If youre one of those people who really likes to study the nittygritty of animation like key animators or inbetween animators youve probably come across the name Mitsuo Iso. Mitsuo Iso is an animator who started out working for Studio Ghibli as a key animator The process of which is explained in Eleven Arts twitter thread herehttps://twitter.com/ELEVENARTS/status/1385749058086744066. Iso worked on various animation cuts for Only Yesterday Ocean Waves Porco Rosso Perfect Blue and even some fights in the End of Evangelion movie. He even did animation for the very first Digimon movie In 2007 he created his own original anime called Dennou Coil which while not necessarily a mainstream hit is considered an underrated masterpiece. I havent seen Dennou Coil but I plan to one of these days HIDIVE whyd you have to take it off?. But after Dennou Coil Mitsuo Iso didnt try to make other projects since then as apparently even back in 2007 corporations were apprehensive about creating completely original anime especially anything not based on an existing source like a manga or light novel. But just this year Iso made a comeback with a very ambitious set of movies called Orbital Children which just dropped on Netflix. Fans of his work were excited and since I found it was only going to be six episodes I figured this would be a good time killer. Im not normally into heavy scifi stuff especially if theyre filled with a lot of technobabble that flies right over my head Keep in mind Im a 28yearold woman but Im a sucker for good animation and welldeveloped characters and Iso apparently did both with Dennou Coil so maybe Orbital Children would turn out great ...Yeah I have words for this. In case you couldnt tell I didnt like Orbital Children. And I really wanted to like it It even had a great start In the year 2045 space travel AI and technological advancements are commonplace and the most recent scientific marvel are children born on the moon though their lifespan is shortened due to some snags. One day a group of kids win a contest and get to go to a space settlement to meet the children born on the moon. Unfortunately a rogue comet hits the settlement trapping them in space. Although the kids dont quite get along at first due to Touyas insufferable nihilism about humanity theyre going to have to work together if they even have a sliver of a chance of surviving. But this is really an oversimplification of things...mainly because one of Orbital Childrens biggest flaws is that it tries to tell a really really huge story in the span of just six episodes and it really doesnt work. For one technobabble and exposition is just dumped on you in literally every single episode almost nonstop giving you very little time to even process one concept it introduces before moving on to the next one within two seconds. And this series has a LOT of ideas: Intergalactic terrorist groups AI comets moon children some mystical space prophecy AI drones the list goes on Theres just so much this show covers in the span of six episodes and because theyre just thrown at us at a breakneck pace theyre all unable to be really fleshed out and I couldnt have cared less about them because the show would rather overload my brain with all the concepts and ideas it throws into a blender. Episode 4 in particular is guilty of this as it just throws concepts at you over and over and over with seemingly no end in sight making it a real slog to go through But surely the characters can carry a story like this right? Well...sort of at first. Honestly none of the characters other than Touya get fleshed out beyond one basic character trait they have. Mina in particular is just a social media obsessed teen whos way more focused on getting clout than yknow actually giving a shit about her situation even as she gets locked in a space chamber and nearly dies from lack of oxygen She does make for great comic relief and has some great funny faces but thats really all shes good for. None of the other characters have much to their name and even one of the villains who gets revealed later doesnt do much other than spout a bunch of philosophical babble about some space prophecy shes obsessed with. Konoha is little more than the wise sickly waif whos there to spout philosophical rhetoric before possibly dying beautifully and the adults dont do much except worry about the kids. To be fair I actually did like Touyas progression through the series. He starts off as an insufferable edgy misanthrope who believes Earthborn humans are inferior to moon people and that they should all die but changes his worldview throughout the series and becomes nicer at the end. Though I wouldnt blame anyone for dropping the show because of him alone. True to form the animation is definitely the highlight of Orbital Children with bright colors detailed backgrounds wellintegrated CGI and fluid movement typical of Isos pedigree. The OST is nice too if not very memorable. However other than those two things and Touyas development everything else about Orbital Children is a mess. Like I mentioned before the story is supposedly about space kids overcoming disasters and getting back home to Earth but most of the meat in this show is taking up by overly pretentious technobabble and philosophical waxing that doesnt get utilized beyond blatant plot conveniences and Deus Ex Machinas to get out of whatever corners the writers wrote themselves into. We never get a sense of what the characters are like beyond their immediate situations because the show refuses to explore them in favor of yet again pretentious science and philosophy thats only shoved in there to make the series seem deeper than it actually isnt. Say what you will about something like say Astra: Lost In Space but I feel that show did a better job of telling the story about kids trapped in space and trying to get back to Earth because it knew to keep that as the focus and gave a shit about fleshing out its characters even if it didnt always succeed. Basically Orbital Children bit off way more than it could chew and suffered as a result. Also one another thing: Episode 5 did you SERIOUSLY feel the need to shove in a scene where a child accidentally gropes an older womans boob? And right in the middle of whats supposed to be a tense suspenseful scene at that? Whose idea was it to throw that in there? Because shoehorning horny comedy into a serious scene does not fucking work It did nothing to further the story completely broke the tension and was absolutely unnecessary Its almost like someone felt scared that nobody would give Orbital Children the time of day unless they put in one scene of a womans boobs getting grabbed Hurr durr nobodys gonna like this on its own merits so lets throw in a kid groping an older woman Heehee thatll bring in viewers IT WILL NOT You could cut out that scene and absolutely nothing would be lost If anything itd make the entire episode better because there wouldnt be outofplace horny humor to kill the tension in whats supposed to be a very serious tense sequence of kids about to die out in space Seriously why is this even a trend? The whole boob groping gag needs to fucking die forever Okay thats enough of my angry soapbox. Sorry Mitsuo Iso I really wanted to like this and youve made a lot of great things. But Orbital Children is not one of them. Had it cut out a bunch of the useless technobabble and pretentious philosophical bullshit and focused on maybe one or two of the concepts it introduced it would have been much better. I wanted to care about these dumbass kids and root for them but I just couldnt. There are reasons why I normally dont gravitate towards hard scifi anime and Orbital Children was definitely a reminder of that. If you like Orbital Children cool more power to you and if the show being on Netflix will get Iso more attention or even allow him to make more original anime thats great Iso has gone on record saying that he had to fight tooth and nail just to get Dennou Coil created and Ill always have respect for creative people who will fight to the death to make sure their creations are not only made but seen even in an incomplete form no matter what obstacles they had to face and compromises they had to make. We all know what happened with Stars Align. But as far as original projects go Orbital Children is absolutely not the best Iso has to offer and probably wasnt the best way for me to get introduced to his directorial work. If you like hard scifi feel free to check it out but if youre not into lots of exposition dumps philosophical ramblings and overthetop scifi that overloads youre brain give it a miss.