As much as I enjoyed the manga version of Kanata no Astra – which is a lot – and hyped the series, I kind of feel as if I was selling it short.  This is a really good adaptation, don’t get me wrong.  It may even improve on the manga in some respects (I think the latter has a little too much fluff, some of which has been cut).  But what makes this series such a gem is the writing.  Shinihara-sensei seems to have found a total Goldilocks zone here.  I’ve mentioned the tonal aspect of that before (Luca hilariously self-references it in the episode) but it’s more than that.

In terms of mystery, density of plot, conspiracy – Shinohara, I think, goes exactly as far as is ideal for the story, and no farther.  It’s rare to see series which strike you as perfect just as they are, but Kanata no Astra is one of them for me.  Maybe it’s not a masterpiece and maybe it doesn’t reinvent anything, but it’s exactly as ambitious and exactly as ingratiating as it needs to be to succeed.  In short, it’s the best possible version of itself – and as recipes for anime success goes, that’s one of the better ones you’re going to see.

Regarding the matter of conspiracy and mystery, of course the woman in the hibernation pod will prove critical – and of course she’ll raise two questions for every one she answers.  Her name is Polina Levinskaya and she’s played by the wonderful Nabatame Hitomi.  Her ship was the Ark VI, crash-landed on Icriss while exploring deep space.  She’s naturally a bit discombobulated when she awakens and some of the details come back slowly, but she recalls that her crewmates went off to search for food and never came back.  Alone and helpless, she decided to roll the dice on the cryogenic device and hope rescue might eventually come.

As I noted last week, I wouldn’t have been so quick to wake Polina knowing I was shipwrecked myself, and – already a bit bewildered at being on a ship of kids who “found the Astra in space” – that news is too much for her to process.  It’s once more Aries who comes up with the solution – to cannibalize parts from the Ark to repair the Astra (made easier by the ships’ modular nature).  But truth be told, it’s a bit of a plot hole that nobody thought of that immediately – I mean, I know I did.  The most interesting Polina moment, though, is her reaction when Yunhua tells her it’s 2063 – Polina seems shocked that disaster hasn’t struck (“Nothing happened!?”).

Then we have the long-awaited tete-a-tete between Quitterie and Zack, which showcases the other side of Astra so beautifully.  We’ve seen moments like this play out in anime many times, obviously, but again it’s Shinohara’s touch (and the seiyuus’) which wins the day – this is a hilarious and utterly charming moment.  I mean sure, it’s not the most enlightened notion in the world to have Quitterie say her dream is to be Zack’s wife but this is Japan, and Zack’s reaction (and her re-reaction) really sells it.  This is clueless cubed – Zack was so clueless that it never even occurred to him that Quitterie would be stressing over their being a couple, because he assumed the promise they’d made when they were 6 was binding.

With the ships doing a gettai, it’s only a matter of time before the larders are stocked and the Astra can resume its journey – one more stop before the final leg home.  Before they leave, Polina asks that the Astra return to the spot where her shipmates lost contact with her – and the reason why is apparent soon enough.  Back on board Quitterie has noticed an oddity after checking everyone’s blood type in case Polina needed a transfusion – she and supposedly unrelated Funi have exactly the same blood type, right down to MNS antigen type (which is statistically extremely unlikely).  When Zack offers to use the ship’s systems to run a DNA test, the possibility on the table is that the two girls are actually real sisters.  But the truth ends up being considerably stranger than that, and as usual Kanata no Astra ends on a plot twist…