I guess we can’t truly escape the beach/pool episode curse, doesn’t matter what anime we see featuring high school kids these days. As such, we have a beach episode with girls in bikinis and boys (briefly) having a hot for each other in a show that clearly doesn’t need ones. I must say that the sheer commitment for Kanata no Astra to embrace its anime tropes is something worth… pointing out for. I was expecting that the journey gets grimmer the more they go, so this Paradise planet/ island really caughts me by surprise, not in a good way. The drama in these two episodes, as a result, isn’t about men vs nature but more about the dynamic between team members themselves and their relatives back in their home planet. In a way, episode 5 is the first time we get a perspective outside of these kids and head towards their parents during the search for their lost kids. They are in a real bind as well as they are considering to go through the process of declaring them legally deceased. Except from Aries’s Mom who opposes the idea, the others are composed, too composed, in fact. There’s certainly something beneath the surface regarding (some of) the parents here, and with many of them have high social status (Ulgar’s dad is a vice-president, Luca’s dad is an infamous senator, Yun-hua’s mom a famous singer, and so on), they certainly can pull something as big as sending their kids for experiments, but for what goals?
As far as this two episodes’ main conflict concerns, it’s a pretty solid development in my book. The gist of this conflict revolves around Ulgar and Luca, as Ulga realizes the latter is a son of the man he’s after. Ulga has all the motives to kill Luca to revenge for his brother’s death, but he gets sent off when Luca quite literally reveals himself. Now, I didn’t see the secret behind Luca’s identity coming but it’s a welcome one. Even more than his sexual ambigious, his revelation also touches on his issues with his family (another kid joins the block). These backstories from both Ulgar and Luca do a pretty good job of strengthening their personality and make their bond even stronger. In terms of fleshing out the cast through internal conflict I have no complaints whatsoever.
As Kanata realizes, one of the common grounds between our team members is that most of them being neglected by their parents, and with the first proper introduction of the parents side I am more certain now that the conflicts between the kids and their parents is going to be the main overarching theme of Kanata no Astra. The only one member that doesn’t fit that pattern so far is Aries, whom gives off the wrong vibe for me behind her cheerful personality (manga readers please don’t spoil). Consider Kanata no Astra’s tendency to embrace anime tropes, that she turns out to be someone more sinister than her appearance is a big possibility. The last episode ends on a cliffhanger again with “is this one a betrayer” and frankly it’s a cheap tactic to me. There’s still plenty of fun so far for the kids and their trip. So far, Kanata no Astra remains a not-perfect-but-always-fascinating journey. It serves reasonably well as a mystery, and it does a decent job of giving its cast the moments when it counts, but the weak humor and the over-reliance on anime formula brings the show down a notch for me
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