Manga / Stardust Telepath

Manga Time Kirara: Where no man has gone ... ever

Haruno: I ... I had a dream and everything. And now my dream is useless.
Grandfather: Giving up on a dream is a sad thing, no matter whom it happens to.

— Chapter 26, "Loser Goggles"

High school freshman Umika Konohoshi is so shy she can't even hold a conversation with another human being. Condemned by her insecurities to a sad life as a friendless introvert, she loses herself in the worlds of her favorite sci-fi books and movies and longs for the day she can meet a mind-reading alien, who'll know her truest wishes and befriend her without needing to share a single word.

And then, a certified space cadet barges into her classroom and introduces herself as "The alien Akeuchi Yuu!"

This self-proclaimed extraterrestrial says she possesses the power of "foreheadpathy", and when she presses her brow to Umika's she tells the frightened wallflower she knows all about her desire to head for the stars. Yuu claims she's been stranded without her memories, and she's looking for a way to return home. As the two girls bond over their mutual desire to leave Earth, they form the Rocketry Research Association with two of their classmates, the gentle and caring class representative Haruno Takaragi and the mecha otaku, mechanical genius, and mega-grump Matataki Raimon. Together, the four girls brainstorm ways to reach for the stars. But as they struggle just to get their model rockets off the ground, it's clear they have a long way to go before they hit outer space.

Stardust Telepath (Hoshikuzu Telepath) is a seinen Yonkoma manga by Okuma Rasuko, published in Manga Time Kirara since June 2019. It incorporates elements of a school club story, but (unusually for a Kirara story about a school club) it's just an occasional subplot rather than something the manga is structured around.

With the release of the third volume, an anime adaptation (Kirara's 36th animated series overall) was announced on October 6th, 2022, and began airing a year later as part of the the fall 2023 anime season. It ran from October 9th to December 25th, 2023 for 12 episodes. It was produced by frequent Kirara collaborator Studio Gokumi, with Kaori as director and Natsuko Takahashi (Yuyushiki, Comic Girls) as head writer. In conjunction with the broadcast, Okuma also launched a (Japanese-only) Youtube channel to Let's Watch the episodes with fans and discuss the manga.

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Stardust Telepath provides examples of:

• A Place Holds Memories: Haruno reveals the lighthouse Yuu took up residence in used to be maintained by her grandfather. As she takes them down into the cozy break room in the basement, she thinks back to happy memories from when she was a child.
• Adaptational Deviation: The anime removed the bit where Matataki's father demanded she get an instructor's license. This change makes it seem like she just decided to get one on her own, which is very odd for a girl who totally withdrew from society.
• Adaptational Expansion: From episode 2, "Sunset Rocket":
  • There are some original bits where Umika attempts to talk to Yuu but gets interrupted, including an early debut for class rep. Saya Kagami.
  • It depicts Emihara-sensei actually teaching Modern Japanese, something that was alluded to once (as a joke) but never shown in the manga.
  • It inserts an original scene of the girls discussing music on Yuu's home planet, a topic which will become vitally important later.
• Advertised Extra: The anime promotional materials hyped up Honomi like she's a main character, even though she only appears in a handful of scenes and has a negligible impact on the plot, whereas Kei Akizuki (a far more important character) got no promotion whatsoever and didn't even have her voice actress revealed until the credits of her debut episode. The fact that Honami's voice actress, Hina Yomiya, got extremely popular during the production cycle, including major roles in My Dress-Up Darling and The Dangers in My Heart, probably contributed to this.
• Aliens Steal Cable: The voice on the crystal radio switches from the Cosmic Language to Japanese when the girls reestablish contact in chapter 43. It claims it "studied their communications".
• Ambiguous Situation: As Umika and Yuu sit in the woods hunting for clues in chapter 41, they have a bout of foreheadpathy with their faces strategically positioned just out of frame, so it looks like they maybe, might've gone in for a kiss.
• Art Evolution: At the start, the series had a very "4koma-ish" style. Madcap humor, sparse and abstract backgrounds, changing aesthetics every ten seconds for comedy. By volume 3 it has mostly settled into a fairly cinematic style with a consistent tone, standardized proportions, and realistic backgrounds that make heavy use of gradients, with a handful of chibi comedy moments sprinkled throughout depending on the mood.
• Art Shift: Chapter 46.1 drops the yonkoma format in favor of a regular manga style.
• Badass Boast: Umika — of all people — gets one at the end of chapter 42.
  Umika: I'll show you just how stubborn Earthlings can be.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • When Umika challenges Matataki to a bottle rocket duel for the chance to be heard out, Matataki thinks she wants to ask for help building a rocket. Turns out Umika just wanted to compliment her goggles.
  • Chapter 12 opens with a stock Kirara scene of Umika seeing shoujo sparkles^note  kirara means "to sparkle" everywhere inside a dreamy void, talking about how her life has changed so much since she met Yuu. Then it's revealed the sparkles are her losing consciousness due to the elevation on a hiking trip.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: In chapter 40, Yuu gets a full-page illustration of herself floating in the cosmos, totally nude, yet bathed in light so nothing can be seen.
• Battle Aura: Although Umika can't get a single word out, when she and Yuu are partnered up for a scavenger hunt in chapter 2, she generates a flaming aura that'd put a Super Saiyan to shame.
• Battle Rapping: In chapter 48, Umika accidentally gets dragged onstage at the cultural festival during a rap battle. She's saved when Haruno, sporting a werewolf costume, shows up to rap in her place. And Haruno absolutely kills it, winning the competition, at which point she and Umika do a rap together to promote the Rocket Research Association.
• Be Yourself: In chapter 16, Umika declares she's going to be a cool club president, like Kei Akizuki. However, she learns the hard way that she is not Kei, and that she'll need to learn how to be a club president on her own terms.
• Became Their Own Antithesis:
  • In the beginning, Umika is so meek she can't work up the courage to speak to other people, and Yuu breezes into her life to help her break her out of her shell. However, once Umika does start to improve (post-Cerebus Syndrome), Yuu angsts over the fact that she wants Umika to be totally dependent on her and her foreheadpathy.
  • At first, Umika is so meek she wants to hide away from other people. But her desire to finally speak her mind to Matataki forces her to move forward and come out of her shell, to the point she can finally get her feelings off her chest despite Matataki's scorn. In chapter 28, when Matataki withdraws from the others due to her own failings, Umika boldly stands up and confronts her while Matataki shrinks away.
  • When the story starts, Haruno is eternally cheerful and optimistic and tirelessly encourages others to follow their dreams, while Matataki is a caustic, reclusive jerk who just wants everybody to stay out of her way. But as the series digs into their respective psychological issues, they completely circle around each other. By chapter 40, Matataki has to step up and be a source of positivity and inspiration for the other three (Haruno included) when they're shaken and despairing.
• Bedmate Reveal: After getting rejected by Matataki, Umika wakes up to find Yuu in her bed. In a nightgown.
• Big "WHAT?!": In the first episode of the Animated Adaptation, Umika internally let out this when Yuu proclaims herself as an alien.
• Big Word Shout: In chapter 26, Haruno delivers a galaxy-shattering "BAKA!" right into Matataki's face.
• Bland-Name Product:
  • The characters use "Universe"-brand notebooks, rather than the real-life brand "Campus".
  • In Episode 2, Umika uses a search engine called "Gooo!!". Apparently Google and Yahoo! Japan have combined in this universe.
  • Ganbarion models are manufactured by "Ganbari", whose logo is identical to Bandai.
• Bratty Half-Pint: When Matataki takes second-place in the regional model rocket competition in chapter 35, she demonstrates her Character Development by giving her rocket to the third-place contestant, a morose little girl. The girl promptly complains that she'd prefer the winner's rocket instead. But then, like a true tsundere, she gives Matataki a roundabout word of thanks for the gift.
• Breather Episode: After the emotionally volatile and psychologically draining events of volume 4, the series returns to some lighthearted yonkoma fluff, like a Hot Springs Episode and a School Festival arc where Matataki has to wear an embarrassing costume.
• The Bully: A pair of young thugs show up in chapter 46.1 to harass Honami on her walk home from middle school.
• The Cameo: Miku Itō, who sings the anime's opening theme and previously worked with the director on The Quintessential Quintuplets, appears in the very minor role of Michiru Yuugumo, Kei's kouhai.
• Central Theme: The relationship between a character's dreams, and their identity and sense of self. See the Analysis page for more details.
• Cerebus Rollercoaster: Starting with the final chapters of volume 2, the series swerves from fluffy 4-Koma comedy into emotional drama about regret and frustration. From that point on, it begins to oscillate between comedy and drama on nearly a chapter-by-chapter basis. And even during the comedy chapters, some characters (Yuu, in particular) look like Stepford Smilers as they put on goofy 4-Koma antics to mask their angst and uncertainty.
• Champions on the Inside: The Rocketry Research Association lose the model rocket competition in chapter 21 when their rocket massively overshoots the target zone. However, when they return to school after a few chapters of moping, their classmates all gush over how their rocket flew the highest out of any of the competitors, raising Umika's spirits.
• Clingy Jealous Girl:
  • In chapter 29, when Umika is delirious from a cold, she hallucinates Yuu rubbing foreheads with Haruno and Matataki, but refusing to do it to Umika. When Umika wakes up, she tells Yuu she wants her forehead all to herself. However, since she was feverish at the time, Umika doesn't remember anything when Yuu questions her about it.
  • Later, it's treated much more seriously as her angst over the fact that Umika might outgrow her and her "foreheadpathy" drive Yuu to think of herself as a "bad alien", culminating in an extremely dramatic moment in chapter 42 where she slips into yandere mode, aggressively pins Umika to the ground, and seems poised to embrace her yandere side before getting ahold of herself and running away in tears.
• Club Stub:
  • The main quartet put in an application to start the Rocketry Research Club so they can get funds from the school. However, their application is denied on the grounds it's too niche, and they can only form an association instead, which has zero funding. Umika, her confidence and determination growing, says that it's fine and they'll make it work somehow.
  • Averted for Tatsuoka High. The Space Research & Development Club only seems to have three members, yet they are apparently an official club. This is probably due to Tatsuoka's emphasis on science.
• Common Tongue: It's claimed in the series that the Cosmic Language acts as the lingua fraca of the wider galaxy, but — given the questionable nature of Yuu's backstory — it may just be an Esperanto-based conlang somebody put up for sale on Amazon.
• Cooking Duel: The girls challenge Matataki to a bottle rocket competition in chapter 10 to get her to join their nascent association, and later they challenge her to another one in chapter 28 to show her how much they've improved in her absence.
• Crash-Into Hello: In chapter 15, Umika backs into somebody by accident and profusely apologizes before she realizes it's the girl she met while hunting for plastic bottles in chapter 9.
• Crossover: For the 20th anniversary of Manga Time Kirara, Okuma teamed up with Kinako Warabimochi to produce a two-page crossover with Shiawase Tori-mingu.
• Curtain Camouflage: In the first chapter, when Umika tries to speak to Yuu and loses her nerve, she rolls herself up inside her school room's curtains.
• Cypher Language: The written "alien language" used in this series is a cyphered Esperanto.
• Debut Queue: After introducing the main duo of Umika and Yuu in the first episode of the anime, the rest of the RRA is introduced this way: Haruno is introduced in the second, while Matataki is introduced in the third.
• Depower: Yuu claims to have lost her foreheadpathy (assuming it was anything more than her being very perceptive) in chapter 38, while feeling anguished about the turns in her relationship with Umika.
• Depth of Field: The mangaka uses False Camera Effects to blur the foreground or background to emulate depth of field warping. One example occurs in the 38th chapter, when Umika is comforting Yuu and her phone rings.
• Door Slam of Rage: When the girls visit Matataki, she takes one look at them and then slams her garage door shut as hard as she can.
• Drama Bomb: The manga initially seems to fit the Kirara house style of gentle iyashikei, but once the Rocket Research Association utterly blow the model rocket championship qualifiers, it stops being so gentle and ramps up the angst.
• Drop-In Character: Yuu will occasionally appear in Umika's bed overnight. She claims it's due to her "teleporting".
• Early-Bird Cameo: While hunting for plastic bottles for their competition with Matataki, Umika, Yuu, and Haruno briefly cross paths with Kei Akizuki before she's given a larger role in chapter 15.
• Embarrassment Plot: Chapters 46 & 47 revolve around Matataki being forced to wear a Meido outfit for the school festival, which mortifies her to the point she wears a Ganbarion helmet to disguise herself and, when they fails, seeks refuge in the school's haunted house. When she and Umika finally find their way free, she orders Umika not to tell a soul about the way she's dressed ... at the exact same moment the SDRC show up to visit, and Michiru captures it on her smartphone.
• Energetic and Soft-Spoken Duo: The main duo involves Yuu, who lives in a state of perpetual excitement, and Umika, who is so bad at speaking that she considers completing a full sentencing with lots of stuttering an achievement. Umika growing out of this puts a wedge in their relationship.
• Energy Beings: When Matataki asks the voice on the radio why there's no transmission delay, the voice replies their kind left their homeworld and are now "here", over a panel showing the clear blue skies. Hinting that they might be some kind of sentient, telepathic radio waves or something. Matataki mocks them for their maddeningly vague non-answers.
• "Eureka!" Moment: The end of chapter 42. The girls have followed the clues left behind by the voice on the radio to the middle of the woods, only to find nothing. After Matataki and Haruno leave, and Yuu runs away in tears due to her past slipping away from her, the isolated Umika finally realizes the clearing they've been sitting in was formed by a meteorite, and the coordinates lead to a chunk of ore they can use to power the radio back up.
• Everyone Knows Morse Code: Averted. The anime's OP begins with what sounds like Morse code, but it's just a creative interpretation of Miku Itō's vocals from the chorus.
• Exact Words:
  • At the start of the duel in episode 4, Raimon confirms that the rules require a "bottle" rocket. When Umika's water rocket outperforms hers on the second round, Raimon breaks out a black powder rocket fit into a small plastic bottle that technically qualifies.
  • At the end of chapter 20, on the eve of the championship qualifiers, Umika declares, "With all our efforts, our rocket will fly into the heavens!" Unfortunately, the qualifiers test how well you can get a model rocket into the target zone. Their rocket overshoots the target by a huge margin, flying "into the heavens" but instantly disqualifying them from the championship.
• Exposition Diagram: The series routinely employs diagrams whenever it needs to Info Dump about model rockets.
• Expressive Hair: The end of term exams are so intense they blow Yuu's odango buns right off her head in chapter 20.
• Extra-Long Episode: Normal manga chapters usually run for 8-10 pages, but extra-important ones (such as chapter 43) can run up to 15-16. In other Kirara series this would be structured as having multiple chapters serialized on the same issue, but in this case the flow of the narrative needs to be maintained.
• Faceless Masses: In the anime (trailer), Umika's fellow students are depicted as plain white outlines, similar to the director's previous series Yuyushiki.
• False Camera Effects: The author puts in the effort to blur the foreground or background to emulate Depth of Field, such as in chapter 38 when Umika comforts Yuu and her phone rings.
• Family Theme Naming: Umika's mother works in an aquarium, and she gave both of her daughters names with sea-related kanji: the "umi" in Umika means "sea" while "nami" in "Honami" means "wave." The other kanji of their names are parts of a plant; "ka" is a fruit while "ho" means an ear of grain.
• Fire/Water Juxtaposition: Umika and Matataki are mirrors of each other — both emotionally scarred girls who withdrew from society due to mockery from their peers. Beyond their typical Red Oni, Blue Oni dynamic, Umika's family is associated with water (her mom works in an aquarium; she and her sister have water-themed names; Honami loves ocean-themed clothes and goods) and Matataki's family are associated with fire (they use gunpowder to launch model rockets; they have explosive tempers; an alternate reading of their surname has "kaminari", the Japanese word for lightning bolt, in it). Yet, just like how rocket fuel explosively combines to form water, both girls will need to work together to reach the stars.
• First Contact:
  • Discussed in chapter 40. When the girls make contact with an alleged alien over the radio, Matataki says it's the club's first contact. Then she elbows Yuu and corrects herself, saying it's really their second contact.
  • In chapter 43, the mysterious voice on the radio alleges the government put together a team of academics to research first contact, and that Haruno's grandfather was one of them.
• The First Cut Is the Deepest: Haruno's Pseudo-Romantic Friendship with Matataki is jeopardized by abandonment issues from Haruno's childhood. After doing well in a piano competition, her friend Megumi stopped showing up to their lessons, leaving Haruno heartbroken.
• Fish-Eye Lens: As part of its Art Evolution into a more cinematic style, the manga starts using an extreme fisheye lens to distort things like racks of model rockets or windowframes looking in on the School Festival presentation.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In chapter 7, during Umika's imaginary conversation with Matataki, Matataki's hand rises up to her goggles, foreshadowing the main punchline of chapter 10.
  • The flashback to Haruno's grandfather in chapter 26 is loaded with foreshadowing, particularly the way he holds his radio while saying "Giving up on a dream is a sad thing, no matter whom it happens to," and remarks that he hid his own abandoned dream inside the lighthouse. In volume 4, they discover he left behind a crystal radio which he used to communicate with somebody who speaks the Cosmic Language and knows Yuu's song. It gives the despondent Yuu hope she'll rediscover her origins right as "her dream" is about to fall apart.
  • One of the anime's key visuals shows Umika toting the Ultra High-Powered Dream Model on the path to the lighthouse. The other three girls walk ahead of her and blithely head for the setting sun, while Umika lingers behind them and gives the viewer a sad frown like she wants to turn back before it gets dark. Given how poorly the Ultra High-Powered Dream Model fares, and the large Tone Shift it brings to the manga, it seems more like Umika knows exactly what's about to happen and wants to return to those halcyon days when it appeared to be a simple yonkoma about quirky friends.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • In the corner of Umika's prepared statement for introducing herself to aliens in chapter 2, you can just barely see she hurriedly scribbled her weight out.
  • In chapter 24, Kagami claims she went to the model rocket qualifiers to watch the RRA's rocket launch. If you go back to chapter 21, you can actually see her standing in the crowd, although since it's a profile shot it's hard to notice her distinctive diagonal bangs on first glance.
• Friendship Trinket: Yuu and Umika work together to win a stuffed alien and star from a crane game in chapter 18. They each take one, and it quickly becomes emblematic of their friendship.
• Gag Censor: In chapter 44, when Haruno stands up in the hot springs, Matataki whips a rocket-shaped sign on a stick out of Hammerspace and holds it in front of her boobs.
• Gecko Ending: The last scene of the anime borrows plot beats from the next handful of chapters, but it creates a totally new scene atop the lighthouse and removes all the setup for the "Bad Alien" arc, ensuring the series doesn't end on a cliffhanger.
• Genre Deconstruction: Of moe yonkoma and iyashikei. While at first it seems to play everything straight, after the Cerebus Syndrome it starts to examine the typical Kirara setup with a more realistic eye, such as:
  • Subverting the traditional Kirara narrative about a shy girl coming out of her shell thanks to encouragement from her friends. Normally, when an introvert suffers setbacks in dealing with others in a Kirara iyashikei, the gentle tone of the story prevents the audience from feeling the blow too harshly, and it's often crouched inside a positive "It'll go better next time" moral. After Umika's disaster of a speech in chapter 21, the story starts to wallow in the drama and frustration of an introvert struggling to improve in a very iyashikei-unfriendly way.
  • Examining the codependent undertones in an extrovert glomming onto an introvert Manic Pixie Dream Girl-style, and how it can negatively affect the extrovert's mental state when they think the introvert no longer needs them.
  • Showing the emotional baggage a person would need to have, to become a selfless Team Mom who puts others' dreams first while having none of their own.
  • Demonstrating the psychological toll it takes when a group of amateurs pin all their hopes and dreams on a contest they have no real chance of winning. Contrast that with its sister series Anima Yell!, which played the same situation off as a joke, with the fact that HoshiTele spent seven chapters just dealing with the emotional fallout.
• Genre Roulette: Despite being published in Manga Time Kirara (which has a very strong brand identity as the home of light-n-fluffy moe yonkoma), the manga notably doesn't really have a fixed genre. Over the course of its first four volumes, it fluctuates between:
  • A zany comedy about the Pseudo-Romantic Friendship between an introvert and an extrovert in the vein of Is the Order a Rabbit?.
  • An inspirational Japanese School Club story about four girls coming together to launch model rockets.
  • A pseudo-Idol Genre story where the characters get utterly wrecked in their first "performance" and then angst about their psychological scars holding them back, have the kind of emotionally-volatile, teary-eyed interpersonal conflicts that wouldn't be out of place in a Love Live! Drama Bomb, and declare to the wayward Matataki, "It's not the Rocket Research Association unless it's all of us!"
  • A melancholy, introspective drama about Yuu's loss of identity and how it might threaten her relationship with Umika.
  • A sci-fi detective story where the girls follow a trail of clues from another self-proclaimed alien to piece together Yuu's origins.
  • And, for one scene in chapter 42, a horror story as Yuu falls into despair about being an evil alien, slips into Yandere mode, and aggressively forces herself on Umika.
• Goal in Life: In chapter 8, Umika gives a teary speech to Matataki about how helping Yuu reach the stars has finally given her life meaning, only for Matataki to rudely interrupt and break the fourth wall.
  Matataki: Scale down your journey of self-discovery there. I'm getting embarrassed just listening to it.
• The Grays: In chapter 3, Umika remarks that Grays are the "standard" depiction of extraterrestrials, in comparison to the pink-haired Genki Girl beside her.
• Gut Punch: Chapter 21. The series had been a fairly light and fluffy, life-affirming 4-koma up to this point, and it seemed to be gearing up for an Underdogs Never Lose tournament arc. Then Umika goes onstage to deliver her speech and has the bleak realization that she will never speak as easily as Kei, followed by the one-two punch of both their model rocket launches ending in disaster. Matataki angrily quits because she has nothing else, Umika breaks down in tears and runs away because she'll never be a good leader, and Yuu and Haruno are left shocked and saddened by their totally-not-love-interests abandoning them. Unlike a typical 4-Koma, where such a scenario will be framed as a comical overreaction that's easily soothed by an inspiring speech, everything is played dead serious and given a hefty amount of dramatic weight.
• Headbutt of Love: Due to Yuu's foreheadpathy, touching foreheads becomes an act of affection between the girls. Later it evolves to the point they all mash their foreheads together and rub them furiously, messing up their hair and leaving giant red marks on their faces, as a kind of group hug.
• Heel Realization: The end of chapter 33. Yuu's face is obscured by static, except for the whites of her widened eyes, as she realizes she might prefer it if Umika never learned how to talk to other people. She clutches her chest and forehead, torn up by thoughts she can't get out of her head, until finally there's a totally black panel except for the stark, bold words "I'M A BAD ALIEN."
• Heroic BSoD: In chapter 41, after following the coordinates they gleaned from the voice on the radio, they arrive in a clearing where Umika expects to be picked up by her people at any moment. But as the day goes on and the aliens show no sign of appearing, she slowly grows more depressed until she sits in catatonic silence, refusing to move even when night falls.
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: When Matataki has a fight with her dad, it involves chucking work tools at each other. Even though her face is bruised from getting beaned by a wrench, she smugly gloats over the fact that she got him better by hitting him in the gut with a screw clamp.
• Home Base: After Haruno learns Yuu has moved into the abandoned lighthouse her grandfather used to maintain, she gifts Yuu with a key to the cozy break room in the basement where she used to hang out with him. Yuu and Umika are ecstatic at the thought of having a secret base.
• Hot Springs Episode: In chapter 44, the girls unwind from the emotionally-turbulent events of the last few chapters by relaxing at a local hot spring.
• Hypocritical Humor: In chapter 15, Yuu grabs Matataki and says she's not allowed to wander off by herself at the Rocket Festa ... while holding multiple shishkebabs from the food stalls.
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog:
  • In chapter 41, the girls walk through the school hallway laden with equipment to go hunt for clues. When Emihara-sensei comes up to them to tell them she got her own model rocket license, they brush her off (since they don't want to involve her) and make tracks for the exit, leaving the heartbroken teacher behind.
  • Again in chapter 42, when Matataki and Haruno are in school looking over a map they think might contain a clue, Emihara-sensei surprises them and asks if they're treasure-hunting. Haruno feigns a headache and Matataki says her forehead is red "for some reason" (mainly because Matataki kept flicking it in anger) and carries her off on piggyback.
• Identity Breakdown: Whenever the manga gets into a dramatic spell, it is inevitably fueled by one of the characters having their self-image destroyed, such as Umika's decision to pattern herself after Kei falling apart or Yuu fearing she's not the benevolent alien she believes herself to be.
• Idiot Ball: Umika is obsessed with meeting space aliens and helping Yuu get home, but apparently it never crosses her mind to do any research whatsoever into who's selling the alleged Cosmic Language dictionary on the internet — an act which implies there's a link to the wider universe already present on Earth? Nobody brings this up until Matataki makes an off-hand reference in chapter 36, but even she doesn't follow through with it (or if she did, she neglects to share what she learned with the others/readers) until a potential answer is just dumped in their laps in chapter 43. Matataki speculates that Yuu might create a psychic field scrambling peoples' minds, so this could potentially be a Justified Trope, but it hasn't been confirmed one way or the other, as of the end of volume 4.
• Imagine Spot: In chapter 15, Umika has an imagine spot of herself giving a proper thank-you to Kei Akizuki for helping them previously. In reality, Umika is nearly catatonic from fright.
• Improbably Female Cast:
  • The only male family member of note is Haruno's grandfather, who is seen for exactly one flashback. After him, there's Matataki's dad, whose hand appears for a single panel. Umika is implied to have a father who's just never home, while her mom has put in several appearances.
  • Model rocketry seems to be exclusively taken up by young girls, except for one comically old guy seen in chapter 35.
• Indirect Kiss: In chapter 14, Matataki instructs the girls how to pack flame retardant material into a model rocket to keep the parachute from getting burnt up by the gunpowder. It involves blowing into the rocket's tube. When Haruno bungles it, Matataki swipes the tube away from her to show her how it's done. Then she looks at the spot where Haruno put her lips and decides not to. Haruno being Haruno, that may have been intentional.
• Iyashikei: Initially the series seems like an iyashikei, since it focuses on a touching Pseudo-Romantic Friendship between a borderline-mute recluse who's terrified of other people and a space cadet who helps her come out of her shell while being surrounded by caring, empathetic classmates (except for the grumpy Sour Outside, Sad Inside mechanic who comes around thanks to the power of camaraderie eventually). But a humongous Tone Shift near the end of vol. 2 ramps up the angst and melancholy for multiple chapters. Although the comedy does return, the series never goes back to being an iyashikei due to all the turbulent emotions bubbling under the surface.
• Japanese School Club: Downplayed and Inverted. Most Kirara-type manga about a school club will establish it in the very first episode and bank heavily on Hobby X drawing readers in. Stardust Telepath, in an unusual move, slowly stretches the founding of the school club out for a dozen chapters, and even after it's formed it remains a subplot to the girls' personal lives rather than a bankable premise calculated to draw in model rocket otaku.^note  Possibly the idea was suggested by Rasuko's editors after it earned its serialization. Although many school club stories do often introduce Pseudo-Romantic Friendship elements, it's rare for a Kirara-type manga that starts with a Pseudo-Romantic Friendship premise (say, Is the Order a Rabbit?) to go the other way and evolve into a school club story. Stardust Telepath also has some elements that defy the typical Kirara school club story, like Iyashikei-unfriendly dramatic arcs and an Urara Meirocho-style genre mystery with a Driving Question about the kooky female lead's mysterious origins.
• Juxtaposed Halves Shot: In chapter 11, when Umika thinks "I want to find a place where I belong", the panel is split between her and Matataki's faces to accentuate their similarities.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When the Cerebus Syndrome first hits and the series veers in some very un-Manga Time Kirara directions, Yuu asks, "Why ... can I not see it anymore ... the sparkling ...?" Kirara means "to sparkle".
• Linked List Clue Methodology: The girls investigate the lighthouse to find a radio, which lets them talk to somebody claiming to be an alien, whose signal dies and leaves them with a set of numbers they have to decipher, which lead them to a series of meteor impact sites, where they find the ore they need to power the radio back up. And by the end, Matataki possesses a journal from Haruno's grandfather, implying there's more secrets waiting to be uncovered.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • When Matataki unveils her second bottle rocket at the duel in chapter 10, she points out the rules didn't forbid using gunpowder as an accelerant.
  • When the duel is adapted in episode 4, Raimon confirms that the rules require a bottle rocket. When Umika's water rocket outperforms hers on the second round, Raimon breaks out a black powder rocket stuffed into a small plastic bottle that technically qualifies.
• Lost in Translation: In chapter 11, Yuu names the nascent Rocket Research Association the rocketto-bu, or "rocket club". This is also a pun in Japanese, since she writes tobu as "to fly". This pun is explained in a translator's note in the scanlation, while the Crunchyroll subs don't even bother mentioning it.
• Lower-Deck Episode:
  • The volume 4 omake is about Emihara-sensei by herself, taking the test to get her model rocket license.
  • Chapter 46.1, billed as a "special chapter", follows Honami as she deals with a pair of bullies and grapples with her feelings about her sister.
• Make-Out Kids: Umika and Yuu touch their foreheads together at the drop of a hat, eliciting disgust from Matataki, who tells them not to do it in public.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": When the RRA realize Tatsuoka High pretty much aced their first launch in chapter 21, they all go wide-eyed and start to sweat, instantly banishing their former optimism. It's the first hint the qualifiers aren't going to turn out well for them.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane:
  • It's unclear if Yuu is actually an alien or if she's just chuunibyou. There's nothing she says during "foreheadpathy" that can't be deduced purely through people-reading skills or contextual clues, she has no proof of being an alien, and she says she doesn't even remember anything about her life before she was "stranded" on Earth.
  • When Umika goes to visit Yuu after the model rocket competition ended in disaster in chapter 23, the lighthouse is totally empty and all her stuff is gone. The lights don't even work (prior to this, Yuu said her alien powers were generating its electricity). It's portrayed like Yuu has gone back to her mothership. It's not until Umika shouts her name from the top that Yuu appears behind her from nowhere, surrounded by fireflies, like she just teleported in.
  • Chapters 39-43 put the girls in contact with a mysterious voice claiming to be one of Yuu's people. We never see the other side of the conversation, so we have no idea if it's real or not. It speaks the Cosmic Language, but the dictionary for that is available on Amazon. When the signal starts to die, the voice leaves them a set of coordinates to a fragment of meteorite they can use to reenergize the radio, but we also saw Haruno's grandpa left notes behind studying that same subject. When the girls reestablish contact, the voice now speaks perfect Japanese with a Handwave about tuning into their communications. Matataki rightfully points out there's no transmission delay, implying either the UFO is parked in orbit and ready to take Yuu home ... or it's just some person nearby with a transmitter. Yuu declares to the heavens that she's going to stay, and then the voice signs off without so much as a glimpse of a UFO.
• Meido: Nasshii and Matataki dress like maids during the cultural festival to advertise their class presentation. Matataki tries to avoid embarrassment by wearing the helmet to her mecha costume, but Nasshii yanks it off with a smile. Matataki races full-pelt into the nearest classroom — ironically scaring the bejeesus out of a student dressed as a Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl.
• Mood Whiplash: The first two volumes are largely light and fluffy comedy. But after the Cerebus Syndrome sets in, the series evolves towards serious drama punctuated by chibi hilarity.
  • Chapter 23. As the events of chapter 21 hang over their heads, Umika and Yuu have a touching, somewhat mystical meeting atop the lighthouse drawn with lush, sparkling, overly-detailed art that wouldn't look out of place in a shoujo series ... and then it immediately snaps back into 4-koma mode when Yuu suddenly remembers a song from her homeworld.
  • Chapter 26. As Matataki wallows in regret and withdraws from the world, Haruno comes to visit her. Their meeting is fraught with tension and sadness ... until Haruno screams "BAKA!" at Matataki and gives her a comical, slapstick beatdown. Next page, it goes right back to serious, emotionally-charged drama.
  • Chapter 28. The bulk of the chapter is Matataki having an emotional breakdown over her abrasive personality and her personal failings while the other girls throw everything they have into convincing her they care about her and still want to be her friend, and is drawn in a super-detailed, highly realistic manner full of dramatic emotion. Then the last page and a half suddenly shoot into 4-Koma mode as the other girls dogpile Matataki and rub her forehead out of sheer happiness.
  • Chapter 42 takes this to extremes. The first half is Haruno and Matataki having some lighthearted yonkoma nonsense as they look for clues, while the second half with Umika and Yuu in the woods is the darkest and most dramatic chapter in the whole manga up to that point.
• My Skull Runneth Over: When Yuu finds herself dumbfounded by Matataki's explanation about how model rockets work, she tries to take a shortcut and use foreheadpathy to download the knowledge directly. However, it immediately backfires when the dense technical knowledge blows her off her feet.
• No Antagonist: There's nobody who opposes to Yumika and Yū's objective of building a rocket to go to outer space. The conflict revolves around Umika's struggle to communicate and socialize, personal growth, overcoming insecurities, and pursuing dreams.
• Non-Standard Kiss: Touching foreheads becomes an act of affection thanks to Yuu's powers.
• "Not So Different" Remark: In chapter 15, Haruno says Matataki and Kei should get along fabulously, only for Matataki to shout that she's nothing like "that brat" even as they both gush over the same niche model rockets.
• Notice This: In chapter 21, Kagami's cameo at the rocket launch renders her much brighter than the crowd around her, just so the reader notices she's not some random background character.
• Oh, Crap!: Matataki's shocked expression when Yuu tells her, on her first day back in school, that the whole class is going on an overnight trip to the mountains tomorrow.
• One-Steve Limit: Defied. The manga has Kei Akizuki (あきかず) and Akikazu (あきづき) Takaragi. Since the RRA's Friendly Rival is referred to by her surname and Haruno's grandfather is rarely — if ever — referred to by his given name, this might cause confusion among readers (especially English readers, since "zuki" and "kazu" resemble each other more than the kanji do) during the cliffhanger ending to chapter 39.
• Otaku: Haruno alludes to Yuu and Umika being "lighthouse enthusiasts", and she perks up at the thought they went exploring an abandoned lighthouse. Little does she know that Yuu made it her home. (And little do they know her grandfather used to maintain it.)
• Painting the Medium: As Yuu begins to feel jealous that Umika is getting better at talking and leaving her behind, the author fills the 4-Koma panels with television static to represent her mental anguish.
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish": When the girls are trying to figure out the combination to the lighthouse's lantern room, Haruno guesses 0612. Later, in chapter 44, she reveals it was her grandmother's birthday.
• Perception Filter: Matataki and Haruno idly speculate that Yuu psychically scrambles the brains of people around her so they don't think to question her presence, but it's never confirmed if it's actually happening or not.
• Plot Coupon: In the beginning of vol. 4, the manga introduces a crystal radio owned by Haruno's grandfather, which plays Yuu's song and has a mysterious voice on the other end who speaks the Cosmic Language.
• Plot Detour: Yuu is introduced waking up inside the lighthouse (in the tankobon intro) or barging into Umika's class (in chapter 1) announcing herself as an amnesiac alien. This is treated as a kooky character quirk. It isn't until the very end of volume three (34 chapters in) that she finally decides to maybe investigate her origins a little bit.
• Positive Friend Influence: Regardless of whether Yuu is an alien or if she's just faking it, she offers exactly what Umika needs to come out of her shell—by convincing Umika she's already in fictionland.
  Umika: Yesterday though, I felt like ... I'd never want to leave my bed again. B-But now, after seeing your face, I feel much better. That must be another alien power. Thank you.
  Yuu: ...
  Umika: A-Akeuchi-san?
  Yuu: The light that vanished from inside you is something only you yourself can turn back on.
• Pseudo-Romantic Friendship:
  • It's a Kirara manga, so obviously. Umika and Yuu are very touchy-feely with each other, including constant bouts of "foreheadpathy" backed by shoujo sparkles and one incident where Umika wakes up to find Yuu in her bed in a nightgown.
  • Haruno and Matataki form the "Beta Pseudo-Romantic Friendship Couple". Haruno is sweet and gentle, but also a bit of a tease towards Matataki, a grumpy jerk who acts like she can't be bothered but bothers anyway. They're shown riding on Matataki's motocycle a few times too, including to school in the morning.
• Pun: In chapter 18, Yuu frequently uses the term "this planet" to try and cheer Umika up. In Japanese, "this planet" is also pronounced "kono hoshi".
• Quest for Identity: Yuu wakes up inside the lighthouse with no memory of her past, other than the notion she's an alien. At first, she's none too bothered by her lack of a past. But after certain events, she decides she needs to know more about herself. This quest forms the backbone of volume 4.
• Raygun Gothic: Whenever the characters imagine anything sci-fi, it will inevitably look like a pastel-colored version of something off of a magazine cover from The '50s: octopoid aliens, Retro Rockets, flying saucers, Go-Go boots and dresses with flaring hemlines, etc.
• Reaction Shot: The manga wrings every last ounce of comedy it can from extreme close-ups of the cast's horrified expressions.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In chapter 19, Matataki unloads on Haruno by saying her It's the Journey That Counts attitude is really a sign that she has no passion for anything. Although Haruno takes it in stride at the time, later in chapters 25/26 she admits that Matataki was right — she can't help other people achieve their dreams because she lacks the passion to share those dreams. Having a dream of her own would make her vulnerable to getting hurt again, so she avoids it. But, wanting to move past that, she gives Matataki a Reason You Suck Speech right back, claiming she's a loser for giving up so easily in contrast to "the cool Matataki".
• Reflective Eyes: In chapter 38, as Yuu has an existential crisis about her possessive attitude towards Umika, she is reflected in Umika's eye while describing herself as Umika's "beloved alien".
• Rousseau Was Right: Umika, Haruno, and Matataki have all had negative experiences that damaged their psyches, leading two of them to withdraw from the world and the third to develop a psychological complex to lift the whole world's sadness. On the other hand, Yuu (if we classify her as "human enough") has no memories and thus no prior negative experience, and she's a positive, kind, and helpful figure who tries to improve everybody's life purely out of the goodness of her heart. It isn't until she has her own negative experience that her mental state quickly begins to degrade.
• School Festival: Starting with chapter 45, the story begins its requisite school festival arc.
• Series Continuity Error: The marginalia in chapter 11 claims Emihara-sensei is making her first appearance, but she already appeared in chapter 2, when she sent her students on the scavenger hunt.
• Sexy Packaging: Although the manga itself is pretty chaste, the title pages can get a little risque — like the one showing Haruno as a cheerleader hopping into the air, with her shirt flying up and exposing about three-quarters of her torso.
• Shaped Like Itself: In chapter 5, Yuu shouts, "So many machines! They look so machine-y!"
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: In chapter 44, Haruno and Matataki have a conversation about romance that makes Umika and Yuu freak out, complete with Luminescent Blushing and horrified gasping. After they calm down, they get touchy-feely and their Pseudo-Romantic Friendship gets a little deeper (though it doesn't stray into outright yuri).
• Show Within a Show: Galaxy Blast Ganbarion, a mecha anime Matataki likes, which the girls exploit to try and win her over. It seems to be based on Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann; aside from Ganbarion sounding like Gurren Lagann, the poster shows a character wearing goggles on his head like Simon, and Matataki shouts out that her rocket will "pierce the heavens!" when she competes with the other girls.
• Shout-Out:
  • Okuma has referred to Hidamari Sketch as her "bible". Aside from the same general yonkoma tone, she sneaks in a few specific references here and there.
    • Umika's image of The Grays in chapter 3 looks identical to the ones who abduct Yuno.
    • During the cultural festival in chapter 46, a girl Umika meets is drawn Ume Aoki-style for a single panel.
  • In the manga, when Yuu wakes up in the lighthouse, the Cosmic Language on her student ID is cut off so that it reads "Actually, I Am—"
  • In the anime's second episode, Umika's paranoid fantasy shows us, in short order, Kay and Jay from Men in Black, men wearing Advanced Idea Mechanics suits, and Umika giving the camera The Scream (Munch).
• Shown Their Work: Chapter 14 is a thinly-disguised lecture on how model rockets work in the guise of a manga.
• Sick Episode: In chapter 29, Umika is incapacitated with a cold and the other members of the RRA visit her at home.
• Significant Name Shift: In chapter 39, Matataki refers to Yuu as "the fruit" all chapter, right up to the point Yuu has an emotional breakdown over her past slipping away from her. Then Matataki, stunned, whispers "Yuu..."
• Sneeze Cut: In the volume 4 omake, Emihara-sensei invokes Umika's name while taking the test for her own model rocket license, prompting a cutaway to Umika sneezing while she's hanging out with Honami.
• Squee:
  • In chapter 4, as soon as Haruno gets a taste of Umika's Moe qualities, she and Yuu instantly begin fawning over her.
  • When Honami visits the cultural festival in chapter 47, she is absolutely mobbed by a crowd of fawning high schoolers.
• The Stinger: The anime repurposes the omake strips from the manga volumes as brief after-credits scenes.
• Sudden Video-Game Moment: When Haruno is giving Matataki a light beat-down in chapter 26, button inputs for fighting game combos appear behind her.
• Surprisingly Creepy Moment: Chapter 42. As Umika and Yuu sit alone in the woods, the despondent Yuu suddenly rises to her feet like a Manchurian Agent being activated. She slaps her hand over Umika's mouth so she can't scream, throws her to the ground, and pins her there while caressing her face with a wicked Yandere grin. It's staged like she's about to molest Umika. Although Yuu does snap out of it, she marches off into the woods to be alone while dense black scribbles representing tree branches fill the panel and drop the curtains on her lonely figure. And people thought this was a Cute Girls Doing Cute Things manga!
• Symbolism:
  • In chapter 33, as Yuu is stricken by a Heel Realization, the panel focuses on the back of her feet. One foot is neatly tucked into her uwabaki, but her other foot is crushing the heel down and hanging out the back. It symbolizes both her "messy" personality and her divided mental state.
  • Chapter 22 begins with Umika in Super-Deformed mode, riding on a flying saucer. Then she falls off into shadow, and reverts to her more realistic form, with a more realistic, dramatic look on her face. This symbolizes the manga's Art Evolution away from typical yonkoma and towards a more cinematic style, where whole chapters (including this one) can pass with few or no Super-Deformed interludes, and instead they let the drama play out with detailed close-ups and artful "cinematography".
• Telepathic Spacemen: Umika says her "research" (i.e. sci-fi novels) have shown her this trope is true. Yuu claims to back it up with her "foreheadpathy", but it's on the fence whether it's true or not.
• Telepathy: Yuu claims she can read minds if she touches her forehead to another's. But everything she says is blatantly obvious to the reader and everybody except the awe-struck Umika.
• They Would Cut You Up: Umika fears that if anyone finds out that Yuu is an alien, the government would take her away and dissect her.
• Tiger Versus Dragon: In chapter 31, when Umika's classmates imagine the RRA's face-off with Tatsuoka High, Kei has an enormous Asian dragon curling around her while Matataki and Umika are just dressed in kigurami with cat ears.
• Time to Step Up, Commander: Until chapter 40, Yuu, Haruno, and (more recently) Umika have been constant sources of positivity and inspiration, while Matataki has consistently been a sarcastic asshole. However, in chapter 40, the other three are deeply shaken by the revelations about Haruno's grandfather and the crystal radio he kept hidden, which may be Yuu's only link home. Matataki is thrust into the position of being the source of positivity and inspiration they need for once. Despite her obvious reluctance, she steps up and takes charge.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Chapter 19 contrasts Haruno (the girly girl) with Matataki (the tomboy) as Haru tries to rope the other girl into baking a cake.
  Matataki: You do seem like that kinda girl who likes stuff like cooking, handicrafts, reading, and going to cafes.
  Haruno: That feels like a bit of a prejudice. Not that it's wrong, but...
• Tsundere: Discussed. According to the Cosmic Language, the word "malobeema"^note  Actually the Esperanto word for "rebellious" is the translation for tsundere. And apparently, the rules of cosmic etiquette are such Serious Business that being a tsundere can lead to summary execution among the galactic community.
  Yuu: So Matataki can absolutely never go alone into space! Or she'll get killed!
• Underdogs Never Lose: Despite being a brand new club with more pluck than experience going up against last year's champion Kei Akizuki, the RRA are all hyped up to win the model rocket competition that forms the climax of volume 2. Subverted, they lose quite badly. The first launch misfires and the second overshoots its mark by a huge margin, disqualifying them in the first round. This signals a massive Tone Shift in the manga.
• Unfortunate Search Results: A very mild one in chapter 4. Umika types "rocket building" into a search engine and just gets videos of children making bottle rockets. So she types in "rocket building adult" instead, and gets an attractive woman in military fatigues striking a pose for the camera while toting a bazooka-shaped bottle rocket launcher.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The girls in class don't bat an eye at Yuu proclaiming herself to be an alien.
• Wacky Homeroom: It's subtle, but every other classroom we've seen has been full of conscending students who treat the main characters' dreams with disdain. In contrast, Fujinomisaki 1-A is full of students who play along with Yuu's alien schtick, support the Rocket Research Association, and elect a goofy weirdo like Saya Kagami as their class rep.
• Wham Line:
  • "I will never be like Akizuki-san." Chapter 21 starts with the usual goofy 4-Koma nonsense, but after Umika has the soul-crushing realization that she won't ever be able to speak to others the way Kei does, the rest of the chapter is played dead serious, showing them bomb the competition and break up when their emotions boil over, signaling the point where the manga's Cerebus Syndrome sets in.
  • "Akikazu?" At the end of chapter 39, the mysterious voice who speaks the Cosmic Laguage over the crystal radio asks if Haruno's grandfather is trying to reach them. Implying that, if Yuu really is an alien, Haruno's grandfather was in contact with her people.
• "YEAH!" Shot: Played With. The anime's OP doesn't have a "Kirara jump", it has a Kirara free-fall as the Rocketry Research Association drift down through the cosmos.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Yuu gives a heartfelt speech to Umika in chapter 18 about how much of a positive inspiration she is, even if Umika can't see it herself.
• You Must Be Cold: In chapter 43, while Yuu thinks she's angsting by herself, Umika appears from nowhere behind her and drapes her discarded pink sweater over her shoulders.
• You Remind Me of X: In the volume 4 omake, Emihara-sensei takes her model rocket license test. When she looks at the tiny and unimpressive model rocket she's been given, it reminds her of Umika. She tells it to fly high and that it's her pride, eliciting a Sneeze Cut from the real Umika.
• You Wake Up in a Room: In the tankobon-exclusive intro, Yuu is shown waking up inside the lighthouse not knowing where she is, clutching a student ID.

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