For as long as she can remember, Umika has been obsessed with space, stars, and most specifically, other worlds filled with aliens. The reason? She wants to find a friend, and her shy and timid nature prevents her from being able to make them on earth, but she’s absolutely confident that she can make friends with beings from outer space! First, however, she has to make her way through high school; and unfortunately her first day is going about as well as she expects (a total disaster), when suddenly a new classmate bursts in and introduces herself as Yu Akeuchi—an alien. Oh ho! This is just the opportunity that Umika has been waiting for! But is Yu really an alien, and even if she is, can Umika possibly overcome her nervousness to form a bond with this eccentric and loud girl? Well, foreheadpathy might be able to help with that…
I’m afraid I may not be the best reviewer for this cutesy series because, although I’m completely, 100% on board when a CGDCT show is especially warm, funny, and/or meaningful, I have zero interest when I find it to be mediocre. Unfortunately, Stardust Telepath (beautiful title by the way!) is just that: mediocre. Events happen kind of quickly before I can really get my brain around what’s happening, but I think I can deal with that since this anime is adapted from a four-koma manga. What’s harder to accept is how frustrating the series is. The frustration comes because we’re far, far too much in Umika’s head. There is so much internal dialogue since this show (at least episode one) is from Umika’s point of view and she rarely interacts with people by use of words. So we only know what she’s thinking through her narration, and while it starts off cute as she worries about her first day, all the thinking we’re listening in on gets wearisome really quickly. I get that Umika’s really shy, but I don’t need to hear her freaking about communicating with others pretty much every second of the episode. On a more primary level, it also just doesn’t work for me because her dream of making friends in space feels far too immature for a girl who’s presumably sixteen years old. Again, maybe because we’re inside her head so much, we’re left to face the “reality” of her immaturity, whereas with other similar shows, the characters may be given more of a pass for their weird thoughts and activities. And one final fault as well—the show is meant to be sentimental and warm, but I really don’t care about the two leads enough to feel anything about their journeys, although judging by the heartwarming piano music, I’m already supposed to. While Umika is exasperating, Yu is equal parts cringe and not memorable enough to play the Mork to the former’s Mindy. Speaking of which, the romantic elements of the series are yet to be seen, but it should be noted that the opening credits lean hard into two GL pairings, and there’s a lot of blushing, hugging, and the aforementioned “foreheadpathy,” where Yu touches Umika with her forehead to discover her feelings and thoughts (which I feel is absolutely cheating by the way in a series where you would think Umika’s growth in communicating with others would be paramount). However, friendship seems to be a better focus of the series, with episode one even ending with Yu’s proclamation that Umika is her new bestie for life. Good for them. As for me, I’m not interested in becoming friends with these characters and staying with this show. It’s an easy pass for me.
Stardust Telepath can be streamed on Crunchyroll.
Ah, that’s too bad. I was kind of thinking of trying this series out. Recently I’ve been reading a very cute manhwa called Lovers of the Galaxy about a girl that’s a huge alien fan after she met an “alien” as a small child. She ends up joining a UFO enthusiast’s club at school and it ends up that her alien is actually closer than she thought. (cough, cough) classmate. It’s very cute to see the UFO club geek out over alien sighting accounts!