The basic premise of the anime is simple. It tells of two brothers who had dreams of becoming astronauts as children. Whereas the younger brother has already made it, the older brother put aside his dream, thinking it unrealistic and only after some trouble at his work place and some encouragement from friends and family does he finally take his first steps to catching his little brother with the thoughts 'the older brother should always be one step ahead of the younger brother'. The anime follows the older brother Mutta as he sets out to try and become a astronaut alongside his little brother, as he meets interesting characters and faces many challenges along the way.
There are many anime that are considered 'slice of life'. But most of these are silly or just overly dramatic. Uchuu Kyoudai is the one anime I can actually call 'slice of life' as although it is dramatic, it is never overly done, and I could actually imagine this story having been true.
So an anime that is 'realistic' and follows somebody trying to work towards one of the hardest life goals a person could have, as they go through trials, interviews, success and failure. I can't imagine anyone who could say 'I enjoy work interviews', so surely an anime that has a focus on perhaps the biggest 'job interview' a person could have, without resorting to silly humour and jokes would be boring?
Well I thought that would be the case, and only picked up this anime on a whim as it sounded interesting.
However... boring is the last word I would use to describe this anime. It has been going on for over 50 episodes as I write this review, and I can honestly say I have never found it boring.. this anime is easily the biggest surprise of any I have watched, as by all logic I should find this sort of thing boring, as I usually tend to get bored by anything that does not have a lot of action or comedy to it.
So why do I enjoy this anime so much? It is hard to say really, but It has to bey all down to the writing. The story is written incredible well as are the characters. And the art and sound is also done brilliantly.
The basic story is simple, but is written in such a way that it grips you and makes you eager to know what is going to happen. Sometimes it may seem predictable, sometimes it is predictable but sometimes it may completely surprise you.
The characters are also somewhat 'simple'. Again this anime is rather realistic, as are its characters, so the characters do not really have any eccentric personality's, although some are perhaps a little strange. But that does not make them dull, the characters do not need to be silly or dramatic, they are well written, likeable and are very well developed.
Although it is a fairly 'serious' anime, it has humour as well, a light humour that fits the characters perfectly, and allows the story to flow well without it getting silly or overly serious.
The excellent writing of both story and characters with excellent animation and sound. This anime is one of the best I have ever watched and I am very glad I took the whim to watch it. If you are unsure about watching this sort of anime, you should try watching the first few episodes and just see if you get sucked in, you may be presently surprised.
