Space Brothers Episode 70
What They Say:
To follow his brother Hibito to the moon, Mutta will attempt to become an astronaut at the age of 32. Unaware of his own talent, Mutta chases his dreams to get back in front of his younger brother.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As we barreled rather quickly into the graduation side of the series, Mutta now finds himself with the offer of working as a backup member crew now that he’s officially an astronaut rather than an astronaut candidate. With the JAXA team having all passed and moved on, now able to call themselves astronauts and to be a part of the larger history of the organization, there’s a lot of pride going on with them that’s entirely warranted. Still, with Mutta getting his bit of a dressing down at first, it was really fun to see how he was twisted around into the position he’s now been offered since it means a much quicker way for him to advance and to catch up to his brother. The shock and surprise was great to see and understanding how much meaning it has to him, especially because of those that have impacted his life, just makes it all the better.
With the series having focused so much on the lunar missions as well as giving nods towards the eventual Mars mission as well, Mutta discovers that the mission he’s being assigned is one to do some work on the ISS, which has largely been forgotten over the years in favor of these other missions. It’s still providing a lot of valued function for a variety of reasons, and being an international project is an important bond in that regard, but it’s certainly not of the caliber that Mutta was thinking it would be. Because of this, it makes him uncertain about whether to accept it or not since it could impact his future missions as well depending on the way the advancement and seniority structure works. He’s so intent on going to the moon that he may wait to go into space in general for a different slot to open. One that may never open. But in taking it, it could be closing off or lengthening the time it would take to get to his real destination.
What becomes really interesting is what Mutta ends up doing in, well, not getting out of it, but putting the right recommendation into play that will help Serika achieve her own dream since she’s wanted to get to the ISS and it definitely makes a lot more sense for her than it does him and his goals. While it was both a selfish and unselfish thing to do on his part, it’s opened a new door to him that’s definitely amusing as he’s now being assigned to improve and develop the lunar buggies. Because of his engineering background, it makes a lot of sense, but also improves his chances overall since he’ll be very familiar with the machinery. It busies up his days in a big way, but it provides such an opportunity as well, though he could also end up being stuck there for years. Which while he believes it to be so, is hard to believe based on the family situation itself.
In Summary:
With his path now made clear, Mutta finds himself in a situation where results are most definitely important, not only for himself but for other astronauts as well. Seeing him do the right thing even if it means something better for him has been an interesting but human and welcome event to have happen, and shifting him to a position of basically working on automobiles again is definitely amusing to see. There’s a lot of good character material here and a lot of opportunity for him as w can see what can be done on the buggy side, but we can also likely follow Serika for awhile too as she gears up for ISS training and the mission itself over the course of it, which will help to balance things out. And who knows what Hibito will bring to the table as well. The series is open for what it can do and with its attempts to be as accurate as can be, it’s definitely interesting to watch unfold and keeps me just as interested seventy episodes into it as I was with the first.
And don’t forget to stick for after the credits for the Mr. Hibbit segment!
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.