Planet Remina is also a Lotus-Eater Machine
- We saw a person becoming part of the planet after being exposed to its atmosphere. We also know that this was not just a case of the unfortunate astronaut just being melted by the atmosphere and fertilizing the living matter already present on the planet, because his eyes and tongue did not melt: instead, they were changed in shape and size to the same monstrous proportions of the tongues and eyes that were already present on the surface.
- The ending wants us to believe that when planet Remina ate the Earth, the Earth was not consumed like all the other planets; instead, it exploded, but somehow the nuclear shelter and its occupants survived unharmed, while planet Remina moved away from it and left the solar system. One of the occupants was also convinced that they would experience a miracle within a year, since their survival was already a miracle. How convenient.
- What if, instead, planet Remina does not consume sapient creatures, but turns them into parts of itself, feeding their brains with false perceptions? This would explain the transmission of Kaneishi from the planet (his words weren't just misinterpreted: he was actually perceiving Remina as a paradise), while the ending would not depend from a Deus ex Machina: the people who think of themselves as survivors are actually on Remina and suffered the same fate as that astronaut: their tissues became parts of the planet, while their brains are merely perceiving that they escaped.
- Alternatively, what if Remina wasn't trying to deceive anyone with Kaneishi's report? If the planet keeps its "prey" alive and conscious, providing for their every biological need, they may indeed see it as a paradise once they've had a chance to adjust. Imagine the towering black tendrils as palm trees, and Kaneishi's video feed could almost be a commercial for a tropical vacation spot.
- Remina's normal "food supply" might consist of lighter elements, perhaps to produce energy via nuclear fusion. That would explain why entire star systems disappear in its wake, and why it went straight for the gas giants when it reached Sol. The occasional rocky planet is probably good for growth, but not particularly tasty; Remina gulps down Mars and the Moon like vitamin pills. A world with life, on the other hand, would be an exceptionally rare treat.
Planet Remina is Human Remina after Time Traveling
- Eventually, i.e. after one year, Remina and the rest of the survivors would die off, but Remina would first be driven insane by the ordeal (especially once supplies got scarce and she was tortured through starvation and etc., might even resort to cannibalism just to survive a little longer); the safe room would crash into asteroids and other space debris, creating a core for a planetoid. Remina's insane mind would remain, however, and combined with extraterrestrial life eventually formed the basis that would one day become the planet Remina. Because of the starvation she suffered through, as well as her desire to return to normal/life, Planet!Remina went about devouring worlds, gaining mass in the process. Then the wandering planet traveled through a wormhole and after finding its way (say, telepathic connection with her past human self), Planet!Remina returned to Earth and started the whole thing again.
- If that's true, then the cultists were right in trying to kill Remina. Kehehe
- That doesn't explain why one of the Cultists has a similar tongue.
The Cultists Are Manifestations of Remina On the Earth
- We know Remina can have its "tongues" take on humanoid shape to trick and attract prey. The cultists are its way of screwing with the earthlings, as well as trying to kill off the only people it knows might survive.
Planet Remina can Manipulate Its Own Gravitational Field
- It can accelerate close to the speed of light (and possibly exceed it) without damaging itself, changing shape, or ejecting any of its mass into space. It's made of living tissue and has an atmosphere thin enough for humans to move around, yet it can force itself inside a gas giant without being crushed, and it never seems to change size despite consuming several large planets. It comes very, very close to Earth without disrupting its orbit, at least until it decides to swallow the planet. Its "tongue" manages to deflect a salvo of ICBMs without setting them off... or perhaps Remina had its gravity "ignore" them, and they simply fell back to Earth.
The manga takes place in 2012.
Planet Remina is a super-sized form of Dark Matter
- It bears a striking resemblance to Zero
Planet Remina is a servitor of Azathoth.
- Based on this little story.
Planet Remina is intended to be Ghroth.
- It shares a lot of characteristics with the Outer God, certainly. It would definitely be a much more violent take on Ghroth, but then again, it's not like the Cthulhu Mythos characters aren't subject to consistent reinterpretation due to anyone being free to use and add to it.
The survivors found themselves on Magrathea.
- The inhabitants remade the solar system, and the survivors resume their normal lives.
Planet Remina is a magical girl turned witch.
- Planet Remina is the witch form of a magical girl and after Madoka's universe changing wish, this whole event never happened.
Planet Remina is the twin of Yivo.
- Yivo of Futurama's Beast With A Billion Backs is heaven. Planet Remina is hell.
- Both planet sized creatures have one eye and tentacle like appendages.
- Both came from the other side of something in space. Yivo came from a rip in space. Planet Remina came from a wormhole.
- Both came to our universe but with different goal. Yivo came to mate with every living being. Planet Remina came to eat planets.
Remina can mildly mutate people at a distance
- So direct contact with Remina's hostile atmosphere causes instant disintegration and mutation into a fleshy horror. Maybe if Remina is close enough to another planet with life, some isolated particles of Remina's atmosphere can occasionally reach and infect the atmosphere of the other planet, causing mild mutations. Like head cultist Goda's tongue.
Remina is not merely from Hell. Remina is Hell.
- Inspired by an idea on the YMMV page. The events of the manga are literally the biblical Apocalypse, and Planet Remina is Hell itself rising up to consume the sinners. In the end, Remina herself, the Hobo and their group of survivors have been deemed worthy to ascend into Heaven.
- Incidentally, the song Planet Hell is pretty fitting for the events of the story...
- Incidentally, the song Planet Hell
Hellstar Remina was originally intended to be longer, and significantly different.
- This story just has a bizarre number of loose plot threads, and too much symbolism that never goes anywhere. Why did the planet show up on Remina's birthday and then make a new line straight for Earth? What did Remina do to get famous, and why a construction firm? Who was the original lead cultist, and why does he never show up again? Just what are those figures on Remina? There are a lot of potentially interesting physical parallels between people and the planet (including the lead cultist, and one scene where Remina's eyes look surprisingly like the planet's), but they never go anywhere. The hobo's astronomical knowledge is hinted at, but goes nowhere. Remina survives bizarre situations (including a nuclear blast shown to cook someone next to her, and a fall that killed almost literally everyone else. Every time she's about to be murdered, it seems like Remina intervenes. All of it would make more sense if the story were originally longer before being curtailed due to a publishing schedule, or something along those lines.
If the construction company had been responsible for building colonies on Mars or the Moon, that would explain why they would want an astronomically themed spokesperson. It would also give them a reason to just have a shuttle lying around, which the brother would know how to fly after going to school to be an astronaut and flunking out, too ashamed to return to his family. They could land on the planet Remina, unaware of the fate of everyone else who went there and building tension through dramatic irony. Then, they could discover the true nature of the humanoid figures, creatures that were absorbed by the planet in the past and now want to put a stop to its warpath before it can destroy another world. Creatures that know Remina and the planet actually areconnected. That Remina really is calling the planet to the Earth, acting as a figure similar to Nyarlathotep as a projection of the Outer Gods. That she really can't be killed except in a ritual execution. Creatures that sent one of their own to lead the cult that tries to kill her. Remina becomes a planetary-scale version of Tomie. The hobo is just totally fucked after trying to do the right thing. It's a bizarre twist that makes more sense, and ties the story back into the themes usually used by Ito.
Remina is a descendant of Tomie
- The reason Remina got so popular so fast without any known talents besides her beauty is because she inherited Tomie's power of attraction, even though after some generations the power is reduced. However she also inherited the curse that makes everybody affected by her attraction try to kill her eventually. That's why most of the world tries to kill her despite the cults' idea being quite silly. The approach of the star only triggered their murder intent, it would happen anyway. However this power is also diluted, that's why her manager wasn't affected.
It is all in Remina's head
- Remina is following the story until the point the titular Hellstar appears - there is no Hellstar Remina. There is only a girl launched into a success she never worked for thanks to an discovery of an exoplanet.
She is pretty much breaking down emotionally from stress and shuts herself down, becoming very passive. Since she can not break out, and she can not get over her sudden success merely from the name, fearing it will fade and she will be stuck in a desperate look for glory, she imagines a world where she really can not do anything but wait for the end. The adoring fans turn into cultists, the world media is against her and the people loving her want to kill her - in her head.
All because her father was pulling some strings for her, and she never could get over this idol status.
- In this universe, the Chaos Gods decided not to fuck around and simply destroyed Terra before the Emperor had a chance to raise any meaningful opposition to their schemes.
The whole story is one big metaphor for Japan's group-oriented worldview
This sort of WMG is pretty common for Junji Ito's works (The Enigma of Amigara Fault may be a cautionary tale about the mistreatment of Japan's indigenous people, and Gyo can be interpreted as a condemnation of Japan's World War II atrocities), but the parallels are especially obvious here. For reference, unlike many Western countries, Japan, and East Asia as a whole, have very group-oriented values that place heavy emphasis on respect for one's superiors.What does this have to do with Hellstar Remina? A lot. Consider the following:Remina is not able to choose what she does in life. She has her role as the one representing the discovery of the new "planet" more or less forced upon her by her father, and has no choice but to accept it. This is very close to the reality of Japan's conservative society, with its emphasis on family honor above all else.
When the cultists incite violence against Remina and her father, everyone immediately obeys them without question, and frantically competes to be the first one to find and capture them. Again, this is reminiscent of the hyper-competitive social climbing and high regard for authority. None of the cultists or their followers ever even question what they are doing.
In the end, Remina, the Hobo, and a handful of others are the only survivors. They are the only characters who, by chance or by design, have ended up defying the rules society has placed on them. The Hobo ran away from home to become an astronaut when his father forbid it. Remina rejects her status as a public idol. As a result, they survive. The horde of people pursuing them, driven not by individuality but by groupthink, perish with the Earth. Thus the story represents the ultimate triumph of individual thought over group-oriented values.
Remina was a Dalek Bioweapon.
It seems like the sort of terror weapon those damn pepper shakers would come up with. Whether by accident or design, a battle during the Time War spat it out in an Alternate Universe where it unthinkingly continued its mission to EX-TER-MI-NATE all life on behalf of its Dalek masters. Remina is a Brethren Moon
And the Cult out to get the human Remina are humans who were exposed to Remina's Markers. Killing Remina would actually have saved Earth
Given it's a Junji Ito story, its quite possible that the cultists were right all along and murdering Remina would actually have somehow stopped the namesake planet from destroying the Earth. After all, the planet Remina entered our universe right when Remina was born suggesting that there's some connection between the two. By managing to escape death, Remina destroyed Earth and probably has doomed the human race to extinction considering their shelter is drifting in the void of space with only a year's worth of resources. Remina wasn't calling the planet to Earth. Goda was.
Goda, the lead cultist, was never human. He's an avatar of Planet Remina itself, as indicated by the fact that he has a tongue identical to it. Consequently, he doesn't perish when Earth is devoured— he merely has his essence re-absorbed into the planet he was spawned from. And this is exactly as he planned. He arrived on Earth in a human guise, serving as a living beacon to guide Planet Remina on its destructive journey through the universe. The only way to stop Planet Remina is to kill him, so to deflect suspicion, he instead planted the seeds of suspicion on the discoverer's daughter, Remina Oguro. It worked perfectly. All of humanity was driven into a frenzy attempting to kill Remina, while Goda, the true culprit behind Planet Remina's appearance, could escape unharmed. Yes, he seemed to die when Remina consumed the Earth, but in reality he was simply returning to where he came from.After Earth is gone, Goda will go on to repeat the process on another inhabited world, in the guise of another species, once again calling down Planet Remina to devour another world and singling out an innocent inhabitant of that world as a scapegoat so he can escape. What he has not counted on, though, is the fact that Remina is still alive. If Remina and the other survivors in the fallout shelter ever cross paths with him again— something that might very well happen, if he is the consciousness that "guides" Planet Remina— there will be a reckoning.
The ending is actually a Happy Ending.
The person horrifically melted on the core of Remina, but they still appear to be alive and likely sentient, as stated in the earlier Lotus-Eater Machine theory. Therefore, the rest of humanity was absorbed with the bizarre fauna, and will survive in an alternate form. Planet Remina can sense itself being observed by sentient life
It took 16 years for the light revealing its arrival from the wormhole to reach Earth, with it actually arriving in our solar system not long after due to its FTL travel capabilities. Given how the timelines match between it actually making its way to Earth (initially thought to be it suddenly halting in place) vs when the scientists first observed it, Planet Kamina can detect the Observer Effect and as a result effectively senses when it is being perceived by living beings no matter the distance and time involved. The survivors will slip into a wormhole.
And end up on an alternate universe where Earth is alive and well. Remina and Daisuke will become legendary figures in this new world and Daisuke will finally achieve his dream of becoming an astronaut.