The Planetarian is a series that is based upon a 2005 visual novella of the same name, hence why the title of Snow Globe proclaims its 15th anniversary. Snow Globe is listed as an OVA and it does fit that role fairly well by filling in the time preceding the events of the main anime/movie. The anime itself is also quite good and rather underrated.
The actual series consists of an anime and a movie, but I think it is safe to say that the movie integrates almost all of the scenes from the anime into itself, as far as I remember.
The plot of the anime tells of a world that was completely dehumanised as a global war occurred and widespread biological warfare ensued in Japan. In this world, a scavenger goes into a city to gather supplies and relics of a bygone era and stumbles across Hoshino Yumemi, a robot who was programmed to present in a planetarium and has stayed there ever since. The plot of the movie also includes how the scavenger travels many years later with a makeshift planetarium.
Artistically speaking, the problem with the main anime (the sequel to this movie) was that it only evoked half the emotion that the novella did. This is mostly because the creators completely cut out the soliloquies of the scavenger that added a lot more depth and interpretation to the situations that he faced. Some scenes and dialogues were also changed, even when they probably should not have been changed. The movie itself also follows a completely different setting, all the while providing the anime in the form of flashbacks essentially, and ends on a cliffhanger, which is why I erroneously thought that this OVA would be a sequel of sorts. Nevertheless, the Planetarian anime/movie is a brief but well written and balanced piece that evokes a lot of emotions. I agree with most people that the Planetarian is quite a bit underrated, probably because of its questionable production quality. It was certainly very nice to see the cute and likeable character of Hoshino Yumemi at least in the form of an OVA.
The story is a slice of life one, unlike the main plot, and is not an adaptation of the novella. It basically tells of the robot Hoshino Yumemi's life in the 10 or so years before the war working in the planetarium. There is nothing too special about the plot in Snow Globe as such, other than that it is a nice slice of life type of thing. It has very little relevance to the plot going forwards, in the very least until a new instalment is released, which is a possibility. They showed off a three-way foldable tablet in the anime, which is funny. There is the theme of robots transcending to become humans, that is also present in this OVA.
In the anime and novella, the scavanger (the POV character) had come closer and closer to the feeling that Hoshino Yumemi is rather human through her actions and that she gave him hints that she wanted out of the planetarium, but was bound by her programming, or that is at least what the scavanger thought. This was a significant part of the novella, but was dialed down for the anime unfortunately. Here, Hoshino Yumemi is proposed to twice and her coworkers constantly wonder about her intentions and are surprised at her level of independence. Counter to this, there is a background violent anti-robot sentiment presented in the society, though it is not really elaborated on.
The animation is rather odd to say the least. Snow Globe animation is listed as being done by a very new studio who have only animated 2 other animes, both of which are isekai released in 2021, and an OVA in 2019. The anime and the movie were animated by David Production, who are much more established, so it is not quite clear why the change was made. The animators have played around successfully with 3d at least once and the animation itself is sound. However, it drops noticeably on all secondary characters and the smaller details of some surroundings. Therefore I would say it is a bit below average.
The soundtrack oversaturated the OVA way too much in my opinion. There is a BGM present even during every dialogue. I think that this is a bit unnecessary, as even the novella had prolonged dialogues without BGMs. Otherwise, the OST is rather nice and links back to the OST used in the anime and novella, but other than that it is not particularly distinguished.
Overall, Snow Globe is a decent OVA, but unfortunately it is limited by that fact. It strays quite a bit from the original premise of the Planetarian and provides a memorable, but a rather lukewarm plot to it for 40 minutes or so, with the last 6 minutes being the credits. I think mainly the shortcomings of the anime in general come from the fact that the original novella is by now 15 years old and had very limited plot development since then. It seems that the creators themselves do not quite know how and if they even should continue the Planetarian, which is a shame. There is hope, however, in that the "kinetic novella" (means VN essentially) adaptation of this story is on the way, so the creators are still working on the Planetarian, even if they needed external funding. The original story itself is rather self sufficient and simple, so expanding it well is a challenge. There is also the fact that there is very little lore carried over from the novella to the anime, and so the setting relied heavily on the atmosphere. It is an open question whether there will be a continuation for the Planetarian, and I really hope it will be continued or in the very least remade into a slightly longer anime. Meanwhile we get Snow Globe, which is a nice little OVA to watch over a cup of tea. Snow Globe is either hopefully a prelude for something larger or unfortunately an epilogue of sorts.
