I understand the annoyance of a dog constantly licking your face in the morning.

——

With episode twenty-four, we enter a new phase of the series as the story shifts back to Houston with Mutta rejoining his brother Hibito. That being said, this new arc starts off with this episode building up potential trouble for Mutta in his quest to join Hibito in space, and for the early half of the episode Uchuu Kyoudai spends its time showing the parallels between the two brothers in their daily lives. Though they’re off doing separate things, they both end up doing similar activities and both tackle them with the very same mindset of just doing it and learning on the fly.Though not that entertaining, this first half of the episode gives audiences a greater sense of how the two brothers are very much alike. 

It’s only when the episode enters its second half that we get to see just what kind of trouble Mutta will face in the final exam in Houston. We are introduced to another Japanese Astronaut in Azuma, who is one of the most decorated and celebrated Japanese astronauts, but is also one of the more lackluster and dull ones. He is Hibito’s senpai and it’s insinuated that he holds a grudge against Hibito for Brian Jay selecting Hibito for the mission to the moon that allows Hibito, and not Azuma, to be the first Japanese person to step foot on the moon. With Azuma being one of the judges for the final exam, Jennifer states that he may be Mutta’s biggest hurdle in passing the exam as he may in fact fail Mutta simply out of spite for having Hibito selected over him. For Mutta, this is an interesting dilemma to be faced with as it seems impossible for him to overcome simply because this isn’t a situation that was his fault to begin with or one that he can readily fix.

Overall, there isn’t much beyond set up of future plot points going on in this episode. I’ve been expecting a bit of a slow rise after the decline in entertainment the past few episodes with a new arc beginning, so what I did get from this episode was enough, but they could have done more. 

GO Rating: 3/5

How could you not love Apo’s face?