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「打ち上げ前夜」 (Uchiage Zenya)
“Night Before Launch”
We’re finally approaching launch – the first time any of the main cast in Uchuu Kyoudai will actually make it into outer space. This is the moment many of us have been looking forward to – the realisation of the first stage of Hibito and Mutta’s shared dreams. It makes sense that worry will peak at this point in time, both felt by us, the audience, and by other characters within the show. The launch of Mars V may have gone smoothly, but the poor weather is less than desirable for this second launch, and rocket launches aren’t quite like driving a car or taking a flight – they’re not something we do on a daily basis. Because we’re not used to them, there’s far more room for worry – Mutta’s mother is concerned over how thin the Mars I appears for example and I’m sure many people have worried over how flimsy an aircraft seems prior to their very first flight too.
This episode certainly doesn’t seem to be trying to allay our fears. On the contrary, it seems to be doing everything it can to heighten the tension prior to launch. Misfortune seems to be piling up, from the stormy weather to the disappearance of Apo. While Hibito remains hopeful that the skies are going to clear sufficiently, even though the launch appears to be going ahead next episode, those skies still look rather foreboding. It’s interesting how Mutta compares the weather and its hampering of the launch to his own feelings about Hibito’s success. It’s almost as if Mutta’s feelings are actually what’s getting in the way of the launch. But it’s hard to blame him for feeling that little bit of jealousy – perhaps if he’d remained hopeful and stuck to his dream like Hibito, it’d be him preparing to go up in the Mars I. Perhaps they’d even be going together!
Uchuu Kyoudai reminds us in its typically humorous fashion that you can’t always judge a book by its cover. As a seemingly random member of the audience demonstrates, having a mohican doesn’t necessarily preclude a copious knowledge of space. Surprisingly enough, this child turns out to be the nephew of one of the astronauts going into space with Hibito on this launch. With that in mind it makes sense that he might know a lot about the how and why of the whole launch process.
tl;dr: @MoombaDS – Things are starting to look a little grim – will the launch go to plan? #SpaceBros
Random thoughts:
- It was pretty funny seeing Jennifer tell the mohican kid to look up the answers to his questions on wikipedia!
- Azuma remains as stoic as usual while everyone celebrates the successful first launch around him.
- It was rather an interesting reversal to see Mutta’s mother come to visit him while worried in the night.
- As always, Serika’s mind is turned towards food!
Full-length images: 30.
Preview
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Omake
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Amusing. Mars V = Ares V (component of the now-cancelled Constellation program).
They even showed the Ares I-X (in real life, had the Ares program been successful, the Ares V would’ve carried the lunar lander, while the Ares I-X would’ve carried the crew module – and the two cargoes would’ve mated in space before heading towards the Moon).
Good find.
Here I thinking that they misspelt Mars as Mares on the brochure, but this makes much more sense.
How many episodes does this show have?
well I hear that it’s supposed to be 51. But the anime network lists it as 38. I also hear it is 48 or 54. It’s a bit all over the place, really.
The source, manga, is still going in Japan and has 18 volumes. The anime so far covered about 6 with next week’s episode closing the 6th’s final two chapters. So if the anime wants to catch up the published manga volumes, at the current pace, it’ll have to reach at least 90 episodes to do so.
I like this anime, unlike the others full of action , romance, moe…this has somthing else.
I find each ep exciting in its own way, full of dreams and whatnot. I wonder if the movie version is good aswell.
hibito’s mission is titled CES-51 (seen at 17:01). For those unaware of it, STS-51 was the title of Chalenger’s last mission, when it was lost 73s after lunch.
Could this be a sign that hibito isn’t gonna make it? or a homage to chalenger’s seven crew members?
I havent read the manga, but Im predicting Hibito will run into a problem in space, and then its up to Mutta to the rescue. However, considering that we are just finishing vol. 6 and that theres 18 volumes…I think its too early for something big to happen to Hibito since Mutta is not officially an Austronaut yet. Ofcourse, I could be wrong.
stupid ass kid brother touching other people’s dog. i want to clean his mouth with soap.
Mooms, your last random thought makes it sound like Serika wants to eat Apo. Since she voices Apo, that means…I don’t know what that means. It sounds pretty twisted, though!
Two scenes in this episode I found really heartwarming: Mutta’s usually stoic dad, who couldn’t sleep, and the the father of mohawk kid, who bursted into tears seeing his brother. Brilliant.