Page 3, the ISS was originally intended for a fifteen-year mission, though I haven’t been able determine exactly when that fifteen-year timer started, or whether there were ever any plans to deorbit it in 2024. Currently they’re scheduling it for 2030 - and even now, some of the modules are already twenty years old.
Starting from the bottom of page 8, despite Yaginuma-sensei previously using Gokuraku-ji Station on the Enoden line as the exterior of “Yuigahama” Station, the platform shown here is that of Kamakurakoko-mae Station on the same line instead.
Not sure I can work out where Asumi’s dormitory is. Somewhere near the Chuo Line, I guess.
Page 37, we meet a new character here - the school’s PE teacher - who, despite the prominent role he plays for the remainder of the manga right up to the final volume, goes completely unnamed. They call him “Nishida” in the anime version, and “Oonishi Kojiro” in the drama, but he never gets a name in the manga.
Page 46, I hope all y’all are ready to learn about orbital mechanics in Japanese.
Page 56, the H-IIA is a real rocket launch system produced by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries - and in the real world, it’s still in current use… but only just. It’s due to be retired after a fiftieth and final mission scheduled to take place sometime early this year.
Sorry, somehow I couldn’t find anything to comment on. Unlike the test in the last volume (which felt fresh because it made the best of the astronaut school setting), chapter 5 felt like the intro chapter of a somewhat generic boarding school manga to me, and I’ve read so many of those that they kind of all blur together in my mind . At least that one teacher who doesn’t seem to like Asumi reminded us that he exists, so I’m confident there will be drama ahead.
Btw, I might lag behind for awhile. I joined too many bookclubs at once, so I got a reading load of 108 pages of novels this week.
I felt similar last week, not a lot happened although I enjoyed meeting the new character who lives in the boarding house.
This week’s chapter was really enjoyable. The excitement of young people working towards a goal they are passionate about really came through. There was a great scene of Asumi standing awestruck in front of the cabinet with the astronaut suit.
I love how Asumi is outstanding both academically and also physically. She looks so small and weak, and we saw that minor breakdown in the closed room task. It’s good to see how strong and robust she is.
Also, love the running scenes - pumping sinews, steely eyed determination, sweat beads everywhere. Makes me want to run laps round a university campus!
I’ve always had some interest in space but my knowledge of the stars is awful. It’s good starwatching weather at the moment, not too cold but sunset is still relatively early compared to summer. Aiming to try and identify Virgo and Leo in the sky this week.
I only just realised for the first time today that it’s Kei who’s trying on the suit in the first panel of the chapter.
Page 75 is why it takes a lot of training to become a pool lifeguard - someone’s who’s panicking in the water will grab at anyone who gets close to them, and drag them down with them.
First panel of page 86, Marika is standing at Hachiko Square, Shibuya, at least so far as the background goes - the Tokyu Hands building on the left of the panel (you can see the logo on the wall) is no longer there in the present day, so I’ve attempted to link the Street View from 2020. Page 87, Benny’s is, of course, Denny’s, though there’s none within eyeshot of Hachiko Square in the real world. At least, not in the present day. The nearest one I can spot is 500 metres away, though it’s also up a flight of stairs, and not at street level. Though of all the streets in all of Tokyo she could loiter at, she just so happens to be right outside Asumi’s workplace…
That’s very impressive! I had just seen a generic busy Tokyo street. Did you get that from the logo on the building?
And Ringo happens to be walking by too! I assumed this was not too surprising if they were somewhere close to where they are based in Tokyo. I don’t think we know where the university is supposed to be? There seemed to be a clue from the train map at the start of the volume but then it seemed to be left fairly vague.
It’s only the last couple of weeks I’ve appreciated how little Asumi is.
That’s generally how I saw it too, but on this reading, I suddenly went “huh, that kinda looks like the pedestrian overpass at Shibuya”. I have been watching various YouTubers’ Tokyo travel vlogs lately, so maybe that helped to put me in the right frame of mind.
It’s on the Chuo Line somewhere, is all I can figure. I checked a couple of university campuses I could spot to see if any of them had been repurposed as the space school, but nothing quite matches.
Sometimes I lose track of plot points or seemingly significant situations (and in my defense, I’m reading both weeks’ pages together so I forgot some things), and I’m hoping this is not one of those times. Did we already read anything about how the teacher knows Asumi and her parents?
If I remember correctly that we did not read much about this, I’m curious to know the context. He seems a bit… fired up, and I have a feeling he’s going to give Asumi a very hard time at school.
No notes this week. That’s a real train station on page 123, I’m sure, but I can’t work out which one.
Though, I will say this: Sano being such a huge jerk about it aside, asking the entire teaching staff to take a 20% pay cut in order to fund a single space suit for a single student (who, mind you, is still growing) is definitely a bold take. Like, that kind of wage theft is illegal even in the US. If you need to make room in the budget for a big expense, you take it from other costs, not from staff pay.
We’re back to flasback / pre-series prequel one-shot chapters this week.
カムパネルラ, from the chapter’s title, is one of the main characters of Miyazawa Kenji’s Night on the Galactic Railroad. I confess I’m not entirely clear on how it relates to the story, though…
That’s an incredible base they’ve built in the forest, and still standing years later! If I found one of those I think it would inspire me to be a spaceship driver too.
I just read chapters 6-8 today (and read chapter 5 last week). Not the most eventful volume ever, though we did see the characters settling in at their new school.
Spoiler-ish thoughts on Mission 5 - 8
I was also pretty surprised as we see Asumi next to… well pretty much everyone at how much smaller she is than everyone else.
I kind of expected it would be Marika that would snap Asumi out of her funk, but it hasn’t happened yet anyway.
I forgot this manga gets dark since it’s been a few weeks since I read the violence scenes in volume 1, but chapter 8 ended darkly. I might have to start volume 3 at this rate lol, that’s a serious cliffhanger to leave it on.
. At least that one teacher who doesn’t seem to like Asumi reminded us that he exists, so I’m confident there will be drama ahead.
