Vinland Saga Creator's First Manga Hit, Planetes, Returns With Stunning New Deluxe Edition
Planetes, the debut work of Makoto Yukimura of Vinland Saga fame, is getting a brand-new rerelease perfect for any collector’s shelf. While Makoto Yukimura is best known for the historical epic Vinland Saga, he made his debut in 1999 with the hard science fiction series Planetes, which has received similar praise from fans and critics alike for its great artwork and mature themes and storytelling.
Makoto Yukimura's Planetes is just as worth someone’s time as Vinland Saga, and that’s especially showing itself with some brand-new news for the property. It’s been almost ten years since Dark Horse Comics first acquired Planetes from Tokyopop and released it in two stellar omnibuses, and in a surprise announcement, Dark Horse Comics will be rereleasing Planetes in a deluxe hardcover edition starting from July 29, 2025. Everything going into the rerelease makes it a phenomenal buy for fans old and new, and with how great the actual story is, this kind of treatment is plenty deserved.
Everything To Expect From Planetes’ New Hardcover Edition
The upcoming rerelease of Planetes, formally titled Planetes Deluxe Edition, has plenty to offer for such a momentous release. For starters, while each book is the same length as the original omnibuses released in 2015, the original series is being reprinted on much higher quality paper than the original release, including 44 full-color art pages on special gloss stock. The original omnibuses were already a great print, but based on this report, Planetes Deluxe Edition will be the best representation of the original manga to date.
Also of note is the hardcover, itself. Rather than keep the same cover art of the manga, Planetes Deluxe Edition instead opts for a sleek, simplified cover resembling how an astronaut would view Earth from a space station, as shown in the above image, with the front and back covers also featuring debossed patterns meant to give it a unique tactile effect. The second book will likely have a similar design, and overall, the cover for the Planetes Deluxe Edition is the perfect way of celebrating the story through its simple means of capitalizing on its premise.
Why Planetes Is Still Worth Reading After Over 25 Years
What Makes Planetes Such A Great Story
The Planetes Deluxe Edition is set to be the perfect rerelease of the Planetes manga, and that sort of treatment is very much deserved. For starters, just like how Makoto Yukimura put an incredible amount of research and general thought into writing out Vinland Saga’s story, Planetes’ world is given an incredible amount of depth from the very start to sell it as a logical hard science fiction story that could very easily work within our reality. It’s a standout work in a genre that tends to lean towards the fantastic, and it’s worth reading just for that idea.
What best sells Planetes, of course, are the characters. Just as was the case with Vinland Saga, Planetes is a phenomenal manga to read because of how much thought and care is put into the human drama and emotions amid the chaotic and dramatic events of the story, and seeing the way the cast grows at every turn makes it a riveting read from start to finish. Everything great about Vinland Saga is on full display with Planetes, and with the upcoming Planetes Deluxe Edition, it’s finally getting the treatment it deserves.
Press release provided by Dark Horse Comics.
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