Space Brothers: Dreams and the Reality of Space
Space Brothers (Uchū Kyōdai), is an immensely popular manga written by Chūya Koyama. In the book "Uchū Kyōdai Real" featuring the reality of the people who work at space-exploration job sites, its author Shigeru Okada closes in on the secret behind the popularity.
By Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
Chūya Koyama "Space Brothers", volume 1, 2008 © Chuya Koyama / Kodansha
Chūya Koyama "Space Brothers" (Kodansha), paperback bookOriginal Source: Provided by Cork
The appeal of "Space Brothers", which depicts space-exploration job sites in detail
The first time the smash hit "Space Brothers" appeared, it was on the pages of the weekly manga magazine "Morning" (Kodansha). This work has steadily gained readers since it was first serialized in the January 2008 issue, and it has been released as paperback books as well. "Space Brothers" continues to gain popularity the longer it runs, and—as of the November 2020 issue, which marks the work’s 13th year—this smash hit manga has a total of 38 volumes and 24 million issues in circulation.
As is suggested by the title, the story created by the manga artist Chūya Koyama is about astronaut brothers. These two brothers—Mutta Namba and Hibito, who is three years younger than him—have realized their childhood dream of becoming astronauts, and they play leading roles in this emotional and dramatic tale of the people involved in space exploration. The stage for this drama consists of real-life aerospace exploration agencies: Japan’s JAXA (the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), the USA’s NASA, and Russia’s Roscosmos. In addition, the work’s timeline is based on the current progress of real-world space exploration, and the story is drawn by assuming near-future developments that are actually possible.
Chūya Koyama "Space Brothers", volume26, pp.142-143, 2015Original Source: © Chuya Koyama / Kodansha
The most appealing thing about this manga is the characters drawn by Koyama. All the characters are extremely human, and—although they are in the field of space exploration on the cutting edge of mankind—any reader could sympathize with any one of them. In addition, each character’s rich individuality is skillfully depicted through separate appealing episodes and emotionally resonant lines.
Even more notable is the work’s depiction of spaceships, rockets, space stations, and other equipment related to space exploration. These spacecraft, which represent the culmination of mankind’s wisdom, are drawn painstakingly and beautifully, right down to the smallest detail. In addition, the work’s movie-like frame layout, which is similar to camera blocking, lends the work a great deal of intensity and realism.
An extremely intense rocket launching scene, which is drawn similarly to a scene from a movie.
The birth of "Space Brothers"
Chūya Koyama, the author of "Space Brothers", was born in Kyoto Prefecture in 1978. He brought his work to Kodansha in 2004, and he was selected for a 15th Annual Manga Open Grand Prize the next year, which launched his career as a manga artist. After that, he serialized both "Harujan [Haru Jump]"—a manga about ski jumps—and "Jijijī [GGG]"—a manga that featured a fleet-footed 70-year-old thief as a protagonist—in "Morning", and he started serializing "Space Brothers", his first weekly work, in December of 2007. Since then, he has continued drawing this work for 13 years.
Chūya Koyama "Space Brothers", volume 1, 2008Original Source: © Chuya Koyama / Kodansha
However, Koyama himself did not originally have a strong interest in space or its exploration, and he only became interested due to the efforts of his editor. That editor was Yōhei Sadoshima (currently the representative of Cork), who worked at Kodansha at the time.
Sadoshima had obtained a copy of "Kimi ni Tsuite Ikō - Nyōbō wa Uchū wo Mezashita [I’ll Follow You: My Wife Aimed for Space]" (Kodansha, 1995), an essay written by Makio Mukai, the husband of Chiaki Mukai, Japan’s first female astronaut. After he finished reading it, he proposed a concept that combined space and family to Koyama, who he had already been thinking would be able to draw a really entertaining manga depicting families and conversations. Koyama’s first name contains one of the characters in the Japanese word for space (the chū from uchū), but Chūya is his real name, so this is a coincidence.
Chūya Koyama’s material fileOriginal Source: Provided by Cork
The making of "Space Brothers"
To draw a work set at unfamiliar space-exploration job sites, it is important to conduct detailed interviews with people involved in space exploration and to use the front-line information obtained from them as material. Therefore, one might get the impression that "Space Brothers" was actually drawn while incorporating the latest space exploration situation.
However, the "Space Brothers" staff members claim that, surprisingly enough, this work is based not on the latest information but rather on a story born in the imagination of its author, Chūya Koyama. In other words, the story is not constructed based on information gained in interviews. Instead, Koyama merely utilizes the latest space exploration information within the story he dreams up.
Chūya Koyama "Space Brothers", volume34, pp.187-188, 2018Original Source: © Chuya Koyama / Kodansha
As an example, in volume 33, there is a scene in which the female astronaut Betty is injured when there is a tank explosion on the Moon. To draw this scene, Koyama first asked the staff to collect information by saying, “I want to know the first-aid procedure for when there is an explosion on the Moon. The injured person will be conscious, capable of talking, and not in any real danger of losing her life... I’m imagining that her colleague Carlo will perform a surgical operation to help her. In that case, what injury would that be?”
There has never been a real-world example of someone being injured by an explosion on the Moon, so the staff apparently referred to first-aid methods for traffic accidents and interviewed doctors as well as people involved in aerospace exploration agencies. Based on the information they obtained, Koyama fleshed out his story, ultimately creating a scene of mankind’s first remote-controlled surgical operation at the International Space Station (ISS), which would actually be possible using today’s technology.
Initially, Koyama considered a story in which Betty would be returned to Earth, but, medically speaking, there was a risk of her not surviving the impact of a spaceship landing, which gave rise to the concept of mankind’s first surgical operation at the ISS.
Chūya Koyama "Space Brothers", volume3, pp.72-73, 2008Original Source: © Chuya Koyama / Kodansha
"Space Brothers", a manga regularly read at space-exploration job sites
"Space Brothers" is well-known at space-exploration job sites as well and has attracted many devoted readers. During the same period of time as JAXA’s astronaut candidate selection examination from 2008 to 2009, an astronaut candidate selection examination scene was serialized in the manga. According to an astronaut who passed the examination, people started talking about this, and the examination candidates passed the "Space Brothers" book around, all of them reading it in turn.
Mosaic art drawn on H-IIA F31 rocketOriginal Source: © Chuya Koyama / Kodansha, Provided by Young Astronauts Club, Japan
In addition, “Space Brothers” are used for PR activities in many cases. For example, there are panels from the work displayed at the public relations facility of the Tsukuba Space Center, “Namba brothers” was written on the side of H-IIA Launch Vehicle No. 31 (H-IIA F31) —which was launched in 2016—and the brothers were used as mascots for the International Space Exploration Forum in 2018.
"Space Brothers" has been translated into 7 languages, including English, French, Korean, Chinese, Italian, Vietnamese and Thai.
Serika FundOriginal Source: Provided by Serika Fund
Social activities born from a manga character
One notable detail of the development of "Space Brothers" is that aspects of the work have been developed into a social activity project. This project, which is called the "Serika Fund", aims to collect research and development funds and provide them to researchers in order to find a treatment method for ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), a currently incurable disease for which the cause has not yet been sufficiently analyzed and no fundamental treatment method has been discovered. The recipients of the first grant have already discovered effective causal relationships and published research papers important in terms of elucidating the causes of ALS, showing that the results of the fund are steadily starting to appear.
The project is actually named after a major character from the manga. Serika Itō is a Japanese astronaut who initially decided to become a doctor due to her father, a pathologist, dying of ALS when she was a child. In the manga, Serika decides to become an astronaut to find a treatment method for ALS, and the manga even shows her at the ISS as she succeeds at an experiment that results in major progress in the development of a remedy.
Chūya Koyama "Space Brothers", volume24, p.188, 2014Original Source: © Chuya Koyama / Kodansha
In addition to Serika’s father, Rinpei Itō, a number of other characters battling with ALS also appear in the work. One example is the astronomer Sharon Kaneko, a former teacher of the Namba brothers and a person Serika looks up to.
The Space Brothers ten-year anniversary event, 2017Original Source: Provided by Cork
Behind the hit, a creator agency creates and nurtures fans
"Cork"—the creator agency to which Chūya Koyama belongs—has contributed a lot to Space Brothers in terms of its diverse media mix and branding strategy.
Cork’s team in charge of Chūya Koyama provides him with creative support, including collecting data and conducting interviews. In addition, to help boost the "Space Brothers" contents, the company runs various events and fan clubs while developing goods and otherwise actively expanding the work. There is apparently also an endless stream of collaborative plan offers for commercials, etc.
This sort of work is also extremely beneficial for manga drawing creators. Conventionally speaking, only a one-way relationship existed between authors and readers, but Cork’s activities create opportunities for an audience to learn about a work from various angles while increasing points of contact between authors and their fans, thereby creating a virtuous cycle that also leads to increased motivation.
It seems like we can expect the role of creator agencies such as Cork to become increasingly important to the contents business.
This photo is from The Space Brothers ten-year anniversary event held in the Kodansha auditorium in 2017. Koyama is wearing a Santa suit in the center of the front row.
Shigeru Okada "Uchū Kyōdai Real [Real Space Brothers]", 2019Original Source: ©️Shigeru Okada / Kodansha
Nonfiction (Real) born from fiction (the manga)
Based on the characters drawn in the manga, a project to look for real-world people who were the models for the characters among those affiliated with the aerospace exploration agency JAXA was launched. The related interviews with the concerned JAXA parties are compiled in the book "Uchū Kyōdai Real [Real Space Brothers]". In other words, this is an example of a nonfiction book born from a fictional manga.
The JAXA employees who appear in "Uchū Kyōdai Real" were chosen based on the titles of characters depicted in the manga (astronauts, astronaut managers, flight directors, flight surgeons, etc.). Employees who responded to interviews conducted for the book knew of "Space Brothers", and some of them were even regular readers of the manga. All of them said they welcome the attention they have received from so many readers of the manga, which depicts their work (space exploration) and workplace (JAXA).
The astronaut Norishige Kanai responds to an interview at the Tsukuba Space CenterOriginal Source: Provided by Cork, ©︎JAXA
One thing that is clear based on the interviews in the book as that the people who were interviewed are every bit as richly individualistic and appealing as the manga characters. In addition, the drama of the many joys and sorrows they have experienced is unique and interesting. Some of the episodes in the book would really only be possible at a job site on the front line of space exploration, while others feature troubles, hardships, and joys common to any workplace. As a result of the reaction to the project of "Uchū Kyōdai Real", the work has been used as a theme for talking events and lectures held at cultural centers.
Written by Shigeru Okada, drawn by Yuzuki "Space Sandwich"Original Source: Provided by Cork
More fiction (manga) born from nonfiction (Real)
Following the effort to create nonfiction from fiction, still more fiction was born. Specifically, the manga "Space Sandwich" was created based on "Uchū Kyōdai Real". The entertaining concept of this work is to take the real-life people who were interviewed for "Uchū Kyōdai Real" and portray them in a manga of their own. In other words, "Space Sandwich" is an attempt to depict both the richly individualistic people encountered during the interviews and episodes recounted by them by using a manga instead of printed text.
"Space Sandwich" is currently serialized in member ship based web site of Chūya Koyama’s fan club “Koyacyū-bu Premium.”
Chūya Koyama "Space Brothers", volume 38, 2020Original Source: © Chuya Koyama / Kodansha
The meaning and significance of drawing space
Another factor that has contributed to the long-term increases in the fans of the manga "Space Brothers" as well as the work’s ability to captivate so many readers and its adaptation as both an anime and a live-action movie is its setting: the fields of space and space exploration see one new discovery and development after another, and they are attracting ever greater attention and interest from society.
In recent years, as it has become perfectly natural for astronauts to stay at the ISS, numerous private companies have started developing manned spaceships, rockets, satellites, and related services, and the space exploration field is booming. In addition, we are seeing results from the active unmanned exploration of planets and asteroids in the Solar System, and projects aimed at the manned exploration of the Moon and Mars are steadily proceeding. Technology for observing outer space is also advancing, and the field is seeing ongoing research and advancements to elucidate the structure of space, including successful efforts to film black holes.
Given the above, although mankind lives on the thin crust of the tiny planet of Earth, as we learn more about the magnificence and wonders of space, we are no longer viewing space as something far away to be merely looked up at from below. Instead, there seems to be an ever-stronger awareness of space as a place to be explored with our own two feet.
Chūya Koyama "Space Brothers", volume7, 2008Original Source: © Chuya Koyama / Kodansha
In "Space Brothers" volume 7, as the first Japanese person sets foot on the Moon, the manga shows the townspeople looking up at the Moon in the night sky. It’s a fairly everyday sort of scene, but it shows the way the awareness of the people—who should be tired of looking at the same old Moon—has changed as they excitedly stare at it, feeling something quite different than usual. This famous scene also helps us experience the power of space to bring people together.
"Space Brothers" is the result of incorporating the drama of real-world space-exploration job sites and the people who work at them into a manga and transforming this into entertainment. This arguably unparalleled work breaks the boundaries of a simple manga, affecting how readers face their lives and work or interact with those who are close to them while uniting many readers with the theme of space.
Cooperation: Cork Inc.
Text: Shigeru Okada
Edit: Nanami Kikuchi, Natsuko Fukushima＋Yuka Miyazaki（BIJUTSU SHUPPAN-SHA CO., LTD.)
Supervisor: Hirohito Miyamoto（Meiji University）
Production: BIJUTSU SHUPPAN-SHA CO., LTD.
