The Orbital Children

I think not.

I've never gone out of my way to rate a show if it was less than 5 stars, let alone leave a review. And one too many times, unnecessarily negative IMBD reviews tarnish my experience with a series before the half way point.

Don't let it happen to you.

It gets to become a bit of a spectacle towards the end. Builds up nicely towards the increasing craziness. Nice concepts of future tech and how ai could become in the future shown in such a visual way that is digestible to the non-tech savvy.

There aren't too many silly anime tropes to annoy the people who don't like them. It covers issues of friendship, prejudice and reluctance to tech which will become far smarter than humans will be able to comprehend. The setting and actions are quite realistic, so that when it gets intonthe more fantastical stuff it's not such a shock to the system that'll makenyour eyes roll.

All in all it's a beautifully animated fun time in the future in space.

As some reviews here show, this is not for adrenaline junkies, those looking for giant robot / space battles, or prefer simple plots. This is a rare and well-done mixture of cerebral story-telling along with enough suspense to keep the audience interested. I binge-watched all 6 episodes in one evening.

The animation accomplishes what is required. The story, direction, voices and general plot are quite good. While the concept of an AI predicting even tiny details of the future is a little jump the shark, the story is done well enough that one can easily let that bit of improbability pass. It is after all, fiction.

Overall an interesting series that is a bit different from typical anime. There's no nudity, unnecessary violence, gore, or over-the-top absurdity. The characters stay true to nature. The character of the Net Celebrity added a bit of comedy throughout to help break up the tension, while other characters held the plot together. I really enjoyed the concept of the SMART Internet glove. A simple bit of tech that added to the plot.

For a short 6-episode anime "mini-series", this was well done. I would like to see more anime series like this.

This show was very engaging, a really balanced amount of actual science and fiction thrown in together to make it the perfect sci-fi shows with also a bit of comedy to relief the show from getting too serious.

Also another thing to mention. The reviews for this show here is prove that the show is not for everybody, especially Americans.

I really enjoyed The Orbital Children. It has the adventurous spirit of old fashioned science fiction, but takes place in a futuristic high tech setting. The story focuses on a group of kids who find themselves in a difficult situation inside a space station orbiting the earth.

Visually it is excellent, as you'd expect from Mitsuo Iso, an absolute legend of Japanese animation. Really nice painterly backgrounds, interesting shot choices, cool designs & high quality animation. Storywise there are a lot of technical details to absorb, but it worked for me. I liked the characters & found it very engaging. Tonewise there was a nice mix of seriousness & silliness.

You could safely show this to kids without worrying about the kind of violence or sexual content which anime often contains, but the only issue might be the density of the story. I imagine it would be hard for the average kid to process. In that regard Orbital Children is similar to Iso's previous anime show Dennou Coil, which is also a brilliant piece of work, but requires a good attention span to enjoy fully.

If a highly detailed, wholesome, space adventure anime is what you're after then Orbital Children is for you!