[DeepL Translation - needs review] Volume 1: The year is 2025. My brother believed in himself one more time. The story of his journey to Mars via Tsukuba begins! A full-fledged space manga about brothers! In the year 2025, Rokuta and Hibito make a promise to each other while gazing up at the stars. Meanwhile, Rokuta has been fired from his job and is unemployed. A single e-mail from his brother makes him start aiming for space again!
(Translator: DeepL)
Relatable, heartwarming, surprisingly approachable
Synopsis After a memorable encounter with a UFO, two young brothers dream of one day flying to the moon and beyond. But what course will each brother's life take? An uplifting read exploring the relatable tension of facing your childhood expectations for your life as an adult.
Entertainment I read this based on the recommendation of a space nerd friend, and jumped in without knowing much about the story at all. I was expecting it to have more of a action/adventure feel, and I think the story may trend that direction as the story progresses, but this first volume felt more realistic and character-driven. I found the main character's struggles to be very relatable, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the story progresses. If you like ReLife, you might enjoy this story too.
Language Learning The first few pages of the story intimidated me at first because there were several references to historical cultural events that I wasn't familiar with, but once I made it past those first few pages it became much easier to read smoothly. I recommend looking up at least the part about the World Cup incident if you're not familiar.
I was expecting this to be a challenging read for me vocabulary-wise because of the space theme, but after reading I think the difficulty is similar to SPYxFAMILY. Like in SPYxFAMILY, there are some stretches with more technical language, but I found the overall story easy to follow without too many lookups. The technical talk was easy to generally infer from the context and kanji, or to skim over when it wasn't crucial to the story. There isn't much furigana, but it's always included for names, which I found very helpful.