English Dub Review: Astra Lost in Space “Star of Hope”

“I get by with a little help from my friends!”

Overview(Spoilers Below)

In light of their combined effort to prevent the Astra from crashing, the students conclude that whoever this unknown saboteur is, they’d also have a desire for survival as well but decide not to actively investigate for the time being since maintaining a teamwork dynamic is essential for avoiding danger. Upon landing on Shummoor, they begin foraging for food and encounter large, friendly Chocobo-like aliens they dub “Gruppies”. Unfortunately, they discover that most of the edible plants on Shummoor spoil extremely quickly making them pretty damn useless, and the Gruppies are inedible, meaning they do not have enough food supplies for the next leg of the trip, but I guess these planets can’t all be winners right?

Meanwhile, Yunhua who is considered the most gloomy & emo character throughout this show so far, deserts the ship telling the crew to leave her behind. In response to this, Kanata goes out to search for her and finds her. Yunhua reveals that her mother emotionally abused her and raised her into believing people were better off without her existence, despite barely interacting with anyone in the first place.

At that moment, the large mushroom-like plants begin to scatter around the planet and release poisonous spores, infecting everyone except Kanata and Yunhua, who were conveniently wearing their spacesuits around that time. But one of the crew begins to theorize that there should be an antidote mushroom to counter the poison, and Kanata and Yunhua remember feeding a sick Gruppie a yellow mushroom that cured it. As Kanata gathers this particular cure, Yunhua begins to sing to calm her sick friend’s thanks to Kanata being an inspirational figure to her and also encourages her to pursue her dream to be a singer. As Kanata brings the antidote mushrooms back, The episode ends on a hopeful note with Yunhua going through a more dramatic change.

Our Take

Unexpectedly, Funimation felt the need to release this episode early along with episode 3, but while I was caught by surprise by this early release, along with how good this episode turned out to be. Kanata and Aries are clearly the heart and soul of the team who help give morale and encouragement in the face of danger to those who need it most.

Based on observation, the more they start to develop each of the characters, It’s easy to assume that nearly everyone in the team just has really shitty parents that neglected or abused them in some way, but I think that’s why we put so much importance to the next generation, to learn from the mistakes of our ancestors so we can become better people to one another and that’s properly conveyed with Kanata being a positive influence to Yunhua’s life.

It makes me wonder what other weird space adventures they’ll have next and whether or not the unknown traitor in the group will take action against everyone next episode.