"Extraterrestrial Boys and Girls") is a Japanese science fiction anime television series written and directed by Mitsuo Iso.

AI within the series have restrictions placed upon them to limit their capabilities and prevent them from becoming too smart and potentially threatening humanity, a story element that becomes relevant in later episodes of the miniseries.

Set in 2045 the near-future, a comet strikes a newly opened Japanese commercial space station in geocentric orbit, Anshin.

Isolated from most of the station’s adult staff, the children navigate the early stages of the disaster using local narrowband connections, restricted-intelligence AGI and drones controlled by dermal devices equivalent to smartphones.

Sometimes at odds with each other, they confront difficulties such as decompression, EVA with inadequate plastic suits, and runaway micromachines supposedly designed to retrieve water from comets.

In 2045, the United States and China are aiming for the Moon and Jupiter, while Japan is conducting its development at a relatively safe distance in low Earth orbit.

[18] Mitsuo Iso, who has been discussing his next work with Avex Pictures producer Tomohiko Iwase for several years, began writing a proposal after watching the film Gravity and realizing that "Space = Science Fiction" no longer the case.

[19] In the production process, Iso first decided whether to adopt the idea that had flashed in his mind, after listening to the opinions of the experts in charge of scientific research.

[19] The fundamentals of the story have not changed, but the initial plot was about a comet crashing into the earth and only 50 children on a school trip to a space station survived, and in the end they emigrated to the moon, and the main characters were Tōya and Nasa, who was the same age as him.

The theme song, "Oarana," was written and composed by Vincent Diamante and performed by the virtual rap singer Harusaruhi [ja].

[32] Toussaint Egan from Polygon enjoyed the series and praised its animation and story, and describes the series as "With over a decade in the making, Iso has crafted an accomplished follow-up to Den-noh Coil with The Orbital Children, revisiting his penchant for dense speculative world-building through the eyes of a new generation confronted with new challenges, opportunities, and questions both personal and existential.