Humor and sadness blend together far too well here.
What They Say:
My Hands
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Mutta’s growth across the series, and the exploration of how useful his skills would be in places like JAXA and NASA, have been a lot of fun to watch. With his time doing through the fighter plane training lately with the T-38 and his enjoyment of becoming a pilot on some level, it’s worked well to show that he can challenge himself and to become something more. And with his time exploring the past of others, such s Chief Butler, he’s worked what he hopes to be the best way to get through to him that he wants to get the lunar assignment and has the drive and – most importantly – the dream to do it. Referencing the chief’s own past is definitely a fun way to do it as it shows a lot of different things to Butler that can make a serious impression.
Of course, as Mutta does all of this and gets the chief’s attention, things also go in a more comical direction, which the series most definitely needed to have. With his attempts to woo Serika now that he’s feeling more confident about himself, he does some great stuff with the plane to create trails in the sky that forms a heart. Of course, Serika is late getting there to see it, but the chief sees it and gets hugely confused about what Mutta is trying to express to him and ends up just making it a whole, silly mess. That’s all well done and very fun to watch, but when Serika gets to see it, it had drifted more than enough with other trails that she didn’t see the heart at all and she completely misinterprets his intentions as just some good natured fun. It’s to be expected, but still, you really hope for some real progress between the two.
The show does divert from that for a bit to deal with Sharon, which is admittedly both a sad and uplifting story as others are rallying around her back in Japan now to help her achieve her dreams with the lunar telescopes. She’s struggling with her disease in a big way but is also finding ways to make it work, which is good since she knows she can’t do certain things but tries to do others. But as you’d expect, she does try and push her limits because of her personality, which in the end just adds to her frustration. It does tie nicely to the past though as she recalls all the things she used to do with the brothers and that has so many positive memories to it, but also the pain of not being able to do the things she could once before. It’s a difficult and tragic situation for someone like her – anyone really – and they portray it well here, giving it the right weight. Especially when she makes her voice recording for a future Mutta to listen to.
In Summary:
Space Brothers focuses on the two main stories that it deals with well here, the first revolving around Mutta’s attempts to make a couple of impressions and then with the focus on Sharon’s story. Each is very different but they manage to blend together well in the episode. The first half has a lot of fun and misconceptions that come about that certainly makes you grin while the second just makes you sad, even with the light and warm moments to it. All of it is for the larger good though as it sets different things in motion that will come back to each other in the future, which is what really begins here as Mutta has finally earned his shot at training for the moon.
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.
haha chief butlers reaction to the heart was priceless. and sharons recording will most definitely get to mutta. great episode. great show. cant wait to see the moon training start.