(L+CR) Uchuu Kyoudai (Space Brothers)

[SeijiSensei]

I decided to post a little advertisement for this show in the comments section for Manola Darghis's review of The Martian over at the New York Times. I thought perhaps it would be rejected by the moderators there, but they published it. Maybe a couple of the space enthusiasts posting in that thread might choose to watch it. You never know.

BTW, she made the movie an "NYT Pick." I hope to see it this weekend, especially since the Patriots have a bye week on Sunday.

[SeijiSensei]

I really enjoyed "The Martian." The humor and Damon's performance help leaven the atmosphere.

So first they turn Buddy Waters into Buddy Gorilla. Now in the live-action movie, they emphasize "if he's black, he's baad!" meme. Or rather "Baddy."



The actor playing Buddy isn't nearly as muscular as I expected given the anime.

I had to stop watching the movie to post this because I laughed out loud. I'll post an opinion on the film when I'm done.

Apropos my earlier posting, Scott Kelly broke the duration record for most cumulative time spent by an American astronaut on October 13th, a little over 381 days. On October 29th he'll break the record for consecutive days in space by an American at 216 days. He'll remain in space for another four months or so.

[Ottocycle]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

I really enjoyed "The Martian." The humor and Damon's performance help leaven the atmosphere.

Glad to see that Japan realising there's good crossover promotion potential to milk between Space Brothers and The Martian, showing in Japanese theatres February 2016.

YouTube

https://youtu.be/eZRa154tqQ4

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

[SeijiSensei]

Well I finally watched the movie and thought it was decent. It certainly lacked the detail and subtlety of the anime, but then it ran only a bit over two hours. It ends soon after the rover crash which in the movie takes place simultaneously with the last day Mutta spends in the isolation chamber with the other five candidates. There were a few scenes that I would have liked to see retained, particularly the rock-paper-scissors game. The also changed the green card test so we didn't get to see Mutta's actor jump around like a crazy person.

I thought Oguri Shun and Okada Masaki were solid in the main roles as Mutta and Hibito. Oguri had a tendency to smile occasionally in inappropriate places, but he carried off Mutta's combination of intelligence and goofiness. Asou Kumiko as Serika was attractive though somewhat plain as appropriate. I especially liked Tsutumi Shinichi who played Hoshika, the guy at JAXA who was Mutta's patron. Many characters were axed, of course, including the Jay brothers and Sharon. Introducing any of them would have required too much story-telling to fit into the confines of a movie.

Deniel Young doesn't appear in the movie either. Mutta does end up at the abandoned tower watching Hibito's launch and meets an old fellow there. I wondered why they chose someone with such limited acting skills for the role. At one point he says he walked on the moon, which Deniel certainly did not. At the end we see him sitting in a canvas chair with his name on the back. It was

Spoiler:

Buzz Aldrin

[BBOvenGuy]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Deniel Young doesn't appear in the movie either. Mutta does end up at the abandoned tower watching Hibito's launch and meets an old fellow there. I wondered why they chose someone with such limited acting skills for the role. At one point he says he walked on the moon, which Deniel certainly did not. At the end we see him sitting in a canvas chair with his name on the back. It was

Spoiler:

Buzz Aldrin

How cool! I've seen him in person a couple of times. Even at his age, he's still active and enthusiastic about space flight. Plus he punched out that guy once who was trying to claim the moon landings were fake.

There's a new documentary that's just coming out about Gene Cernan, the Apollo 17 commander. It's called The Last Man on the Moon.

But getting more back to the topic, is there a thread for the Space Brothers manga? I looked but didn't see one. It's available on Crunchyroll now, and things have really progressed since the end of the anime!

[SeijiSensei]

An inspiring video about Pete Frates and the ice-bucket challenge: http://m.mlb.com/bal/video/topic/741...attle-with-als

In one week alone the challenge raised about $10 million per day for research into ALS, and over $200 million was added to the fight by all those people with very cool heads. In July researchers who benefited from funds raised by the challenge announced they had discovered a key gene that now "ranks among the most common genes that contribute to the disease."

Sadly too late for Frates or Sharon.

[SeijiSensei]

NASA announced its newest class of "astronaut candidates," five women and seven men, chosen from over 18,000 applicants, the largest number every to apply. "They range in age from 29 to 42 and include an Army surgeon, an engineer at SpaceX and a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor."

None of them is Japanese. In fact only one of them appears to have been born outside the US. Jasmin Moghbeli was born in Germany but "considers Baldwin, New York, her hometown." She is a graduate of MIT, along with the professor and a couple of other candidates. Some attended the service academies (West Point, Air Force Academy, etc.) and most of the rest come from schools in California like Stanford and UC San Diego.

The article confirms a few events in Uchuu Kyoudai.

Officially, they are “astronaut candidates” who will now go through two years of training before becoming full-fledged graduates. They will practice for spacewalks in a 60-foot-deep swimming pool at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, learn to fly NASA’s T-38 jet planes and study the ins and outs of the International Space Station.

Because Russia is NASA’s main partner on the space station, they will also learn to speak Russian.

Ah, so that's how Hibito was so fluent when he was in Russia. I didn't think Olga and the rest of his friends there were speaking Japanese, but I wondered if they were using English as a common language.

Here are the lucky dozen. (Warning: file is called "superjumbo" for a reason!):

Images

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

Loral O'Hara reminds me a lot of Serika despite their very different ethnicities. A native of Houston, her academic biography is more distinctive with degrees from the University of Kansas and Purdue.

[gdpetti]

Well, it seems JAXA is still dreaming on a visit to the moon:


https://sputniknews.com/science/2017...-moon-landing/

Only this plan or wish or dream keeps getting pushed back.... we here in the States used to have such dreams.. but the same budget problems remain, add in the lack of desire of the establishment to do anything real as well as continued support for the Great Game of world domination and those dreams have long since disappeared except for a few state sponsored private companies living off of the NASA budget.. not so private afterall, the usual fake reality routine.

That said, I see that the manga is ongoing and rather popular, so any idea where they left off from the anime? Is it this dream of a moonshot? What chapter did they leave off at?

[Tanuki.]

The title of the manga chapters and anime episodes are nearly identical.

Episode 98 is chapter 185 (published in volume 19). Not sure about the last episode.

I still hope and think this will get a second season, but there are currently only ~12 volumes of new material available, so if they want to do a 2-year run again, it might still take a while. But the manga is immensely popular and the anime TV ratings were also pretty good (~around 5%), so I don't think it's unrealistic.

[Kanon]

I certainly hope this series will return. It was so good.

[gdpetti]

Originally Posted by Tanuki.

The title of the manga chapters and anime episodes are nearly identical.

Episode 98 is chapter 185 (published in volume 19). Not sure about the last episode.

I still hope and think this will get a second season, but there are currently only ~12 volumes of new material available, so if they want to do a 2-year run again, it might still take a while. But the manga is immensely popular and the anime TV ratings were also pretty good (~around 5%), so I don't think it's unrealistic.

Well, they're up to 298 in the manga, so yeah... not enough for 2 yrs, but enough for 1... easy to zip through the manga... exactly the same as the anime in look and feel.

[SeijiSensei]

https://www.theguardian.com/science/...sation-of-moon

Japan’s space agency said it had discovered an enormous cave beneath the lunar surface that could be turned into an exploration base for astronauts.

The discovery, by Japan’s Selenological and Engineering Explorer (Selene) probe, comes as several countries vie to follow the US in sending manned missions to the moon.

The chasm, 50km (31 miles) long and 100 metres wide, appears to be structurally sound and its rocks may contain ice or water deposits that could be turned into fuel, according to data sent back by the orbiter, nicknamed Kaguya after the moon princess in a Japanese fairytale.

Japan hopes to send Hibito-kun to the moon by 2030 as part of an international mission. Now they've found a better place to build a base than on the lunar surface.

[blakstealth]

Massdrop has this keycap set up for groupbuy. It's called the GMK Serika because the guy that designed the set liked the manga. What do you guys think??

[SeijiSensei]

Mutta and Hibito send their condolences on the death of Spongebob's creator from ALS.

https://www.npr.org/2018/11/27/67124...has-died-at-57

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by BBOvenGuy

How cool! I've seen him in person a couple of times. Even at his age, he's still active and enthusiastic about space flight. Plus he punched out that guy once who was trying to claim the moon landings were fake.

This story came up again tonight on All In with Chris Hayes. Here's the video of this encounter:

YouTube

https://youtu.be/lw9azZmLxtw

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

I wonder if Aldrin faced any charges or a civil suit by tne conspiracy bozo.

CNN and the NASA archivists discovered some amazing footage shot in full-color 70mm during the Apollo 11 mission and released a documentary this summer called simply Apollo 11. Even if you've seen coverage of the mission before, you've never seen anything like this.

YouTube

https://youtu.be/tpLrp0SW8yg

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

Sure beats the grainy black-and-white images I watched on a tiny portable TV back in 1969! Highly recommended for anyone with access to CNN. They apparently had high-resolution cameras on the spacecraft as well.

[Guardian Enzo]

Mangaka Koyama Chuuya says the Ucchu Kyoudai anime will return after the manga ends (which is supposedly soon).

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/dai...a-ends/.206882

No word on whether Racist Cartoon Theater and Buddy the Gorilla will also return...

[BBOvenGuy]

I hope they really do plan to continue and not start over. I'd rather not have to go two years before we get any new material.

[Guardian Enzo]

I don't see why they'd feel the need to start over. First 95 eps or whatever it was were perfectly fine.

[Kanon]

I'm all for more of that show. It dragged a bit at times but it was overall very fun and informative. Would be great if we could get this much consecutive episodes, assuming there's enough material (I think so?).

I would definitely need to rewatch it because I've forgotten a lot.

[SeijiSensei]

I'm guessing Mutta gets to build his telescope on the moon in honor of Sharon.