Clockwork Planet is an anime based on the light novels, by the same author as No Game No Life. The season is 12 episodes long. The setting has Earth dying, before it was rebuilt by an entity known as Y, but with everything made of gears, like the inside of a clock. The story then takes place a thousand years later with Naoto, whom we soon learn is a gifted genius blessed with exceptional hearing. Using that skill, he’s aware of his surroundings and can pinpoint whatever he’s looking for. As the world is made up of gears, including important structures and the planet itself, Clocksmiths are an integral part of society and Naoto wishes to become one.
The setup is cliched since an automaton known as RyuZU ends up falling from the sky into Naoto’s place. RyuZU is a rare and powerful automaton that no one has been able to fix and reawaken. Of course, this means that Naoto is able to fix her with his natural genius and RyuZU unconditionally falls in love with him. They become master and servant, where the pair is eventually joined with Marie and Halter. They’re a pair of Clocksmiths, who had originally wanted to retrieve RyuZU. Through certain circumstances, the four bands together.
The humor and overall tone of the anime is as cliched and generic as they come. Naoto and RyuZU’s relationship is teased and a lot of humor stems from them but it’s done in such a predictable way. It’s the type of stuff that you’ve seen many times in romantic comedies. The only point of differentiation is RyuZU’s uncharacteristically harsh and haughty demeanor, which makes it amusing whenever she insults someone else in such a matter-of-fact way in a polite tone.
Unfortunately, Naoto is a shallow character that never changes. There’s also a lot of fan service in the anime, both visually and surprisingly, in the dialogue. The visual ones are nothing special, while the dirty dialogue can be fun at times. As soon as the anime mentions that there are other automatons similar to RyuZU, you’d know how the plot will go. Yup, the characters will end up, whether purposely or not, on a journey that will see them find and activate at least another rare and complex automaton that are far ahead in terms of technology and has effectively special powers.
The plot ends up circling around the group uncovering the shady things that the government has been doing. While the clockwork setting may seem interesting at first, it never uses it to its full potential, it’s basically light cyberpunk. At first, you might be forgiven thinking that the whole world was made up of clockwork when it was rebuilt, but humans still exist. It’s just that the planet itself was the thing that was remade like this.
The anime lacks a proper hook. The pair ends up taking on a villain persona in order to save the world, while fighting against the actual villains. Yet the storytelling is so bad that we don’t really understand much about the real villains, the why’s and the how’s of what they’re doing. The ending is also typical idealistic rubbish where the pair pulls out a special ability that will magically solve the problem. The music is probably one of the better parts of the anime.
Overall, Clockwork Planet is a mediocre anime. While the setting was interesting at the start, having a world remade from gears, it never utilizes this in a clever way. The automatons and machinery that are made from these gears function exactly the same as if they were normal machinery from circuitry. There’s absolutely no differentiation. The story itself is poorly structured, and paired with generic protagonists, it ends up being completely average.
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