I must confess, as frustrating as it is to have so many topics be off limits in these posts, I’m having a lot more fun watching new viewers grind on Kanata no Astra than I expected (cue Thriller popcorn GIF here).  I think it’s because watching those discussions reveals just what a great job Shinohara Kenta has done crafting this mystery.  One can see by the flow of speculation (and that’s exactly what it’s been, a flow) that Shinohara-sensei played fair with his audience.  He led people where he needed them to go without revealing too much, and always had new layers appear whenever the ones above them were peeled away.  It’s all rather elegant, really.

Sometimes, you know, the best anime aren’t the grandest or most groundbreaking.  There’s something to be said for a perfectly cut jewel, even if it’s humble in size, versus a huge gem with many flaws.  I won’t say Kanata no Astra is perfect in the literal sense (and one need look no further than last week’s write-up to see where I have quibbles, though one of those was anime-specific), but it’s perfect (manga and anime both) in the context of the story it’s trying to tell.  It’s a self-contained and ideally proportioned whole, a series that both knows exactly what it wants to be and how best to go about it.

If all that seems like I’m stalling for time before talking about this episode itself, well- guilty.  I mean, put yourself in my shoes – what can I say about it, really?  Folks are smart enough to read between the lines and I’m not smart enough to be sure I don’t reveal something even when I think I’m not.  I can say, certainly, that I thought it was great – a pitch-perfect adaptation of this part of the manga.  But it’s probably better if I don’t go into too much detail when it comes to content.

What I think I can safely say is that the first part of the episode – the conversation between Polina and the children about Earth and Astra – is a perfect illustration of the artful way Kanata no Astra handles its mystery side.  Certainly things are revealed here – the history the kids describe to Polina – their history.  And the fact that it doesn’t line up with her history.  But as ever the “reveal” only tells us so much.  When we think about its implications, we realize that several new mysteries are opened up by those implications.  Again, this is not cheating – we come by these revelations honestly and they’re internally consistent.  It’s just that they make us consider things we may not have considered before.

As for the narrative itself, it takes the Astra to its final re-stocking planet, Galem (figure out the anagram?).  After the above discussion comes to an end thanks to Aries’ timely and wise caution that it was heading down a dark path, Kanata has time to consider.  The clues to the future are in the past, and who better to ask about the past than Aries with her photographic memory?  Again, the scene where he pays her (and her PJs) a nighttime visit is both utterly incongruous from a tonal standpoint and feels perfectly in-place and in-character.  I also like the signs we’re shown that for all their outward confidence, the kids are thinking about what might happen when they get back to Earth, and whether it will all go as they’ve told themselves it will when they reveal the truth.

Then, of course, we have the other big reveal of the episode, which comes thanks to that consultation between Kanata and Aries.  Once again I’m in a minefield here but it’s safe to say that once more, this important bit of new information opens up new questions that must be answered if it’s to make sense.  It’s a bit Sisyphean in that sense, this series, but rather than being an eternal torment the constant rolling of the boulder up the hill is one of the great joys of Kanata no Astra.