Ha! After 17 years, it’s so good for some other show to finally break down what all those scenes of Tom Hanks’ “blocking out the Moon” with his thumb in APOLLO 13 were about. Let me tell you, it’s not every anime that reveals the symbolic secrets of a Ron Howard movie from the 90’s. Now, I’m kind of hoping for similar references to all the “living fire” business in BACKDRAFT in the next episode of FUJIKO MINE.
I don’t know - - on the hand, it makes a lot of sense to imply that these dudes would have grown up watching APOLLO 13 on infinite loop. On the other hand, they wind up using it enough times here (and without a proper citation!) to stretch the definition of fair use some.
Shot calls aside, I’ll go out there and say that this was actually a pretty thought-provoking episode. Nature vs. nurture is a debate that’s never going to end, especially when you’ve got cases like these two where a couple of brothers with ostensibly the same wealth of good genes and advantages have varying levels of success. I don’t put much faith into horoscopes or any of that nonsense, but I do think there’s a lot of truth in those MBTI personality profiles, and I can’t help wondering if they might’ve been consulted when these characters were being worked out. Clearly, you’ve got one who’s detail-oriented, and one who’s more about the big picture, and those focuses either make them advanced or remedial at different stages in their lives.
Maybe more importantly, these differences get emotionally moving because both brothers are always rooting for one another and hoping the other will succeed. I suppose that’s the advantage of drawing the story out, like this - - they can really get into the harder-to-define nuances of sibling rivalry.
Watch this episode, "Days of Missing” here and decide for yourself, then read my comments on the previous episode here.
Tom Pinchuk’s the writer of HYBRID BASTARDS! & UNIMAGINABLE. Order them on Amazon here & here. Follow him on Twitter: @tompinchuk
Regarding their relative success, Nanba wasn't lacking in any success before he was fired, for reasons you'll eventually find out about. He designed cars, and even on the day he was fired, the cab he took was a design of his. Seems he was a successful engineer until then. I can't tell which one you think is detail-oriented, since Nanba is pretty detail-oriented, but he isn't the astronaut, yet at least.
Rather, he'll probably design a round-trip shuttle that can travel to and land on Mars, which Namba will use in the first official flight to Mars with human personnel. When Namba lands on Mars with his crew, he'll have a camera with live-feed to broadcast to the world the historical event. The series will most likely end with a quote from either of the brothers proclaiming that Mutta finally made it to Mars, alongside the rest of mankind.
Although, this is all just theory.
@Rxanadu: A damn good one though and a moving way for the show to end. Though I hate to see things correctly guessed this early...that would actually be quite a good way to end this..
I just figured that him being a good engineer would actually end up being a benefit to him. There have been a lot of astronauts with engineering degrees - and not just aeronautical or astronautical engineering.
I'm also interested in finding out how Hibito qualified as an astronaut. It has to be something other than his toned physique and charming personality.