Alternative title(s): Hoshikuzu Telepath
Manga Adaptation by Studio Gokumi
Streaming on Crunchyroll

Premise

Konohoshi Umika struggles to speak to others but wants to make friends, ideally from another planet. Good job one is in her class and has telepathic powers.

Peter’s verdict: The boss is gonna regret letting me join GLORIO

So here’s the deal. I rank Yuyushiki, Machikado Mazoku, Kiniro Mosaic, Hidamari Sketch, all the various anime adaptations of most Manga Time Kirara manga pretty highly. They have a certain aesthetic about them all that I really love, the comedy largely hit the right boxes for me, and they tend to be pretty gay too, although rarely in-text and instead prefer to lean towards a “will they won’t they” for most relationships, gay or otherwise. Unfortunately, recent series have bounced off me, like Magic of Stella, Comic Girls and most recently Bocchi the Rock! (although I will admit with that one I just forgot to watch it at the time). I should check out the new K-On! Shuffle manga at some point now I think about it. On the anime side of things, we have Studio Gokumi, who have animated many of the aforementioned shows, but I do want to mention that Kaori from the studio is both director and writer for this series. Kaori also directed the series Endro~!, an anime original series that I’m actually in the middle of a rewatch of at the moment, so they’re a studio I trust to do adaptations like this right.

Anyway, along comes Stardust Telepath, serialised in Manga Time Kirara since 2019 and is once again ticking all my boxes. The story is we have Konohoshi Umika as our lead character (my limited knowledge of Japanese notices “hoshi” (star) and “umi” (sea) so sea of stars I guess) starting school and being exceedingly shy and barely able to introduce herself at the start of class. Not quite Komi Can’t Communicate, but not far off. Also she has gradient pink/purple/blue hair, I guess makes you think of space but also just looks sick as hell. Umika daydreams about one day meeting aliens and making friends with them.

Bursting in late is Akeuchi Yuu, claiming to be an alien. Everyone assumes this is a joke, and Umika although hopeful at first begins to accept the reality that she won’t actually be an alien. But then Yuu presses her forehead against Umika’s and reads her mind? Maybe she is an alien after all, or she’s a really good mentalist.

As the episode progresses, the two get closer, Umika manages to string a few sentences together, they do the forehead thing a couple more times as well as hug and be Very Close Friends(tm). We find out that Yuu lost her memories supposedly after crashing to Earth and waking up in an old lighthouse on the edge of town. We end the episode with a new character approaching the lighthouse.

Look, I’ll admit it, this show is unlikely to be strong on the story. It’s going to be a pretty chill time, look very cute and be mildly entertaining. One weird decision is that everyone bar the main two characters seem to have extremely bland hair. You’ve got Umika’s amazing gradient hair, Yuu’s bright pink, and then everyone else is black, brown, maybe a blonde (ooh scandalous!), which makes me speculate that Umika might be from another planet too. If the hair colours aren’t diagetic, why stop at just the first two when (looking at promo art) there’s two more main characters to come.

I will say that this show feels a lot more direct with its yuri elements, especially with the aforementioned forehead telepathy, but also lots of hugs and hand holding. I notice that it’s explicitly billed as a “yuri” series in news reports and official Tweets, etc, while the other shows I mentioned weren’t necessarily that, at least not at first. It isn’t I’m in Love with the Villainess or Sakura Trick levels, but it’s a strong start from episode 1. I guess we’ll see how it goes on the omnipresent “subtext to text” slider.