The end has come, but we’ve got a little further to go…
What They Say:
With the third exam finally over, Furuya takes the opportunity to visit the man who made his dream possible.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the idea to do the choice as a rock-paper-scissors event in order to determine who should be chosen, it’s something that you have to admit works very well within the context of the series. Mutta’s narrative about it does hit up the kind of ideals that he thinks is right for the program but it also comes down to the idea that he wants the last thing that he does with everyone after two weeks of struggles and fun to be just that, fun and enjoyable. And it also fits with other things that have happened in the locked box arc in how there’s a certain randomness to things that comes into play. Seeing how they go through the process here and the way that it’s observed from the control room says a heck of a lot about those involved.
With the teams having finally been able to exit the test, it’s amusing to see that the whole thing did take place at JAXA instead of some secret location, adding another bit of tweaking done to the applicants in order to mess with them. The show spends some good time in getting that acclimated to things again and shifting them out into the world a bit now that the choices have been made. And a good bit of focus is given to Furuya who goes to visit Baba, the man that helped him in getting to the place that he’s at now within the program. We got some glimpses of this during the test so getting some closure in a sense here is definitely welcome to see as Furuya gives his thanks.
One of the things the episode does do that’s really fun if far too brief is to put Serika and Mutta out in the big city for awhile with what may not really be a date but the two of them spending some time together. The more you see of them, and Serika’s kind of “off” but normal personality is really encouraging since there’s something about her that feels natural. She’s not the usual kind of woman you get in an anime series and that works really well when matched up with Mutta.
In Summary:
With the episode being very circumspect in talking about who actually made the grade and passed through the choice part of the program, Space Brothers can be rather frustrating here in a way. The key is to just let that information come as they want it to and enjoy the journey to it, which is what a lot of this whole arc has been. We get the focus on just a couple of characters here overall, such as Mutta and Serika for a brief but highly enjoyable bit and some solid time with Makabe. The main focus is on dealing with furuya’s story that came up during the exam and seeing how that’s handled. It’s definitely all frustrating in its own way but the pacing and structure of the series has been strong so far and it’s earned my patience to be sure.
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.
