Various random thoughts on this episode:
I wonder how many of the men who were passed over thought it was all due to "affirmative action" or public relations?
When Mutta was sitting at the playground and wondering what he should be doing, I couldn't help but yell at him to ask Serika out already!
This episode helps explain why Serika looked so sad when they left the pod two episodes ago. She was probably having the same sense of regret for her teammates that were passed over as she did in the restaurant.
What the hell is Spanish yakisoba? Is this some dish invented by Japanese expats living in places like Peru?
Mutta's characterization of himself and Fukuda as unemployed seemed rather a writer's ploy considering that Mutta knew he had been selected.
Maybe Kenji will end up piloting that commercial ship that Fukuda will be designing.
Every time I watch the OP I'm reminded of the time I saw a near-total solar eclipse in
1970. It was quite a weird and extraordinary event to witness. The light and color of everything changed, and the birds and animals got quite nervous. It was worth the couple hours drive to the outer shores of Cape Cod where the eclipse reached 99% of totality.
Earlier today I read Tom Friedman's
column in the New York Times where he spins his usual concerns about America's uncertain technological future. He wrote wistfully about the Apollo program and decried the absence of vision among America's current political leaders. I thought about that column again while watching this episode. The Japanese have hardly had the most robust of economies over the past decade or so, yet here they are still running television programs about the excitement of space travel. While we have the occasional
Star Trek, shows like those are set so far into the future that they are simply fantasies. What we do not have, at least as I far as I can see, are more realistic shows about actual space flight like this one. But then
half our populace chooses magical thinking over science, so that probably limits the appeal of shows like
Uchuu Kyoudai.