デストロノート

DESTRONAUT

ONE_SHOT

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
Not Available
RELEASE
April 19, 2021
CHAPTERS
1

DESCRIPTION

Spaceship "Kinjo" lands on the Moon, carrying classified intel. After all contact with the ship and its crew is lost due to the spread of a mysterious biofluid, it's up to the last master swordsman left alive, Tomura Tadamitsu, to retrieve the ship's cargo.

CAST

Tomura Tadamitsu

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

decco6226
91/100
A Lovecraftian experience in less than 35 pages
After coming upon this one-shot from scrolling through Anilist, I decided to give Destronaut a try, and man, am I ever glad I did. It's hard to summarize what exactly I read into words the fact it reminded me so much of something H.P. Lovecraft would write - after studying him in my English literature university classes. The profound emptiness it leaves you while reading, much like the endless void of space in which the main character is is amazing.

Unsettling, eerie, and yet, extremely beautiful, Destronaut tells the story of an elderly samurai sent to the moon to recover a governmental disk from a wrecked space station. Once there, he is settled upon the corpses of year-old cosmonauts, possessed by some sort of biological component not known to Earth's organic structure, and must fight to complete his mission.

I loved the art of this series so much. The author knows very well how to portray a sense of foreboding emptiness that mirrors the cold, black, endless cosmos that surrounds their protagonist, which reflects in not only the creepy, empty geography of the moon but also the hollow, lifeless views of the possessed cosmonauts, as well as their empty space station, half covered in some sort of biological material that's overgrown it.

The story, while quite simple and short, does not need to be much more complicated than how simple it is - especially for a one-shot. It gets the point across and leaves the reader interested, satisfied, and eager to read until the end - even its small plot twist at the end. In my opinion, Destronaut would make a fantastic anime movie or OVA. If it could be really fleshed out, maybe a short tankobon set, or an anime series. However, dealing with the story alone, I think the more fleshed out it is, the blander it will be. Some works are better as short stories, otherwise, they lose their sense of creepiness, horror, or mystery. And for that, I give it major props. The only downside I would have is that the characters are fairly bland, but I can see from a stylistic point of view as to why that is. For one, it's a one-shot - the big idea is not the characters to begin with, and for something around thirty pages, there's not much time to flesh out characters. Two, the story isn't about characters, really, but more of an expression of atmosphere, art, and mystery - at least from how I view it. And for that, I give it mad respect.

As a one-shot, I think Destronaut did very well, and it reminded me of one of my favorite horror authors of all time. It's short, creepy, has an absolutely beautiful artistic feel, and the voidness of space as well as the "creatures" in the work, mixed in with beautiful action make it absolutely worth the read. And, as this work reminds me a lot of the author himself, I think the quote from H.P. Lovecraft fits the style of Destonaut perfectly, and why you should definitely go and read it too:

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."
-H.P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature

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CaptainZaimon
100/100
A very short story about humanity, our ethical dilemmas and the double-sided nature of revolutionary technology.
We live in an era where conflict derived from differences in people's moral compasses is as common as it is relevant. Regardless of whether we're arguing politics, some theoretical ethical dilemma, or even just wondering whether some questionable piece of media should be popularized or not, it's inescapable, even for those of us who only care about these things once in a blue moon. It's just one of those inseparable aspects of humanity in general.

Destronaut is the tale of an elderly swordsman, Tomura Tadamitsu, faced with a difficult conundrum, not unlike this sort of dilemma.

See, a spaceship that was meant to kickstart land development on the Moon crash-landed, and contact with the crew has been completely lost. And to add insult to injury, some sort of bio-fluid coated the wreck, making it near-impossible to retrieve the one thing a closely unspecified country's agent craves - some sort of disc with data on it. What's the data? Why is it so important? Why is the biofluid turning the crew members into its own vanguard? Nobody seems to know, or at the very least, they are not letting you in on the fact they know. All they let us in on is, mr Tadamitsu happens to be the only person who can help - he's said to have mastered every technique to swordsmanship there is, and his skill and precision are so unmatched that stories of him outperforming complex weaponry during the last war with just his sword strike fear and respect alike into people's hearts.

Thing is, he isn't eager to help, initially - it's just none of his business. That, and even though he's a man of few words, we can tell he doesn't like the idea of becoming some country or company's lapdog. I mean, why would he care about this in the first place? Not even the idea of receiving an unthinkable amount of money as a reward seems to faze him.

But then, the wife of one of the astronauts gets added into the mix. All she wants from the Moon is just a dog tag that belonged to her husband, a man who wished for nothing more than for the Moon to be everybody's shared good. Something to remember him and his noble goals by, a little memento, a far cry from the worth of the aforementioned data disc. How will this affect Tadamitsu's choice? Will he prioritize one last gig and go out in a blaze of glory, will this appeal to his emotions, will he simply take this job out of moral obligation? That's for you to find out.

I also don't want to spoil the twist regarding the biofluid's true nature and origins to you - however, I find it fascinating that instead of opting for cheap cosmic horror, this manga goes for a much more interesting, realistic and relevant idea for the origins of something this strange and terrifying.

Overall, Destronaut is a truly one-of-a-kind experience. Although short, in its ~30 pages, it manages to tell a story that's as compelling as it is scarily relevant and similar to the sort of struggles many of us face nowadays, this sort of conflict of one's moral compass with ideas like the greater good or the higher-ups' interests - and for that alone (well, and the masterfully done chiaroscuro, especially on the Moon's surface), it's worth your time anytime.
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