Kanata no Astra

planetJane

~~~All of my reviews contain __spoilers __for the reviewed material. This is your only warning.~~~ ------ Joining alongside *The Magnificent Kotobuki* and its seasonal contemporary *Machikado Mazoku* as unlikely 2019 anime success stories, *Astra Lost In Space* is refreshingly straightforward to get your head around. *Astra* enters the scene as a survival series, our protagonists--a gaggle of high schoolers--are set to attend a literal space camp on a field trip. This is the sort of thing that meshes well with the near-future setting, and all goes well for about five minutes before a giant ball of light appears out of nowhere and teleports them countless light years away. They’re stranded in the depths of deep space, but happen to spot a derelict ship floating nearby, which they survive by commandeering, and dub The Astra, the show’s namesake. This is the thrust of *Astra*’s first half. Our protagonists include Kanata, an athlete with aspirations of being a starship captain and a past haunted by an accident on a different field trip many years ago. Aries, a ditzy heterochromiac with photographic memory and a big heart. Quitterie and her sister Funicia, respectively an aloof popular girl type and a child with a handpuppet who she sometimes speaks her mind through, and a number of others. img880(https://i.imgur.com/gZgrEHD.png) *(Kanata is a rowdy fellow)* Committed to surviving in space and hopefully finding their way home, the cast is the highlight here. The show thrives on interpersonal dynamics. So when twists small and big like respectively: the unassuming and arty Luca turning out to be intersex, or Ulgar (who developed a somewhat infamous reputation as “Sasuke in space”) turning out to know how to use a gun (a thing presented as having been outlawed for years) and trying to *kill* Luca due to a tangle of political intrigue involving their respective families, they actually *matter*. It’s also why you care when they manage to survive each and every brush with disaster they face. From plant monsters early on to having their ship be rendered non-functional, potentially stranding them on an alien planet still well far from home, during the start of the series’ second half. Going back to the aforementioned twist, family in general is a theme that comes up a lot in *Astra*. Almost every single member of the cast--with the notable exception of Aries--has some kind of issue with their parents. The extremely shy Yunhua, whose mother treats her like dirt, and Ulgar, whose father says to his face that he wishes he’d died instead of his late older brother, get the worst of this, but it’s present all around. To put it in the show’s own words: img880(https://i.imgur.com/cDS8T6U.png) What initially seems like a coincidence turns out to be the show’s grand reveal. We found out in the second half that--again excepting Aries--the entirety of the Astra’s crew are clones of their own parents. Something both pointedly illegal in-universe and, when we’re given the why (they all want to perform an experimental consciousness-transfer procedure when their clones come of age, so they can effectively live forever), despicably immoral on its face. Here is where things get a bit complicated. *Astra*’s main theme seems to be that family is defined not by blood, but by who is closest to you. This is in of itself a good--even great--lesson that many people need to hear. The *way* *Astra* handles this gets a bit...peculiar. For one, Aries turns out to be the clone of someone who’s not her mother. There’s an entire subplot about royalty (in space!) here not worth going into, but she’s the clone of the late princess of a monarchial zone on the crew’s home planet. Charce, the crew’s biologist and pretty boy, turns out to be the clone of said zone’s *monarch*, and the reason the weird light ball abducted them all to deep space in the first place. You see, excepting Aries’ mother, the parents of the entire crew have conspired to strand their children in deep space to conveniently get rid of them, now that cloning is illegal, a recent development in the show’s world. It is, to be sure, a bit contrived, but it at least ties back in with the show’s main thematics. The *other* grand reveal is much less relevant. I could summarize it--it involves a covered-up migration from Earth to the crew’s home planet, which turns out to be *also* called Astra, a faked century of history, and a half dozen other things--but it’s genuinely just not relevant. img880(https://i.imgur.com/eLhlF69.png) *(Yeah whatever)* Nor is the satellite character, Pollina, they recover from a stasis pod on one of their planetary stops who exposits all this. It rather seems just like another mystery for the sake of having another one that’s a bit harder to guess at than the clone thing (it’s not exactly telegraphed, but you can see it coming if you’re observant). That’s a writing flaw, to be sure, but it’s one that seems to be inherited from *Astra*’s primary influences. A **lot** of the show, from the overall plot, to aesthetics, to the weird structure, to even the fact that it’s explicitly pointed out that the characters all speak English, feel inherited from 20th century American sci-fi. If it’s not a direct line, it’s one passed down by *Astra*’s more immediate likely predecessors, the scores of sci fi anthology manga that have run for years. Many of which are rather obscure in the west. Does this *excuse* this problem? Not entirely. Certainly, as the show closes in on its finale, it sometimes approaches near-*Code Geass* levels of defiance of conventional narrative logic, but it never really flies entirely off the rails either. The show manages to keep an at least mostly level head on its shoulders, even through all the bizarreness (and, thanks to the localization team, bad puns). What *does* predispose a more forgiving attitude is, well, no one actually bites it in *Astra*. It’d have been extremely easy to have one or more crew members die--especially the traitorous Charce--but despite all the death flags that pop up, everyone actually makes it out of *Astra* alive. Only Kanata is even permanently harmed--he loses his right hand in the penultimate episode. The show ends with a timeskip to a few years in the future, with all the characters (sans the villains, who are given their just desserts) living out their lives happily. The show even pairs up two of its couples. img880(https://i.imgur.com/8dnvxwn.png) *(Maybe three? You go, Ulgar.)* In this light, it’s hard to fault the show too hard for its flaws. If anything, they might make the series even more entertaining for a certain kind of anime viewer. There really is nothing quite like the honest-to-god fact that the last episode of the show is called “Friend Ship”. That the main plot moves along at a nice clip, the character dynamics are so entertaining, and the show ends on a warm note, all mix together to make this a solid little series. Were this last year, where even comparative failures were often wildly interesting, something that’s merely solid might not be of note, but 2019 has been a rather slow year for the medium, even if the summer season has been the arguable highlight of it, shows like *Astra* can get a little more shine than they otherwise might, and maybe we should all be thankful for that. After all, it’s true what they say. If you shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you may land among the stars. -------- And if you liked this review, [why not check out some of my others here on Anilist?](https://anilist.co/user/planetJane/reviews)

Aniosophy

img700(https://i.imgur.com/MXE6Lsw.jpg) - Bravo👏👏👏 This anime to me is the definition of the phrase __“go above and beyond their expectations”__ because god damn for a show that I was initially really dragging my heels to start because of how cliche the first episode started, by the end of this series I actually found myself being impressed with how neatly this story was able to tie up all of its loose strings by the end, and was actually able to tell a complete story within just 12 episode (which nowadays is actually kind of rare). img500(https://dezpolycarpe.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/tumblr_pu9vp2vr1w1y98i3ho1_540.gif) - Everything about this series just really impressed me more and more the longer it went on, from how much development each of the main cast gets throughout the series, to the deep and actually complex story this show portrays, to the moments where characters actions actually have long-lasting consequences, just everything about this show just really impressed me by the end. Sure you could say they cheated a bit by making the first and last episode almost an hour each, but at the end of the day this story was able to be told within just 12 episodes (a single anime season) without it feeling at all rushed or needlessly drawn out throughout the entire season, so for that alone this show receives a lot of praise from me. In fact, now that I think about it this might be the best single-season anime from this entire year so far, because everything else that was good this year was either a continuation of an existing property or took at least two anime seasons to tell its story, The only thing that even comes close in my mind is “Dumbbell Nan-Kilo Moteru?” but even that show really didn’t carry the same level of weight to story like this series, maybe that will change during the fall season, but right now to me this is honestly the best 12/13 episode series from this entire year. img500(https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gjTk5_71Q7Y/XX_vW8jCICI/AAAAAAABoRs/nbjHrSLQs5k7Hn3CU0nQ1vhlwQyjw91mgCKgBGAsYHg/s1600/Kanata%2Bno%2BAstra%2B-%2BEpisode%2B9%2B-%2BAries%2BCelebrates%2BQuitterie%2527s%2BEngagement.gif) - Now without really getting into spoilers because I want as many people as possible to read this post to hopefully convince them to watch this amazing series, while I did in the past joke about how this series might as well be called “Plot Twist: The Animation” because of how many GIANT revelations happen during this series, overall if you were to watch this series altogether after it aired I don’t think you would actually notice how many times new information comes to light, because of how well the story just unfolds at the most opportune time. I know I already said this but the balancing act alone of needing to balance between unfolding the story at the right place to make it feel not to fast or to slow, while also giving each of your characters enough time to develop, while also needing to make sure the story still feels interesting enough to keep your viewer captivated, is a really hard task for many series to tackle (let alone in just 12 episodes) so the fact that this series was able to accomplish all of that, is why I am going to give this series a 90/100, because other than the real cliche opening at the beginning of the series (and the small cliche moments that are sprinkled throughout) I cannot think of any other reason to deduct points from this series. Everything from the story, the characters, the animation, the music, and the way it all just comes together, in the end, is why I feel this series deserves a 90/100, if you have any other flaws you can point out in the comments to give me a reason to lower the score go for it, but for now, this is where this anime is going to stay in my library😅 If you have or haven’t watched their series yet I hope you enjoyed it just as much as me😊 img700(https://64.media.tumblr.com/5cf2b1170a78a4eae52d64f97b2c4cf3/tumblr_ptfj0xIqWq1r60zuio6_500.gifv)

raulzitosvm

Ok, nesta review irei abordar as coisas positivas e negativas (em minha opinião) a respeito de Kanata no Astra, um anime meio que deixado de lado no ano passado. img220(https://www.animeunited.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/astra.jpg) Gostaria de começar comentando um pouco sobre como a premissa é original, uns brothers vão para um acampamento em outro planeta e ficam perdidos e tem que voltar para a casa. Eu realmente achei bem original. O primeiro episódio tem 47 minutos e é uma boa introdução, apresenta os personagens e mostra como a história irá decorrer. Os personagens: Acredito que os personagens sejam realmente interessantes, cada um é uma pessoas diferente com suas características únicas, da pra perceber isso, todos possuem potencial para uma boa desconstrução. img220(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e9/bd/8c/e9bd8c2e2a4db9cd938ded44aa950bb0.jpg) Os primeiros episódios: Como já disse, o primeiro episódio é uma boa introdução, apresenta os elementos da série e seus personagens, porém, depois daí, acho que começa a desandar um pouco. Depois do primeiro episódio o anime começa a ter uns conflitos super fáceis de se resolver, sem consequência e com muitas, mas muitas conveniências. Eu entendo e concordo que o anime deve trabalhar seus personagens, porém, para que isso ocorresse em Kanata no Astra de maneira interessante, seriam necessários mais episódios. Os primeiros dramas são bem ruinzinhos e chatos, não da tempo para algo ser realmente trabalhado com os personagens, o anime começou a desandar bastante. Os primeiros planetas até que são bem criativos, mas como já disse, os conflitos são resolvidos com muitas conveniências e de maneira muito fácil. A atmosfera: Kanata no Astra é muito colorido, não combina muito com o que o anime quer passar, tipo, os mano tão perdido no espaço, mas mó feliz e de boa. Pode até ser justificado pela personalidade do Kanata, e pelo fato de que são adolescentes divertidos, mas ficou colorido demais, as cores dos cabelos dos personagens são muito contrastantes, acho que poderiam deixar o clima mais tenso para dar a sensação de que eles realmente estão perdidos no espaço, não numa férias divertida. Como podemos ver nas imagens que coloquei anteriormente, o anime é muito colorido. O decorrer da história: Depois de certos episódios, mas precisamente, no 9° episódio, o anime começa a ficar realmente bom e interessante. Os plot twists começam a vir a tona e de maneira bem colocada, são MUITOS plots, mas até que da para digerir bem. O anime toma novas proporções e explica coisas que no começo achamos só uma falha no roteiro ou uma conveniência muito forte na verdade são coisas que realmente fazem sentido para o plot e se encaixam perfeitamente na história. O final: Eu diria que o final é legal e prazeroso, o espectador queria ver um final assim. É bem legal quando mostra os personagens depois de velhos e o que aconteceu com eles, é bem divertido. Acho que é basicamente isso, para resumir: Pontos Fortes: O final Os personagens O enredo Pontos fracos: Dramas mal trabalhados Conflitos resolvidos de forma muito simples Conveniências demais Acho que o que Kanata no Astra ficaria realmente muito bom se tivesse mais episódios, acho que isso é o principal, para que os dramas fossem trabalhados de maneira correta e para que os plots não ficassem tão rushados, dessem um tempo a mais para digeri-los. (Embora eu já ache o final bem legal)

RiPHopscotch

There’s a fairly well-known quote that’s been floating around the internet for a couple years now about how recent generations have been “born too late to explore the earth, born too soon to explore the galaxy.” Even though the phrase has been played around with and basically turned into a meme, I think it touches on a fairly universal truth – people want to explore and experience things they’ve never seen before. While a good portion of recent science-fiction is rather dark, brooding and introspective with a focus on “gritty realism”, for myself and many others the sense of wonder and exploration remains the primary appeal of the genre. The vast majority of people born in the 20th and 21st century will only be able to experience that “exploration” through media, and *Astra Lost in Space* is a very good example of what that should look like. Quick, light-hearted, fairly wholesome and most importantly fun, to me this is a show that nails the fundamental aspects of what makes a good sci-fi adventure story. *Astra* is set in a future where interplanetary travel is commonplace, to the point where high school students are going to other planets for school trips – literally where the story starts. A group of randomly selected students depart to an alien planet for what is essentially the equivalent of a weekend backpacking trip, but almost as soon as they land they find themselves wormholed into the cold depths of space. After securing themselves on a derelict ship, they realize they’re months away from home with little food, little water, and no way to communicate. Luckily the group’s composition is basically ideal for making the trek back: Kanata the athlete is a natural leader who dreams of being an explorer, Zack is a tech wizard and pilot, Quittere is able to provide medical experience, and Charce is a biologist, while Aries, Luca, Ulgar, Funicia and Yun-Hua are able to pick up the slack in various other ways. This means that, while for all intents and purposes the students are stranded, the situation is far from hopeless. They’re hit with more bad news though, when it becomes apparent that a member of the group is trying to kill everyone and prevent them from returning; between being stranded light-years from home and grappling with a hidden murderer, there’s a lot to deal with. ~~~img440(https://i.imgur.com/k9DDGiq.jpg)~~~ ~~~*I just hate it when a wormhole interrupts my relaxing nature hike*~~~ Despite being concerning, the “secret traitor” plot thread ends up playing second fiddle to the primary goal of returning home. Since the group doesn’t have nearly enough food or water, however, they’re forced to explore alien worlds on the way back in order to survive. While this element of exploration is one of my favorite aspects of the story, in large part that’s because of what it chooses to leave out of the limelight. Some sci-fi stories with survival themes, such as *The Martian*, focus on the minutiae of how the characters actually survive in space; in contrast, *Astra* introduces plot devices early on that trivialize the collection of edible food, water and fuel. I think that many may find this “cheap”, but I feel like it gives the story time to focus on much more dramatic and traditional sci-fi threats, often based around alien fauna. From pterodactyl-esque creatures to deadly plantlife, these dangerous worlds create fantastical situations that are then used to drive the characters together. ~~~img440(https://i.imgur.com/eWOUTbT.jpg)~~~ ~~~*Poison? Or not poison?*~~~ There’s another famous saying (this time in latin) that even appears as a plaque in the show, “per aspera ad astra” or “through hardship to the stars”. Despite having the skillset and tools to survive and manage the “bigger picture” issues, this journey is not exactly a cakewalk for the group. Bizarre and entirely alien events are often very nearly fatal, and it’s in these moments of hardship that the characters get a chance to shine – after all, nothing brings people together quicker than needing to restore power to your ship that’s entering a planet’s atmosphere (preferably before you splatter onto the ground). Individually each character is given a few key moments of personal growth, often coming about because of an issue that’s plaguing them. Many of these issues stem from a problematic family life and a lack of support at home, and while this means that the group members are often used to fixing their own problems, for the first time in their lives they realize they don’t need to struggle alone; going through life and death situations with others finally gives them the support network needed to help work through what they’re dealing with. Although it's a little corny, the group not only bands together to survive but also to help with personal insecurities and issues, ensuring no one person is shouldering too much of any burden. This does shift the focus of *Astra* away from individuals and onto the group as a whole, but it works really well. As the story progresses the audience gets to see the team grow closer together, initially just going from total strangers to wary allies, but eventually becoming an inseparable bunch of friends that border on family. ~~~img440(https://i.imgur.com/kydsMqi.jpg)~~~ *Astra* does have a lot going for it, but there’s a fairly major thing that bugs me – the “secret traitor” plot thread and what it grows into. At first it’s fine, providing an undercurrent of tension that helps to move the story along. It encourages the viewer to pay attention to every little detail like they’re watching Sherlock Holmes, while also contextualizing a lot of the early tension between characters – after all, who can totally let their guard down when they know someone might be trying to kill them? The issue is that everything surrounding who the traitor is and what their motivations are feels contrived. In order for the story to remain relatively cohesive, things that the viewer couldn’t possibly know about, or even guess at, need to be brought to light and introduced constantly. I honestly just think it’s rushed: the new plot details don’t stand up to the slightest bit of scrutiny, and it seems like the plot thread is just a way for the characters to reach their pre-determined ending. So while in the lead up to the reveal *Astra* does a remarkable job of concealing who the traitor is, when the reveal does finally happen I couldn’t bring myself to care. ~~~img440(https://i.imgur.com/higiel8.jpg)~~~ ~~~*Exposition by way of flashback*~~~ That’s also saying nothing of the tonal shift that *Astra* undergoes. As mentioned earlier, the show is for the most part fairly wholesome and straightforward; at the beginning the goal is essentially get from point a to point b, and the groups’ chemistry is very endearing. As more details about the conspiracy emerge, however, the story just feels darker and a little muddied. The cast of characters that have been at the center of everything feel sidelined, and even insignificant, just a small piece of a much bigger picture that gets dropped on the viewers lap. That’s a direct result of introducing a grand conspiracy significant enough to impact all of humanity, and while it’s not enough to ruin the show for me, I will say it does hamper it. ~~~img440(https://i.imgur.com/tSxybYm.jpg)~~~ ~~~*Looks like the fate of humanity hangs in the balance... again*~~~ In spite of those issues, I can’t help but like *Astra Lost in Space*. To me, science-fiction is a genre more about highlighting what humanity dreams we’re capable of, as opposed to focusing on how we’re going to be murdering each other in the future. *Astra* doesn’t use its setting to explore the ethics of artificial intelligence, use the vastness of space to try and make some kind of nihilistic statement about the true nature of man, or anything like that. It’s really not profound at all. But it’s pretty fun, with a charming cast of characters. More importantly, *Astra* does something that I think is paramount for sci-fi stories, which is create a universe that the viewer *wants* to be a part of. A good sci-fi story should make me envious that it’s not the universe that I’m living in, and even with the constant danger and conspiracies, *Astra* manages to accomplish that.

RebelPanda

____Spoilers in a marked section of the review.____ The first two minutes of Astra: Lost in Space are by far the best in the entire show. A girl floats helplessly in deep space, spinning in circles at a nauseating speed. Nothing is in sight aside for hundreds upon thousands of blinding stars streaming across pitch-black space. The execution is amazing; it is tense, the fear written across the girl’s face makes you feel a genuine sense of danger. Those two minutes hooked me. Suddenly, a hand reaches out from dizzying light. Then the only exceptional scene in the show ended. Astra could have been a great sci-fi thriller, if only they hadn't made every possible mistake when writing science fiction. It’s surprising that so few people have pointed out the obvious plot holes, leaps in logic, retcons, contrivances, and lazy writing. Kanata no Astra could have been written in one of two ways: They could have made it a realistic survival story and focused on the characters’ struggle to work together as a team. Or it could have been a fun comedy/slice-of-life with hints of romance. Both could work together with moderation—but unfortunately, the writers did not know this. Instead, the story is a hackneyed blend of each with disastrous tonal issues and stupidly ham-fisted writing. My hopes for a tense survival story were crushed within an episode; NO ONE IS EVER IN DANGER. Everyone has plot armor, everyone. At the start, all of the characters are sent to deep space by a wormhole, yet they are all unharmed. Friendship and plot conveniences are all these kids need to survive alone in deep space. There’s always an implication of danger, whether it be a group member getting separated, or a heated argument—but Astra never takes it too far. It is always clear that everyone will always be safe, draining all tension from the show. There is only ONE time when someone is physically harmed, but it only happens because of their stupidity, undercutting the potential shock factor the scene wanted to have. Astra knows how to raise the stakes, and it’s so frustrating because it chooses not to. At the start, the crew is worried about starving to death due to limited food/storage space. The premise is great, they need to fly to each planet to collect resources. Somehow food shortage is never an issue for the crew, they always seem to have an abundance of food or just enough. Establishing that the ship has limited space leads us to think there might be a shortage, causing conflict later on, however this never happens. Why did the writers point this out? To make you think there would be stakes when in truth they were never there. There are other avenues for tension in the show, all of which are written horribly. Whenever the group becomes suspicious of a traitor in their midst, they fight for about a minute at most. Aries just suggests they have a snacktime to forget about any issues the group is facing at the moment, and everyone always goes along with it. Afraid that one of your friends might kill you in your sleep? Snacktime~! Occasionally I appreciated how braindead Aries was; she added some levity among the awful writing, but I won't confuse so-bad-it's-good for truly good entertainment. Nearly every episode begins with a major tonal shift. They all have a very similar formula: a life-threatening crisis in the previous episode followed by a drastic shift to the crew being excited to explore a new planet. As if they forgot the last one they explored ‘nearly’ killed them, they always make the same naive mistake. They have a fun time on each new planet (at first). It’s all so goddamn predictable. You know if they have fun on an alien planet, they’re more likely to be in danger. The comedy is very trite and unfunny because the whole cast is very archetypal, they have next to no chemistry with each other. Rinse, repeat. In an attempt to fix the monotonous planet-of-the-week plot, traitors are added at random with increasingly baffling reasons. From the second episode, the cracks were already showing; everyone who knew this train was about to derail prepared themselves, and it never stopped flying off the rails (I will analyze the downward spiral later on). Making the awful plotting worse is the adaptation’s rushed pacing, each episode has at least on montage to bridge each chapter. Sometimes (especially in the second half) the chapter will change mid-episode; rather than developing their friendships they skip straight to the part when everyone is friends. The character designs are so generic, as are all of their archetypal personalities. Even Kanata, the character with the most development can be summed up with two words, hero complex. For the female characters, after they get a development episode, they’re relegated to fanservice vehicles. Surprisingly there is a boatload of fanservice; the girls have pretty huge tits and the directing suffers from what I call "talking boob syndrome". The camera awkwardly fixates on a girl's breasts as she speaks, then it slowly pans up to her face. It's bizarre seeing so much blatant pandering in a supposed space exploration story. Fanservice first, humanized character second. With colorful art but lackluster design, it’s understandable why people weren’t all that interested in Astra initially. The CGI spaceship that looks hilariously stupid without the whooshing plane stock sound effects. Now and then, there is one truly song that builds tension excellently, until you realize what you’re seeing play out is pretty dumb. Otherwise, the production offers nothing noteworthy, no sakuga, forgettable OP/ED, decent voice work, boring directing. If you like being treated like an idiot, Astra will not disappoint you. Letterboxing during scenes taking place in the past, name tags used to introduce the cast. Astra takes place in a futuristic society because that’s when the writers decided kids can go to space camp commercially. All of the world-building comes from lazy exposition dumps too. And that lazy writing extends to the dialogue as well. Rather than giving dialogue relevant to each character, one or two are picked at random to narrate exactly what is happening. We have eyes, we can see for ourselves. It’s an excuse Astra frequently to give characters lines so that we don’t forget about them. Along with this, characters get to make really bad jokes and say pointless comments to let us know they still exist. Individually these seem like minor issues, but to me when there are so many of them I can’t ignore it. This show is targeted at the same age range as the cast of kids, however, kids are young, not morons. There is a lot of mystery baiting in this show. They kept piling one mystery onto the next as if they forgot about the previous one right away. It worked to keep me interested. First, they don’t know where the wormhole came from, then there’s a traitor! I’ll give credit where it’s due, Astra always escalates its twists. The mysteries become increasingly illogical, making the rest of the story seem stupider in retrospect, but at least it wasn’t boring. Before getting into the spoilers, this is your only chance to learn the singular defining trait of the nine characters. ***Spoilers section*** Kanata: He can get his way out of any situation. He is a decathlete, or in other words a superhero, dark past and all. Like I said before, hero complex the character. Aries: Braindead. I hoped there was some twist to explain why she was so stupid, but there isn't. She really is that dumb. She needs to be told that she is in love before she realizes it herself. But she has a photographic memory so it’s ok. That'll probably be a relevant detail in at least one scene. Zack: 200 IQ Genius… or so he says. Other than that his personality is equivalent to a box of rocks. I’m going to mention him a ton because he’s essentially a walking plot device. Quitterie: Her character arc peaks in episode 3, afterward she… offers some supportive comments and occupy space in the background. Rather than passively commenting on things, she yells and screams annoyingly. Ulgar: He’s edgy, antisocial, and he’s got a gun. Charce: A man with secrets… He’s a traitor, no a double agent, no! A triple agent!! Yunhua: “Um I’m not good at anything, sorry.” *Cuts hair* “My depression is cured!” Funicia: Cinnamon roll that does nothing. Who needs character development when you can emotionally manipulate the audience? She has a creepy hand puppet for some reason… Quitterie’s adopted sister. Luca: A man who looks like a girl, but secretly has tits. *Analysis of each episode* 1st Episode: Group of nine kids go to space camp, then they are eaten by a wormhole and sent into deep space! The whole plot is predicated wormholes that can appear at the press of a button. Somehow the first wormhole just stays still until everyone begins panicking. Even if we believe wormholes can appear anywhere, it shouldn’t be able to change speed as if it can think. Once they get to space, they find a spaceship! This is never explained, ever! Somehow Zack knows they are 5,000 miles away. No one questions this because haven't you heard? This kid has 200 IQ! 2nd Episode: Funicia (the toddler on the team) is separated from the group because of her stupidity, then Kanata has to save her with superhuman strength. We have no reason to care, so we get some development moments before the drama. The kid was an orphan rejected by her sister, how sad, but this adds nothing to her character. She loves her sister anyways, all sugar and no spice. Then she’s suddenly in danger! A little girl in danger is what evokes shock and fear in the viewer, no development necessary! Emotional manipulation at its finest. Later on Zack makes a food flavor measuring device at some point, I don’t think I need to explain how stupid this is. At the end of the second episode, it was revealed that someone destroyed the communication device that already didn’t work, and so now there is kind of a witch hunt for the traitor. 3rd Episode: "So one of us is a traitor? Let's have snacks!!" Then everyone miraculously forgets about the traitor mystery, and just like that, we're all back to normal. Except! A bird comes out of absolutely nowhere, and if they don’t stop it they will all die! This is the tension this episode hinges on, caused by an unexplained plot contrivance, and it resolves anticlimactically. Ultimately, Zack didn’t realize he was flying too close to the planet, which led to the danger in the first place. Zack is a supergenius, and with his big brain, he managed to put the ship into a planet’s orbit while enjoying snacks and fighting with the crew. By the time he realized this idiotic mistake the ship only had nine minutes before it would crash land on the planet’s surface. THIS GUY IS A TRAINED SPACE PILOT. How the hell does anyone believe this crap? 4th Episode: On the next planet-of-the-week, the group had fun riding chocobos and shitting on Yunhua, the emo girl. She is fat-shamed, called ugly, useless, and she contributes nothing but brooding angst. Then she runs away, leaving a scribbled goodbye note, which forced everyone to go look for her. Suddenly a giant plant releases spores that cause a slow death. Thankfully they're all wearing their spacesuits—except they aren’t. Even though they wore protection the first time they explored the planet, all of them chose to go out onto outside totally vulnerable. Genius. Kanata discovers that the poisoning can be cured by magic mushrooms. So to find them he comes up with a brilliant plan. He takes off his helmet and poisons himself. Of course, the plant only reveals itself to those who need it… At this point, I was far past the point where I could take this show seriously. I couldn’t tell if Astra was trying to be Sci-Fi or some kind of spiritual fantasy. Eventually, the whole cast almost died, but Yunhua saved them… by singing? Well, not really, Kanata saved the day again. So Yunhua nearly got them all killed than did nothing but sit around and sing… I would have sung too if the show ended right there. This is the last time she is ‘relevant’ in the plot—if you can even call it that. 5th Episode: Beach episode, IN SPACE! Rom-com shenanigans start here to fill time, it goes nowhere interesting, at least this episode shows us what’s happening back on their home planet. Under two months and a majority of the parents (including a politician) agreed to declare their kids as deceased. Even Aries’ mother who’s against their plan just gives in easily. It takes 10 years for missing people to be declared dead in the US. It is baffling to think this didn’t raise red flags with anyone on their home planet. 50 days people! “If there’s a traitor I don’t know who it could be!” -Luca *Ulgar points a gun at his head* 6th Episode: Luca revealed he is intersex to prevent Ulgar from killing him, alrighty then. This twist got me interested in Luca, you don’t see representation like this every day. Unfortunately, like any character development, it is surface level and forgotten immediately after the episode. Ulgar reveals his backstory, which makes the adult characters seem even more like cartoon villains. Right after he’s done, a tsunami hits, it’s so blatantly contrived to strengthen their bonds. They (of course) survive, cue montage with rom-com shenanigans between Ulgar and Luca, ok I’m tired of this episode already. 7th Episode: Charce confesses his true identity, which we later find out is entirely fabricated. The only purpose of the flashback to Charce’s (fake) past was to fill half the episode runtime and make it extra shocking when he reveals his true identity. The second half sees the cast crash land on a desolate planet, they bitch and moan about being trapped forever. Aboard the ship is only one cryosleep pod per spaceship containing a woman. Even though the spaceships accommodate ten or so people, all of them only have one cryosleep chamber... Yep, makes sense to me. 8th Episode: Nothing noteworthy happened in this episode, lots of filler. At the end of the episode, it’s revealed Funicia and Quitterie are clones because luckily the ship has a DNA testing mechanism. Quitterie and Funicia look identical! But no one has commented on it up until now. Not even Quitterie considered they might be related. 9th Episode: This is where Astra jumps the shark. It is revealed that all of the kids are clones of their parents. There a law passed on their planet to prevent cloning, so the parents sent the kids to space to die. This explains a few things, like why they were sent to deep space and the evilness of the parents, but it creates more questions. If this planet has such a large clone problem that they need a law for it, this shouldn't be the first time we're hearing the word clone. Did you want to think about the implications of this twist? Too bad! Here’s another one! The kids are not from Earth, apparently, but another planet called Astra. This is also the name of their spaceship, yet no one commented on it beforehand. 10th Episode: The woman who they coincidentally found alive on a random planet (god knows how she got there) happened to be an info dispenser! She revealed that the artificial wormhole was created to emigrate from Earth to Astra after it had been struck by a meteor. Thousands of wormholes were used to safely move the entire population to a new planet... but this brings up an important question. If Earth had this kind of technological capability, why couldn't they just open one big wormhole to send the meteor into deep space? She offhandedly mentioned that this was probably the reason why they found a spaceship. It is never explained why the kids appeared right next to the ship, the Earth’s circumference is 25 thousand miles, there is no logical explanation for this coincidence, it’s just another gaping plot hole. Moreover, guns were banned and religion was abolished. As long as there is pain, suffering, and death, religion and the belief in God will never disappear, to think otherwise is unbelievably braindead. God, I hate this show. Later on, Kanata discusses who the traitor is with Aries (offscreen), she uses her photographic memory to see Charce was the one who activated the first wormhole. Then the entire group does a bait and switch, trapping Charce into a confession. It would have been a clever twist, but we were shown none of the buildups. Somehow all of them knew Charce was the traitor. The show left out tons of information for no reason other than surprising us. 11th Episode: Charce recounted his life as a clone of a king and his destiny, emotionally abused all his life. Once the anti-clone law was created, he was sent to kill all of the space camp clones and die with them. Why did he choose to carry out the king’s orders? How did the king become involved with the evil parents? Why does a medieval kingdom exist in a communist futuristic society? The king forced his daughter Seria to be cloned too, she refused but he did so against her will. She named her clone Aries because of course, she did. After Aries escaped with a surrogate mother, Seria refused again to be cloned. For some reason, the king just didn’t clone her again. I have no fucking clue why Charce made up the story that Seria was his childhood friend in episode seven, there was no reason whatsoever. Charce said that he only kept everyone alive to save Aries, yet he let her get absorbed by the wormhole on the first planet... *Kanata raises his arm towards wormhole to protect Charce* “Stay back or else!” *Wormhole eats arm* “AHH, MY ARM!!” 12th Episode: In the end, the kids spend a lot of time crying and then they go back home. There is a very long montage of mostly Kanata getting awards, a new arm, and another spaceship. The ending is everything you expect, overly optimistic, and anticlimactic. The kids become celebrities; billboard models, commercial actors, world-renowned performers, and heroes to be interviewed by News channels. Everyone gets a Hollywood style logic bending happy ending shown in rushed as hell montages. Finale done. Roll credits. Cue the applause and tears. Thank you and goodnight. ***Spoilers complete*** Kanata no Astra falls victim to one big misconception I’ve noticed in anime. The belief that anime made for a younger audience must be dumbed down. Kids are young, not stupid. This is show is incredibly cliched, generic, and filled with lazy writing. Any ‘development’ the characters had was predictable, simplistic, and all of it was contrived. All of them were defined by candy-colored hair and their struggle to be edgier, stupider, or louder than each other. Initially, I was excited to see what direction it would take... at least I can’t say I wasn’t entertained. Astra: Lost in Space is like watching a garbage truck crash and burn, the awful stench will linger as it lowers the community’s expectations for what a good Sci-fi mystery is.