Something weird is going on here: ever since Mutta became an astronaut, his climaxes have been a bit mellow. I mean, at the end of the first, second, and third exam you could cut the build-up with a knife, and the resolutions were all really well developed and had a ton of personality behind them. Here it’s like “Oh, you became fifth”. It’s all very straightforward, and while things were done to spice things up with the rain and mud and all, I still feel like I’m missing something. This edge, some sort of wit, that made the first year of this series so incredibly addictive.
Not to say that this is bad though. I’m not looking forward to Space Brothers in the way that I used to, but these two episodes again were very realistic: they took the build-up of the previous episodes and with that in mind, things happened exactly like you thought it would. Everything of the past three or four months was leading up to these two episodes, and so much preparation has been put into it. Yeah, there was very little that could go wrong.
And I don’t know whether these episodes were special or not, but the recaps at the beginning were cut down significantly. Now keep it that way! I mean, the pacing in these two episodes was perfectly done. Also, the animation and particle effects were also very well animated on Hibito’s reentry.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)
I think one of the problems now is how it’s been building up on this whole Mutta can and will solve anything portrayal which is killing a lot of the suspense. It was a bit expected with the rover challenge since it’s Mutta’s forte but it would be very nice if one of the side characters took the main screen again.
I like SB, and the humour was good, nevertheless some parts of it dragged for me.
Plus was the Fukuda san bit, it was a warm fuzzy moment.
Without the suspense, the show isn’t addictive for me. I still enjoy it and appreciate its realism, but it would be nice for a surprise once in a while… Will anything top the intensity in those Hibito episodes?