upon a solution. And even then, that solution may fail, dimishing that candle. Until they find another solution...and so forth. This results in an interesting (and immersive) ping-pong match between hope and despair. It made me truly feel for the characters; to me, they were truly alive. (There was one episode where Luna was separated from the group and was suffering, which really made my gut turn.) Their ultimate goal, of course, is to find a way back home, a hope that tossed and turned over and over again throughout the story.
There is hardly any romance in the story, but it's obvious that there are many developing romantic ties that just can't come forth because of the circumstances.
Value and enjoyment
If you can't tell how I feel about this series by now, something is seriously wrong with you. There are several episodes in this series that I would not mind to watch again.
