Kanata no Astra Episode 12 Discussion

CHC said:
@Pikslap
>Are there any survival anime that come to your mind that aren't overly philosophical? Just a harsh, down-to-earth survival tale.

Try Mugen no Ryvius maybe. It has a similar premise but it is played out in a more "edgy" way and shows more ugly sides of the characters (perhaps only the ugly sides....) I dropped it after 8 episode since it's too over-the-top edgy for me, but I guess we have different taste.

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 is also exactly down-to-earth, realistic and no-bullshit, but more melodramatic and not so much as dark/edgy. There are similarly realistic survival manga like Kanojo wo Mamoru 51 no Houhou and Dragon Head which in my opinion work much better by having relatively mature characters in it (therefore less about melodrama but more about problem-solving/horror/adventure/mystery), but they've got no anime adaptation.

This one is less realistic, more sensational and more about twists-and-turns: https://myanimelist.net/anime/37175/Mi_Yu_Xing_Zhe

And Gakkougurashi! for an edgy zombie survival anime where cute girls suffer from PTSD

Not gonna mention other more mainstream stuff here 'cause I bet you already knew about them

CHC said:

You don't seem to understand what middlebrow means. Middlebrow doesn't mean "pretentious", the all-encompassing catchword used by those who never go out of their tiny intellectual comfort zone. A middlebrow taste means a taste for the kind of product that attempts to copy the intellectual achievement of high art, but is so water-downed that it requires little intellectual effort to digest.

What I'm basically saying, is that would I endure something like Mugen no Ryvius -- an unoriginal, middlebrow imitation of Lord of the Flies, if there are other much better "somber and tense" works about survival out there? The first 10 minutes of The Human Condition isn't shit. I didn't have to endure >200 mins until I finally get to see some good character study, or to get disappointed by discovering that there is none. No good writer can write shit opening, making every character looks like lifeless puppets who will mindlessly jump into conflict for the same reason for almost every fucking time whenever the writer thinks he needs some "intensive", one-dimensional drama rather than giving us a more complex view of the inner world of the cast. 8 episodes are more than enough to see whether the writer of the show is a good storyteller. Kanata no Astra at least didn't piss me off as much by taking itself so dead seriously while displaying absolutely no self-awareness of its bad writing. Kanata no Astra at least has a sense of irony and understands itself to be nothing more than a feel-good show for a silly lowbrow entertainment.

Anyway, if you insist that I can't say anything about anything I drop, just ignore my comment then. It has become pretty clear that we have very different taste by the way you described The Human Condition, so my opinion don't really matter to you nor yours to me. Perhaps I should've gathered that from your American Idol profile picture.

TheDeedsOfMen said:
So here's the question: why establish new royalty?

If they went as far as banning nationality and religion, you'd think royalty and nobility would be near the top of the "to be eliminated" list too, especially if they carry actual power. Remember, the people of Astra are not supposed to be ultraconservative reactionary monarchists. It makes especially little sense in this case because this royal family didn't exist before the exodus. Simple inaction would suffice. Nobody would miss them because they would never have existed before.

It is also strange that the king of the world has absolute power within a single district but almost none beyond it. Seems arbitrary. Bonus points for handing it to some corporate executive. Just why? Aren't there more pragmatic rewards to hand out?


Other notes:

A literally global conspiracy is pretty outrageous. The Illuminati need to take notes.

Also, hate to beat a dead horse here, but I'd like to mention the asteroid debacle again. They built 10,000 wormhole gates but couldn't deal with a single asteroid.

They really would have needed more than 12 episodes (and the manga more than 49 chapters) to fully explore all this. Especially with most of the outrageous plot twists right at the end, it becomes a high-speed gauntlet in which they barely have any time to process things or comment on them.

Lylaaz said:
3/10

The king clone arc felt really ass-pull-ish, in the end I just didn’t care anymore.

The biggest loss was Kanata’s hand which he lost for being stupid.

Watching the last episode I felt my brain dying inside. Very bad writing.

I think every person who likes sci-fi and good writing will hate this show.

Nostalgik said:
i felt lonely in this thread xD thank you for sharing your thoughts. The show had a lot of promise and i was more than willing to embarc on this adventure and love it, but the writing was honestly bothering me each and every episode at some level, it being the story itself or the dialogue

Lylaaz said:


I'm happy you agree! Because it is true. People who don't aren't using their brains while watching this anime.
I kind of wanted to write my own review but RebelPanda review is amazing, if you haven't read it you should.

xeco said:


LOL , so in resume " if you dont agree with me then youre dumb and dont use your brain

So self-entitled , youre not worth discussing with

Lylaaz said:
3/10

The king clone arc felt really ass-pull-ish, in the end I just didn’t care anymore.

The biggest loss was Kanata’s hand which he lost for being stupid.

Watching the last episode I felt my brain dying inside. Very bad writing.

I think every person who likes sci-fi and good writing will hate this show.

Anime-is-King said:


Can we see your literary works? I just assumed you had some since you must know whats good to be calling this "very bad writing". I would guess you're just a pretentious dweeb with no clue what constitutes "good writing" based on how you typed that out in list form rather than a coherent paragraph.

Lylaaz said:
3/10

The king clone arc felt really ass-pull-ish, in the end I just didn’t care anymore.

The biggest loss was Kanata’s hand which he lost for being stupid.

Watching the last episode I felt my brain dying inside. Very bad writing.

I think every person who likes sci-fi and good writing will hate this show.

Lylaaz said:
I'm happy you agree! Because it is true. People who don't aren't using their brains while watching this anime.

sammyk124 said:
I don't know about anyone else but wow, what a goddamn finale, I was genuinely crying happy tears for these kids.

I was one of the fans of this show that despite seeing how it's flawed, rather saw that this show was wholesome and heart-warming as hell. This ending couldn't have been more perfect in my opinion, it was just so satisfying!

Zack and Quitterie get married, so do Aries and Kanata, Ulgar becomes a journalist, Yunhua becomes a famous singer, Charce becomes king, Kanata and Zack get to pilot the ship Kanata bought back from a museum through the selling of his hit novel, and everyone just lives happily ever after. As cliche and cheesy as it sounds, I love that we got an ending like this. Having the show end on bad terms would've ruined the whole show. But this finale made it seem like we truly embarked on a 12-week journey with these kids, witnessing them grow closer and overcome the hardships they faced.

The bit where they went over all the memories they made and which was their favourite truly brought tears to my eyes too, even them mentioning that Kanata saved a number of their lives with the same arm he eventually lost was just way too touching. I'm so happy about the bonds they created and the time they spent together. Seeing them all together and still happy 7 years later was just the cherry on top.

I really loved this show, please tell me there are others who loved this show to bits like I did!. I'm going to miss watching this every week. Great characters with an entertaining story, crisp animation and solid directing. A true hidden gem of this season!!

justuday said:
omg why do people still question about it it was clearly mentioned in the anime , they found a new planet full of resources and everyone wanted to rule over it and fought with each other and half of the population died and we they realized what they did was stupid and they wanted to start over so they planned to do it in planet astra

TheDeedsOfMen said:
Just mentioning something doesn't make it plausible. The actions of humanity seem so wildly implausible and arbitrary that it breaks the suspension of disbelief and ruins the script. It feels like the author has never lived on planet Earth because actual humans don't behave the way they do in this show.

Lylaaz said:


I think every person who likes sci-fi and good writing will hate this show.

Nurguburu said:
I had such high hopes for Kanata no Astra after the one hour-long episode but it went downhill quickly. Full of annoying coincidences, forced drama, plot holes, stupid characters and plot armor to everyone and the ship. And the lack of tension was the most annoying thing.

The plot twistes make sense but they're pretty random and silly for no reason. I mean, for example how can I believe Charce's medieval kingdom backstory in a futuristic show? It takes me out of the immersion in a bad way. And the one-dimensional king makes it worse. The only plot twist that fit well was the whole story about Paulina and her origin. It was better than the entire show, sadly it was short-lived.

The premise and setting is very interesting but the actual writing and execution leaves a lot to be desired. Excessive number of characters for 12 episodes.

Overrated as fuck.

3/10 for the anime.

GenesisAria said:
I will completely disagree with you on Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu though.

GenesisAria said:
You still goin on about that satanist pessimistic crap?

GenesisAria said:
Sure it's a fair bit on the optimistic side to just handwave that everyone gets along... They should have at least destroyed all record of the wormhole tech and left it to the sands of time.

GenesisAria said:
They would need a ruling power to enforce order and a certain way of living. As i've discussed plenty in prior episodes, they didn't eliminate belief systems, they just created a single world belief system in it's place, a new dogma to end all other dogmas. That was the whole point. It was an organized controlled effort, taking it all into one's own hands to make the change inescapable. The new world would have had to have been created in tyranny. By the way, that is the manifesto of most conquerors who aren't insane, is world unification, to end all future wars and bring peace. That was not a hole in the premise at all.

GenesisAria said:
In reality, asteroids don't collide with planets, there is no actual evidence of this, merely assumed that the craters are impact when there is insufficient evidence to prove it (however that is not known to most laymen)...

GenesisAria said:
BUT in the context of the story, i dunno, maybe they were going for the asteroid armageddon scenario, or maybe that was also false and the truth was that it was actually a war and the remnants moved, or only a select group moved, and a lot of the rest of the "real history" is another layer of deception to mask bigger sins... Just food for thought.

TheDeedsOfMen said:
To be fair, one of the main points of LoGH is that people are often ignorant or outright idiotic in many ways, especially of tactics, history, and politics. This is stated pretty blatantly, though it arguably rubs it in a bit too often.

By the way, I don't know if you're aware, but the early stages of the remake only cover most of volume 1 and even then there is a lot of information lost from the novel (just like in the original anime also).

TheDeedsOfMen said:
It is difficult to comment on your ideas because we don't know enough about their technology.

A few tactical points are known though. They already use EM jamming. Apparently, that's why their communications are such garbage. They use guerrilla tactics sometimes, not with single ships though.

TheDeedsOfMen said:
People are into poshness and "the connection to the symphonies"? Who? I always had the impression that people like the plot progression, political philosophy, semi-realistic human behavior, and the somewhat grim view of humanity. And some memes, of course. I haven't conducted any polls though, so I guess I could be wrong.

TheDeedsOfMen said:
"Satanist"? What are you even on about?

TheDeedsOfMen said:
"A fair bit" is a ridiculous understatement. Humanity rarely agrees even on less politically charged things, let alone suddenly abolishing existing states and traditional religions and somehow living peacefully afterwards.

TheDeedsOfMen said:
The narrative suggests that the transition happened peacefully and voluntarily.

TheDeedsOfMen said:
Astronomers witness asteroids collide with planets all the time.

TheDeedsOfMen said:
The narrative doesn't suggest any of that. At least I can't see enough signs of it.

GenesisAria said:
I'm aware, and people talking about it said it was at least as faithful as the original anime, but on some different aspects. I've never heard of it portrayed as idiotic. People are always going on about how it's some amazing commander vs commander clash of strategic minds yadda yadda. "Omg look at all of the amazing tactics and strategies and formations! It's so sophisticated!"

GenesisAria said:
The atmosphere of the series sells itself to appear intelligent and high-brow.

GenesisAria said:
Strategy and tactics IS absolutely a battle of minds, which is what LotGH sells itself as, but fails miserably at, only thinks and pretends it is.

GenesisAria said:
If you want to see a better depiction of intelligent strategists conflicting eachother, watch the chinese film duology Red Cliff.

GenesisAria said:
Well for one, even in present day we are verging on or already have unjammable fractal analog signals.
Here is a crude example of something i did a while back as abuse of FTL in an rts game (a tactic i thought of years before i actually tried it): https://streamable.com/0kr8w ...

GenesisAria said:
Most of the people that obsess over LotGH tend to be elitist hipsters that gravitate to stuff that seems more "high-class","intelligent" and "elite"

GenesisAria said:
(which is also why a lot of edgy serious stuff with various aspects that commentate on the human condition in a pretentious manner appeal to the same kinds of people).

GenesisAria said:
The symphonies, i dunno people talk often about how the plot and orchestral music are related. I think it was something about it all being structured in a similar way to particular pieces of music or something. That is a neat gimmick, but doesn't make it godly or anything for doing so.

GenesisAria said:
Satanism is the belief that humanity is inherently sinful, and if left uncontrolled, they will default to the most horrible of behaviours and actions. It's literally religiously secularized pessimism. They will always use war and crime and such as their "proof" but this is just confirmation bias and only looking at the negative aspects.

GenesisAria said:
That's primarily due to the persistence of conflicting Ideologies. It would be highly presumptuous to suggest that it's an intrinsic human trait. If the problems are gone, humanity will stagnate.. Stagnation is ignorance and lack of any progress, but it can be very peaceful if everyone is under the same rulership and ideology. Freedom brings about chaos and progress, but it has the side effects of also having the undesirable conflicts of differing views, and applies more variables which can lead many people to unideal circumstances that will likely jade them. The Galactic Empire in Star Wars was quite peaceful, it protected it's citizens, managed it's economy and was mostly doing quite well on the large scale (aside from some idiot projects like the deathstar), though it was maliciously tyrannical by doing so.

GenesisAria said:
A peaceful story to promote a peaceful outcome built on ignorance...?

GenesisAria said:
Yeah, no they don't. You need to do some serious research on that one. The things they call "impacts" are straight up assumptions. If you look at the actual data, there are usually unexpectedly bright flashes before contact. This even happens with comets. You can't shoot an object at a charged body like a comet, asteroid, or planet, and expect it to not have a significant electrostatic discharge, which is usually enough to vapourize the smaller body, due to voltage differential. Larger bodies are more likely to exchange extreme amounts of energy via massive arcing and excavation but generally repelling eachother. Again, as i said, most laymen and casual people who don't actually investigate the science won't know these disconnects between what is said and what the facts actually are.

GenesisAria said:
The anime is full of twists, and the anime may not have gotten the whole story.

Kimurah said:


That's the same as: "wah wah you can't criticise a movie if you've never been a director"

Well, skippy, as hard is for your little brain to believe, you really don't need to be a content creator in order to make an objective analysis on what went wrong with it. As long as you understand simple rules behind in the making of script writing, anyone can see the differences between good writing and bad writing.

This can be applied to any sort of medium

* You can't be a food critic if you've never cooked for a 5 star restaurant

* You can't be a sports newscaster if you never played the game profesionally

* You can't be a motorcyclist test ride editor if you've never built a bike yourself, and so on...



Yeah, but we have already stablished several weeks beforehand that you're a fanboy of this work, so your statement that you like good writing and like this show is completely irrelevant and highly questionable.

Lets be honest, there's way more contrived writing than just Kanata's hand, and we've been mentioning this since the beginining (the whole idea of removing all borders and nations along with religion and creating an unified belief, covering a lie that the whole world agrees with, massive migration despite having the tools like FTL travel and warp tech to destroy or deviate the collision course of an asteroid, convenience on the crew getting all kind of resources and means to repair their ship without them being trained astronauts or field specialists, full convenience on finding a fully functional spaceship after being abandoned more than 100 years in a zone where an asteroid crashed with earth or just getting some damage from everyday debris circling around earth, and all the other asspulls this show showed off)

And yes, I know you're going to pull out the card "People should believe what the author says so" wich furthers proves my point that you have no idea what good writing is if you so easily believe all the crap that comes out of a writer's hand, without considering the plausability of the events; and note that I didn't call it being realistic, I'm talking how far can fiction stretch out a possible scenario without breaking suspension of disbelief.

Edit: Vinland Saga is also filled with tons of asspulls like a one army man swiss knife Thorfin that can kill several armored soliders in a single line with just one knife and similar impossible situations like that. So at least I can say we both agree on something afterall, and this comes from someone that thought Vinland would have been among if not the best of the season in the early episodes, but changed his mind after watching all that shonen-like display in a series with the "historical" tag, wich tons of fanboys defend it just because it has the word "Saga" labeled on the tincan.