Space Brothers 4: The Final Interview

It's the final interview of the second exam. While waiting for their turn, the applicants watch news about the NASA lunar mission on TV. Kenji gets called and it seems his interview goes well. Serika is up next and like Kenji, she seems confident about the interview as her only thought afterwards is food. Then comes Muta's turn. He seems to do okay until one question totally throws him off: "Did you find something new about yourself recently?" After the interview, all the applicants gather together for a group picture. One of the applicants approaches Muta to ask for Hibito's autograph photo. Muta humors her request and even suggests that he'd get Hibito to kiss the photo for her. The woman excitedly tells Serika about this, prompting the latter to ask Muta for Hibito's autograph photo as well. Muta manages to stutter a yes, but later worries whether Serika is another Hibito fan. But he lightens up quickly enough when he decides that he'd kiss the photo himself before giving it to Serika. Meanwhile, Hibito is hanging out with his fellow astronauts at the cafeteria and they get to talking about NASA's family support program. It seems that Hibito is the only person who hasn't applied for the program, prompting him to decide to sponsor one family member. In another meanwhile, the JAXA applicants celebrate the end of the second exam at an izakaya. There, a plastered Muta asks Kenji how he answered the last question. He shouldn't have asked because Kenji came up with an eloquent answer while Muta just blurted out some random thing about shampoo bubbles. But his woes are cut short when Serika comes over to ask him whether he wants to exchange email addresses with her. Then again, Muta doesn't have a cellphone (after he accidentally flushed his in the toilet bowl) so he couldn't even use this opportunity to get to know her better. Another applicant soon took Serika's attention and Muta is left by himself. But not for long though as Kenji quietly hands him a note, containing everybody's email addresses. Muta couldn't care less about everybody but he's thrilled that Serika's number is on the list. The next day, Muta buys himself a new phone and when he gets a call from an unknown number soon after, he unreasonably thinks it's Serika. But it's only Hibito who asks him to come to Houston to meet his fellow astronauts. Muta jumps at this opportunity and is soon making his way to the U.S.

COMMENTS:
I couldn't blog about this last week but no matter. Muta makes the funniest facial expressions. I love him. And I even enjoy his crush on Serika, except that the Serika character seem to exist only as Muta's object of unrequited affection. I hope her presence in this show would be more reasonable than that, although maybe that's a little too much to hope for. Still, I'm enjoying this show. Space Brothers is one of two shows this season that I am always looking forward to each week. The other one is Sakamichi no Apollon.

more screencaps from episode 4: