2013-11-18, 12:46
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Link #1401 |
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Banned
Join Date: Dec 2006
Age: 38
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I think it's the other way around and it's just the haircuts that are confusing us. Quite frankly I can't remember any part of the series where Kenji looked better than Mutta. Yes, he had better grades and has good leadership skills, but that speaks more of the character mold he came from rather than the fruit of his labor or development. The thing with Mutta--perhaps the reason why I appreciate him more--is because he was nourished and talented to become an astronaut, competent and hard working (even though he likes to complain a lot), but hidden behind a salaryman suit. With him finally going down the astronaut path, he unlocked all the potential and qualities he had to become a great man.
Mutta as a character sometimes seems more like a statement, it being that you can't become awesome at something if you are not marinated in it from childhood, raised and nurtured, given enough support to achieve your dreams. If you have such luck, then reaching out for the stars may not be so foolish after all. Some people resent such characters because they think hard work is all that's needed to be good at something, and this may be yet another one of mangaka's resentments toward Japanese culture expressed here. Personally, I find them true to life. I guess my point is I can see why Mutta is a great man, but I don't see much reason to think the same of Kenji, other than him being the sleek-looking poster boy. |
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2013-11-18, 17:25
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Link #1402 |
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AS Oji-kun
Join Date: Nov 2006
Age: 74
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I think that sells Kenji a bit short because he has a more complicated set of obligations than does Mutta.
I also have to disagree with Aesthetic Shampoo, though. Mutta has moved ahead because of his engineering skills and not simply "plot armor." He proved essential when they built the model rover and again when they redesigned the moon buggy. He is depicted as a bright and innovative engineer, and his treatment while in Japan seems like an editorial comment on Japanese corporations. Notice how the manga-ka lets him shine when he gets to the US, which is viewed as the home of innovation. (Whether that is still true is a matter of controversy.)
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2013-11-18, 18:23
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Link #1403 | |
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Seishu's Ace
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Kobe, Japan
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I actually think Kenji tends to flounder whenever things start to get contentious. We saw it in the JAXA pods - when others don't happily defer to his relentless positivism, he tends to go on TILT a bit.
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2013-11-18, 21:18
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Link #1404 |
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廉頗
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Massachusetts
Age: 34
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Kenji is your well-rounded, highly competent and top-tier "regular guy" type. I think Mutta goes beyond that - he's on an eccentric genius level. Mutta's main failings are in his self confidence, but we saw the fire being lit underneath him in the first half of the series. With Sharon's illness, the fire is not going to die down any time soon. I also think he can arguably be said to surpass his little brother, who has a similar level of talent, but a naturally high level of confidence (which is why, despite being younger, Sharon recognized he is the one who needs to drag his more unsure brother along at times).
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2013-11-23, 12:02
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Link #1406 |
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Kana Hanazawa ♥
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: France
Age: 37
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A bit disappointed by Kenji's reaction. He started giving Mutta the cold shoulder as soon as he heard the news. I thought they would keep competing in a friendly manner even if the stakes are extremely high. The circumstances were similar during the Jaxa exam and he never acted like this.
It's not that big a deal in the end (he's still competing fair and square) but I just thought somebody like him wouldn't be affected that much.
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2013-11-23, 23:45
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Link #1407 | |
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廉頗
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Massachusetts
Age: 34
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2013-11-24, 05:12
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Link #1408 |
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Banned
Join Date: Dec 2006
Age: 38
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If NASA is planning to discard half of new recruits from each team, they're basically wasting budget. They plan for the discarded astronauts to sit around for a couple of years while their newly gained specialist knowledge and experience rots away in standby mode? It doesn't make much sense to train so many people in the first place if they are not planning on sending them to the moon as soon as possible. Which is why I'm sceptical they have plans to discard any astronauts at all.
If the goal of this mission is to test out how cooperative ASCANs are in times when astronauts have something personally important on the line, then I'm afraid the series is running out of fresh ideas. They showed footage of Brian Jay's last moments to astronaut candidates as an example of what is being expected of them during mission time. If Kenji or any other candidate failed to prioritize mission success over their own, then I guess they fail as astronauts. But the need to develop this theme again? We know Kenji isn't a petty person, and I will be (negatively) surprised if they make an even bigger deal out of it than they already have. Both Mutta and Kenji are just in shock right now, they'll get over it. Either way, this series has problems. |
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2013-11-24, 11:24
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Link #1409 | |
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AS Oji-kun
Join Date: Nov 2006
Age: 74
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Which JAXA exam? The one that ended with rock-paper-scissors? In the isolation training Mutta and Kenji were on separate teams and didn't compete directly. In the desert they were together, but the leadership position rotated among the candidates daily. Mutta failed the written exam at NASA, though neither I nor apparently the manga-ka think that affects Mutta's prospects. I browsed the episode list at Wiki and don't see any time before now when only one of Mutta and Kenji could advance. That said, I generally agree with cyth that this whole approach to "culling the herd," if you will, wastes talent and investment. Contemporary manned space flight consists only of missions to the ISS and thus lacks the additional status aspect of lunar missions in Space Brothers. I presume there's competition among today's astronaut candidates for assignments, but I wonder if it's as cutthroat and arbitrary as it is depicted in this show. Perhaps BBOvenGuy might have some insights here. I don't think failing in this round necessarily means years of decay, though. There's no reason why the loser here couldn't fly on an ISS mission and go to the moon later on. Andy's determination suggests that hard work over the long term eventually gets rewarded. (Both he and Love are already assigned to a lunar mission, yes?) I've encountered sea turtles while snorkeling on a couple of occasions, once vividly at the Kahaluu Beack Park, a public facility on the west coast of the "Big Island" of Hawaii. We weren't very deep either, perhaps just a meter or so below the surface near some coral-encrusted rocks. That was a couple decades ago for me now, but I see from the Google+ link that sea turtles are still an attraction there today. I've also seen them in the Caribbean. I didn't know they were expected to grant you good luck, though. This blog post confirms the claim in the anime that this is an Hawaiian belief, though the Japanese themselves reportedly view the tortoise as symbolizing good luck. I'd have to say that, looking back, my life did not change markedly after my encounters with sea turtles. So, at the end, does the benevolent sea turtle hovering over Mutta as he makes his declaration mean he's going to the moon and Kenji is staying behind?
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Last edited by SeijiSensei; 2013-11-24 at 11:42. |
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2013-11-24, 11:41
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Link #1410 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2007
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There are training programs and assignments for astronauts not currently selected for missions. They won't be wasting away in standby. The truth is, there are only so many missions at a time and so many more astronauts to chose from. You need to find the best for this mission and the rest are contingency in case something happens to them.
Space is the most dangerous environment humans have ever worked in. To survive, you not only have to be skilled, you have to be able to handle all kinds of pressure. One of the worst will be facing an order that would be detrimental to another member of your crew. Would you obey? Would you go rogue? Or will you just curl up and try to ignore it? |
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2013-11-24, 11:53
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Link #1412 | |
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Kana Hanazawa ♥
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: France
Age: 37
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2013-11-24, 12:12
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Link #1413 |
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Banned
Join Date: Dec 2006
Age: 38
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A couple of things changed for Kenji since astronaut selection exams, most notably he had to move countries and drag his wife and child with him. As he says, they sacrificed a lot for his career path. So Kenji isn't worried about winning the way Mizoguchi was, he feels like he needs to show his wife and daughter their sacrifices aren't going to waste. Maybe Mizoguchi had a point when he suggested his wife and daughter might miss him if anything were to happen to him. I mean if he were to continue on with this attitude, he'd be no better than Mizoguchi. This is why I have to agree that the handshake thing was out of character. Then again I think the creators are just blowing a rare occurence of Kenji having a bad day completely out of proportion, it's just bad that we have to sit through a mini arc because they thought it was a good idea to highlight it.
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2013-11-24, 12:20
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Link #1414 | |
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AS Oji-kun
Join Date: Nov 2006
Age: 74
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2013-11-24, 14:06
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Link #1415 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2012
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The current cutdown exercise feels too much like they're taking the people that they already made astronauts and are sticking them into, say, Underwater Survivor, for no reason other than Butler's personal amusement. Odd stuff like the rocket robot challenge and treadmill math made sense during the selection process, but now that they've already been hired, pitting the astronauts against each other like this seems unneccessarily adversarial.
Also, it seems like they're blowing money on having the astronauts build rough models of a base underwater in the ocean. They could test new construction techniques in the big training pool, and the veeeeeeeery loooooooooong selection process arc showed us that plenty of dry land facilities exist for locking five people into a room together for weeks at a time. The ocean lab environment almost certainly doesn't have any topography remotely similar to the lunar sites either. Then again, having Mutta and Kenji fight for mission assignments by submitting competing research proposals is really, really dull... even if it might be more realistic. |
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2013-11-25, 08:44
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Link #1416 |
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Eaten by goats
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Rokkenjima
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The situation may be exaggerated and overblown (and silly, given how much training the recruits have had and how they're all pretty much amazing), but it's still interesting. Kenji's finally been given a flaw - or at least a blip on his radar. The pressure of needing to succeed in order to justify the time he's spent away from his family is clearly getting to him. I like that he's not happy with how he's been behaving relatively coldly to Mutta. Of course, he hasn't actually behaved hugely badly towards him yet either. It's just a handshake right now. We'll see how things go next week.
It's true that Kenji didn't behave this way in the earlier events where people were locked up together in teams and in direct competition with each other. Now, he's just got so much more riding on winning. What's most interesting about this arc is the way that Mutta just assumes that Kenji is the natural choice. But I would imagine that Kenji actually sees Mutta as a huge threat now. As the audience we have a good idea of what Mutta's skills are, and he has tremendous drive and a good imagination combined with practical skills. He's not somebody who is never discouraged, but he's become somebody who can move forward and persevere and go the extra mile. And recently, Mutta was the brains behind that buggy redesign, which should have great value. Kenji hasn't faced all of the setbacks to his career path as an astronaut that Mutta has. If he had, maybe he would have had a harder time dealing with it. (Or maybe he would have been fine; we just don't know.) |
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2013-11-25, 09:03
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Link #1417 |
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Seishu's Ace
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Kobe, Japan
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Kenji has already shown plenty of flaws. He practically shut down when Mizoguchi went all asshat on him - the guy just isn't at his best when things aren't going his way, smooth as butter.
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Last edited by Guardian Enzo; 2013-11-25 at 18:06. |
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2013-11-25, 09:39
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Link #1418 | |
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Eaten by goats
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Rokkenjima
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The biggest upsets I can remember for Kenji before this time were with Mizoguchi inside the box. Kenji did have some problems then, but (if that's who you meant by Mizutani rather than somebody else I've forgotten) I wouldn't go as far as to say that Kenji fell to pieces there. While remaining calm outwardly, he got stressed out about how things were going, definitely, and worried about whether he'd made the right decisions, but he handled the situation okay in the end after thinking it through. In the underwater situation later on, with much more pressure on him due to his family than he had in the box situation, it's going to be interesting to see how he handles it once the surprise has worn off. Although, checking through the manga again, he outright points out one of his own character flaws, that being a little bit of sadism, and feeling as if he was a twisted person.  But he was mostly aiming that behaviour at door to door rip-off salespeople selling mystic meteorite faith amulets.
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2013-11-25, 18:06
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Link #1419 | |
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Seishu's Ace
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Kobe, Japan
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