English Dub Review: Astra Lost in Space “FRIEND-SHIP”

(Possible spoilers below)

Despite Charce’s actions after it was revealed he was the Traitor, and the incredibly selfless and arguably stupid action Kanata pulled to save his ass that cost him his right arm in the process, Everyone within the Astra Crew still forgives & accepts Charce as one of their own, convincing him to live for himself. After they forage enough food to leave Galem and Kanata has had some time to rest with Aries taking care of him, Charce tells everybody about the truth of Astra and Vixia. As it turns out, that long before the events of this show’s universe, the nations of Earth developed wormhole technology to evacuate the population to Astra. However, when the plan was revealed to the public, war immediately broke out as different nations attempted to fight over land on Astra and the wormholes were misused as weapons. When a single world government was finally formed to bring about peace, but sadly not after half the population of Earth/Astra was wiped out from the War’s gruesome aftermath.

As a result, the world government decided to destroy all of the wormholes to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands and decided to “manipulate history” so that later generations would be unaware of the very same wormhole technology that brought them to Astra or the history of death & carnage that came from it. In reality, 100 years had passed since Earth was destroyed, making the true year “2163. The students decide to tell all of Astra the truth. However, their originals and the government remain obstacles to their return. Kanata has the Astra briefly stop above McPa so they can get into the communications system so Aries can send a message containing their entire story and pictures of the planets they visited her “mother”, Emma, who the group knows they can trust with instructions to contact a police officer that worked with Ulgar’s brother.

As they return to Astra, they are greeted by a fleet of warships who welcome them home and inform them that their originals have been arrested for illegal cloning and attempted murder. The man responsible for Seira’s assassination and the transfer of Aries to Team B5 is also arrested. He is the younger brother of the King of Vixia. After their return, the group becomes instant celebrities overnight. Later on, Kanata and Charce convince the government to reveal the truth about Earth, with Kanata managing to defuse the resulting public uproar by writing a bestselling book recounting his experiences during his journey home. Charce becomes the new king of Vixia but immediately abdicates his throne, and much like the ending to Black Panther, he decides to open the royal borders and releases the highly advanced wormhole technology to the public. As a relic of the old Earth era, their spaceship is put in a museum. And all the kids, except for Funicia, finally graduated from high school.

Seven years later, we get an epilogue/time-skip of sorts as we see what’s become of Team Astra such as a few of them embracing changes and achieving their dreams, thanks to their newfound celebrity status. But the episode finally ends when Kanata has used his fortune to buy the Astra Space ship as well as a new prosthetic arm designed by Zack. Together with Zack and Charce, they head off into space to explore new worlds to place wormholes on. When asked why he came, Charce says he is keeping his promise.

Our Take

Damn, For a 1-hour final episode, everything simply fell into place and managed to tie up loose ends in such a self-contained manner. I also liked the combination of space exploration/being lost in space along with the mystery element that the show had. And although not every episode was a winner, this finale, in particular, was really good. They made it back, as expected, and we got a nice time skip showing the group succeeding in all their ventures in different ways. It was a rocky ride at times, but in the end, it was a fun one and part of me is gonna miss this show at some level.

If I had any major problems it’s the fact that this In-universe government just casually edited history in such an unrealistic manner to the point that normal history or religion doesn’t exist. You’d think they would be a majority of people against this idea, not to mention historians would be pissed that certain pieces of history are being just as edited or not brought up like China’s stranglehold over art which keeps me from giving this a higher rating.

Overall this show is very refreshing because ever since the success of films like “Battle Royale” or those bland “Hunger Games” movies, the survival genre has consequently been so full of the overly-sensational Lord-of-the-Flies-Esque portrayal of self-centred, irrational, petty and resentful teens in a way that is too obnoxious for entertainment, yet not deep/mature enough to be taken as offering serious philosophical insight. I’m really glad Astra never goes into that direction clumsily but instead holds itself firmly onto its cheerful spirit with characters the audience actually grows to care about.