Category: Uchuu Kyoudai

The chemistry between the characters in this episode was just amazing. Even more than usual; the facial expressions said so much about the different cast members, and the stress amongst them was just wonderfully portrayed for every single character, aside from perhaps that woman in team B. I like it when a show withholds the state of mind of some of its characters, but I also just love how this series attempts to dive into the mindsets of multiple characters at the same time, to show how differently they all end up reacting to what’s going on.

As for the reason I dislike slow pacing: that can be attributed to Naruto and Bleach. What I really dislike is the kinds of series that pad out their time, for the sake of padding out time. A recent example of this was Kaiji’s second season, in which everyone started to repeat themselves over and over and over ad nauseum.

With this however, I really want to applaud Uchuu Kyoudai for showing how a slow pacing should be done: every scene adds something. Every characterization improves the characters and makes them more rounded. And the great thing about this is: this series managed to find a way to never be boring; it’s always interesting, due to the fantastic acting here. Because of this, the creators are able to create an engaging story with a lot of twists and turns and really well rounded characters to boot.

Of course, right now it’s pretty clear that Fukuda and that Rubix cube guy are people from JAXA sent in to stir up trouble, but what interests me much more than the mystery around them is the way they’re acting and how they managed to cause the tension around everyone to rise.
Rating: (Awesome)

This is the episode in which the tensions really start erupting. In Camp B, this is the usual stuff, in which one of the members cracks and starts causing tensions deliberately amongst the rest of the team. The reasons for him cracking are vast: having to live together with one fidgety guy, one very quiet guy, and one overconfident guy, but the straw that broke the camel’s back was a timer that was set off in the middle of the night, which was probably initiated by the guys from JAXA in order to test them.

In Team A there also was tension. However, in the circumstances there are completely different: a clock broke, and it was Fukuda who broke it. Why on earth would he want to do that?! Why he of all people? After last episode, he was the last person I’d suspect to have done it. But that’s the great thing: if the creators can successfully back up the reason why he did it, things really will become amazing. At first I thought that he was some sort of agent from JAXA, meant to stir up some trouble here and there, but with the previous episode and his reaction while breaking that clock this seems highly unlikely.

Especially Mutta was amazing here, and very different from his usual self, especially after he again had the luck to witness what really was going on. I really liked how he, after witnessing that, decided to remain quiet about it. Seriously, this show has some very annoying cliff-hangers. Rating: ** (Excellent)

OP change! And it’s a shame, because this one is far from as memorable as the first op. In fact, the vocalist is pretty cheesy. The only thing that makes this worthwhile is the weird danging. That was pretty funny, but in terms of music it completely failed to grab my attention. I really like the new ED though. he song is excellent, but the idea behind it is also just wonderful.

In any case, this episode turned Fukuda awesome. It’s unusual for this series to devote an entire episode to a character other than Mutta, but Fukuda turned out to be a brilliant choice for this. His back-story could have been cliched with the wrong developments: workaholic parents are definitely nothing new and I’m still hoping for series as Zone of the Enders and Supernatural in which both parent and kid are adults.

Here the creators used this cliche in order to give Fukuda an exceptional amount of will-power. His trait isn’t that he’s a workaholic, but rather that as a workaholic, he failed to accomplish anything he dreamt of in his life. Using that as a background, becoming an astronaut is something like his last chance, and he’s willing to go for it even for the sake of his daughter, or perhaps he’s trying to do this in order to be able to face his daughter, after lying to her so many times. this show loves not showing crucial bits, and I’m very curious indeed how his daughter thinks of him right now.

His glasses breaking were brilliant for this, because the drama that this created was excellent, seeing him push himself way too hard.
Rating: **+ (Excellent+)

I really appreciate that there are still series out there that are able to devote an episode to a single thought experiment. This episode may not have been the most eventful, but it was clever. Really clever. It took the issue of a famous TV-anchor complaining about the tax that space flight has on the economy, and created a different response for like what? 6 different characters? All of those were insightful in their own way, apart from the theory from the nervous guy perhaps. This series keeps finding new brilliant ways to use its newly huge cast.

This show doesn’t just have one smart character, it really has a bunch of them and I really like how this series is able to show the talents of all of them, especially in Mutta’s group. Mutta is the oddball who is able to think outside of the box, Serika and Nitta are the best performers in concrete tests, while the other two whose names I’ve forgotten play as the voice of reason… in completely different ways. I do wonder why the nervous guy made it all the way through the selection process: what made the quirky director take interest in him?

A few weeks ago I mentioned that this series was like a shounen series without the shounen with it having the characters carry out various assignments. This episode pushed that even further and the creators found far more interesting things for the characters to do. For that Rubix guy’s response they even did research for English philosophers on the matter.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Now this was some of the most uncomfortable romance I’ve seen in a long while. That’s a good thing though, because while it was hard to watch, it wasn’t annoying or contrived. There was no pointless love triangle or people being in denial, this is just about two people who find things they have in common with each other… and Mutta being absolutely terrible at flirting.

About the clock: I turned out to be completely wrong. I already knew that from the comments you all posted last week, but even then I didn’t imagine that Mutta would make this even better by creating some made-up story about the car’s velocity and the amount of miles it traveled. It’s a very important point in this arc though, because this is what creates a great first impression of him, a leverage which can be used later in the arc.

On top of that, I loved how every team made up its own rules and habits already. They came up with three totally different methods of determining the two who go through tat the end, using rankings, votes or just not thinking about it at all. With this, I now understand why we suddenly got to follow fifteen whopping characters with this: it’s to show the difference between how people might approach the problems they’re put into. And Space Brothers, you are awesome for attempting that. I mean, with this this series has by far the best characters of any currently airing series.
Rating: **+ (Excellent+)

The first and second exams were so standard that I didn’t really see this coming. But seriously the third exam is awesome. Last week already threw the cast in an incredibly interesting situation, and this episode even made it better: splitting everyone up in three groups, and having everyone live together for two weeks. That’s two weeks of constantly being on each other’s lips, just like how things will be in a real space station as a test to see whether the characters are psychologically fit enough to handle it.

This episode really focused on that psychology, especially when they showed that footage of the three astronauts who crashed into the earth. Beyond being a great death scene, it built even further upon the previous episode taking the risks of the job very seriously, and again this had a different effect on many of the different applicants.

And then there was that cliff-hanger. For once it’s not a surprise what’s going to happen, but nevertheless it showed a very interesting difference between Mutta and the others. I mean, all of the applicants here have a technical background, that’s pretty much a requirement for the job. When asked with a question of what time it is, the most logical thing to do for such a person indeed make an as accurate estimate as possible. Mutta however is the only one who also has a creative background (again that car he designed), which gave him a very different perspective: we’re in space. Why should time matter?
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Space Brothers, you are awesome!

No, seriously. This episode had a fantastic premise. Just grab a bunch of characters, and have them talk to each other. I’m a fan of good characterization, and this episode was just absolutely perfect for that. Why has no series done this before?

?This show is also THE proof that you don’t need a big budget to be an amazing series. I mean, this episode was literally just characters talking to each other.And yet: this episode introduced something like ten new characters. And at the end of this episode we already have a very good feeling of who they all are. This episode broke the ice in such a wonderful way and it just had so much life in it. It wasn’t just Mutta who was amazing to watch, there were a ton of othrer characters who were in their element.

Some highlights were conversation between Kenji and the old man, both fathers, between Mutta and that obnoxious yet observant guy, and those two guys who just sat there next to each other without saying anything also said a whole lot about their character. But really: just about every short conversation added something here.

This episode took a set-up that shounen-series sometimes like to pull by having characters face off in a fight, and reduced that to its essence: getting characters to interact with each other and showing this in many different ways that would not be possible normally. And this wasn’t even the end of it: the next episode promises to become even more interesting because every single one of these fifteen people will rank each other. This means that we get a lot of time devoted to seeing how everyone thinks about each other.
Rating: ***+ (Amazing)

So, it was a will. It makes sense, and it also changed the mood of this series quite a bit with this episode. There still is plenty of light-hearted stuff, but at the same time it also got Mutta thinking about the more serious issues of spaceflight and how things can easily go horribly wrong. Add that to Serika’s reason for trying to become an astronaut, and you’ve got an episode with a lot of really good mood-swings.

Also, Kenji: a “best friend” character who actually has a stable relationship. Not only that but he is married and has kids. I know that this is a series about adults, but still, it is very refreshing to see his archetype being done completely different. At first I feared that there would be some sort of love triangle between him, Mutta and Serika, but with this that also is very neatly avoided.

I also love what this episode hinted at: a time-skip. Instead of having characters ready within months to go into space, it’s established that it may very well take up eight years before Mutta can join Hibito into space, in which he’ll be in his forties already. Besides death, this episode put an even bigger focus on the passage of time for these astronauts, and how it’s completely different from what we’re all used to.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Damn you, Uchuu Kyoudai and your cliff-hangers! Heck, not only are you one of the best series to come out more than a year, you’ve also got the most addictive cliff-hangers I’ve seen in a long while. I was ready to write up this entry and comment on how awesome Mutta was again, and then it pulled that bloody twist at the ending. We’re going to have to wait a week for those answers!

Seriously though, with this, I can say this for sure: for me, Space Brothers has the X-Factor: it’s that special feeling that is really hard to describe, but just grabs you as something special. The characters in this series have such an attraction that is really rare, and this is an effect I only experience with the best shows out there. Now, this is only the eight episode. I have no idea whether this show will be able to keep this up for all its airtime, however long that may be.

The television show was amazing. I especially loved how baffled Mutta was at the crazy behavior of everyone; like, the exact same reaction when we watch some of the strange Japanese TV-shows out there. The best thing however was how the creators used the element of luck in the point they tried to make with this episode. I mean, the twist they used is a standard one: a lucky break gives the protagonist the edge over his competition. However, it looked into this with much more thought than its counterparts: make use of the luck that’s handed to you. That really was a great find and I applaud you for that, Uchuu Kyoudai.

In any case, this episode also showed some very interesting new stuff about Hibito. First of all: he acted with the same smug as Mutta when looking at Mutta’s stiff performance on the TV-show. It’s details like that that really shows that the two of them are brothers, and didn’t just grew up together. And yes, there was that cliff-hanger. What on earth is in those letters!?
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Hey everyone, I’m back. Paris was awesome.

Speaking of awesome: what an episode. There have been series that combine comedy and drama. This episode however was one of the best attempts at that in a long while. It combined the two seamlessly, and there were many scenes in which I was laughing and feeling sorry for Mutta, at the same time. This episode continued to add even more to his character, and his ability to follow many things at the same time was a hilarious yet wonderful side of him that we finally get to see.

The fire extinguisher plot thread was ridiculous, band yet it fitted so well. You’d have to be fantastically lucky to be in Mutta’s position in this episode, but after all of the build-up with that silly article about the fire extinguisher burglar, you’d almost have to include it somehow. This could have been incredibly corny, but the build-up for it was just perfect.

And in this episode, we also got the first look into Hibito’s head. It’s because of this that we got to see new sides of Mutta: the way Hibito sees him is completely different from how Mutta sees himself, especially when Hibito evolved into this neutral character, compared to Mutta’s over the top personality. Once again the portrayal of these two is amazing, and you really feel like they’ve known each other for ages. Despite that though, I feel like this episode only cracked the surface of Hibito’s thoughts: we only got to see inside his mind for a small part at the start of this episode. After that this episode went back to Mutta again. Really, this series is masterful at keeping you hungry: it knows just how long it should stall for something, and when it should deliver.
Rating: *** (Awesome)