Space Brothers - Episode 15

Fukuda's glasses crisis has been solved in short order as this week's Space Brothers begins, while we also learn that "mission control" for this JAXA exam knows exactly how Mutta knew what time it was as their testing began - not that this seems to be a bad thing in the view of those watching over the would-be astrouants.

Such trials and tribulations are mere trifles compared to what is to come, as both Team A and B come across "internal issues" which threaten to jeopardise any sense of camaraderie and teamwork within those groups.  This all starts with Team B, who are being woken during the night by a phantom alarm clock going off.  But to whom does it belong?  The accusations being immediately from some quarters, and although Makabe offers up a more reasonable solution to finding out the source of the problem, this only sees him further targeted by one of his group's rivals.

Meanwhile, things are arguably worse within Mutta's group, as they wake up one morning to find their clock missing, only to find it hidden but irreparably broken.  With a new, time-limited and decidedly stressful task set before them - putting together a jigsaw puzzle of Akari from YuruYuri (aka a completely white puzzle) - we also start to see the accusations fly here.  It's Mutta who tries to put a stop to this, imploring the other members of his group to imagine that they're in space right now while assuring them that JAXA themselves must have broken the clock - what he doesn't tell them is that he does in fact know exactly who the culprit is, although not the reason for their actions.

Yet again, this makes for another instalment of Space Brothers which proves to be gripping thanks to the simplest of problems - a broken clock and a phantom alarm are hardly the stuff of high drama normally, but in the rarefied air of the current selection exam it makes for some great turning points in examining the characters with which we are now very much familiar as stress and personal ambition takes its toll on group co-operation.  No matter how much I worry about this particular segment of the series going on for too long, it seems to be showing no signs of running out of steam for the time being, and as a result I'm looking forward to the next episode more by the week.