Extraterrestrial: 8 Anime That Take Place On A Different Place In Space

Space, the final frontier... Okay, no, that's the wrong type of medium. Although Star Trek played a huge role in making space-themed fiction popular in mass-media and perpetuating ideas of space exploration rather than space conquest.

But we're gonna talk about anime that is set somewhere outside of Earth. Some of the shows in our list are more focused on the exploration and scientific aspect of space, touching up on the politics, while the others use space as something that amplifies the specifics of some personal stories of the characters.

1. Planetes

It's a 26-episode series that explores the lives of the space scavengers — those who try to clean the space from the debris that humanity leaves here. Humanity has already reached the Moon and Mars and started small colonies here — and it feels more grounded because the timeline is believable and the technologies are just the evolved versions of those that we already have rather than something unique. The story is a bit slow in pace, but it adds to the overall charm.

2. Moonlight Mile

In this series humanity was able to conquer space quite early, so the events unfold in the beginning of the 21st century on the colonized Moon: it's used mainly as the energy source as it's full of helium-3, the fuel for the thermonuclear engines. And the mining of this fuel is filled with intricacies, debates and quarrels between various companies and governments, It's a pretty gorey series, one that's full of morally grey characters and factions.

3. Classroom Crisis

It's an anime in a high school setting, but the thing is that the school is located on Mars. The corporation that grew due to the production of engines for the spacecraft during the space exploration era decided to grow its engineering personnel and created an academy for the kids that it deemed promising enough for their potential jobs. Out of these kids were selected a few who formed an elite design bureau tasked with developing new engines, and the story revolves around the kids, their dreams, and the cold and harsh capitalism.

4. Cowboy Bebop

One of the planets that is frequently featured in this series is Mars — and hey, you can't talk about space anime without bringing up the staple of the space western genre. The Earth is not habitable in this series, so humanity scattered on different planets and satellites in the Solar system. We follow the story of a ragtag team of bounty hunters, those who explore the vastness of space while trying to fill the voids in their souls and find some answers to the questions that poison them/

5. Mobile Suit Gundam (part. the origin)

Another show that cannot be forgotten when the topic of the space anime is brought up, Mobile Suit Gundam is the most politically-infused series in this list. Each series focuses on different characters and different military conflicts, and there are a lot of them, but ultimately Mobile Suit Gundam: Origin can be considered a good starting point — it's the updated version of the original run that looks bearable for those who are not used for the vintage anime.

Another series that can be considered an introduction to the Gundam franchise is Iron-Blooded Orphans, one that focuses more on the stories of casualties that follow such huge conflicts and how does this prolonged battle affect even those who don't participate in it.

6. Voices Of A Distant Star

Makoto Shinkai once again decided to release a tear-jerker with the kids who cannot be together. This time they are separated by space and time, as one of them is going away on a mission to explore the remnants of an ancient alien civilization discovered in outer space and the other has to stay on Earth. This was released before Interstellar and also uses some of the concepts explored in the movie — especially the relativity of time.

7. Space Battleship Yamato 2199

This show is one that revolves around the battle between humans and aliens that takes place in space. It's famous for its intricate relationship dynamics and fierce space fights, but also it has a deep lore that makes the simple story shine.

8. Ginga Tetsudou 999

This is cyberpunk in its essence: in this anime people can prolong their lives by buying mechanical bodies, and some can even live forever — if they have enough money, that is, because bodies aren't cheap. Tetsurou Hoshino is not rich, he's a boy on the brink of poverty, but he wants to ride on Galaxy Express 999 — a train that travels through the universe, and it's rumored that those that can reach the end of its journey can get the mechanical body for free. So this is the story of his travels and his adventures on different planets.