20 anime similar to Planetes based on genre, format, studio, and popularity
Looking for anime similar to Planetes? Here are 10 anime recommendations that share similar themes, genres, or storytelling styles.
We selected these anime based on shared genres (Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi), similar narrative structures, comparable art styles, and positive fan overlap. If you enjoyed Planetes, these series should appeal to your taste.
On August 10th of the year 2010 the Holy Empire of Britannia began a campaign of conquest, its sights set on Japan. Operations were completed in one month thanks to Britannia's deployment of new mobile humanoid armor vehicles dubbed Knightmare Frames. Japan's rights and identity were stripped away, the once proud nation now referred to as Area 11. Its citizens, Elevens, are forced to scratch out a living while the Britannian aristocracy lives comfortably within their settlements. Pockets of resistance appear throughout Area 11, working towards independence for Japan. Lelouch, an exiled Imperial Prince of Britannia posing as a student, finds himself in the heart of the ongoing conflict for the island nation. Through a chance meeting with a mysterious girl named C.C., Lelouch gains his Geass, the power of the king. Now endowed with absolute dominance over any person, Lelouch may finally realize his goal of bringing down Britannia from within! (Source: Bandai Entertainment)
Life isn't easy in feudal Japan... especially since the aliens landed and conquered everything! Oh sure, the new health care is great, but the public ban on the use of swords has left a lot of defeated samurai with a difficult decision to make concerning their future career paths! This is especially true if, as in the case of Gintoki Sakata, they're not particularly inclined towards holding a day job, which is why Gintoki's opted for the freelance route, taking any job that's offered to him as long as the financial remuneration sounds right. Unfortunately, in a brave new world filled with stray bug-eyed monsters, upwardly mobile Yakuza and overly ambitious E.T. entrepreneurs, those jobs usually don't pay as well as they should for the pain, suffering and indignities endured! (Source: Sentai Filmworks)
Enter a world in the distant future, where Bounty Hunters roam the solar system. Spike and Jet, bounty hunting partners, set out on journeys in an ever struggling effort to win bounty rewards to survive. While traveling, they meet up with other very interesting people. Could Faye, the beautiful and ridiculously poor gambler, Edward, the computer genius, and Ein, the engineered dog be a good addition to the group?
This story takes place in a future not too far away when androids that look exactly like humans begin to spread across the world. The android production company SA Corp. produced Giftia, a new kind of android that has the most amount of emotion and human-like qualities out of any other model ever seen. However, due to problems in technology, the androids have a service life, and once they pass that, they... Well, it gets pretty bad. For this reason, SA Corp. creates a terminal service in order to retrieve Giftia that have gone past their service life. A new employee at the terminal service named Tsukasa Mizugaki forms a team with the Giftia Isla to retrieve the other androids, but... (Source: Anime News Network)
A year has passed since "The Black Rebellion" and the remaining Black Knights have vanished into the shadows, their leader and figurehead, Zero, executed by the Britannian Empire. Area 11 is once more squirming under the Emperor's oppressive heel as the Britannian armies concentrate their attacks on the European front. But for the Britannians living in Area 11, life is back to normal. On one such normal day, a Britannian student, skipping his classes in the Ashford Academy, sneaks out to gamble on his chess play. But unknown to this young man, several forces are eying him from the shadows, for soon, he will experience a shocking encounter with his own obscured past, and the masked rebel mastermind Zero will return.
Ryuuji Takasu is a gentle high school student with a love for housework; but in contrast to his kind nature, he has an intimidating face that often gets him labeled as a delinquent. On the other hand is Taiga Aisaka, a small, doll-like student, who is anything but a cute and fragile girl. Equipped with a wooden katana and feisty personality, Taiga is known throughout the school as the "Palmtop Tiger." One day, an embarrassing mistake causes the two students to cross paths. Ryuuji discovers that Taiga actually has a sweet side: she has a crush on the popular vice president, Yuusaku Kitamura, who happens to be his best friend. But things only get crazier when Ryuuji reveals that he has a crush on Minori Kushieda—Taiga's best friend! Toradora! is a romantic comedy that follows this odd duo as they embark on a quest to help each other with their respective crushes, forming an unlikely alliance in the process.
Fujioka Haruhi wins a scholarship to attend Ouran Academy, a school reserved for only the most rich and prestigious. Despite what other students may think of her, she cares little for physical appearances or the fact that she is a commoner. Unfortunately for Haruhi, her high school days take a sudden turn when she stumbles upon the Host Club, an elite club filled with super rich and beautiful boys who use their specific traits and charms to entertain young ladies. Even worse, Haruhi accidentally breaks an 8-million yen vase in the club. Since she is unable to repay her debt with money, Haruhi finds herself with no choice but to work for the Host Club, becoming a male host herself.
A few months have passed since Tomoya declared his love to Nagisa, and his life keeps moving forward as he continues to meet a variety of new people, expanding his world in the process. While Tomoya's world continues to expand, his and Nagisa's relationship is entering a new phase, and neither of them is quite sure where it will take them. Through his relationship with Nagisa, Tomoya begins to understand the meaning and importance of family. But as Tomoya and Nagisa begin a family of their own, they are faced with many hardships along the way in Clannad: After Story (Source: Sentai Filmworks, edited) Note: Includes 2 un-numbered 'extra' and 'summary' episodes that aired at the end of the series.
Yoshioka Futaba has a few reasons why she wants to "reset" her image & life as a new high school student. Because she's cute, she was ostracized by her female friends in junior high, and because of a misunderstanding, she couldn't get her feeling across to the one boy she has ever liked, Tanaka-kun. Now in high school, she is determined to be as unladylike as possible so that her friends won't be jealous of her. While living her life this way contentedly, she meets Tanaka-kun again, but he now goes under the name of Mabuchi Kou. He tells her that he felt the same way as she did when they were younger, but now things can never be the same again. Will Futaba be able to continue her love that never even started from three years ago?
Kuronuma Sawako is completely misunderstood by her classmates. Her timid and sweet demeanor is often mistaken for malicious behavior. This is due to her resemblance to the ghost girl from "The Ring", which has led her peers to give her the nickname Sadako. Longing to make friends and live a normal life, she is naturally drawn to Kazehaya Shouta, the most popular guy in class, whose "100% refreshing" personality earns him great admiration from Sawako. So when Kazehaya starts talking to her, maybe there is hope for the friendships Sawako has always longed for. Maybe...there is even a little hope for some romance in her future.
Tomoya is a bitter, third year high school student. His mother passed away, causing his father to resort to alcohol and gambling. Tomoya is distant with his father and has become a delinquent in the years since his mother's death. Walking to school, he meets Nagisa Furukawa who is a year older but is repeating the grade due to illness. She is alone, as most of her friends have moved on. The two begin hanging out, and as time goes by, Tomoya finds his life shifting in a new direction. (Source: Sentai Filmworks)
Piano prodigy Arima Kousei dominated the competition and all child musicians knew his name. But after his mother, who was also his instructor, passed away, he had a mental breakdown while performing at a recital. This resulted in him no longer being able to hear the sound of his piano playing. Two years later, Kousei hasn’t touched the piano and views the world without any flair or color. He was content at living out his life with his good friends Tsubaki and Watari until, one day, a girl changed everything. Miyazono Kaori is a pretty, free spirited violinist whose playing style reflects her personality. Kaori helps Kousei return to the music world and show that it should be free and mold breaking unlike the structured and rigid style Kousei was used to.
Jinta Yadomi and his group of childhood friends have become estranged after a tragic accident split them apart. Now in their high school years, a sudden surprise forces each of them to confront their guilt over what happened that day and come to terms with the ghosts of their past. (Source: NIS America)
In a far away future, mankind lives underground in huge caves, unknowing of a world above with a sky and stars. In the small village of Jiha, Simon, a shy boy who works as a digger discovers a strange glowing object during excavation. The enterprising Kamina, a young man with a pair of rakish sunglasses and the passion of a firey sun, befriends Simon and forms a small band of brothers, the Gurren Brigade, to escape the village and break through the ceiling of the cave to reach the surface, which few believe exist. The village elder won't hear of such foolishness and punishes the Brigade. However, when disaster strikes from the world above and the entire village is in jeopardy, it's up to Simon, Kamina, a girl with a big gun named Yoko, and the small yet sturdy robot, Lagann, to save the day. The new friends journey to the world above and find that the surface is a harsh battlefield, and it's up to them to fight back against the rampaging Beastmen to turn the tide in the humans' favor! Pierce the heavens, Gurren Lagann!
Everybody has had that stage in their life where they have thought themselves to be special, different from the masses of ordinary humans. They might go as far as seeing themselves capable of wielding mystical powers, or maybe even believe themselves to have descended from a fantasy realm. This "disease" is known as "chuunibyou" and is often the source of some of the most embarrassing moments of a person's life. For Yuuta Togashi, the scars that his chuunibyou has left behind are still fresh. Having posed as the "Dark Flame Master" during his middle school years, he looks back at those times with extreme embarrassment, so much so that he decides to attend a high school far away where nobody will recognize him. Putting his dark history behind him, he longs to live a normal high school life. Unfortunately, he hasn't escaped his past yet: enter Rikka Takanashi, Yuuta's new classmate and self-declared vessel of the "Wicked Eye." As this eccentric young girl crashes into Yuuta's life, his dream of an ordinary, chuunibyou-free life quickly crumbles away. In this hilarious and heartwarming story of a boy who just wants to leave his embarrassing memories behind, the delusions of old are far from a thing of the past. (Source: MAL Rewrite)
The first time he saw her, it was love at first sight. Unfortunately for Sorata Kanda, "she" was a cat named Hikari and his school's rules forbid keeping pets in the regular dorms. As a result, Sorata is banished to the infamous Sakura Hall alongside other troublesome and unusual students like Jin, overzealous playboy, Ryuunosuke, the reclusive hermit, and Mashiro, a brilliant artist who's so unfocused and clueless about the real world that dorm supervisor Ms. Sengoku assigns Sorata the task of taking care of her along with his ever-growing collection of stray cats! (Source: Sentai Filmworks)
This romantic comedy revolves around an antisocial high school student named Hikigaya Hachiman with a distorted view on life and no friends or girlfriend. When he sees his classmates talking excitedly about living their adolescent lives, he mutters: "They're a bunch of liars." When he is asked about his future dreams, he responds: "Not working." A teacher gets Hachiman to join the 'Volunteer Service' club, which happens to have the school's prettiest girl: Yukinoshita Yukino. (Source: Anime News Network)
Uesugi Fuutarou, a high school second-year from a poor family, receives a highly appealing offer to work part-time as a tutor... but his students turn out to be girls from his own class! What's more, they're quintuplets... and all five are beautiful, but happen to be problem students who have borderline grades and hate studying! Looks like his first assignment will be to win all the sisters' trust?! Every day is a wild party in this rom-com centering around the quintuplet sisters of the Nakano household! (Source: Crunchyroll)
Tohno Takaki and Shinohara Akari, two very close friends and classmates, are torn apart when Akari's family is transferred to another region of Japan due to her family's job. Despite separation, they continue to keep in touch through mail. When Takaki finds out that his family is also moving, he decides to meet with Akari one last time. As years pass by, they continue down their own paths, their distance slowly growing wider and their contact with one another fades. Yet, they keep remembering one another and the times they have shared together, wondering if they will have the chance to meet once again.
The second season of Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru. Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru. Zoku picks up immediately after the events of the first season, continuing the adventures of the Volunteer Service Club—the dispassionate Hachiman Hikigaya, the cheerful Yui Yuigahama, and the competitive Yukino Yukinoshita—as it dedicates itself to helping any student with issues that they may face. With the rift among his own group widening, Hachiman begins to realize that his knack for quickly getting to the root of other people's troubles is a double-edged sword: sometimes the best solution is not necessarily the most appropriate one. (Source: MAL Rewrite)