The Orbital Children (Japanese: 地球外少年少女, Hepburn: Chikyūgai Shōnen Shōjo, transl. "Extraterrestrial Boys and Girls") is a Japanese science fiction anime television series written and directed by Mitsuo Iso. The character designs for the anime were provided by Kenichi Yoshida, and the main animator is Toshiyuki Inoue. The film's soundtrack was produced by Rei Ishizuka, while the theme song, "Oarana", was written and composed by Vincent Diamante and performed by the virtual rap singer Harusaruhi [ja]
The Orbital Children was released in Japan as two films, with Part 1 premiering in January 2022, and Part 2 in February. Netflix announced in November 2021 that it had acquired the global distribution rights. On Netflix, The Orbital Children was released as a six-episode miniseries in January 2022, to coincide with the Japanese debut of Part 1. The animation style and story focus on children and technology bear resemblance to Mitsuo Iso’s 2007 television anime series Den-noh Coil. The animation style emphasizes dense motion while working with simplistic-looking character designs, which works effectively to convey the complicated movement of drones, gravity, and orbital vehicles aboard the space station.
The Orbital Children explores interactions with artificial intelligence (AI) and considers the different outcomes that can occur when AIs come to different conclusions about humans as they acquire different levels of understanding on the complexities of humanity. AI within the series have restrictions placed upon them to limit their capabilities and prevent them from becoming too smart and potentially threatening humanity, a story element that becomes relevant in later episodes of the miniseries.
Set in 2045 the near-future, a comet strikes a newly opened Japanese commercial space station in geocentric orbit, Anshin. At the same time, a trio of Earth children brought to the commercial space station on a sponsored visit. The purpose of their visit is to meet Touya Sagami, a young boy who is one of the last surviving children born in space. Touya and Konoha, another space born human, are undergoing physical therapy on the space colony to adapt their bodies to withstand an emigration to Earth's gravity. The collision with the comet leads the computer systems on the space station to malfunction. Isolated from most of the station’s adult staff, the children navigate the early stages of the disaster using local narrowband connections, restricted-intelligence AGI and drones controlled by dermal devices equivalent to smartphones. Their Internet connection is severed, the oxygen supply has been cut off, and they soon discover that the station has been damaged by an impact and is leaking air. Sometimes at odds with each other, they confront difficulties such as decompression, EVA with inadequate plastic suits, and runaway micromachines supposedly designed to retrieve water from comets. Looming over these immediate difficulties is the larger threat of a technological singularity believed to have been narrowly averted in the previous decade.
The Orbital Children takes place in an original setting where commercial development on Mars began in the 2010s. In 2045, the United States and China are aiming for the Moon and Jupiter, while Japan is conducting its development at a relatively safe distance in low Earth orbit. Mankind relies on AI to manage facilities such as the space station and legal matters.
The Orbital Children was released in Japan as two films, with Part 1 premiering on January 28, 2022, and Part 2 on February 11. Netflix announced in November 2021 that it had acquired the global distribution rights. On Netflix, The Orbital Children was released as a six-episode miniseries on January 28, 2022, to coincide with the Japanese debut of Part 1.
A manga adaptation illustrated by Gaku Tanigaki will begin serialization on Shueisha's Tonari no Young Jump website and app on May 12, 2023.[11]
The film's production was announced on May 20, 2018, followed by the announcement on October 27, 2020, that production started on a full-scale and that the film would be released in early 2022, with investment from Avex Pictures, Asmik Ace and others.[12][13] Signal.MD was originally attached to animate the project, but its production was temporarily suspended. Then Production +h, a new studio established by Fuminori Honda with personal debt after he left Signal.MD, took over the project.[14][15][16] It was later revealed that the film is split into two parts, with the first part premiering on January 28, 2022, and the second part premiering on February 11, 2022.[17]
The project began at the beginning of 2014.[18] Mitsuo Iso, who has been discussing his next work with Avex Pictures producer Tomohiko Iwase for several years, began writing a proposal after watching the film Gravity and realizing that "Space = Science Fiction" no longer the case.[18][19][20] Iso then invited Kenichi Yoshida to create his new work in 2016 and showed him over a dozen candidate projects, and he immediately chose this work.[21] Yoshida was not so much involved in the scenario creation itself, but Iso decided on many aspects, including the roles of the characters, based on his reactions.[22][23]
Iso wanted to make an original work of juvenile fiction, but a completely new and original project in that genre has a very high hurdle to clear in Japan.[18][19] Therefore, Iwase decided to make it for the whole world, thinking that there was still a demand for it overseas.[19]
In the production process, Iso first decided whether to adopt the idea that had flashed in his mind, after listening to the opinions of the experts in charge of scientific research.[24] Since this was an entertainment work, the minimum basic rules were followed, but priority was given to fun rather than realism in the adoption of the idea.[24] Finally, Iso took the opposite of the usual approach of linking ideas together before building the story in order to make the most of all the ideas that were adopted.[24] The script took about five years of meetings alone, and Iso wrote about 100 different draft variations.[19] The fundamentals of the story have not changed, but the initial plot was about a comet crashing into the earth and only 50 children on a school trip to a space station survived, and in the end they emigrated to the moon, and the main characters were Tōya and Nasa, who was the same age as him.[18][25] However, this was a 20th century story, and it is now the 21st century, and since dystopian science fiction has already been produced so many times, Iso decided it was time to create a bright future.[25][26]
Iso engaged in almost all jobs except sound, including scriptwriting, storyboarding, key frame checking, CG, VFX, and cinematography.[16][19]
Open source 3DCG software "blender" was used for CG drawing, but it was used more as a support for hand-drawing, both digital and analog.[27]
Since this work has only six episodes for various reasons, it is overwhelmingly short on time, and many scenes in the scenario were cut.[20] Iso attempted to reduce the original six-hour running time to a 2-hour regular film size, but was unable to do so, resulting in a 3-hour film. Nevertheless, the events before the incident of Episode 1 and daily life in space, etc. were omitted, and a number of important scenes, especially at the end of the story, both narratively and thematically, were cut.[23][28] Although the story is complete, Iso said that if given a chance, he would love to release the original "director's cut" version.[25][29]
The Orbital Children’s 36 song soundtrack was produced by Rei Ishizuka. The theme song, "Oarana," was written and composed by Vincent Diamante and performed by the virtual rap singer Harusaruhi [ja].[30]
Orbital Children's Original Soundtrack:[31]
Caitlin Moore of Anime News Network gave it a B+, and describes the series as "The Orbital Children is an excellent series, far and away one of the best anime series of the year so far." In particular Caitlin praises the anime's director, saying that "It's a must-watch for fans of Den-noh Coil, and a strong recommendation to pretty much everyone else".[32]
Toussaint Egan from Polygon enjoyed the series and praised its animation and story, and describes the series as "With over a decade in the making, Iso has crafted an accomplished follow-up to Den-noh Coil with The Orbital Children, revisiting his penchant for dense speculative world-building through the eyes of a new generation confronted with new challenges, opportunities, and questions both personal and existential. It’s a triumph of imagination and craft, one which confidently asserts itself as one of the best anime to come out this year and further proof of Iso’s estimable yet understated brilliance".[33]
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