Sunday 22 April 2012

Space Brothers - Episode 4

While Hibito is enjoying an opportunity to try his hand at weightlessness (and, as his brother notes, to hang out with some rather attractive women), Mutta still has his nose to the grindstone as the second phase of JAXA's astronaut selection process comes to a close.

More specifically, it's time for the final interview which closes off this round of the process, and Mutta being who he is this soon finds him swimming in a sea of self-doubt, despite his occasional outward confidence that he'll soon be joining his brother on the road into space.  Little does he know that he might be joining Hibito at NASA sooner than expected however, for another reason entirely.


Still, with another phase of the selection progress complete, Mutta finally has time to let his hair down a little, although his lack of a mobile phone threatens to spoil the party as he looks set to miss out on a chance to get hold of Serika's number - thank goodness for Kenjo, who seems to be far more organised and bails his friend out once again regarding this particular matter.  As if his mood hadn't already picked up enough from holding Itou's contact details in his hand, it's time to head off to the US at the behest of Hibito, which could well give him a leg-up in his training ready for the next phase of JAXA training - assuming he makes it, of course.

By this point in the series, Space Brothers has well and truly gotten into its groove - although Mutta still feels like a somewhat unbelievable candidate to become an astronaut for the most part, to be fair even his perceived weaknesses show a smart attention to detail which I'm guessing will be his ticket to success as the selection process moves forward.  Regardless of his dumb and clumsy nature, you can't help but root for the guy, and it's this feel-good factor of wanting to cheer him on that powers the series alongside the undoubtable "cool factor" of space exploration.  I still worry that it might not have the legs to continue in this vein, but for now I'm continuing to enjoy the show rather a lot.

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