In the decade and a half since it premiered, Den-noh Coil has been hailed not only for its believable characters and impressive animation, but as an exemplary work of “design fiction” for its depiction of the many practical and commercial applications of AR technology. Imagine if Ghost in the Shell, Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack, and Interstellar were smashed together inside a particle accelerator and you’ve got a fairly solid idea of what the final third of The Orbital Children looks like. What begins at first as your typical sci-fi survival drama à la 2013’s Gravity gradually morphs into what can only be described as a disaster thriller meets quasi-transhumanist parable. Where Den-noh Coil was a 26-episode coming-of-age sci-fi drama about a close-knit group of children whose personal story played out along the intersection of the technologically surreal and the physical mundane, The Orbital Children is an existential tale of growing up writ large not just of Touya and co., but of an entire generation of humans living on the cusp of interplanetary colonization. But their stories are otherwise like night and day.
Both Iso’s cult classic and its long-awaited spiritual successor are intimately concerned with the intersection of adolescence and technology. Like Den-noh Coil, The Orbital Children could be aptly summed up as a coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of speculative fiction. While working to find a way of escaping the station unharmed, the children inadvertently find themselves at the heart of an elaborate plot that threatens the very existence of humanity itself. Following the arrival of Mina, Hiroshi, and Taiyo three Earth-born children visiting the Anshin, the station is caught in a collision with a shower of meteor debris. Along with Konoha, his terminally ill childhood friend, Touya has been born with an artificial implant in his brain that impairs his ability to safely continue living in space, further fueling his complicated resentment for humanity and Earth.
Touya, a taciturn 14-year-old hacker living aboard a commercial space station called the Anshin, is one of two of the last living children born off-Earth following a catastrophe that forced humanity to retreat from colonizing the stars. Iso’s latest centers on a group of five children in 2045 whose lives are brought together by a quirk of fate in the wake of a disaster.
ANIME STUDIO DEBUT ISO ISO
Nearly 15 years since his last original production, Iso has returned with The Orbital Children, a new six-part original anime series available to stream on Netflix – and it was absolutely worth the wait. His resume includes some of the most forward-thinking and technologically interesting anime of mid-’90s to early aughts, qualities which would go on to influence his critically acclaimed (yet criminally underseen) 2007 anime Den-noh Coil. But you most certainly would recognize his work as an animator on such seminal anime series and films as FLCL, Ghost in the Shell, Neon Genesis Evangelion, RahXephon (where he made his debut as an episode director), and Blood the Last Vampire.
Among casual anime fans, Mitsuo Iso may not be a name that leaps out with the same force of recognition as someone like Hayao Miyazaki, Hideaki Anno, or Shinichirō Watanabe.
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