English Dub Review: Astra Lost in Space “Wilderness”

Overview (Spoilers Below) 

Continuing from the last episode, 8 strangers (who are 7 teens and an underage girl) are stranded on a ship in space and in an effort to try and get out of their desperate situation have decided to travel to 5 planets and function as a team. As the students arrive at the first resupplying stop, the wilderness planet of “Vilavurs” which further establishes that this future not only has planets that are easily breathable but if any actual effort was put into it, they can be potentially colonized. During the course of the proceedings, the students encounter strange forms of wildlife that includes bizarre rubber-like flora such as parachute plants and trampoline trees, along with winged dragon-like creatures as well, but of course, it’s played for laughs that the Spoiled rich girl Quitterie would react badly to these discoveries with her high-maintenance attitude.

As the students go around gathering resources for the next leg of their journey, they encounter that same mysterious black sphere again, but in a well-paced suspenseful scene, they manage to elude it, I guess it’s good that they’d learn from their mistakes but if only we knew it’s was there, to begin with. After the bounty of food they come across along with a comedic scene of Kanata engorging himself like Goku, Quitterie becomes upset at the situation as flashbacks of her past paint a picture that her wealthy family was anything but a perfect or loving one towards her making her unable to respond or react to situations in a mature or proper manner, causing Quitterie to be extremely bitter towards her little sister Funicia due to her being adopted into the family.

As night falls, Funicia becomes trapped when a trampoline tree suddenly rises and a winged dragon-thing that snatches her away. Despite the dangers, Kanata jumps onto the tree and grabs a javelin Luca left on one of the trees to save Funicia. Quitterie and Funicia reconcile their differences and Kanata reveals that he was trained to have Olympic-level athletic skills by his father. With the students ready to leave Vilavurs, Kanata decides to take the alien dragon’s corpse with them for food which I guess lucky them since none of them seem vegan, but the episode ends on a cliffhanger when The Pilot Zack confides to Kanata about a discovery he made leading to a twist even I couldn’t predict…

Our Take

Aside from this feeling like a character-study, The action scenes are well done, the Trampoline Trees seem like an original idea and new unraveling mystery at the episode’s end begin to add a touch of compelling intrigue in combination with the sense of wonder and fear of the unknown these kids are facing out on these planets that seem breathable, otherwise they’d be instantly dead.

Overall, this episode feels like Quitterie’s story. The interactions and her attitude begin to make sense when we see a bit of her world through her eyes along with a stern observation Zack makes about how she has always had trouble making friends or trusting others it starts to all make sense near the end and the music coupled with Quitterie apologizing to Kanata for her previous behavior shows a level of maturity and personal growth that I’m sure she’s never had to convey before.

I’m now even more hooked after that twist ending so let’s see where this goes next.