Score: A

If there was an ideal way to establish a “lost in space” situation this is probably it. The first episode gave itself over 40 minutes to establish the main characters and their situation. They spent enough time on Earth before going into space. Almost the entirety was spent focusing on Aries who alongside Kanata really dominated this first episode. And they did a nice job making Aries a very likable person. She is an absolute airhead but done pretty well. There are times she does seem to be living in another dimension or have an incorrect dictionary in her mind. But thus far Aries never went to the level of being annoying and kept it all very cute. Maybe old women don’t want to be called old men or male teachers “mom”, but hey she’s still fairly on point. At least she feels like friendly glue for this group.

“Mistakes were made.”

Things did get pretty insane in a hurry though. I mean some weird sphere appears and boom it is sucking them up and spitting them out in deep space. It is a good thing Kanata was the kind of person to be on his guard or else…instant death. That thing is the big mystery of the series. I mean sure in anime we’re kind of used to people being randomly teleported to other worlds or dimensions without any reason. But you’d have to think there is some intelligent design behind all of this. While in fiction anything is possible, I can’t believe someone didn’t intend all this. Someone sent that sphere there and made sure to pop them out near a functional (minus broken communications) space ship. And yet this person was prepared to let these kids die.

The power of holding hands.

It is miraculous that they did survive. Anyone being hesitant on activating their helmets or being unwilling to risk their lives would have resulted in numerous deaths. The helmet thing is obvious, but it is miraculous that Aries and Kanata got out of this alive. For sure Kanata is pretty good at working over his charms. He saved Aries from the whole robbery thing and then saves her life in unbelievably dramatic fashion. Not going to be any troubles on that ship getting established. Heck the ending sequence for this episode was practically setting up the pairs itself. On that note I was impressed the show remembers that these people have families and will be deathly worried. We’re bound to see them beyond just this ending part.

This episode just had really nice flow. There was more than enough time to establish the various personalities of the main cast and how they will react to their situation. Luca was very much the curious type or at least the one most likely to take things less seriously. Luca was all over that sphere and not considering it a threat and was the first person to even think that this situation might have been a test by the school. You have the pretty boy Charce who is handling the biology side of things and is pretty likely to be paired up with Yunhua. Not much to say about her yet besides that she is rather quiet and shy. But I’m sure she’ll get moments to shine.

Heck the show even managed to add a kid to this cast of high school students. Funicia should make for an interesting part of the cast. In some ways kind of reminds of the original Digimon series. You have this kid thrown in and stranded with everyone who also has a rough relationship with her sibling. It should be interesting to see how things work out with Funicia and Quitterie. Along with Quitterie clearly being pushed alongside Zack. Ulgar seems to be the anti-social type of the group who will fire shots here and there. But he also did take the job of making sure to stop Kanata and Aries from flying past the ship. He’ll probably turn into a solid guy by the end of this.

In terms of first episodes this left a strong impression. We managed to delve into Kanata’s past to start off which made sense. He’s been through a pretty traumatic experience that ties nicely into what is going on now. It makes sense both for him to want to take charge when it matters and to know what to focus on in a crisis. And they did manage to create enough drama on just managing to get the group gathered after their immediate transport by that sphere. I’m sure many have seen various space dramas by this point, but it was still a really nicely done moment. Having the episode start off with Aries freaking out in space and then seeing the rescue from Kanata’s point of view worked rather well.

And now they start off on their 3 month journey back home. At the very least this was a great start from my point of view. It’s an episode that stands out since you really don’t get that much sci-fi these days in anime and the quality was there. Be it the terror of Luca getting sucked into that sphere or Aries trapped alone in space, the potential for emotional moments is set nicely. Now the show just needs to carry on and keep that up.