Astra Lost in Space

Yup, I got this right. Though I didn't get the frustratingly obvious-in-hindsight reason why they were dumped to die.

The Polina part, like all Polina parts so far, didn't have proper foreshadowing for a true guess, but it a really intriguing surprise. I suspected that early on the basic sci-fi principle of "never assume the planet is Earth until told otherwise", but as no comment was ever made until I gave on the idea seeing it wouldn't be relevant. But now it's a thing the story is using and I most definitely could have never guessed they were going to use it like this.

To me Polina's earlier reaction suggested that she hadn't expected humanity to have survived whatever her mission was about.

I must have been distracted when the adults' plan was explained: what did they need an artist and an athlete for?

They didn't say it but I would guess to test how far can talent be transferred from one body to the next.

I'd assume funding also had a part. They had to do the research, perform the cloning and have a senator on their payroll to keep that law from passing.

Considering politician corruption they should have lined their pockets with way more corrupt folks to keep it from happening.

Remember that the more co-conspirators you have, the bigger the risk of somebody getting caught and taking everybody down with them.

So, episode 10.

Well, there is something real fishy with the history of their world. Earth is gone, except if another life causing event happens. And the traitor was revealed, trapped by the others. What a day.

Episode 10:

I'll admit, what truly happened in Earth and the people evacuated to Astra sounds convoluted as hell. But in the meantime, the heroes managed to capture the traitor and it's none other than.................Charce. Yeah, he tries to kill all of the heroes and want to kill himself because he had a mission and he was also revealed to be the clone of the King so yeah...

Episode 11:

Right, Charce backstory is revealed. So he's the clone of the king and can't live without obeying the majesty's orders. He also tries at his best to take care of Seira but failed because she was assassinated. Oh! And Seira was the princess who oppose the cloning project and apparently Aries herself is a clone of Princess Seira. Because of this and the rule that implement cloning are illegal, Charce has no choice but try to make friends and commit suicide which is the reason why he become the hired mercenary in the first place. Also, Kanata attempts to save Charce but lost an arm as a result...Ouch

I guess Char(ce) lived up to his name, and must now do the right thing for kanata's sake. It's nice to see the power of friendship being used in a way that doesn't involve superpowers and makes sense because they spent so much time together.

"Tu seras mon bras droit" <- the French subs work so well.

It works in Portuguese too. Only English screws it up by adding the "man" in "right hand man".

Final episode is going to be double-length, just like the first episode.

From the double-lenght episode, I was expecting a climax rather than an extended feel-good epilogue, but I definitely can't say this wasn't heartwarming and satisfying. We had a really charming group in this series.

Last episode felt a bit too easy to me: I expected a real crisis to happen. But I agree I can live with that.

Though I can see Jed actually being proud of Zack despite sending him to jail for the rest of his life.

Final Episode:

I'll admit that I actually found the history between Earth and Astra still convoluted af. However, the heroes including Charce manages to survive at the end and live happily ever after. The true history of Astra and Earth were revealed thanks to the press, the parents of the heroes getting imprisoned for good measure due to cloning attempts and the heroes have some happy lives in the future such as Polina becoming a teacher of Funicia's school, both Astra and Aries getting married, Yunhua becoming a famous pop star, Ulgar becoming a reporter, Bernando being Bernando, Quitterie is also famous too and Charce becoming a king. I'm not going to forget that both Kanata and Zack become intergalactic adventurers that tries to discover a whole new world and Charce joins their party too despite being a king. So yay! The ending truly feels like a great sendoff.

Final thoughts: I actually quite enjoy this anime a bit. It helps that the manga was truly completed back then which made the anime rather engaging and has a true proper ending. The characters are pretty much enjoyable at best. Not the best character I've ever seen but it's still enjoyable. I quite like the story a bit as it was revealed that the dot was connected to begin with because of several foreshadowing. I'll admit that the only thing that I didn't like was probably the part when the anime tells the story regarding Earth and Astra. It sounds pretty convoluted as hell and I don't even know what the hell is going on. But even then, it doesn't detract my enjoyment for the anime of course and I think both Lerche and the author of this manga did a great job

Same! It can't be denied that the manga and its characters are kind of a big Cliché Storm, but I found it just fine. Plus, Shinohara did mention in the final volume that this was his first attempt at writing a sci-fi series, so that's probably why the stuff about Earth and Astra wound up being so convoluted. But for a first attempt at a sci-fi and mystery series, I found it engaging and fun.

Gonna start watching the English dub later. Started on the first half of episode one, and I like everyone in the English cast...though I admit I'm not a fan of Luca's voice. He sounds too low, like he's constipated or something. (Still wish they cast Casey Mongillo as him) Eh, maybe it'll grow on me. Plus, they made Quitterie sound like Clover and pronounce Funicia's name as Foo-Nee-See-Uh for some reason.

Really they just need to extend it by two hundred years and it'd a lot more easier to believe.

@Twilight Pegasus Ah! That's actually pretty much understandable. While this is the first time he wrote a sci-fi manga, despite being convoluted, it's still pretty interesting and the writer still did a good job at it. Best luck for his future mangas though

The whole true history subplot could be pretty much cut without without much work, including Polina’s character.

Just started the anime, and I'm liking it so far. It's very tropey and feels kind of old-fashioned in a way that's hard to pin down, but I like it. It feels like Vandread in some ways, but mostly due to the plot - which also reminds me a lot of Elite Dangerous, actually.

I'm also impressed by the attention to detail for space physics and stuff. Even if it is just stuff you could pick up from watching Gravity so far.

Okay, made it to the final episode. I agree with pretty much everything that's been said here - the characters are fun and I like all the interactions, even if they are a bit cliched; it's interesting seeing a series with an intersex character, even if it's not really gone into much; and the whole travelogue setup, along with the actually tied-down structure of a one-cour-and-done anime, really made it feel pretty tightly done.

My major question is... how does the history work, again? Like, these kids are 17 in 2063. They should be old enough to remember this entire planet swap. The only thing I can imagine is that once the planet swap was done, the World Government falsified the dates entirely and wrote a century of history out of existence?

Edit: Yup, that's it. But I still can't believe that none of the kids are like "hey, wait a minute, I distinctly don't remember being twelve years old when we took a wormhole into space and settled a new planet", and instead focus on tech level.

Edit edit: Oh no, Quitterie needs to change her name to Karen. That is not a flattering look for her. Luca looks cute though!

Edited by RedSavant on Oct 20th 2019 at 1:50:16 PM

It was addressed. They rewound the calendar by 100 years.

Yup, so they did.

Well, overall, a decent series! I'd give it a 6.5-7 out of 10 overall. The ending does lose some points from me, though - the adjusted history/Polina subplot doesn't really go anywhere and ends up seeming like a cool idea the author thought up, then realized he had no way of introducing organically given the structure of the plot. And it was also a bit disappointing how the ending breaks down sharply on "men go to space, wives stay home and gaze soulfully at the sky" lines, Ulgar aside.