I sincerely disagree with the suggestion that the Anime and the Manga are significantly different in their themes and execution  The final message that the anime leaves the viewer with seriously they spend like  minutes on this in the last episode is one of the importance of the connection between humans no matter what the situation  Its definitley true that the Anime explores the theme of exploitation of the underclass more but I feel that suggesting that the manga is a fairy tale set in space while the anime is more classical is preposterous  Ill grant you that my memory is a little rusty as I havent read the manga since last summer but Im reasonably sure of the basic similarity    Aprial  UTC