Laika in Space - Oneshot

[MangaDex]

 

[caseo78]

I did not want to feel this today. Thanks for the chapter. and the tears.

 

[GreenGreens]

 

[zholbro]

 

[renhex]

guess who just cried

 

[QSS]

....my heart feels very toyed with.

 

[analias]

Masterpiece.

 

[min_schlaf]

this was a great read, thanks for translating.

 

[sara1276]

😭

 

[SpookiLurkr]

I wonder if the Roomba ever found a habitable planet...

 

[theHist]

Good manga, thanks!!

 

[Echonic]

Holy shit this kept getting better, i loved it. thx for translating it.

 

[Pokari]

Depending on what you think about identity and personhood as pertains to memory and body and so forth, there's a very good argument that Laika 2 should still do a system restore (or—with different implications—make a third body) to recreate the backup of Laika 1 (who was mostly-erased during the walk home), who wanted to meet the rest of his family (particularly the sister).

(Mainly, because that mostly-erased Laika really might not have been on board with the implied final-shutdown here. Of course, there's an open-ended and semi-philosophical issue as to whether it's possible to give him agency at this point, or whether erased-Laika is dead and all you can do is make someone just like him, with varying implications according to how you went about it.)

 

[Oured]

The last thing that made Laika 2 who he was - the memory that he had to return home to see his father one last time - died with the death of the father. And so, Laika 2 also passes away, as he had promised to be with him forever. It reinforces the overarching theme that you cannot replace a dead loved one.

 

[insert]

Reminds me of "Be Right Back" from Black Mirror, but with greater development of the same premise.

 

[Darcow]

All aboard! Next stop: Feeladelphia.

 

[Pokari]

@Oured:

That wasn't really a theme I took away from it per se (if anything I felt the narrative would support a conclusion that family positions are replaceable—but that the individuals themselves are not, and that that distinction is important). Though I regardless agree that what I'd said would take away from the dramatic impact of the story, philosophical considerations notwithstanding.

(Obviously two people taking different themes away from something like this is expected and acceptable.)

 

[ZearoX]

So how do you guys interpret the last page? Does it mean Laika-3 has no emotional core, unlike Laika-2? That's the only real interpretation that I got from it, that somehow Laika-3 is merely a facsimile of Laika-2, and that perhaps it never constructed an emotional core like Laika-2 due to the father's emotional absence.

Would be interesting to hear how you guys interpreted it.

 

[PianoConspiracy]

@ZearoX

I think its more that he's just happy that their last day was a nice one. He has L3 ha demonstrated that he can be excited about emotional things when the sister was born.

 

[Meichiri]

@ZearoX

I think Laika-3 is quite emotionally mature so he accepted that his brother and father are at peace and that it is a wonderful day for them to all reunited like this just before father's passing.