The characters have to put together single-color jigsaw puzzles within a three hour time limit, as one of their activities during their astronaut testing. But not a single person starts by sorting out the edge pieces, or by dumping all the pieces out of their box onto their part of the table, to see what they’ve got. Also, they all do their puzzles seated, even though there’s no rules about that, and it’s easier to see all your pieces if you stand up. Nor does anybody decide to put the puzzle together on the floor, even though it’s a nice clean hard floor and you’d have more space that way. They act like polite people in a small Japanese apartment, I guess.
Also, when the “correct answer” to a problem is to make up some kind of BS explanation that protects your teammates’ face, instead of pointing out the obvious way you got the answer and making everyone laugh or kick themselves.
I love Space Brothers, and it’s probably the best near-future space program anime ever; and NASA is probably very happy about it. But it is definitely, definitely not an American show.
Also, when the “correct answer” to a problem is to make up some kind of BS explanation that protects your teammates’ face, instead of pointing out the obvious way you got the answer and making everyone laugh or kick themselves.
I could do with a bit more of this in American TV…..
I don’t mind people saving each other’s face; but the question was what time it was, and the answer was that the group had passed by a digital clock in an unobtrusive but obvious place.
And I still don’t believe that in a group of fifteen people, none of them would have just asked their internal clocks what time it was. I don’t care where you live; that’s a common human skill. Maybe in the original manga, they’d done more to disorient the characters, but messing up internal time sense takes a few days.
(Yes, I can’t help nitpicking these things. But I love the show.)