Space Brothers: Dreams and the Reality of Space

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 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.

"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.

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.

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.