Astra Lost in Space is a completed work that was serialized in Shonen Jump+. It became popular due to its storyline that incorporates excellent foreshadowing. It was ranked 3rd in the "Men's Edition" of "This Manga is Amazing! 2019". The story begins when nine boys and girls on a space training trip are swallowed by a mysterious sphere and thrown into an unfamiliar space. They name a spaceship that happens to be nearby the Astra, and return to their homeworld. In this article, we will reveal all the foreshadowing and the truth. Please be careful if you want to enjoy the anime as it contains a lot of spoilers.
Foreshadowing and the truth that colors the story: A planet with no biological reactions and Astra
Foreshadowing 1: A planet with no biological reactions
At the beginning of the story, nine people are swallowed by a mysterious sphere and thrown into outer space. They escape by boarding a spaceship that happened to be floating nearby. A planet is visible from the spaceship. They think it is the planet Makupa, where they went for training, but it is a planet with no biological reactions. This place is described as being 5,120 light years away in space. When I read this passage, I wondered, "5,120 light years from where?" The "from where" was intentionally hidden. By the way, one light year is the distance it takes light to travel in one year, and one light year is about 9.5 trillion km.
Foreshadowing② Astra
This spaceship is named Astra. On the nameplate on the spaceship, "PER ASPERA AD ASTRA" is written. Zack introduces this as a proverb, overcoming difficulties to reach the destination. In Latin, this phrase seems to have the more common nuance of "overcoming difficulties and shining like a star." However, for some reason, Zack interprets ASTRA as star = destination here.
The Truth
At the end of the story, a shocking truth is revealed. Their destination is not Earth, but a planet called Astra. In other words, Astra is their home planet. That's why Zack interpreted Astra as their destination. And the planet they saw from the Astra was actually Earth. In other words, the Astra was sailing back from Earth to Astra.
Foreshadowing and truth that colors the story Relationship with parents
Foreshadowing Influence of parents and introduction of one parent
What is interesting about this work is that all the children are similar to their parents and are well versed in their areas of expertise. And, except for Aries, none of them are loved by their parents. Furthermore, there are parts where only one parent is depicted, such as the mother being depicted but the father not. Only Zack's father appears, and he is a scientist who was researching memory transplants, and Zack himself is a genius. Kanata only has a description of his father, who was an athlete, and has excellent athletic ability due to intensive training from his father, while Kitri's mother is a doctor and she herself is interested in medicine. Yun-Fat is also good at singing, just like her mother. For some reason, all of them are single-parents and have abnormally inherited the same areas of expertise as their parents.
The Truth
In fact, all nine of them are clones of their parents or people they adopted. Zack's father has already completed research into memory transplantation. However, to do so, they needed a person with the exact same genes as them. To achieve this, the voters begin to create clones of themselves. Kitri's mother is the one who actually does this. Funicia was not a clone for memory transplantation, but for organ transplantation. For this reason, only one parent was introduced, and she was knowledgeable in the same field as their originals.
Foreshadowing and truth that colors the story 2063 AD and the mysterious sphere
Foreshadowing ① 2063 AD
The story is set in 2063 AD. The word AD is used. The Gregorian calendar is a way of counting the years, starting with the year of Christ's birth (actually around the fourth year after his birth). In science fiction, if the Gregorian calendar is used, the story will inevitably be set in an extension of this world, so it seems that stories are often written using special nomenclature. However, this work deliberately uses the Gregorian calendar. Moreover, it is set in the year 2063, and seems to use fairly advanced science and technology. Many Showa-era works made relatively anachronistic predictions about the future, but this work began serialization in 2016, which felt strange.
Foreshadowing 2: Wrong History
As they finally get closer to their homeworld, it becomes clear that it is not Earth, but Astra. In Astra, the names of countries such as America and Russia are taught as part of history. However, history education is lax, and the Third World War is said to have taken place in 1962. (The real history is the Cuban Missile Crisis.) And the concept of religion does not seem to exist. And the one-world government was born, and it has now been 100 years since then. The only area not directly controlled by the one-world government is the Vixia Monarchy.
Foreshadowing 3: The existence of Earth
When Polina is rescued by Kanata and the others, she takes a sigh of relief at the fact that humanity is still living peacefully in 2063. The original purpose of Polina's space exploration was to find a planet that would be possible to migrate from Earth before the meteorite hits Earth, as research has announced that a huge meteorite will hit Earth in 2057. In other words, in 2049, humanity was living on Earth. However, even if they migrate to Astra, will they be able to immediately live an advanced life like their city?
Foreshadowing 4: Mysterious sphere
A mysterious sphere. It sends anything it touches into the vicinity of the Earth. What on earth is this sphere?
The Truth
All the answers are brought to us by Charles. Charles is a clone of the King of Vixia. The truth he told us is that, as Polina said, in 2057, the Earth will enter an ice age due to the impact of a meteorite. However, when humans find Astra as a place to migrate, they decide to migrate there. At that time, they used a mysterious sphere called a wormhole. Simply put, it was a sphere that could warp between Astra and Earth. However, in the midst of all this, wars break out all over the world due to territorial relations in the destination. And that battle was a tragic one that used a wormhole. The fighting that begins in 2052 will halve the world's population. To escape this crisis, religion will disappear and there will be only one language. The wormhole will then be sealed, and the migration will be completed in 2057. Then, in 2063, a world government will be established. At this point, in order to seal the wormhole permanently, it will be said that the migration never happened. (Since migration would not have been possible without the wormhole.) A false history will then be fabricated. This is why World War III was thought to occur during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Then, in order to harmonize the civilization levels, the unified government turned the Gregorian calendar back for 100 years. So now it is 2163, not 2063.
The foreshadowing and truth that color the story Finally
The more I read this work, the more new discoveries I make, and when I read it to the end for the first time, I couldn't help but reread it from episode 1. I'm looking forward to the anime!
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