Astra Lost in Space

Astra Lost in Space
Original title	彼方 の ア ス ト ラ
transcription	Kanata no Asutora
genre	Science fiction , adventure
Manga
country	Japan
author	Kenta Shinohara
publishing company	Shūeisha
magazine	Shōnen Jump +
First publication	May 9, 2016 - December 30, 2017
expenditure	5
Anime television series
title	Kanata no Astra
Country of production	Japan
original language	Japanese
year	2019
Studio	lark
length	24 minutes
Episodes	12
Director	Masaomi Andō
music	Masaru Yokoyama , Nobuaki Nobusawa
First broadcast	July 3 - September 18, 2019 on AT-X
synchronization

Astra Lost in Space ( Japanese 彼方のアストラ Kanata no Asutora , German , Astra in the distance ' . But also Kanatas Astra'; international title dt, Astra lost in space ') is a science fiction - Manga series of Kenta Shinohara . It received an adaptation as an anime television series in 2019 .

Set in the future, the work is about a group of talented students who suddenly find themselves stranded in space and both mature themselves and discover the secrets of their world on their way back home.

Shinohara was inspired by Jules Verne's adventure novel Two Years of Vacation in which a group of students stranded on a desert island in the Pacific. As in Jules Verne's work, 15 figures were originally planned on board the Astra. However, when the planned duration was determined, this was reduced to the final 9 figures.

action

part 1

In 2063, 17-year-old students Kanata Hoshijima, Aries Spring, Zack Walker, Quitterie Raffaelli, Luca Esposito, Ulgar Zweig, Yun-Hua Lu and Charce Lacroix from Caird High School set out for planet McPa for a five-day overnight stay in the wild. Your group is given the task of looking after 10 year old Funicia Raffaelli. Shortly after they get there, a glowing ball appears in front of them, which transports them into space. Since Kanata had given the order beforehand, as a precaution, that everyone should close the helmets of their spacesuit, there are no fatalities. Fortunately, they also find an empty spaceship nearby. What you need to realize, however, is that you landed in orbit an ice planet more than 5,000 light years from McPa.

On the actually intact spaceship, however, the communication system is defective, so that they cannot send an emergency signal. Since they only have food and water for three days and Zack is the only one with a pilot's license, they decide to take a course home with a stop on five habitable planets en route to replenish their supplies. They call their ship Astra after the motto Per aspera ad astra (“through the rough to the stars”) that they find on the bridge.

Your first stop is Planet Vilavurs, which is rich in flora and fauna, so you can quickly replenish your supplies. While collecting, they encounter the ball again, but this time they can escape, mainly thanks to Aries' photographic memory.

When they later go looking for food again, Funicia is attacked by a flying lizard. She is saved by Kanata, who, although still a student, won bronze at the U20 Dekathlon championships. This event welds the group closer together, but Zack Kanata confidently shares that the communication system was deliberately sabotaged and the perpetrator must be one of them.

Volume 2

After 18 days they reach their second stop, the planet Shummoor. From a conversation that Funicia heard but did not fully understand the day before her adoption at the orphanage, it emerges that the group should be eliminated, which explains why Aries was recently transferred to school and elementary student Funicia transferred to a group of high school girls was allocated. Ulgar says that his father is the school's vice director and that he can be trusted to participate. Kanata tells the group that a saboteur is among them.

Meanwhile, the ship is damaged by micrometeorites and begins to fall on the planet. With everyone's help, the ship can be made functional again and safely landed. Since this proves that the saboteur is no longer interested in everyone's death, it is decided not to pursue the matter any further.

The search for supplies on Shummoor is difficult because there is not enough water, the animals are inedible and the plants perish quickly. Yun-Hua, who was unable to help during the rescue operation, leaves the group to reduce the need for food. When Kanata finds her, she tells him that her mother is a world famous singer and that she raised her never to sing or to attract attention in any way. Meanwhile, Charce, Aries, Zack and Funicia, who were also looking for Yun-Hua, are paralyzed by the spores of one of the "trees" and Charce realizes that the plants and trees are in fact fungi that are the dominant form of life on the planet. Since the spores are deadly over a large area, Charce concludes that the mushroom trees must have a regulating mechanism in the form of a sporadic antidote. While Kanata collects the antidote at risk of death, Quitterie is also paralyzed and Yun-Hua decides to distract the others from their pain with her singing. Yun-Hua gains self-confidence as a result. Since the mushroom trees turn out to be edible, the food shortage has also been resolved.

Volume 3

Meanwhile, the other parents decide, against the resistance of Aries' mother, Emma Spring, to have their children declared prematurely dead. Emma is also concerned that Aries may find out she is not her birth mother, as a law recently passed to enact DNA records for the entire population - a law that Senator Marco Esposito was vehemently opposed.

The children are now on the water planet Arispade, which is a tropical paradise and has water and fruits in abundance, but no land animals live there. When Luca tells Ulgar that his father is the politician Marco Esposito, Ulgar puts a gun to his head. Because Ulgar was ignored by his parents, his only point of reference was his brother Finn. He was a journalist who was investigating Marco for illegal campaign fundraising, but came across a bigger secret and was eventually found dead one day. Since then Ulgar has wanted to take revenge on Marco and since the constituency in the Esposito family is passed on to the eldest son, the death of Lucas Marco would hit hard. Luca shows that he is neither the eldest son, but that he is intersex and has only been adopted. So, like Ulgar, his parents didn't care. Ulgar then lets go of his plan.

The group barely escaped a tsunami before leaving, with Kanata saving Ulgar and Luca. All of this leads to Ulgar opening up to the crew and also Luca taking a load off his shoulders by outing. During the trip to the next planet, Aries mentions that she never saw Charce at school. Cornered, he explains that he comes from the royal Vixia district. As a child he made friends with the girl Seira and wanted to show her the district, which was then picked up by the police and seriously injured in the scramble. He then left the district and was adopted by a distant friend.

The team reaches the planet Icris, with one side always facing the sun and the other facing away from it, with only a thin habitable strip between the two. There are huge plants on it, which because of the harsh conditions have developed so that they can move. The Astra is seized by one of these and the reactor is irreparably damaged. Stranded on the planet, they find another spaceship of the same type as the Astra.

Volume 4

In this ship they find a cold sleeping capsule from the year 2051. They thaw the person in it who introduces herself as the engineer of the Ark VI, Polina Livinskaya. This ship was also irreparably damaged by the giant plants and her crew was killed by other plants besides Polina. Since the reactor of the Ark VI is still intact, the Astra swaps its middle part of the ship with that of the Ark VI.

While foraging for food, Quitterie and Zack take the opportunity to speak out. Since both of her parents were always busy with their research and neglected their children, Quitterie and Zack became friends. Quitterie is frustrated that their relationship seems to have stalled and accidentally confesses her love to him. It turns out that the reason Zack never responded to Quitterie's advances is because he assumed they were both engaged to be married since they had promised each other when they were little children.

Inspired by Polina's remark that Quitterie and Funicia look too similar for adoptive sisters, Zack has both DNA analyzed, which turns out to be identical. Due to the age difference, both can only be clones. Based on everyone's experiences with their parents, Kanata concludes that they are all clones of their parents. Zack mentions that his father has been researching memory transmission for a long time, but that this would only work with identical brains. The parents of all (except Aries') belong to the social elite and a memory transfer to their clones would give them practically eternal life. Further DNA analyzes using samples from her parents' items confirm Kanata's suspicions.

In the meantime, the parents discuss their approach. Zack's father Jed designed the memory transfer procedure, Quitterie and Funicia's mother Olive was able to illegally create clones as the hospital director and Ulga's father Gert was able to arrange her accommodation as the deputy headmaster. An exception is Luca Esposito, whose gene donor is not his father, but the artist Felice Genma, who wanted a new intersex body on a whim. Since the children would have served as their vessels when they had grown up, the parents always avoided developing a relationship with them. With the passing of the new DNA law, however, the plan would have been blown, which is why they arranged for their clones to be disposed of.

The children deal with the situation. Aries is convinced that her mother always loved her. Polina can get certainty about the death of her comrades. Back in space, thanks to the new middle part from the Ark VI, its space telescope can also be used. The children take the opportunity to get a glimpse of their home - the planet Astra - whereupon Polina is shocked to see that this is not the earth and that they have never heard of it.

Volume 5

Polina compares her knowledge with that of the children, whereby it turns out that the ancient countries and their rough position on the planet Astra roughly correspond to the earth. The historical facts are identical up to the Cuba crisis in 1962, but then differ because after the children this developed into World War III, which left a desolate world behind. As a result, the survivors abolished the nation states and built a united world. According to Polina, an asteroid was discovered in 2049 that was supposed to destroy the Earth in 2057. A plan was recorded to find a habitable planet in the remaining eight years and to relocate humanity there using artificial wormholes. The Astra was therefore the last unused ship Ark XII and the ice planet to which Kanata and the others were teleported was Earth after the asteroid impact.

The Astra reaches its last stopover, the planet Galem. Here the sphere appears again, which Kanata first pursues, but then dissolves. Kanata suspects that the ball is the same wormhole technology Polina spoke of, but which has been further miniaturized over time. Kanata can convict Charce of being able to control the wormhole. He declares to be the clone of King Noah Vix. In contrast to the others, he was always aware of his fate. After the passing of the new DNA law, Charce was entrusted by the king with the removal of the clones, as the king's position has little power and it lies with parliament. The reason the bullets on Vilavurs and Galem suddenly disintegrated was the presence of Aries, who is the clone of Seira and she was the king's daughter.

Charce did not treat them as a tool, but as a brother, and was against the clone project. When a clone was created by her, she arranged that her maid and surrogate mother Emma should raise this as her own child. Seira herself was a victim of an assassination attempt as heir to the throne. The king's commission gave Charce a meaning in life again. Charce finally wants to kill himself with the wormhole, but can be saved by Kanata, who loses an arm in the process.

Charce explains that World War III actually happened, but not in 1962, but in 2052. It was the struggle for ownership of the remaining resources on the planet Astra. Although the war only lasted two months, the world population was halved. Since wormhole technology was responsible for this, it was decided never to use it again and to forget, which meant that the Exodus also had to be erased from history. Nevertheless, the inventors of wormhole technology were rewarded with the post of king in gratitude for saving mankind. In addition, the calendar was turned back 100 years in order to bring the new beginning on Astra and thus social regression as much as possible in line with actual social developments.

The Astra arrives at home and reports on its findings, which leads to the arrest of everyone involved, including the king. Kanata and the others became celebrated stars upon their return. Seven years later, Charce König, Quitterie and Zack are married, Kanata and Aries are engaged, and Yun-Hua is a well-known singer. Kanata follows his dream of exploring space, accompanied by Zack and Charce.

characters

Kanata Hoshijima ( カ ナ タ ・ ホ シ ジ マ , Hoshijima Kanata )

Kanata is exceptionally gifted in sport and trains Dekathlon . After a serious accident with fatalities during a class trip to primary school, he also acquired survival knowledge. Through these skills and his affable nature he becomes the leader of the group and captain of the Astra. Although he was raised as an athlete by his father, his goal as an adult is to travel into space as a researcher in memory of his former teacher who died in the accident.

Aries Spring ( ア リ エ ス ・ ス プ リ ン グ , Ariesu Supuringu )

Aries is a happy girl. She has the habit of confusing words and idioms, claiming that where she comes from they would be the same. In contrast to this is her talent for having a photographic memory with which she can immediately memorize any situation. She therefore takes on the task of keeping the ship's log on board.

Zack Walker ( ザ ッ ク ・ ウ ォ ー カ ー , Zakku Wōkā )

Zack has a pilot license and an IQ of 200. He later wants to become a scientist and has a deep technical knowledge. He and Quitterie have known each other since childhood.

Quitterie Raffaelli ( キ ト リ ー ・ ラ フ ァ エ リ , Kitorī Rafaeri )

Quitterie values ​​its appearance, is not very fond of the many animals and strange plants that the group encounters on the individual planets and is generally harsh on the outside. She wants to follow in her mother's footsteps and later become a doctor, which is why she is responsible for medical care on board.

Funicia Raffaelli ( フ ニ シ ア ・ ラ フ ァ エ リ , Funishia Rafaeri )

Funicia, or Funi for short, is Quitterie's adoptive sister. She has a hand puppet that says what Funi is thinking.

Luca Esposito ( ル カ ・ エ ス ポ ジ ト , Ruka Esupojito )

Luca is very easy to get along with, as well as technically and artistically gifted, so that he is responsible for minor repairs on board, works as a ship's hairdresser, etc. His father is a senator.

Ulgar Zweig ( ウ ル ガ ー ・ ツ ヴ ァ イ ク , Urugā Tsuvaiku )

Ulgar is a loner who prefers to disconnect from others and harshly blocks any communication attempts by others. His father is the assistant director of the school where the group was taught.

Yun-Hua Lu ( ユ ン フ ァ ・ ル ー , Yunfa Rū )

Yun-Hua is a tall and attractive girl. However, she has an inferiority complex and tries not to attract attention. Her mother is the world-famous singer Lucy Lum and Yun-Hua is also a gifted singer.

Charce Lacroix ( シ ャ ル ス ・ ラ ク ロ ワ , Sharusu Rakurowa )

Charce has a deep biological knowledge and loves animals of all kinds, although he is also eager to take every opportunity to dissect the new animals they meet in order to learn more about them.

Polina Livinskaya ( ポ リ ー ナ ・ リ ヴ ィ ン ス カ ヤ , Porīna Rivinsukaya )

Polina later joins the group after spending a long time in the cold sleep from which Kanata woke her. She was 28 years old when she was frozen. She was an engineer aboard a spaceship that was supposed to find habitable planets.

publication

The manga was drawn by Kenta Shinohara and appeared on May 9, 2016 to December 30, 2017 on Shonen Jump + the magazine online offshoot Shonen Jump the publisher Shueisha . The 49 chapters were also summarized in five anthologies ( Tankōbon ).

The work was published in English by Viz Media between December 2017 and December 2018, and in Spanish by Milky Way Ediciones. The five volumes have been published in German by Egmont Manga since June 2020 as Astra Lost in Space .

Anime

In February 2019, the adaptation was announced as an anime television series. The series was created in Studio Lerche under the direction of Masaomi Andō, assisted by Yūsuke Shibata. The character design comes from Keiko Kurosawa, who also directed the main episode.

The 12 episodes were broadcast on AT-X in Japan from July 3 to September 18, 2019 , followed by Tokyo MX , KBS Kyōto , Sun TV , BS11 and TV Aichi the following day. Funimation streamed the series as a simulcast in North America, the United Kingdom and Ireland .

Leonine is releasing the series in German from July 24, 2020 on DVD and Blu-ray.

The opening credits star * frost are sung by nonoc, the credits Glow at the Velocity of Light by Riko Azuna .

role	Japanese speaker ( seiyū )	German speaker
Kanata Hoshijima	Yoshimasa Hosoya	Tobias Kern
Aries Spring	Inori Minase	Marcia from Rebay
Zack Walker	Shunsuke Takeuchi	Leonard Hohm
Quitterie Raffaelli	Tomoyo Kurosawa	Jaimee Lau
Funicia Raffaelli	Hina cinema	Liv Wagener
Luca Esposito	Risae Matsuda	Mio Lechenmayr
Ulgar branch	Kōki Uchiyama	Yannick Forstenhäusler
Yun-Hua Lu	Saori Hayami	Anna Ewelina
Charce Lacroix	Nobunaga Shimazaki	Johannes Wolko

reception

The manga guide Kono Manga ga Sugoi! In 2019 from December 2018 by the Takarajimasha publishing house , Kanata no Astra was placed 3rd in its ranking of Manga for a male readership.

The manga won the 12th Manga Taishō (Grand Manga Prize) in 2019 and was nominated for the 23rd Osamu Tezuka Culture Prize, where it was defeated by Shinobu Arimas Sono Ko, Jiruba .

Web links

• Manga website (Japanese)
• Anime website (Japanese)
• Manga and Anime in Anime News Network (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Material Collection 33 . In: Kanata no Astra Volume 5
2. ↑ Rafael Antonio Pineda: Astra Lost in Space Manga by Sket Dance's Kenta Shinohara Gets TV Anime. In: Anime News Network. April 21, 2019, accessed July 2, 2019 . 
3. ↑ Egan Loo: Funimation to Stream Astra Lost in Space, BEM TV Anime This Summer. In: Anime News Network. June 28, 2019, accessed July 2, 2019 . 
4. ↑ Astra Lost in Space Vol. 1. In: LEONINE Anime. Retrieved July 9, 2020 . 
5. ↑ Speaker List Astra Lost in Space at anisearch.de. anisearch.de, accessed on July 25, 2020 . 
6. ↑ Rafael Antonio Pineda: Kono Manga ga Sugoi! Reveals 2019's Series Ranking for Male Readers. In: Anime News Network. December 10, 2018, accessed July 2, 2019 . 
7. ↑ Rafael Antonio Pineda: Kenta Shinohara's Astra Lost in Space Wins 12th Manga Taisho Awards. In: Anime News Network. March 19, 2019, accessed on July 2, 2019 . 
8. ↑ Egan Loo, crystalyn Hodgkins: 23rd Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize Nominees Announced. In: Anime News Network. February 25, 2019, accessed July 2, 2019 . 
9. ↑ Egan Loo: Jitterbug The Forties, Golgo 13's Takao Saito Win Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prizes. In: Anime News Network. April 21, 2019, accessed July 2, 2019 .