“Maybe, the place you belong to, your home, isn’t as far as you might think”
Watching anime is a fun and joyful journey we walk along with. There are times when we walk along someone’s journey chasing their dreams, there are times we walk along someone’s love life, and there are also times we walk along someone’s adolescent growth. Along them, we laugh, we cheer, we anguish, we cry. Those feelings and experiences are what I am personally fond of in enjoying and exploring this medium.
Among those, there’s one recently aired show that made me feel so attached and loved so deeply to their main casts unlike any other in that season.
That is being Hoshikuzu Telepath.
Cute girls building a rocket?!
Hoshikuzu Telepath (星屑テレパス, eng. Stardust Telepath) is a manga adaptation of the same title serialized in Houbunsha’s Manga Time Kirara written and illustrated by Rasuko Ōkuma. Directed by Kaori (Yuyushiki, Endro~!, Gotoubun no Hanayome ∬) at Studio Gokumi, HoshiTele centered around the helplessly shy first-year high schooler Umika Konohoshi and her adorably cheerful alien friend Yuu Akeuchi.
Set in high school, our girl Umika never felt accepted anywhere she’s been. Perhaps due to her shyness resulting in her unable to build proper communication with others, Umika never felt connected to anyone else, she never felt understood by anyone else. She’s lonely. Thus, she decided to go towards outer space to find an alien who maybe, just maybe, would understand her. For that purpose, she determined to build her rocket.
However, building a rocket isn’t your average easy quest. It needs a deep understanding and expertise in aerodynamics, physics, mathematics, chemistry, and aerospace engineering. Nonetheless talking about intergalactic travel-able rocket to find alien civilization. This is a lifetime quest for her, especially with her crippling shyness, she finds it difficult to reach others for help.
Then all of a sudden, just like a certain someone barges into the opening ceremony of the high school, with a loud and cheerful attitude, the adorably cheerful talkative alien, Yuu Akeuchi, barges into Umika’s daily life. Since that day, Umika’s life has never been the same again.
The sparkle and its shine, The bystander and its misunderstanding.
What makes this show shine, what makes me actually went my way to write about it, is their characters. Each one of the four main girls is so well-written that from that regional model rocket launch competition defeat at #09 to that hugging scene at #11 my tears continuously stream like a river without stopping. Man, that was one of the best experiences in consuming media for me.
Umika, the light, the star, the sparkle.
Watching Umika throughout the series gives us the experience of cheering someone who tries their best to overcome their weakness and flaws, sometimes we would go “Do your best, Umika!!”, sometimes we would go “Oh silly Umika”, and sometimes we would cry the river seeing Umika tries her best. Sure she would fall, sure she would crash, and sure she would lose their way. This is a journey after all. But, seeing Umika, despite all of her shyness, still stood up unsightly, I could never laugh at her. She tries her damn best after all.
Like, when she failed and stumbled at the competition speech so badly, yes she was down so badly at the time, but eventually she found her back, and she decided to, once again, stand up on her two feet, facing that failure. To understand her failure, Umika makes her way to watch the speech recording of her countless times. Even though it was so shameful, even it was so unsightly, she watched that recording again, and again, and again. She would never give up.
Yuu, the mood, the shine, the smile.
For Umika, Yuu is the answer to her lifelong wish of having someone who could understand her. By the whole Odekopathy (Stands for Odeko, おでこ, which means forehead, and Telepathy) thing, Yuu can understand Umika’s feelings. She’s that cheerful friend we all introverts looking for.
However, every person has their problem, even extroverts who would throw their smiles at everyone everywhere every time. Yuu is no exception. She was thrown out of nowhere to earth while having no recollection whatsoever about her home. She’s lonely. We can see that whenever the scene of the early lighthouse came. She must be feeling so homesick while having no clue how to get her way back home.
Henceforth, in the later episode, would reveal, how meaningful Umika’s lifetime quest is to Yuu. How that serious tone when Umika told her that someday they would go to Yuu’s planet by using the rocket they would build together saves her.
Haruno, the support, the selfless, the bystander.
Everyone has their problem, even those geniuses. Haruno was introduced as a support character, who went their way to support her friend’s dream from behind. She would be there to help everyone whenever they needed. She even gave her gramps’ lighthouse’s furnished basement for Yuu to live in.
She’s that one friend who would step back to observe the whole thing whenever the group is having some fun as if she’s an outsider. But, she’s okay with everything. Whatever the path her friends take, she would support them unconditionally. She would never hate anyone or anything.
However, the Matataki word “If you don’t have anything to hate, it also means you don’t have anything to love” struck Haruno like lightning. Later on, it was revealed that she was afraid of crushing someone’s dream by sharing the same dream because of things in the past. Devastating by that, Haruno thinks that if having a dream would crush someone’s dream, she would rather not have any dream at all.
Matataki, the helpless, the logic, the misunderstood.
Now comes the troublesome girl. I’ve seen a lot of people hating her for the understandable reason. She’s blunt with her words, she says some mean things and her whole personality is kinda unbearable. But deep down there she’s a nice and caring person. It’s your usual tsundere type girl.
As a character, she’s the polar opposite of Umika. She’s strict, logical, straight with the words, and unforgiving. But, as time progresses, we’ll see that in the very core of all things, despite their differences, Matataki and Umika share a lot of things. They longed for the place they belonged, they felt lonely, they were hard worker, and they were strong-willed.
Through her blunt words, the story of HoshiTele works well. She’s such a fundamental character in the development of Umika and Haruno as a character.
The sparkle and its shine, The bystander and its misunderstanding.
Thus with such deeply written characters, the four of them shape and affect each other in numerous ways. Umika and Yuu’s love, Umika and Matataki longing, Yuu and Matataki funny Manzai-like combi, Matataki and Haruno love-hate relationship. All of those interactions are entangling in such composition making the characters so enjoyable. Not to mention the pairing that is always welcomed in this kind of shows.
Oshima’s opening and how it encapsulates the soul.
As if emphasizing the charm of its characters, the opening sequence of the opening theme of HoshiTele by Oshima Katsuya tells pretty much about what HoshiTele was trying to tell.
The opening shows three of the four characters staying in dark places looking so gloomy as if they’re missing something. They long for something. This would be visualized with their hand reaching to the unreachable source of light. Haruno tries to reach the star which perhaps symbolizes the dream, Matataki tries to reach the outside light from her closed garage which perhaps symbolizes the understanding of others towards her and her interests, while Yuu tries to reach the lighthouse’s light which perhaps symbolizes the direction that she has been missing.
Then we were shown Umika so full of lighting around her. Yet, she’s been looking for something outside the window, perhaps towards the outer space in the sky. She’s so full of light but stays in her house. Longing or something as if even if she’s full of motivation and positiveness, she’s unable to reach anyone due to her ultimate shyness which entrapped her from the outside.
Through an unexpected blast, Umika finds her house ripping apart, with zero gravity making her float and fly, Umika finds herself floating unstablely until someone holds her hand, and that someone is Yuu. This is tells about the meeting between Umika and Yuu.
The same happens with Haruno and Matataki. In the middle of the turmoils, Haruno finds goggles belonging to someone she’s familiar with while Matataki, the owner, floats in front of her. This sequence sums up the drama part between Haruno and Matataki which ends with Haruno giving back Matataki goggles.
This whole chaotic cutesy floating and jumping sequence is the whole ups and downs between the four in the span of 12 episodes summed up. All of those until they finally landed on the firm ground which was in front of the lighthouse. Those symbolize that after many ups and downs along the road, at the end of the show, they are finally able to find a firm place to step on. A firm foundation to make a journey fulfilling their dream. While having a lighthouse to show and guide them the way.
Truly one of my favorite opening sequences this year.
Simple yet so meaningful.
Afterwords
And with that, my review of Hoshikuzu Telepath comes to end.
Sincerely hope that more people will pick this show up because its characters are so great. Its fun, they have some cute chibi to lift the mood and comedy. The whole odekopathy gimmick is also so adorable. Have I mention they also invented new language for Yuu as an alien? ITS SOO CUTTEEE!! 8/10!!!
Gosh, please give HoshiTele a try.
See you later, Bonnavuu~
