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

[Kanon]

We already had strong suspicions, but we finally got confirmation that the show's history differs from ours. Major differences date back to 1968 at the very least, most likely earlier because the World War they mentioned probably lasted a while. This explains how technology is so advanced in 2063.

Charce is actually even more suspicious in my eyes after his explanation. Seira is totally the person Aries was cloned from (voiced by Inori Minase as others have mentioned, flashback lacking colors so we couldn't see her hair was pink, Seira being an anagram of Aries) and that means Charce is aware of Aries being a clone, otherwise he would have shown a strong reaction upon reuniting with his childhood friend.

When they found a ship that was the same model as the Astra, I totally expected the person on board to be one of them. I don't mean time travel, just an earlier clone. It turned out it's an entirely new person. Was she stuck in the same situation as them? I can't wait to find out.

[Frontier]

You gotta admire a land that would maintain a monarchy and noble class and keep the same outdated aesthetic and culture most associated with those elements while the rest of of the world is apparently a sci-fi utopia .

Ulgar's really come around, being the one to give the pep talks and help maintain team morale .

What bigger dliemma could our crew face then the idea that the Astra can't properly function anymore and they're trapped on an alien planet with a difficult environment? I don't blame Quitterie for breaking down like that .

Was Aries about to confess to Kanata before they were interrupted? Definitely felt like it .

Ulgar has a gun. He takes point .

Well, the Opening already teased her, but our crew stumble upon a woman in hibernation aboard a near identical replica of the Astra (nice foreshadowing Zach). Not much to go on about what her deal or situation is, other then the "Help Me" message, but she's definitely a looker .

[Haak]

Originally Posted by Kanon

Charce is actually even more suspicious in my eyes after his explanation. Seira is totally the person Aries was cloned from (voiced by Inori Minase as others have mentioned, flashback lacking colors so we couldn't see her hair was pink, Seira being an anagram of Aries) and that means Charce is aware of Aries being a clone, otherwise he would have shown a strong reaction upon reuniting with his childhood friend.

The question then is how it goes from knowing Aries is a clone to wanting to sabotage the ship and kill everyone and himself. Because if he does that then he can't help Seira. Maybe Seira is a hostage so the powers that be can force him to do their bidding?

On a side note, I guess it makes sense that if some shady organisation is conducting clone experiments, that they would be doing it in a country with less human rights and less hyperconnectivity/transparency. I mean, its certainly true to real life. XP

[4th Dimension]

Originally Posted by Wandering Soul

For a futuristic setting, Charce's home really seems to resemble a more middle age town. Maybe they are just into that sort of thing.

Pretty sure they say that the thing was purposefully made to be the Medieval "utopia".

As for the war, in this very narration in the manga Charce mentiones how long the war lasted. And it was a really short one. So likely a nuclear exchange me thinks.

Ship wise, unlike what fiction thinks ships don't tend to be one offs. Instead you tend to continue making the same ship with slight upgrades as long as possible. So I don't think finding another of the same class is that strange. Running into a any ship in the first place given the size of the planet with no explanation might be.

[Guardian Enzo]

Originally Posted by 4th Dimension

Pretty sure they say that the thing was purposefully made to be the Medieval "utopia".

It's all about the tourist dollars, baby. With the rest of the world going all Philip K. Dick, Vixia basically turned itself into a nation-sized renaissance faire. And the tourists eat it up, conveniently ignoring the ugly social order the country imposes to keep it all picture postcard for the brochures.

[Irenesharda]

Aries = Seira ?

OH COME ON!

And I'm sorry, but Charce has some more secrets hiding there. Either that or he doesn't know how to tell Seira/Aries the truth.

This show has more twists and turns in it than I ever thought it would when I first started it.

Now the kids are stranded on Planet Icriss aka Planet Crisis, but they find another ship with a new character! Interesting...

We all know they are going to take a bunch of parts from that old ship to fix the Astra, however, I'm actually wondering if this is something that has happened before long ago and this new girl was stuck in the same situation that they are now?

Also:
I'm basically down to three people now. Charce could still possibly be the enemy. I find it interesting that he could find some family to adopt him, when it looks like he ran away as a teenager. Are we sure there were no other steps in there? However, I also think that now, at this point, he's too obvious to be the enemy. He basically took Ulgar's part in being the most suspicious.
My other possibilities then are, either Funicia or Aries. Both are suspected the least, but seeing as both could very well be clones, either of them could be in on the whole conspiracy.

Funicia is a kid, so nobody suspects her, and Aries has been chummy with everyone, so everyone thinks of her as their friend. But that would also be an excellent cover. The overly cheery girl, who has a mom that actually care about her, is the one helping out with this ruse? I think perhaps she knows she's a clone? Her growth into a teen would have had to be ultra sped up in order to make her the same age as the original Seira. But then, of course, there's a chance that she actually IS Seira. So we'll have to see.

[Psyco Diver]

I'm going with Aries being a sleeper agent, but that is to much of a interesting twist

[Irenesharda]

Looking back at episode 6 along with 7, it looks like all the kids who don't look a heck of a lot like their parents (Luca, Aries, and Charce) are all adopted. All the other kids who are blood born look like copies of their parents. (I count Funi because I don't care what she says, that girl has the same genes as Quit AND their mom!)

All of our kids with the exception of Aries, Charce, and possibly Zack, have unloving, abusive, neglectful parents. And Charce's birth parents are in that same camp.
Aries' mom and Charce's mom aren't in on it, or else Ulgar's father wouldn't have had to put up that phony front with both of them. So, how did those two get involved?

Originally Posted by BBOvenGuy

Possibly. Not all intersex people are the same. If the condition wasn't recognized at first, and if he'd always identified as male, my guess is that he appears essentially male "down there."

I've heard some real medical horror stories in my science classes regarding hermaphrodites, who have both sets of genitalia, but they develop different ways. One of them had a very dangerous condition, where he had a sort of semi-functioning uterus and vagina, but they had developed internally, whereas a penis had developed externally and when he reached puberty, his body continued to trigger his "menstrual period, but it was all sealed inside the body, causing a huge amount of problems. He had to have extensive surgeries before it was all said and done.

Originally Posted by 4th Dimension

I'm pretty sure they note in this episode that there is only one Biology class. I think they are using the American-ish model where there are no fixed student groups and since not a lot of people are into biology there is just one class of that.

That IS very unusual, especially for an American style school system. Biology is probably the largest science course in any school in the US. It's a requirement in all the education system of all 50 states, and most high schools usually have you take it in the very beginning as a freshman, which is why it has the most amount of science classes and the most amount of teachers even in a very small school. For a school to have only 1 Bio class, with only 1 Bio teacher, the population would have to be minuscule.

The high school I teach at, for example, is very small, with a population of fewer than 450 students. We still have currently, 2 bio teachers, 1 chem teacher (me), and 1 physics.

Originally Posted by 4th Dimension

Well, there being a gun on board might not be a strange depending on who was it for. It might have been Captain or Security Chief's personal firearm before whoever left the ship GTFOed or whatever happened to him. If it's supposed to go places maybe it's there just in case to provide some self defence on the surface or something. We really don't know much about the stuff that happens in space that might require having a firearm to defend the crew or keep them in line.

Also Ulgar seems to have suspected a gun might be on board since he seems to have gone purposefully searching that locker...

It makes sense considering it's an old ship and may have even come before this ban on firearms. So, he might have considered that and gone looking in the ship's stores to see if one was on board. Most vessels in fiction and real-life are equipped with some form of weapons on board.

[4th Dimension]

Originally Posted by Irenesharda

That IS very unusual, especially for an American style school system. Biology is probably the largest science course in any school in the US. It's a requirement in all the education system of all 50 states, and most high schools usually have you take it in the very beginning as a freshman, which is why it has the most amount of science classes and the most amount of teachers even in a very small school. For a school to have only 1 Bio class, with only 1 Bio teacher, the population would have to be minuscule.

Well, given that both Aries and Charce mean to finish some higher education involving biology, we could handweave it as not being the normal biology everyone takes but a single class of advanced bio for those specifically interested in it.

[Applehell]

Well this was certainly the worse case scenario. That planet is basically a living hell for humans. lol

Not surprised that Charce was not the traitor/sleeper. Of course why is different than I thought. I don't like Seira=Aries potential plot-bomb tho. That's a bit too contrived for my liking and I tend to be pretty lenient in suspension-of-disbelief.

Interested in the girl at end, she obviously going be the key to getting Kanata and co out of their mess, but that less in important than what her situation means for story at this point.

Funi is now my number one prime especially becasue how she isn't even a proper student which makes her almost perfect assassin.

[PastPrime]

Did they ever try the Radio to see if it worked to start with. Could it be that it was sabotaged before they even came on board, perhaps to get them to distrust each other, and the whole traitor thing is a red herring.

[4th Dimension]

Nobody checked radio before it was sabotaged that we could see. They were mostly busy with boarding and then rescuing Aries when they boarded. Only when they got a moment to plan did Zack inform them it's busted. And according to him the cuts looked recent.

That is all the clues we have.

[Arya]

Coincidences, coincidences. The same ship, but with different damages. That goes beyond any possible planning. Anyway at this point I'll wait which info the lady has in store for them before speculating further. I got the feeling Charce's apologize to Seira at the end of the episode was related to the current events and not for what he did. Like he didn't tell the whole story, or just that he feels guilty for looking at Aries as it was Seira.

[Irenesharda]

Originally Posted by 4th Dimension

Nobody checked radio before it was sabotaged that we could see. They were mostly busy with boarding and then rescuing Aries when they boarded. Only when they got a moment to plan did Zack inform them it's busted. And according to him the cuts looked recent.

That is all the clues we have.

Actually, Zack saw it had been cut out when we got to the first planet. That was over 3 days later after they had boarded the ship. I would think they would have checked it by then. Especially since communications in one of the first things you check when you are getting ready to take off in a ship.

[4th Dimension]

I'm not sure how things line up manga vs anime. I think Zack noticed pretty quickly comms are down after they boarded. He is the one to inform them they are down and they can't call home. Then we see him some time later checking some equipment and supposedly noticing how the comm equipment was damaged.
If we want to believe Zack, it took him couple days till he got around to actually troubleshooting the entire communications system. (though even if the electronics were damaged, one would think given the crew they'd have some way to just jury rig the FTL comms to send a simple signal just to let people know there is something in this direction)

But if we want to doubt Zack, he could have disabled it when he got on board, or even just told them a lie, and then later on went through properly removing the key components. And then he told Kanata that SOMEONE damaged the system but DEEEFINITELY not him

Now pick your poison

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by 4th Dimension

But if we want to doubt Zack, he could have disabled it when he got on board, or even just told them a lie, and then later on went through properly removing the key components. And then he told Kanata that SOMEONE damaged the system but DEEEFINITELY not him

Now pick your poison

If he were the culprit, he'd have nothing to gain doing that. Telling Kanata that there is someone on board who sabotaged the communication system throws suspicions on himself too, whereas if he had just told them comms were fried from the start, Kanata and the others would have been none the wiser. Unless his intention was to create a climate where nobody would be able to trust each other.

[Arya]

If we doubt Zack we should doubt even his (and so their) goal. Without him they would have been stuck at square one, aka square 5000ly far away. He had lot of chances to kill them or abandon them on this or that planet and still have the ability to get back home safe and sound.

Speaking of which, how him or any of them would be reinserted into society, with a sob story on how the other members of the party died along the way back? I'd be pretty sceptical they'd keep their word once got back by the way.

It doesn't seem the case, but the presence of another ship add up to the possibility that this team has a purpose (not accomplished by the previous teams) lying along the way back home, like reaching some specific destination / dangerous planet on which they have to retrieve/find something (but not the blond lady I suppose, since she in this case would be the only survivor of the previous expedition) .

Also, after that first tampering nothing else happened. That we are aware of. It's like they have to keep planet hopping.

[BWTraveller]

Well, we now have confirmation of cloning.

I'm a little disappointed in how Zack and Quitterie's scene was handled though. In the manga it was drawn out a bit further, with him first being surprised that the childhood promise wasn't meant to be taken seriously and then her freaking out that they're skipping a bunch of steps like confirming their mutual love, and only then did he say matter-of-factly "I've always loved you". Rushing it like this cut down on the humor of the situation. But then I can understand the rush here, since they needed to make sure they got to the big reveal. And honestly I liked the minor addition of the first suspicion coming from identical blood types rather than simply Polina commenting on their looks (and Funi mentioning that her mom was light-skinned).

[Anh_Minh]

if the Astra's really an exploration ships, why can she only take two weeks of food and water?

it sounds like Polina was lied to. Something along the lines of "we only have a few years before the Earth is destroyed, so find a planet we can move to". But why?

[Frontier]

Was that Hitomi Nabatame as Polina? Sounded like her .

Polina doesn't seem to remember everything about her mission but the current year and the Earth seem to be major issues that she can't quite figure out why for yet .

Man, the guys on this show sure have a hard time understanding the girls' feelings, although I guess it's kind of hard to get a good read on Zach. At least both he and Quitterie got their feelings out there .

Look at Ulgar floating yet retaining all his compsure. I did also like that line where Luca assumed he acts the way he does for attention .

Well, the show's been building up to some kind of revelation regarding the kids, and it looks like next week we'll finally learn the truth .