I have been meaning to read Hoshikuzu Telepath since 202o, but there were a lot of series to get to first. Now that we are getting an anime of this MangaTime Kirara series, I made some space (heh) in my schedule to read it. I had pretty low expectations, to be honest, since I’m familiar with MangaTime. What I found in Volume 1 surprised me, I’ll be honest.

Umika is a girl with severe social anxiety, to the point of not being able to speak to her classmates. Her one interest is space and aliens. In her heart, she fantasizes about meeting an alien and becoming friends with them. So when Yu, a girl in her class, tells her that she is an alien and has telepathy that allows her to read Umika’s mind when they touch foreheads…everything begins to change.

 The premise was not at all to my taste.  Through the first third of this volume, I was skeptical, maybe even cynical about the story. My main complaint was Umika herself. When the girl seated next to her in class said something banal and reassuring, she failed to even register that the girl was nice to her, in her panic about having to speak. I also believe there is a not-very-fine line between being interested in space and being desperate to talk to aliens. Yu just tromps all over Umika’s overactive boundaries in a way that forced her to stop thinking of only herself, but I found her story hard to credit. How would this sustain even a 13 episode anime?

Then the premise stepped aside for the actual story, and I found myself enjoying the manga much more. Yu and Umika decide to go to space together and to do so, they start gathering people around them with skills. Umika find herself being encouraged (sometimes rather assertively) to speak her mind and when she is rewarded for it, she gains confidence. By the time the volume ends, the plot hasn’t changed but the premise has, very much for the better.  Since the anime is only a few months away, I won’t spoil the big reveal, but I will say that while reading Chapter 1, I was definitely not going to read any more of this series, I may now. It’s only a three-volume series, and if it can surprise me once, it might have more surprises in store.

The art, though, is not a surprise. Like most MangaTime comics, the characters are full-on fetuses with frilly dress-type moe. There’s little regard for spacing in very crowded panels, and a frequent breaking of panel walls (which I quite like) and we’re always too close to blobby moe faces. I always want to pull the camera back. I know the anime will clean this up a little. But expect frequent shouting and “eeeehhhhhh~~~~???” ^_^;

The last question has to be “Is it Yuri?” This manga was all over the Yuri lists when it came out. It’s easy to understand why, as Yu presses her forehead to Umika, reassuring her that she’s heard and understood. It builds almost-instant intimacy and can easily feel like Yuri to people who prefer romance to any other possible relationship. And, again to be fair, I have not yet the rest of the story and maybe their intimacy does develop…but I’m not holding my breath. ^_^ In fact, I’d prefer if they were just able to develop a strong friendship. I’ve been thinking a lot about how not every character needs to be paired up in a romance and in fandoms’ desire for that, we often obscure other kinds of emotional intimacy between characters.  I’m hoping to write an essay about that one day soon. In the meantime, I think I might be looking forward to the anime now!

Ratings:

Art – 6 Moe is not for everyone
Characters – 7
Story – 7 Slow start, but gets stronger when it changes course
Service – “Sexy” pin-ups and poses but the characters are fetuses in frilly dresses, so 6 for trying to have it both ways
Yuri – Ambiguous, with possibility

Overall – 7

For a silly, unsustainable premise, Hoshikuzu Telepath turned out to be a decent story.