(Nitsuj): Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. We wrap up the Shonen Jump arc today with the first hit manga to come from the app. Like I said, the app had a slow start until 2016 when they started uploading exclusive manga and one of their first and best was Kanata no Astra. Running from 2016-2017 and written by Kenta Shinohara the same author behind Sket Dance, Kanata no Astra is a series that I can only see working on the app. If this series had been in the pages of Shonen Jump, it would have been dropped. It just couldn’t have survived against Shonen Jump’s bigger and more popular titles. But thanks to the app it was allowed to go at its own pace and build its audience.
(Isis): And it built a brilliant audience. Hello everyone, I’m Isis.
(Mira): And I’m Mira.
(Nitsuj): Joining the review I see.
(Mira): What? You think we’re going to miss talking about this series? It’s one of my favorites.
(Isis): In 2019 the anime studio, Lerche (Classroom of the Elite), produced a 12-episode anime of the series covering it from beginning to end.
(Mira): Much like the manga, it was a hidden gem among a sea of good anime, but those who watched it were given a great experience. We’re boldly going where everyone has gone before and then some. This is Kanata no Astra.
Opening and Ending Theme
(Isis): The opening is “Star*frost” by nonoc. Have to be honest, didn’t really care for this song. It’s not bad I just didn’t really get into it. It just sounds like a generic opening to be me.
(Mira): The ending “Glow at the Velocity of Light” by Riko Azuna is better than the opening and more memorable, but it still sounds like a generic song. I will say that Riko does sing this song beautifully.
Episodes 1-4
(Nitsuj): So the anime opens with this girl named Aries floating through space (Isis: While also wearing a skin-tight space suit. (Mira): Is that really necessary? (Nitsuj): Yes). The thrusters on her suit have stopped working and looks like she’s in danger of floating around endlessly in space unless something is done. We flashback to a day before the incident where Aries is getting ready for a space trip to the planet McPa for a school camp (really? That’s the name we’re going with? (Mira): We have cool cities but weird names. That’s the future for you). She goes to the space station (or airport, I don’t know) where her stuff gets stolen by a thief but the thief gets taken down by a man who gets arrested for his actions by the police bots (Isis: Police brutality! Police brutality). Aries goes to her gate where we see that her group will consist of 7 other people from her school who were all chosen at random. The 8 students will be dropped on the planet McPa for 5 days with no adult supervision (Mira: That seems so irresponsible) and will be tasked with developing bonds all while exploring the vastness of space. The students in Aries’s group are Zack, Luca (who I thought was a girl), Ulgar, Yuu-Hua, Charce, Quitterie and her 10-year old sister Funicia, and finally Kanata, the man who stopped the thief from earlier. As they travel through the station we learn a little bit about our space travelers. Such as how Funica doesn’t really care all that much from Quitterie, Zach is the quiet analytical one, Luca is the adventurous type, Yuu-Hua is the quiet-type who suffers from low self-esteem, Charce is the friendly laidback guy, Ulgar is a loner, and Aries the adorable airhead. As for Kanata, he’s the outgoing type whose dream is to one day become the captain of his own ship and travel the universe discovering unknown planets (get this man on the Enterprise immediately) in honor of his teacher who inspired him and died saving him and other students. They get dropped off at McPa where they come across this strange black orb and (Isis: The beauty of nature) Luca goes to touch it where he vanishes (Mira: Damn, nature is scary). The others run away but the orb chases after them and absorbs them up one by one (huh, short series). Rather than dying, they all get teleported into space where they regain consciousness and fly to a nearby abandoned ship where they discover that Aires is missing and needs to be rescued. Using a wire, Kanata flies out to save her only to fall short of reaching her so he unlatches himself to grab her and then uses his remaining thruster fuel to steer him back towards the ship while letting inertia handle the rest (enjoy the scenery). However, Ulgar says they’re off course and will fly right past them unless something is done, so the remaining students create a chain to grab the two and pull them back into the ship. After everyone is safe, Zach manages to get the ship up and running to reveal that they’re over 5,000 light years away from McPa which means help won’t be coming for them and they’re lost in space (Isis: Don’t bother screaming, no one will hear you). The good news is the ship is functioning and Zach can fly it, but the bad news is it’ll take them at least 3 months to reach home and they only have enough supplies to last them 3 days. Even if they lighten the load it still wouldn’t be enough to get home. As everyone begins to panic and turn on each other, Kanata calms everyone down with the story of his past. This manages to work and they re-introduce themselves where they come up with a plan to fly to nearby planets that have food and water and keep doing this until they can make it home. Zach finds a route where they’ll have to fly to five planets to stock up on supplies to reach home (Mira: Convenient much?). They all agree with this plan, Kanata gets named the captain, they name the ship Astra, and set a course for the first planet (to boldly go where no man has gone before *Star Trek theme begins to play*).
In episode 2 the group reaches their first planet, Vilavurs. Once on the planet they split into three teams. Zack and Funicia do maintenance on the ship, Ulgar and Yuu-Hua get water, and the others search the nearby forest for fruit and plants. While I do like how everyone seems to be enjoying the exploration of this new planet (Mira: Definitely gives off that Star Trek vibe) there’s no doubt they’re all worried, I like to think they want to take this time to enjoy their trip. While in the forest they run into that black sphere again (Black sphere: Hey guys. Want some candy?). Luckily, they outrun the sphere this time and make it back to the ship where Quitterie makes it known that she’s the bitch of the group as she refuses to accept Kanata as the captain and doesn’t see anyone as her friend. Once Zack reprimands her for her actions, she runs away and they go to look for her. Zack explains to the group that Quitterie grew up without a dad and her mom was a doctor, so she was constantly busy. Because of this, Quitterie grew up not knowing how to interact with people and it didn’t get any easier when Funicia entered the picture. Funicia is actually adopted, she got taken in by Quitterie’s mom (Mira: What? They have the same hair color and everything. I thought for sure they were blood-related) after a friend of hers died. Since Quitterie never received love from others she wanted nothing to do with Funicia and kept her at a distance. While searching the forest, Funicia gets on a trampoline tree that grows so tall that it towers over the forest they were in (*begins to laugh* symbolism). Funicia gets stuck, a dragon-like creature is coming for Funica and the others can’t reach her as she’s too far out (Mira: Wow, usually the child survives these space adventures). Kanata shows off his mad hops by long jumping on one of the trampoline trees from a cliff (wow, Luigi ain’t got nothing on him. (Isis): Looks like he didn’t skip leg day). He makes multiple jumps until he’s just one jump away from Funicia but the creature grabs her and is about to fly away until Kanata grabs a nearby javelin and kills it in one throw. Funicia lands safely on the trampoline plant and Kanata reaches her, but loses his footing and falls backwards where he gets saved by Quitterie who launches these mushroom parachutes into the air which save him. Kanata and Funicia make it down safely where Quitterie thanks him for saving his sister and apologizes for being a bitch to everyone (Mira: Could you be a little more subtle about her? (Nitsuj): I am a critic, so no). They take the creature back to eat it, Zack creates a device that will allow them to check their food to make sure it’s safe, and after the credits, Zack shows Kanata that someone intentionally destroyed the ship’s communicator meaning that someone on this ship is trying to sabotage them.
In episode 3 Kanata tries to figure out who the saboteur is and even tells the others where it gets hinted that somebody higher up wanted to kill them for whatever reason and that it’s possible the killer is among them and has no regard for life (traveling lightyears from home with a killer. (Isis): And nobody can hear you scream. (Mira): You’re really riding that wave aren’t you?). Before everyone begins to panic, Aries manages to calm everyone down and they have lunch where one of the pipes breaks from meteor rubble and they lose their gravity. As if that wasn’t bad enough they lose power, they’re getting pulled in by the planet’s gravity and will crash land on the planet in 9 minutes. Aires says there’s a backup generator they can use and they connect cables for the generator to the gravity control room successfully, but a bird-like creature got onboard and into the room which won’t return gravity as part of a safety mechanism (well the mechanism needs to be rewritten, damn it). Ulgar comes in and shoots the bird with a glue gun to stop it from flying around (Isis: Number one suspect right there) and they return gravity to the ship and manage to land on the planet safely with less then a minute left. As everyone celebrates their survival, we see Ulgar leave and go to his room where we see he found a gun in storage.
Episode 4 starts off with some obligatory fanservice as we see Quitterie take a shower (Nitsuj: Aye, yeah! *Isis pistol whips Nitsuj*) with Zack walking in on her and having no reaction whatsoever (Isis: Either this is nothing new to him or she has no sex appeal). They land on the planet, Shummoor and quickly look for food and water. While on the planet we see that the gravity is slightly lesser than our planet (but trust me, it affects you a lot) and is mostly covered in moss that feeds off the body of dead animals. They manage to find some water and even befriend the local wildlife who give them a ride back to the ship. As for food, they don’t have much luck and only find enough to last them three days. They decide to stay a little longer to find the right amount of food they need to reach the next planet. In the second half of the episode we focus on Yuu-Hua. Out of all of the characters she’s the plainest of the bunch (Isis: She even wears glasses when she doesn’t need to. (Nitsuj): Just like someone else we know around here. *Mira throws a cyber disc at Nitsuj who dodges it* Nice try, but no. (Mira): 3. . .2. . .1. *The disc ricochets off the walls and came back to hit Nitsuj in the head. Nitsuj falls to the ground as the disc bounces off his head and lands in Mira’s hand* It’s all in the wrist). As a kid, Yuu-Hua dreamed of becoming a singer like her mother and showing off her talents to everyone. However, her mother saw things differently. Yuu-Hua’s mother was one of these people who never saw any talent in their child. She discouraged Yuu-Hua from doing anything that made her stand out and made her feel worthless saying that if she can’t do anything then she’s better off not existing. Yuu-Hua feels that she’s done nothing to help the crew out, so she decides to run away and remain on the planet. Kanata manages to find her and talks to her while everyone else gets poisoned. It turns out this planet is ruled by the mushrooms; they shoot out poisonous spores that eventually kill living things. Luckily, Kanata and Yuu-Hua had their helmets on so they’re fine and it now rests on their shoulders to save everyone from dying. Charce and Zack say the antidote has to be by the shrooms (which makes sense. They have to keep some of the animals alive in order to feed off of them. If they just killed all of them they would die too. They’re controlling the population of this planet. Fascinating). Kanata finds a shroom but no antidote plants. He figures that the only way they’ll appear is if he can show the shroom he’s worthy of having. So, he removes his helmet and breathes in the poison which allows the antidote plant to appear (how does that logically work? (Mira): We’re on an alien planet, logic means nothing anymore). While Kanata gets the antidote, Yuu-Hua uses her voice to soothe everyone in their time of suffering. Kanata manages to make it back with the antidote to save everyone and Yuu-Hua learns that it’s okay to stand out.
Episodes 5-8
(Mira): In episode 5, for a quarter of the episode we actually return to Earth where we see the kids are being declared dead by the press (Nitsuj: When they come back the press is going to look stupid). The parents all believe they’re dead too except for Aires’s mom who holds on to the belief that the kids are lost in space. While Ulgar’s dad says that’s possible, it would just take too much money to send out a search (and also because space is, well, big). We return to the kids where they give us our obligatory beach episode as they land on a beach planet (Isis: Even in a space anime they actually managed to work in a beach episode. (Nitsuj): Of course, it’s the law of anime). We see the girls wearing some “spicy” swimsuits and talk about romance where Quitterie believes that Aires has feelings for Kanata (said the girl who has an obvious crush on her childhood friend). Quitterie encourages Aires to find out if Kanata has a girlfriend back on Earth (Nitsuj: I’ll save you some time, no. (Isis): Obviously). He of course gives a stupid answer which upsets Aires. In another part of the episode we focus on Luca and Ulgar where Ulgar suspects that Luca is the saboteur as his dad is a politician (Isis: And as we all know, politicians can’t be trusted). At the end of episode as everyone is relaxing, Ulgar comes out and holds Luca at gunpoint ready to fire and everyone believes that he’s the saboteur.
So we start episode 6 with Ulgar explaining why he wants to kill Luca. Ulgar talks about his older brother who everyone loved (Isis: If Ulgar is darkness then his brother is the light). Ulgar became the neglected child not that he minded, but his older brother did in fact care for him and Ulgar even looked up to him. Ulgar’s brother became a freelance journalist exposing the dirty deeds of businesses and corrupted politicians. Ulgar’s brother was investigating Luca’s dad over some alleged donation violations for his campaign only to turn up dead. The police ruled the death as suicide, but Ulgar believes that Luca’s dad killed Ulgar’s brother because he was getting close to the truth and had to be silenced. Ulgar vowed revenge and began training in marksmanship so that he could kill Luca’s dad but killing Luca will be just as good. Luca says killing him would be pointless as his dad doesn’t care about him, saying his family’s political power will be inherited by his little brother. Ulgar doesn’t believe this, so he gives him proof by revealing that he’s a woman (Mira and Isis: EHHHHHHHHHHHH~! (Nitsuj): Wow, even the planet was shocked by this resolution). Or rather intersexual as he has both male and female traits (Nitsuj: So, he’s androgynous? (Isis): It’s 2024, nobody says that anymore and no. Androgynous are people who identify as genderless. Luca identifies himself as a male, but there’s no telling what form his body will take in the future. Will it lean towards the male side or female side?). Not only that, but Luca is also adopted. His original parents couldn’t raise him so they put him up for adoption where he got adopted by his current father who was having trouble making a baby of his own (Nitsuj: Oh pipe work not working?). However, once it was discovered that Luca was intersexual and his little brother was born, Luca became an afterthought. So in the end, Luca and Ulgar are alike in that they both got parents who don’t care about them and Ulgar stands down just as the sun goes down and a tsunami hits them (surfs up). Luca and Ulgar get washed away but Kanata saves them both. Ulgar apologizes for what happened and Kanata allows him to keep the gun (Isis: Basically saying, you have permission to shoot us in the back). After that, a few days go by where despite Luca’s secret being exposed everyone treats him like they normally would although the boys are becoming more self-conscious about certain activities with him and Luca does enjoy teasing Ulgar (Isis: Oh~, maybe by the end he’ll identify himself as a female). We end the episode with the start of Charce’s arc as he’s the only character that Aires doesn’t remember seeing in school despite having a photographic memory.
At the start of episode 7 Charce confesses that he’s a transfer student from another planet called Vixia. It’s a planet ruled by royals and nobles and restricts the use of science and technology (Nitsuj: Sounds like a planet full of Amish). There was an obvious divide between commoners and nobles and Charce was born into a noble family where he befriended a commoner girl named Seira. One day, Charce snuck her into the noble area an area that was restricted to commoners where Seira was discovered by the police and shoved off a balcony. Seira would survive, but she fell into a coma with the chances of her waking up slim. Charce would always come to visit her until 4 years later when Seira’s parents left with her and didn’t tell him (Isis: Dicks). Charce would leave Vixia as well adopting a new last name to start over and not be tied down by his family or heritage. After hearing his backstory everyone gets a good cry where Charce comes to the realization that everyone here is his new family. After that sad story, the group reaches the next planet Icriss, a planet that doesn’t rotate meaning one side of the planet is a blazing death zone with no life and the other side a dark and frozen wasteland with no life either (onward to the next planet). Luckily, there is one safe zone, the belt line separating the two danger zones (don’t! You! Dare! (Nitsuj): I wasn’t going to say nothing. (Mira): Yes you were). As they enter the belt zone, they get attacked by a carnivorous plant which damages the ship and they crash into some rocks where the navigation system gets damaged which means they’re screwed (Isis: Stuck on an unknown planet to die. It’s like spending the night at the Jack Bros. house). As everyone slowly starts to accept their fate of being stuck on this planet, Charce finds another ship that’s just like the Astra (Isis: Oh my God, this has happened more than once). Kanata, Zack, and Ulgar search the ship which is run down but find someone in the hibernation device who’s been in there for 12 years. They open up the device and find that the person inside is a young woman (Nitsuj: The years have been kind to her).
In episode 8 if you were hoping that the young woman was Seira tough luck (Nitsuj: Damn it). It turns out the young woman is Polina, an astronaut who along with her crew was sent on a planetary exploration mission to discover new planets for humans to inhabit. Just like the others, they came to this planet, got attacked by the plants and damaged their ship becoming stranded on the planet. Some of her crewmates went out to search for food but never came back (Isis: Stopped to smell the roses and got eaten by said roses). Polina entered hibernation in the hopes that another ship would find and rescue her (yeah, about that). Aires proposes what everyone on the internet proposed when they saw the two ships. Combine the parts that work and get the hell out of there. Sure enough they do this and they can leave the planet. Before leaving, they do search for food where we find out Quitterie’s real dream is to marry Zack and he says yes as they made the promise when they were kids and he remembered it (Nitsuj: They are gonna have some good sex when they get home). They also go to search for the remains of Polina’s crew to figure out what happened to them (Isis: They died, killed by plants. Now let’s get out of here). They find the hover as well as an ID tag but can’t figure out what happened until the ground begins to shake. Sure enough, a giant bamboo shoot attacks them and we see it has the last ID tag of Polina’s crewmate meaning this plant killed them (Isis: Told you, now can we please leavea?). Kanata manages to get the tag back and they escape the planet where their next stop is the last planet. During the travel there, Polina notices how similar Quitterie and Funicia look despite being adopted sisters (Nitsuj: Because she’s a clone). Everyone thinks that there’s a possibility that they’re actually sisters by blood, so Zack does a test on them where he discovers something shocking. Funicia isn’t Quitterie’s blood-related sisters, she’s a clone of Quitterie.
Episodes 9-12
(Isis): Episode 9 starts out with the biggest revelation in the series thus far, they’re all clones. Zack’s dad has been studying the theory of planting memories into bodies and his plan was to raise Zack into a proper vessel for him to transfer his memories and be reborn. Everyone else’s parents also wanted in on this deal to be reborn, however, cloning is a huge felony and a DNA test would reveal their crime to the world. In order to dispose of the evidence, they arranged for the kids to die in space (Nitsuj: Yeah it meant losing the bodies they had work so hard to create over the years, but it beats going to prison and getting anally raped). Everyone cries but refuses to let their originals get away with this and vow to return and make them pay. Kanata goes around to check on the others except for Quitterie and Funicia who are with Zack who drops the bomb on everyone at the party that he and Quitterie are going to get married (Nitsuj: AWESOME~! We are gonna make so many doujins of you two. (Mira): I’m shipping Ulgar and Luca). If you thought the clone revelation was huge, they save the best twist for last. As they come within view of Earth, Polina notices how it looks nothing like Earth and everyone reveals that it’s not Earth but instead a whole new different planet similar to Earth called Astra (https://youtu.be/ciMFxipOehE).
In episode 10 Polina and the others try to figure out what’s going on here. Despite coming from different worlds, they look alike and speak the same language as well as have the same history except for the Cuban Missile Crisis. In Astra’s timeline Cuba was bombed and this led to WWIII between the US and Soviet Union (Nitsuj: One of the worst fears in human history). Nuclear war began and at the end of the 2-month war (lasted shorter than I expected. (Mira): Well that’s what happens when you bring in nukes) half the population of the world was lost. After everyone realized their foolishness, they established the United World Government abolishing countries and guns, overcoming differences and establishing peace (Nitsuj: If only it were true. Not the WWIII part, but the peace part). In Polina’s timeline it was discovered that an asteroid would collide with Earth in 8 years destroying all life as they know it. A planet migration plan was set up to move humans, plants, and animals to a new world using artificial wormholes (Mira: In other words, that sphere that’s been chasing them all this time). Polina says that they’re all former Earthlings who moved to Astra as their new home world and all this time they’ve been traveling from the lifeless Earth to Astra (Nitsuj: Holy Mother of God I need to sit. (Isis): You are sitting. (Nitsuj): Than I need to sit more). They decide to stop the conversation there for now and focus on getting home as they approach the final planet before Astra, Galem. The planet is rich in nature and crystals (Nitsuj: We’re rich) and seems safe so there’s no cause for alarm or worry until Kanata gets chased by that wormhole sphere again (Sphere: Hey, how’s it going?). The sphere vanishes when Kanata rejoins Aires and comes to the conclusion on who the traitor among them is. The next day Kanata tells Charce and Zack that the traitor is Ulgar and plans to catch him. He has Charce act as bait to lure Ulgar into a cave where Ulgar tries to kill him but the gun malfunctions so he tries to use the sphere only in a shocking twist do we discover that this trap wasn’t for Ulgar but instead Charce (Nitsuj: I knew it! Pretty boy was too good). So, how did Kanata know he was the traitor? He was the last to get sucked in by the sphere in episode 1. The traitor would have to verify that everyone got sucked into space, so the traitor had to be the last one to get sucked in (Mira: Sound logic). Charce confesses that he is the traitor who was ordered to kill them to cover up the cloning scandal. In fact, he was supposed to die with them in space, but they discovered the ship and survived. Charce goes on to say that he knew he was a clone long before the others and reveals that he’s actually the clone of the king of Vixia.
Charce reveals everything in episode 11. He explains how he was the clone of the king and his only purpose in life was to be a vessel for the king and nothing else. He wasn’t allowed outside the castle walls, however, he was allowed to read books about the outside world and he seemed to favor biology. Charce became fascinated with biology (Mira: A man after my attention) and would often go into the castle’s garden to study the insects and plant life with the king’s daughter Seira who just happens to be the original of Aires (Nitsuj: Fan theories were right once again). The king cloned Seira without her permission and Seira didn’t like this. So, she snuck Aires and her surrogate mom off the planet to Astra to live a life of peace making up the lie that the clone died (Nitsuj: Spontaneous human combustion). The king would try to clone Seira again but all of his attempts failed. One day, when Seira and Charce were exploring the garden together, an assassin pushed Seira off a cliff and she fell to her death (who has a cliff inside a garden?). Charce was blamed for the death of Seira and would remain locked up in a cell until the time he was needed. Thanks to the new anti-cloning laws, the king was forced to get rid of Charce, so he made all the necessary preparations to get Charce on the team with the other clones and kill them all in space. Charce’s whole plan was to kill them until he discovered Aires and decided to switch up his plans. He would kill the others, keep Aires alive, and bring her back to Vixia to inherit the throne (as for Charce, go die in space). The others can’t believe everything they’ve heard and try to get Charce back on their side as they know that deep down he sees them as friends and doesn’t want any of them to die (Nitsuj: Well maybe Kanata seeing as how he and Aires have something special going on in the works). He pulls out another wormhole device but instead of aiming it at them he aims it at himself preparing to die and save the others from himself. Kanata of course saves him by jumping over the wormhole (boy got hops), however, his right hand gets sucked in before Charce stops it and Kanata loses an arm (Nitsuj: Oh the puns we could make right now. (Mira): I’ve already got 5 in my head I want to say but we’re above this). They manage to stop the bleeding and get Charce back on their side where he vows to stay by Kanata’s side as his right-hand man (literally. (Nitsuj): You beat me to it).
In the final episode, we get a special 48-minute episode to wrap everything up. After giving Kanata a hand back to the ship (last one, I swear), Charce asks everyone to lock him up but Kanata says no saying that nothing changes (Nitsuj: Except for you not having fun on Saturday nights). After that, they stay on Galem for a few more days to gather supplies and then leave. Once they hit hyperspace (Mira: Which doesn’t exist), Charce tells them the secret about Astra. Basically, the government lied to establish peace. When Astra was discovered the countries of the world started to fight over the land (Nitsuj: Like idiots) wiping out over half the population. Realizing how stupid they were, they came to gather under one government abolishing guns and religion and deciding to create a fake history so that the new generation wouldn’t repeat their same mistakes. As for Vixia, they’re humans too. Before Astra, Vixia was a corporation called Vix which created the wormholes that transported everyone to Astra. Once the government decided to establish a fake history, the people of Vix were given their own planet to guard the true history and shut down the wormholes. So, what does this mean for Polina? It means that Polina hasn’t been in hibernation sleep for 12 years. Instead, she’s been asleep for 112 years as the government hid 100 years of establishing civilization on Astra from everyone. The group decides they have to reveal all of this to the people of Astra, but the question is who can they trust to get this information to the media. The answer, Aries’s mom. They drop out of hyperspace and send a message to Aries’s mom which she gets and gives this information to a police officer who was working with Ulgar’s brother in the past. They finally arrive at Astra where they’re met by government ships. At first, they try to play this up like they’re all going to die, but no, they do a fake out and reveal that their originals have been arrested. Once they return on Astra the truth of their history was released to the public and naturally anti-government protests started to happen (Mira: Yes, how dare the government give me world peace. The nerve of these people). Thankfully, everything settled down thanks to Kanata who wrote a book about their travels (*Isis and Mira begin laugh hysterically* (Mira): Really? This guy wrote a book. (Isis): How do you expect us to believe that? You would have been better off choosing Zack or Ulgar). As with the other characters, things kept going well for them. 7 years passed and they all grew up into adults. Charce became the new king of Vixia (Nitsuj: It’s in his genes), Funicia became a beautiful high school girl (Nitsuj: Traded in her cuteness for sexiness), Polina became a teacher, Ulgar became a journalist following in the footsteps of his brother, Yuuhua became a singer, Quitterie married Zack, Luca is doing their own thing (Mira: Still shipping them with Ulgar), Aries is engaged to Kanata (took him long enough), and Kanata became a space traveler with Zack and Charce as part of his crew.
Final Thoughts
(Nitsuj): Kanata no Astra is an amazing anime. The story is good and the characters enjoyable, relatable, and developed. Each one is different from the each other and goes through their own little arc where they come out better. I also like how they each support each other. They develop a camaraderie with each other and become more than friends, a family. Without each other, they would each break down and die. I also like the little mystery they have going on who the traitor is and how they make everyone suspicious only to dispel them as the season goes on until they finally reveal who it is and it makes perfect sense. That little detail was so overlooked that when they revealed it I had my jaw opened the whole time.
(Isis): The planets they visit are all unique. I like how each planet is different and has it’s own nature and ecosystem. Some of them are safe and harmless while others are dangerous and hazardous to our health. This is what planet exploration is supposed to be and feels like. Gathering supplies, refueling, and then taking off to the next planet. It’s all about conserving resources long enough to the next planet and repeating the process until you can make it home. The animation and music is good. The shots of space and the planets are all done well and the music matches up well with the scenes. There’s also a good amount of comedy within the show to even out the suspense and drama.
(Mira): If we have to name the complaints with the anime it would have to be at the end of the anime. They drop the ball with Ulgar and Luca’s relationship. They build it up and do nothing with it. Are they just friends or do they want to be more than just friends? The other complaint is how everything gets resolved so easily in the final episode. No conflict, no turmoil, everything just gets resolved. While we’re glad everything worked out it just seems too easy and unrealistic how everything gets resolved. These are just minor complaints though and doesn’t take anything away from the final product.
Final Score
(Nitsuj): The final score for Kanata no Astra is a unanimous 9/10 with a must-watch stamp of approval.
(Mira): Definitely check this anime out if you want to see a good sci-fi mystery. It does a good job of adapting the manga.
(Isis): Thanks for reading and we’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.