What They Say:
Hibito is able to save Damian, but he’s running out of oxygen. Freddy and Buddy are trying to catch him, but they won’t arrive before his oxygen depletes. Is this the end?
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Hibito’s attempts to try and save Damian have paid off well as they made it out of the ravine previously, but now it’s turned into something that’s both dark and magical. With Hibito realizing that there’s only a few minutes left and no way that anyone would show up, he was intent on going back in and enjoying the view of the stars as his life runs out. While he was so close to doing that, he instead ended up going on a walk towards the flash of light that he had seen previously out on the landscape, giving his final moments of life towards grasping at understanding of the mystery that has been nudging at him since he first arrived on the moon.
With the understanding of what it is that’s out there, the show gives us some flashback time for Hibito when he was in Houston and undergoing his training. His relationship with Brian takes an interesting focus here as he talks about how the man was both a brother and a father, a teacher and a friend, who worked through the problems he was having with aspects of his training. There’s an amusing allusion made towards the similarities between Brian and Mutta that just makes you grin as it’s one of the few times that you think Hibito actually thinks about his brother while going through this entire training experience. Hibito’s feelings towards Brian does mirror some of what you think that he has towards his own brother as well in a way, since there’s both a respect and a frustration aspect to it.
With that layering the episode, we go through the final minutes of oxygen that Hibito has as he realizes some of the meaning of the figure that he found there and his relationship with Brian over the years. With the tense moments there and on Earth with both JAXA and Mutta, we also get the tense frustration from Freddy and Buddy as they race while still trying to be safe in going after Hibito. It’s a brutal thing to watch as his oxygen seeps away and the deprivation and panic hits him, making it clear that there is no peaceful way out of this into the afterlife. Things go past the redline here in a big way, but the save is one that definitely makes a whole lot of sense and provides that relief and release you need to know that things are finally turning the corner here, and done in a way that fits with its focus on Brian in this epsiode.
In Summary:
While there’s some frustration on a very minor level that Mutta has been sidelined for much of this arc, it’s not a bad thing to have happened. Giving Hibito his time to shine is definitely needed since the name of the series is Space Brothers and Hibito’s story here is hugely engaging as it shows off the good and dangerous sides to living on the moon for awhile. Like previous stories in the series, the dangers in the present are tied to the stories of the past and seeing the exploration of both of them works to the shows advantage as we watch Hibito’s oxygen empty out and his life is about to end. It’s done in just the right way to make it tense, exciting and scary with a huge dose of uncertainty.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
