Review of Astra Lost in Space

Yet another anime victim to poor storytelling, unfortunately. Kanata no Astra caught my interest, because while obviously there are a lot of survival-type shows like btoom, gantz, and promised neverland. There are also a lot of classic survival mangas about jungle survival, and just survival type shows are just common throughout a lot of mediums. That being said, I've never encountered space-type survival like this show, and if they do exist, they're niche or not popular at all. As a result, while I am not the biggest fan of survival shows, Kanata no Astra caught my eye. The concept is good. People are stuck in spaceby a mysterious phenomenon, and have to survive, while also being wrapped in, perhaps a big conspiracy. Hey, not bad. Next, of course, you have all sorts of planets that you have to get by in order to survive, and that's where the majority of the story takes place.

Characters are also not bad. Unlike Sket Dance (creator of Astra also made Sket Dance), I felt like the characters were a lot better. That also might just be bias from watching Gintama and comparing the two, though. Anyways, the characters are not bad at all, and are just what you'd expect from a survival-type show. And, as expected of the author of Sket Dance, the anime is definitely fairly light hearted, and not a lot of grim things happen in the show. A lot of comedy goes in between serious scenes, and I can understand why people would be turned off. It's only natural. All the characters go through some sort of change, and you get to know them much better. However, I do want to point out that Yunhua is a very lazy character design, and the arc surrounding her is just poor. She gets by far the least amount of screen time, and I feel like she didn't have much of an impact at all. Definitely a throwaway character; should have just axed her to begin with, or changed her completely.

Next, we have the story. The story...sucks. Like I stated earlier, the concept was good. Even the execution of it was not bad. Planets are fine, there is one lazy episode with Yunhua, and another lazy setting, but pretty decent story at least. Also, the conspiracy behind the show is paced weirdly. While clues may have shown up in the first half of the show, you will come to realize that a lot of it is kind of bunched up in the end. That's not the reason why I gave this story a bad score, though.
**SPOILERS AHEAD

I gave the story a bad score just because of the inconsistency, plot holes, and idealism. First part is, of course, Charce. That entire arc was pretty weak. Not that Charce wasn't a good character, but after he was exposed and everything, it felt very fake and scripted. I understand that this is a light hearted show, but there definitely was a better way do go about this. Plus, just big information dump. This part of the story gives way too much information, and presents it poorly. They should have paced it much better.

Kanata and Aries are forced together which is also really stupid. The beach episode is stupid (other than the Ulgar part).

Actually, part of the worm hole theory was not bad at all. Hiding clones, hiding history, and getting rid of the clones. These parts were pretty good. It's just the part where they decide to expose history is kind of weird. I mean, do they also oppose to the banning of guns, since they are opposed to banning of worm holes? I don't really understand. Restricting weapons of mass destruction like nuclear weapons seem mandatory, yet they really want to expose worm holes. This part of the story is just straight stupid and idealistic. "Truth is the best." Well, if it's a "white lie" like this one was, and it was created to make peace, I don't really see the benefit of exposing it. I don't know why this show would make you think that the B-5 crew is actually of good nature for trying to expose it. Not a perfect solution, but nonetheless, still good.

Next, lets talk about the plot holes. I'm only going to list the biggest ones, but they're certainly more.
1. The girl that hibernated, ended up hibernating for 100+ years. However, it showed as 12 because of what? How did a lie that didn't even exist before the cold sleep happened change numbers? How did the hibernation screen display 12 years? This is a pretty HUGE plot hole, and just stupid. In fact, I think this should have been 100+ years so that the Charce arc was less awkward.
2. Not a single person exposed the 100 year rollback. This is stupid

Lastly, let's talk about the idealism. Light hearted does not equal stupid and illogical. I honestly feel like the last 2-4 episodes are just trash. What the hell is this? The crew does not get stopped. The originals do nothing to retaliate. Police just go with the flow and arrest the "bad guys" instantly. Government just lets the crew expose the history. Riots last for 5 seconds, even though last time, it led to half the population dying. Worm holes were not used nefariously. No wars erupted. ETC ETC ETC. everything is perfect. It's the "ending" no one wanted at all. Also, just like Naruto, everyone is perfect in the "time skip." Everything goes well, everyones rich, successful, married.
What would have been a good ending? Perhaps a split decision on the history releasing, or perhaps not releasing at all. Maybe DO release it. But, regardless, don't show the outcome. Make it more "hopeful" and vague, watch as the crew looks at planet Astra, credits roll. A lot more impact than 20 minutes of everything going perfectly well.

Conclusion:
Story is a mess near the end, but started fine. Last planet arc is also a mess, mainly due to story. It felt very rushed from that point forward.
Characters are fine, but also fall apart at the end. Yunhua in particular useless
Still, a solid watch. I honestly would have preferred a grimmer space survival, but I think the "survival" part of the story was at least pretty good still. This show dropped from an 8 to a 7 from the last few episodes alone, and honestly should have dropped to like a 6, but I'm generous.