(L) Kanata no Astra (Astra Lost in Space)

[Guardian Enzo]

Originally Posted by Kanon

More like light years.

I see what you did there.

[4th Dimension]

I'll just say that this manga has actual explanations for quite a few elements that people might think are nonsense just there to kickstart the plot. Same for what people might think plotholes. Now they might not be brilliant ones, but it was thought of that.

On the other hand I don't care about weather the characters are new or whatnot when we have an actual honest to goodness SF on our hands.

Got to inject that space and weightlessness and such right into my veins.

[Irenesharda]

The beginning felt like it came right out of Gravity. A shame Aries didn't watch that movie and take after Sandra Bullock's example.

She had to do all that twirling in space and didn't even have a form-fitting space suit!

[Anh_Minh]

These days some people will apply the isekai label to anything. Up to and including shows where the characters never leave the world of their birth. It's crazy.

[Go0gleplex]

I found this really really boring and not much of a story. A 'human' star ship just happens to be in orbit there...fully powered and operational despite how long drifting about? Be another if nothing else to do time filler series.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Go0gleplex

I found this really really boring and not much of a story. A 'human' star ship just happens to be in orbit there...fully powered and operational despite how long drifting about? Be another if nothing else to do time filler series.

It doesn't feel like a coincidence, though.

[Haak]

Originally Posted by Go0gleplex

I found this really really boring and not much of a story. A 'human' star ship just happens to be in orbit there...fully powered and operational despite how long drifting about? Be another if nothing else to do time filler series.

I mean if we're gonna nitpick, I think the most egregious thing was their reaction to what looked like a giant death ball. This ominous creepy floating dark thing just appears right beside them and they do nothing except gawk at it like idiots from a bad horror film. Future or not, if something like that appeared near me I'd be running for dear life without asking questions.

And then when they do run they all run in roughly single file so the thing can gobble them up one by one. No concept of spreading out.

[Guardian Enzo]

Originally Posted by Haak

I mean if we're gonna nitpick, I think the most egregious thing was their reaction to what looked like a giant death ball. This ominous creepy floating dark thing just appears right beside them and they do nothing except gawk at it like idiots from a bad horror film. Future or not, if something like that appeared near me I'd be running for dear life without asking questions.

And then when they do run they all run in roughly single file so the thing can gobble them up one by one. No concept of spreading out.

To be fair, it was really only Luca who didn’t freak out. And as you get to know him better, that will start to fit with his overall personality.

[Go0gleplex]

But I wasn't really getting all that nitpicky. I left all the hard science like thermal dynamics, structural decay, and astrophysics out of it. lol And I didn't get into how shallow and cliched the characters felt.

And yeah. What sort of idiot walks up to a weird energy ball and then pokes it instead of everyone running for cover in case the thing is unstable and explodes....much less following them as they run in a straight line as a group rather than scattering after it sucks the first dummy up. (face palm)

[Irenesharda]

Originally Posted by Go0gleplex

And yeah. What sort of idiot walks up to a weird energy ball and then pokes it instead of everyone running for cover in case the thing is unstable and explodes....much less following them as they run in a straight line as a group rather than scattering after it sucks the first dummy up. (face palm)

They all graduated from the Prometheus School of Running Away From Things. They even got top marks in the classes for: Let's take our masks off and touch every alien substance imaginable.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Go0gleplex

But I wasn't really getting all that nitpicky. I left all the hard science like thermal dynamics, structural decay, and astrophysics out of it. lol And I didn't get into how shallow and cliched the characters felt.

And yeah. What sort of idiot walks up to a weird energy ball and then pokes it instead of everyone running for cover in case the thing is unstable and explodes....much less following them as they run in a straight line as a group rather than scattering after it sucks the first dummy up. (face palm)

I would. I see a big ball of light, I assume "nifty hologram or other lightshow", not "wormhole of death".

[4th Dimension]

Originally Posted by Irenesharda

Let's take our masks off

That is one thing the unfortunately never learn. But that's why I call the SF level Star Trecky.

[Stark700]

With the survival and exploration themes, I'm getting No Man's Sky (the game) from this.

[Nivek von Beldo]

Well, wonder if we get more complains this chapter, but was very fun and well done, and the letterboxing did give a cinematic feel.

That plot twist at the end too.

[James Rye]

"Edible tester" Man, that was made out of junk? That#s super useful as hell in a survival situation! Like you should never do what Kanata did and eat an unknown fruit, like for real...
Gotta say though their first planet was really lucky, full of water, life and stuff to eat. They even got meat. Like that planet was paradise! And it was weird with those jumpy parachute-fruits and growing treepolines. Charce is such a xenobiologist weirdo. Others would freak out over those creatures and he is just overjoyed.^^
Poor Zack still gets treated harshly by Quitterie despite being her only childhood friend. I smell a marriage. :P
I really thought Quitterie and Funicia were sisters, they look so similar to each other.

[4th Dimension]

"Edibility tester" is probably the biggest BS in the manga, and even the person who made it at times is suprised by all the statuses it has

But it's there to serve an usefull purpose so they don't have to run through the entire battery of edibility tests, which they do mention in the manga, for every single thing they get from the planet ON EACH PLANET.

Spoiler for Food testing:

Charce... Charche is just a filthy xenophile, which contrasts his shining good looks and personality. In fact I feel this episode lacked Charce actually radiating more

And just playing like that with xenofauna should have gotten him bitten of poison spitten on him or something

[Nivek von Beldo]

Originally Posted by 4th Dimension

"Edibility tester" is probably the biggest BS in the manga, and even the person who made it at times is suprised by all the statuses it has

But it's there to serve an usefull purpose so they don't have to run through the entire battery of edibility tests, which they do mention in the manga, for every single thing they get from the planet ON EACH PLANET.

Spoiler for Food testing:

Charce... Charche is just a filthy xenophile, which contrasts his shining good looks and personality. In fact I feel this episode lacked Charce actually radiating more

And just playing like that with xenofauna should have gotten him bitten of poison spitten on him or something

That make more sense in the manga..yeah a choice, again mroe edible, if this poison for carbon based lifeform would have been easier(zero levels of arsenis, chlore,etc)

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by James Rye

"Edible tester" Man, that was made out of junk? That#s super useful as hell in a survival situation! Like you should never do what Kanata did and eat an unknown fruit, like for real...

If it's that or starve, you probably should, but maybe not the way Kanata did it here.

I think that edibility tester would have come in handy before they stuffed their faces, though.

Gotta say though their first planet was really lucky, full of water, life and stuff to eat. They even got meat. Like that planet was paradise!

That's why they chose to go there. Though I wonder how much they knew about that planet.

And it was weird with those jumpy parachute-fruits and growing treepolines.

Those parachute seeds do feel strangely overengineered, though.

Charce is such a xenobiologist weirdo. Others would freak out over those creatures and he is just overjoyed.^^
Poor Zack still gets treated harshly by Quitterie despite being her only childhood friend. I smell a marriage. :P
I really thought Quitterie and Funicia were sisters, they look so similar to each other.

Maybe they're half-sisters? What happened with Quitterie's dad anyway?


On another note:
I wonder about the conclusion that one of them's a saboteur. Someone put that ship there, waiting for them. Couldn't that person have destroyed the comm?

[4th Dimension]

Quitterie's dad: It should have been explained by Zack in this episode, her dad died when she was reaaaaly young so she doesn't even remember him and she was pretty much raised by the mansion staff, which is why she is this much of an ojou brat.

Parachute things: I honestly have no idea what do those things use fro propulsion, since if it's expelling air it shouldnt have enough to lift both itself and a girl which is probably a significant portion of it's mass. But this is why I say this is a proper SF, but a bit on the pulpy side.

Edibility: This is another of the pulpy things for me. I'm pretty sure if you ended up on an alien world, you wouldn't be able to even DIGEST most living things there quite likely since they could be formed from matter/molecules different enough that human digestive system simply can't break them down. Just like how on our own planet there are plants and such that some people can't and others just can't digest since they lack the necessary chemistry in their stomachs.

But thankfully for our heroes pretty much everything seems to be made of the same chemistry as things on Earth, even if their evolution took a different direction.

Choosing planets: If I remember the scene from the manga, they had to reduce certain parameters on planets having water and food, so I'd guess it's just a list of planets with life people have charted so far with scores given to water, ability to acquire food from it and suitability of atmosphere to humans and such. But I doubt anyone did or they had access to like actual expedition data detailing the flora and fauna.

Kanata: As you are starting to learn, Kanata might not be the sharpest tool in the box, but when push comes to shove he will always be one to act first. Even if that act might not be the best, btu in terse situation doing ANYTHING is most often better than doing nothing. And here he did just that with that HIGHLY RECKLESS eating of the foods. He was trying to take their minds off things in any way possible... even if it made him sick.

What's worse for him is that in the manga just moments later Zack pulls out the edibility tester

[Wandering Soul]

Would have been nice if Zack developed that Edible Taster before they just ended up gathering a bunch of unknown fruit and Kanata started stuffing his face with them.