## [RT] Space Brothers (Uchuu Kyoudai)

* Author: u/Charlie___ *
* URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/4qdsme/rt_space_brothers_uchuu_kyoudai/
* Score: 8

* Created: 2016-06-29T04:45:55

### Post:

This is a fun manga / anime, centered on the process of becoming an astronaut.

Every character has interesting depths. Nobody is an unrealistic idiot or evil mutant, even when some people sometimes act dumb or jerkily.

The depiction of smart people is very good. For example, the main character is a mechanical engineer. During the show, he sometimes actually uses engineering to solve problems. Other people get to be smart too.

There's no world-ending stakes, nobody swings swords or shoots lasers at anybody else. It's a good example of how to generate stories without taking the "easy way out" of violent confrontation - stories that can take place entirely within civilization.

As for problems, there's a tension between showing a main character with weird (and stereotypical) reactions to women, and normalizing those reactions. Also, there may be a little magic for no good reason.

### Comments:

> **u/Galap** [+2]  (2 hours later)
> 
> I really like this one too. Probably the most realistic work of scifi I've ever seen. Pretty much it slowly details a series of missions returning to the moon in 2025 and the astronaut training and selection process.
> 
> There was one other problem for me as well though:
> 
> [Unfortunately](#s "One of the main protagonists develops a panic disorder after nearly running out of air after an accident on the moon. This happens about halfway through the story and dealing with this takes up a significant fraction of the remainder, and after it happens, the story is never really rid of it. For one it seems really out of character for that person to have that kind of problem, and all the fallout and dealing with it is kind of awkwardly handled. Most of all, to me it's not interesting at all and takes a lot of time away from the series' merits")
> 
> It sounds like I'm ranting here but all in all I do still strongly recommend this. 
> 
> Also, like you said:
> 
> "Other people get to be smart too."
> 
> As an aside, I tend not to like stories where only one character gets to be smart and the whole thing is about that person gaming the system and the like.

>> **u/None** [+1]  (9 hours later)
>> 
>> The story and timeline is strangely actually less ambitious than ours and Elon Musk's real life story is actually crazier and more drama-filled in some respect.

> **u/TennisMaster2** [+1]  (2 hours later)
> 
> Related: the short film, "We Can't Live Without Cosmos".  [Link](http://oscar.go.com/nominees/short-film-animated/we-cant-live-without-cosmos) that may or may not work.

> **u/narfanator** [+1]  (4 hours later)
> 
> Space Brothers! (Feel so moon)
> 
> This is an excellent read. Updates every so often on the scanlation sites. Think Martian, but longer, and with less going wrong, but more being attempted.

---