The myth of the altruistic billionaire, the concept of space travel saving us after we wreck this planet, and a bunch of shonen goobers going into space at all have combined to make this my least enjoyed arc in the series’ history.
It blows so much smoke up the ass of this “fantastic” rich guy and that’s a non-starter for me (see: previous volume review), so you should absolutely take that into consideration when you assess my review. If you don’t care, you won’t care (and that’s certainly your right). For me, no amount of earnest backstory can save it.
Even devoid of that, the action is dull because there aren’t any stakes and every punch is completely pulled. This wacky absurdity with no danger served the series fine with the sharks and other insanity, but eighteen volumes along it has gotten a bit stale.
Also, they worry about tech in any form when they have a full-on robot butler travelling with them that’s more advanced than anything existing in our world. Why does anybody care about anything?
Oh, but care they do. So much so that we get an incredibly maudlin message of hope that might land better if this had an emotional core of any kind. It’s a decidedly not enjoyable volume, even if we finally get the details on the zombie outbreak.
This does seem to be winding down so I will likely stick with it until the end. The joie de vivre of living each day to the fullest and experiencing the world that is the narrative bedrock of the story just feels completely absent here. It’s not even that funny.
I’m fairly salty today, which isn’t helping, but I genuinely don’t think that affects my perspective as much as the fact that this is a very lame arc of something that usually sits at average to good. Underwhelming. It goes too far in all the worst places.
2 stars - go higher if you aren’t bothered by any of this stuff; it’s just pushing all the wrong buttons for my own tastes and I did not enjoy it.
Some might say this is when the series jumped the shark by literally going into space, much the way Family Matters probably exceeded its grasp by putting Carl Winslow and Urkel in space, or the time we put the Leprechaun in space, or Jason, or really any number of other characters who mostly made some sort of sense and didn't seem to have much connection to space.
However, Simpsons did it and had like 4-5 very good seasons left in it.
So you can probably put stuff in space because fuck it, there's no rules, just so long as you've still got other stories in the tank.
I DO feel bad for the main character's dad, though. They're going to cure zombification before they cure his hemorrhoids.
Fin del arco del espacio, con respuestas y preguntas por igual. Tras descubrir el laboratorio secreto en la TEI, el grupo consigue volver a la Tierra... no sin lanzar un mensaje de esperanza a todo el mundo.
Me encanta lo exagerada que es esta historia. El pasado de Ukaji me recuerda al de Akira, pero sigue siendo un bonito recuerdo de que debemos apuntar hacia las estrellas. Después de todo, somos una pequeña mota en el espacio... así que deberíamos vivir nuestra vida al máximo.
La retransmisión de Akira también me ha parecido muy bonita. Esperemos que su próximo viaje los acerque todavía más a su objetivo.
Thank you to the publisher for this free eARC! All opinions are my own.
The space mission continues with an almost casualty. The group learns the origins of the zombie virus, and use a satellite to give survivors hope. The next item on the bucket list awaits! #Edelweiss+