【Astra Lost in Space】Science Fiction x Adventure! A story about a group of kids trying to find their way back home.

Astra Lost in Space is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kenta Shinohara.

The manga series was serialized in Shueisha’s Shounen Jump+ website from May 2016 and December 2017. It chapters are compiled and collected into 5 separate volumes. The manga won the 12th Manga Taisho, and the anime won the “Best Media” Award at the 51st Seiun Award.

An anime television series adapted by Lerche was released in 2019, consisting of 12 episodes.

The story takes place in 2060 A.D. A young girl named Eries Spring leaves for the five day trip to planet McPa. She arrives at the spaceport, where she accidentally drops her briefcase, causing its contents to spill all over. An elderly lady helps her, while telling her the story about when she went on a trip to McPa as a kid, which makes Aries even more excited.

Suddenly, a man riding a unibike snatches her purse. She shouts for help, upon which a young man wearing anti gravity shoes, leaps over a fountain, and delivers an attack which he calls “anti gravity dive bomber” but mispronounces the name, embarrassing himself.

Before Aries can thank him, security bots mistake him as the thief and take him away.

Aries heads to the meeting place, where the teacher takes roll call. One new student is missing, when the young boy from before arrives on the patrol bots, and Introduces himself as Kanata Hoshijima. They all then head to the spaceship and launch into space.

The purpose of space camp is to let children experience the nature without any adult Interference, so after dropping off the kids, the spaceship along with their teacher heads back to their planet.

All the children are excited to explore the planet, But as soon as the spaceship leaves, they see a giant sphere of white mass coming towards them. One of the students think it’s safe and confidentally goes near to touch it. But as soon as he gets close enough, the mass sucks him in completely.

Engulfed in utter fear, everyone starts running in the opposite direction of the mass, but it swallows all of them up, one by one. As Kanata is being engulfed, he sees black and white stripes and loses consciousness. When he wakes up, he finds that all of them are drifting in Space.

Spotting an abandoned ship, all of them use the gas thrusters in their space suits to propell themselves toward the ship. A boy points out that Aries is missing. They look out the spaceship, where Aries is floating in Space, unable to use her gas thrusters.

After attaching a metal cable to his suit, Kanata jumps into space. He manages to get hold of Aries, after which his friends pull them back to the ship.

The only hope they have is that the school will come to rescue them, but Zack manages to Pinpoint their location in Space. All hope of rescue seems lost when Zack tells them that they were warped 5,012 light years away from McPa.

What can a bunch of teenagers do when lost in space? Will they ever manage to get back home?