The anime is set in year 2063 when mankind is able to move to space and traveling in space is has made possible. The students of Caird High School plan to go on a space camp. By space camp it literally means camping on another planet. Group B5 gets swallowed by an unknown sphere that takes them over 5000 light years over the galaxy in an orbit which is outside of the icy planet. Fortunately they somehow find a spaceship and plan a journey to go back home.
With a cast of 10 main characters and all of them playing a really important role. Each and every one of them has a unique personality, with their own tragic backstory. One character plays a role of captain, one is medic, one serves as a cook, one serves as expert in biology and its science, etc. Every character gets his moment where he shines, where he gets to shows his talents. We get to know them all and how they all help each other and work together in accomplishing their goals.
For a 12 episode long anime, the series proceeds with an excellent pace. There’s crisis and intensity at every inch and corner and our characters are always in a situation where they have to improvise, adapt and need to take huge risks on each planet they visit in order to survive. The situations are not only helping in the growth of the character but also building a strong relationship throughout the journey.
If you want a good reason to watch this show then it’s the plot twists. It maybe a little forced here and there but when the first major plot twist is revealed all the pieces of puzzles are put together and it starts to makes sense. As the plot progresses towards the climax, the story makes much better sense but the twists are so unexpected where they will leave you in a huge shock
The Japanese version has some incredible actors who has surely done justice to their respective character. Yoshimasa Hosoya has done an excellent job as he carries the charm of leadership who knows how to keep everything and everyone together because of his experience and motivation. . Inori Minase has done an incredible job portraying the role Aries of a regular teenager who is also humble. Shunsuke Takeuchi played the character of Zack portraying as someone who is good at his job being a pilot and is confident with his knowledge and navigation. Risae Matsuda has also does an epic job in portraying the character of someone that can be big spoiler. All cast members deserve award for such a great performance.
Well every character has a contrast personality with other characters, but the personalities depicted are not new to us. Ulgar is anti-social and rebellious in nature, Yun-Hua is usual dandere who is not optimistic and thinks that she is useless while the only thing she has is a kind heart, Kanata is your typical Shounen here who is optimistic in every way possible and acts like he has something to prove. So you have already noticed, the nature of characters shown in this show can be found in any teen oriented anime.
Even though we praised the show for its pace, there are some factors that originally don’t make sense until the end. The one factor that sticks out the most is that no one in the group B5 seems to recognize each other and are seeing each other the first time even though they used to study in the same high school for the past one year. This seems really awkward that not a single one of them have seen or met each other even once while attending the same school but the curiosity does end in the last few episodes which we won’t share in order to avoid spoilers.
In nutshell Kanata no Astra is the mixture of The Breakfast Club meets Star Trek: Voyager. Having said that, we certainly do not mean to criticize any of this series but there are many similarities. The character are teenagers from different backgrounds having different abilities who also seem to have some issues with their parents. Like in the Voyagers the crew has to plan a journey to get back home. It’s definitely for those who like to watch survival anime and space stories. We wonder how would Elon Musk reacts to the idea of travelling to space within 40 years if he watches this show as he is an anime fan. He may get some ideas on what not to do if he does watch this.
