It is a primal and universal part of the human experience to look up at the stars and want to take them for ourselves. For the child, it may be to pull them within reach, but for many there comes a point where the desire to touch the moon turns into a fascination with breaking from the earth’s influence and just going there themselves. There is a dichotomy between the reality of working on Earth, dealing with bills and seeing friends on those rare moments off the clock, and floating in the dreamlike space that is the surface of the moon, or living in the commune of the ISS. Of course that dichotomy is not so simple; there is real danger (and worse, boring technical procedures) in the simplest aspects of living in space, and there are moments on Earth that can be just as awe-inspiring nevertheless. But even for the child who grows up and learns those truths, a handful still refuse to abandon the drive to venture out into the void.
Space Brothers understands all of this as well as it understands people, understanding the realities of being an astronaut just as well as it understands the childlike wonder that propels a person to become one. It understands the sensitive dynamics between an older and younger brother as they vie for the same shot at a dream, as well as the internal pressures people will put on themselves when their national and personal identity is at stake. It understands all the work that goes into exploring outside the Earth, from the costs to the politics to the vast network of researchers, analysts, teachers, engineers, and administrators who keep themselves grounded for the sake of just one astronaut to go live out their childhood fantasies in zero G.
The excruciatingly slow pace of the show reveals the harsher truth to us: becoming an astronaut is arduous at best, impossible at worst. The central story is of the automotive engineer Nanba Mutta who finds himself out of a job after a fight with his boss, just as his younger brother Hibito is on the verge of becoming the first Japanese moonwalker. A series of cuts between their childhood together looking at stars with a nearby astronomer named Sharon establish their love of space, but in the unseen interval between then and now we assume that Mutta put it aside to engage with the reality of being an adult, whereas Hibito went out and grabbed his chance. With his new unemployment, finally Mutta decides to give his dream another chance, and from there on out we follow his months and years of training, his successes and failures, and the people he meets along the way, from his fellow candidate astronauts to fully-fledged moonwalkers to the supporting cast who work to make it all happen. Make no mistake, it is a difficult life he leads, no less stressful or real than his job behind a desk in auto manufacturing. But he goes about it with a smile that says this is where he’s meant to be.
Then there is the life of the astronaut who has already made it to the top. The bulk of the story outside Mutta is his brother Hibito, as he goes to moon and back. He becomes a celebrity overnight as the first Japanese man on the moon, and little things like excitedly jumping when he first reaches the moon’s surface have ripple effects back at home for the millions of watching fans, leading to an annoying kids anime of a rabbit astronaut named “Hibbit” whose trademark is that very same jump. But he also encounters issues on the moon, and the simple issue of having an inaccurate map of the moon escalates into a life-or-death struggle against time for him and the crew at Moonbase. Then there is life at home as an astronaut, no more glamorous than Mutta’s despite having been into outer space. Both he and Mutta are the type to laugh in the face of hard work and adversity, and so without watching closely we are liable to get caught in their upbeat pace and miss the point. And yet with the lighthearted tone they bring to the series, as well as the perseverance and technical brilliance they each bring to their profession, they serve as a perfect pair of vantage points from which to observe the world of NASA, JAXA, and of course outer space.
And the more human aspects of their experience, their meetings with friends and family, dealing with meetings and procedures through a convoluted chain of command, are recognizable to a T. Character designs stay firmly in the realms of realism, the most ridiculous being Mutta’s miniature afro with others such as his love interest Serika and his flying instructor Deneil being comprised of little touches to their body type, fashion, and facial features that sell them as ordinary people, with enough quirks that we aren’t met with a sea of identical people with slightly different hair colors. But the way their personalities come out in conversation feels no less authentic than their visual designs; all dialogue respects conventions such as seniority and a distance appropriate for the amount of time spent together, and mundane chatter about work pressures and family far outnumber unrealistic drama and faux-philosophical musings. The most amusing interactions in the entire show are between Mutta and Hibito’s dog Apo, a cheery pug with a heart-shaped spot on his left shoulder, carried out exactly the way any working person with a pet knows all too well, with Mutta speaking to it like as if it were a human who wanted to hear his work woes and thoughts. Also amusing is the fact that Apo has a voice actress, the wonderful Sawashiro Miyuki, who also plays Serika and in fact Mutta’s younger self during the flashback scenes.
The series is daunting at 99 episodes, and unfortunately it seems that the length was wedged uncomfortably in the area between Space Brothers going to completion and just being able to resolve things in a reasonable amount of time. Some of Mutta’s training arcs last as long as a full series, and other times we zip right through a major chunk of his life or segue right from a grand conclusion of one setting to the start of the next one, which somewhat breaks the feeling of realism by cutting out the more ordinary scenes of his job. While the series never lost its vibrant energy and perfectly grounded dialogue, as the end approaches there is a feeling of arcs and characters being shoehorned in to maintain interest, leading to the last five or six episodes being borderline unenjoyable, let alone rushed and inconclusive. Perhaps with a little more time the ending would not have come so suddenly, or with a little less time we could have reached a satisfying conclusion without needing to wrap all the loose ends up at the last second. As is they seem to have closed off most chances for a later season, and so with an unsatisfying ending I can’t help but feel a bit sad at knowing this will be my last impression of the world of Space Brothers.
But even though the ending, the pacing, and the overall length make it difficult to recommend as a complete work, I would easily encourage anyone to pick up Space Brothers and enjoy the ride for as long as they see fit. Because beyond its incredibly human take on being in the business of going to space, every moment we feel intimately connected to these particular characters, invested in watching them succeed and go to space as if it were an extension of our childhood selves. It pulls away the unrealistic magic of leaving the world behind, and yet even as the inner workings and realities are put forth we are left with the same magical feeling nonetheless. Building models of moon bases underwater, running for days in the desert, learning to fly fighter jets; everything feels fun because it all puts Mutta closer to getting in an astronaut suit and heading up.
We see how Mutta looks at his younger brother Hibito with a mix of admiration and frustration, feeling that he failed in his duty to always stay ahead as the older brother. Later on we see how Hibito looks back at him, once again in admiration and frustration as he hides details of life back on Earth now that he has been to the moon, trying to act tough and undaunted even as he sees the potential for his brother to be a much better astronaut then him. We see how they continue to interact with their childhood mentor Sharon, trying to realize her dreams of building a telescope in space through their journeys. We see her face as a motherly figure as well as her face as a true scientist and researcher, just as we see the boys’ faces both as family and as astronauts. We see all three of them, along with their friends and their peers, bosses and coworkers, and their extended astronaut family as they all make the dream of reaching out into space a reality.