Stardust Family Review
In the far future, to combat the declining birth rate and tackle the increase in child abuse, Japan rolls out the Caregiver Inspection Act. This meant that people wanting children have to apply for a license and be investigated by Caregiver inspectors: children with special education to evaluate adults on whether they’ll be good parents or not. If they pass, they can have children, but if they don’t, they are banned from doing so, and become rejected by society. Through this act, an utopia has been achieved, or at least on the surface. One such inspector by the name of Hikari has seen many prospective parents fail the test, for various reasons, and he thinks he’s seen it all. Until he meets Daiki and Chisa, a couple living in a shrine in the countryside, and it’s through their two-week inspection that not only is Hikari’s worldview altered, but the future of Japan is changed forever.
Stardust Family is a complete omnibus story by Aki Poroyama; this series is their third work overall, but the only one so far translated into English, and it currently stands as Aki’s longest work (the previous being a one-shot and another being shorter than Stardust Family). Yen Press lists this book as crime, mystery and drama; I agree with the latter two tags but ‘crime’ isn’t really accurate here, I would instead put in ‘sci-fi’ as it does have sci-fi elements in the story, that are mostly in the background until the climax but we’ll get to that later. 
As you can see from the synopsis, this book talks about very topical and political topics, but media created around the declining birth-rate is nothing new, from the likes of The Handmaid’s Tale to Children of Men, it just feels more topical today, given the current political climate. What I liked about this premise is that it’s not just focusing on the declining birth-rate and squaring the conflict solely on fixing that or highlighting the important of giving birth, as a lot of these stories tend to do. Instead it combines with the increase of abuse against children, something that is also topical and often ignored when it comes to the birth-rate issue. There’s a large focus on the children in this book, not just paying lip service to saying ‘they are the future’ but also how they are shaped by their upbringing, and how it affects them into adulthood, giving them (seemingly) the direct power to shape humanity itself. It not only makes this version of ‘utopia’ feel different to what has come before, but more realised and you can mentally comprehend why society went down this path. Aki Poroyama has a talent for really exploring the extent of the world this story is set in, from the economical to the psychological effects it could have, and the themes they wanted to explore are clearly demonstrated in this omnibus. It’s a very dense book, so I had to re-read it a few times to get it all. I will try my best to go through it, but if you want the TLDR of it, yes, I recommend this omnibus.
One of the things I liked from the beginning was the immediate deconstruction of the ‘utopia’ it supposedly is set in. The Caregivers are highly educated children who spend two weeks with any set candidates who want to have their own child; they have to prove how they would parent their child, and the Caregivers then score them accordingly. Within the first chapter, you see a straight example of this not working as the inspector (the child) throws their dinner on the floor, and the parents then smile and act like nothing is wrong, obviously in hopes of getting a good score with the inspector. We see other examples of the system not working in real life too; with a flashback to Daiki’s childhood, we see that his mother’s perfectionism and need to have their child be perfect, override his own creative freedom of expression and undermine his identity, whereas outside of Daiki’s point of view, anyone would think he’s just a genius with well respected parents. Another example is of one mother who apologises for her child’s mistake on his behalf, not teaching the child a lesson in taking responsibility, only to then criticise another person’s parenting. Speaking as a parent, parenting is one of the hardest things you can do in life, and there’s no one way to do it. There are certainly wrong ways to do it and some tactics work whilst others don’t (depending on the child) but I really like this book’s outlook on that. Weeding out abusive parents, from physical to sexual, is an extremely good thing, but having one person decide for a couple, based upon a performance (that is easy to fake or practise) certainly has its flaws. For one, not every child is the same, so what may work within the test may not work on the child they eventually have. Also parenting is an evolving skill, how you parent a baby is not the same as parenting a teenager, and parenting an ADHD child will differ from a neurotypical child, etc. So whilst the Act looks very interesting and noble on paper, in practise it’s not so well thought out.
The world-building isn’t completely perfect however, as there are a few character background bits that end up raising more questions than providing flavour to the story, and also some text found in the background during Hikari’s flashback chapter that contradicts the actual themes within the text, but I really give Aki Poroyama props for trying. I would also have liked if the book had a little bit of queer representation on this matter, because they are a growing demographic of parents; alas, the book mostly focuses on heterosexual couples. But I will give credit for the act’s inclusive language; it’s almost always ‘caregivers’ (with the occasional ‘parents’), the deliberate lines about society needing good PEOPLE (not just mums and dads) to function, and there’s a throwaway line that mentions that the act was meant to promote adoption. This feels deliberate and I liked that forethought the mangaka had. The inclusive language reflects today’s society; not everyone has one mum or one dad, a lot of kids live with their extended family, or have different names for their guardians. I also liked that in two circumstances in the book, we see single mums who go through the Caregivers test, which shows a lot more variety than just a man and woman being able to bring up a child.
Whilst a lot of that is in the world building, the story’s main focus is Hikari (the Caregiver Inspector) and his latest assignments, Chisa and Daiki. The couple mention they’ve been together since they were kids, and it does feel like that on the page’ you get a sense that these two have been together for a long time, know each other really well and live their lives how they choose to. That chemistry extends to Hikari too; not only does he have a different relationship with each one, which most kids will do with each guardian they have, but also Hikari’s more stoic but empathic nature blends well with Chisa and Daiki’s relationship. They feel like a family more as the story progresses, and you want them to end up together, living happily in the shrine. I can’t deny that when we got to the last pages, I got a little emotional and found the ending very satisfying; even on repeat reads the ending works on an emotional level, which proves strong writing from Aki Poroyama.
It’s through these characters that we also see the other flaws in this ‘utopia’ as well; in this version of the future, having children is EVERYTHING. If you don’t get approval from the Caregivers Association then not only are you considered a ‘subhuman’ but also don’t get the same societal privileges as others, such as pay rises. We see this applied to Chisa, who has a tragic backstory that makes her an outcast in her own village, and you see not only how it affects her psychologically, but also that by law, she no longer has contact with her own mother. Daiki is overprotective of her, shielding her from the village scorn, but his overbearing nature also becomes a source of conflict in the first few chapters, which plays out well and I like that Chisa and Daiki discuss their issues, as adults, in a committed, loving relationship. Then there’s also Hikari, the centrepiece of this book; his character arc is built up slowly across the book, but it’s well done. I do like the splash pages we get in each chapter, of Hikari in typical childlike environments (classroom, arcade, fairground, etc) but he’s all alone, in wide empty spaces. It brings out the coldness and tragedy of his life; perpetually stuck in childhood but unable to enjoy what children are meant to find wonder and expression in.
I mentioned ‘sci-fi’ near the top of the review and you’re probably wondering why I’ve barely talked about it. Well, that’s because it’s a small part of the book and, admittedly, one of the story’s weaknesses. It’s mentioned very early on in the story that hundreds of years ago a comet fell to earth and shaped humanity’s history, but not the reason why. The comet becomes relevant as another one of its kind is due to pass Earth (just in time for a local festival) and because Hikari’s true identity is related to the same comet. I’m going to be vague here to try and avoid spoilers but I will say that the big twist in the final act, with the big information drop of what the comet brought to society years ago, isn’t well handled. It’s a lot of information packed into a few panels, and only one piece of the information is really relevant to the story: Hikari’s true nature. This also applies to the ending, which suddenly jumps forward 40 years, to have an important uprising happen off-page, to the final emotional finale. As I said, due to the characters, the ending still works for me, but doesn’t change that the sci-fi elements don’t feel well implemented. But I will say that Hikari’s identity is well foreshadowed, from the language he uses to how he acts differently to all the other children in the story.
Art is not a selling point of this book, but it’s consistently good. As it’s a small scale tale focused on three people in a remote village, the settings are small and quaint, from the classic Japanese home to the stereotypical festival stalls. But everything is well drawn and the little details make the atmosphere of the whole book, such as the aforementioned splash pages of Hikari in empty spaces, to the cover of the featureless (almost scary) parents, each with a hand on Hikari’s shoulders, whilst surrounded by picture frames of equally featureless families that Hikari has no place in. It’s the small details like that, that sell the drama of the story. Translation by airco is a good read; they break down the complicated set up very well and it’s easy to absorb. although it’s a shame there’s no translation notes.
Stardust Family is a dense book that explores abuse, society’s pressure to fit in whatever the cost, and the complex nature of raising children, all in deep and respectful ways. There are a few minor oversights but overall this is a really excellent, emotional story that feels well thought out by the author, whilst being emotionally satisfying to the reader.
Our review copy was supplied by Yen Press.
