First Impressions / Kanata no Astra

「PAST」

Normally I’d cackle with glee about the “told ya so!” inevitable rightness of Pancakes’ prediction making (the only kind you could ever need), but really, no OP this week so you knew right off the bat there wouldn’t be any real shockers gracing our presence this week. Or, well, mostly. KnA may be an open book at times when it comes to its mystery and everything surrounding it, but I’ll be damned if the show doesn’t know how to keep the curveballs coming. This rabbit hole has a way to go yet.

As highlighted tongue in cheek last week (mostly), Charce’s bad boy expression was firmly deceptive and entirely a tease. No killing and multi planet suicide mission on this kid’s radar (unless you count nonchalant courting of the ladies), just one more of our cast with a tragic past and a desire to make right that which has gone wrong. Of course Charce breaks the mold by being full blown nobility in a land of technocrats and affluent professional families, but the real fun of his backstory, much like with all the rest, is with the little details passing beneath notice. That transfer into the school just before the start of this adventure—and its similarity with Aries’ own situation—isn’t simple coincidence for example, considering how similar a lot of these character pasts are there’s more to it than meets the eye. Then comes how eerily similar Charce’s childhood friend is appearance-wise to Aries, because if you’re not questioning that after everything seen on that front so far you’re definitely not looking hard enough. We have one hell of a twist right before our eyes, and it’s just a matter of when it chooses to finally raise its voice.

The main fun this episode however comes in the form of our new (old?) spaceship, which lo and behold is very similar to the current Astra of the show. Make no mistake, this one is definitely connected back to the whole reason of this story in the first place, as the odds of two ships of the same make crashing on the same planet within range of one another is low enough to almost be unimaginable. It may not be the exact same reason the Astra flies through space with a contingent of students aboard of course, but you can bet a lot of the accompanying details (lonely wormhole included) are going to be the same in both cases. After all our new mysterious woman surprisingly has minimal physical similarities with any of KnA’s main cast (if those grey eyes are any indication), but still enough to raise a few eyebrows once the mental pattern discernment kicks into gear and you remember Quitterie’s little breakdown.

We may be getting two questions for every answer in KnA so far, but it won’t be long before this sci-fi kitten is truly let out of the bag.

Full-length images: 38.

19 Comments

  3. Scifi kitten’s out of the bag already. For crying out loud, Seira is Aries spelled backward. Can’t make it any less obvious. Plus, Aries bawling like that. Yes, she’s an airhead but a really sharp airhead. That final scene of Charce with the photo really confirms everything.

    Aku
    Reply

    1. It’s not out the bag until the show properly reveals it, no matter how blatantly obvious it may be lol.
      Plus there’s still a couple ways to play this so I wouldn’t say we know exactly everything going on just yet.

      Pancakes
      Reply

    2. All the planets have been blatantly suggestive anagrams too:

      McPa: Camp
      Vilavurs: Survival
      Shummoor: Mushroom
      Arispade: Paradise
      Icriss: Crisis

      I have to say I am amused by a mystery that disguises itself by making you unable to tell all the many red herrings apart, lol.

      PurpleBomber
      Reply

  4. Oh well, another red-herring on the spy radar.
    But that another ship and sleeping beauty there makes me feel like someone was already doing the same route and failed. I wonder what happened to other members of the other ship’s crew, because I don’t think our new acquaintance was flying solo. Did they die out on this deserted planet, or are wandering somewhere out still?

    ewok40k
    Reply

  6. i have a guts feeling that this Old Space Ship here, has the parts they need to fix their own Ship back into Space. Now they need someone with “Fix-it” hands to do it

    Worldwidedepp
    Reply

  7. Hm, should I watch this? I have only skimmed through the blog posts in order to not get spoiled too much, but up to now I thought that it was some light hearted (read boring) space slice of life show.
    But if this show has a bit more meat than that, then it might be time to catch up.

    boingman
    Reply

    1. It definitely has more meat than your usual slice of life show, especially when it comes to its central mystery and smartly drip feeding week by week. If you’re at all interested in sci-fi with bite I’d give it a shot, KnA does largely stay on the side of cheesy sci-fi (particularly in terms of its science and technology), but it more than makes up for it with plot, characters, and overall execution.

      Pancakes
      Reply

  9. Well looks like I got Charce prediction wrong too… Or did I? Seira is Aries spelt backwards so maybe…?

    But of course, everything that’s happened so far is clearly intended – nothing’s been purely coincidental. Maybe the woman is and engineer who’s able to fix their Astra with her Astra’s parts?

    eamonx
    Reply

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