Author: Little Death/Anitama Cover Source: Cosmic Brothers
Name: Cosmic Brothers
Author: Hiroya Koyama
Places of serialization: "Morning"
Serial date: January 2008 ——
Single edition: 30 volumes
Sales: 16 million
On January 23, 2017, the 30th volume of the "Cosmic Brothers" single book was officially released, and unconsciously, this comic about the universe and dreams and brotherhood has been almost 10 years old, let's see what charm this work has, which can create 16 million copies of sales and trigger a boom.
The comic book author of "Cosmic Brothers" is Azuya Koyama, who was born in Kyoto, and this name is his own pen name, but the author himself has said that the word "Zeus" in this name comes from his real name, mainly because his father liked the universe and space, so he took the name of this word, which is also a reason why he would later create "Cosmic Brothers". Born in 1978, when he was in middle school, it was the golden age of Japanese manga magazines in the 90s, and under the leadership of three major shonen manga magazines such as Weekly Shonen Jump, he continued to set sales records for manga magazines and manga single books, and Oyama Washiya's most obsessed at that time was "Slam Dunk Master", and was deeply moved by the spirit of pursuing dreams and never giving up. Later, he was very excited to have the opportunity to publish his work in a magazine with Yuhiko Inoue, the author of "Slam Dunk Master".
Sensei Koyama.
In middle school, the club that Oyama joined was the soccer department, and this kind of sport that emphasized both teamwork and personal characteristics provided great help in his later depictions of teamwork. For Yasuya Koyama, "Cosmic Brothers" is the work of his efforts to collect the experience of the previous thirty years of life, and it is also the work he is most committed to. Prior to Cosmic Brothers, Koyama belonged to the unknown generation, and originally won the MANGA OPEN Award in 2005 by relying on a short story "Troupe JET'S" to establish the manga magazine Morning, a subsidiary of Kodansha. He also took advantage of this to get the opportunity to debut, and from 2006, he officially serialized the works in "Morning", but the initial two works were not very successful, and the hasty 1 volume of single line was announced to be completed.
Koyama persisted in this way for two years, and when he began to doubt that he was no longer suitable for the manga path, a book that influenced him was "Follow You" (君について行こう) written by a doctor named Xiang I man. The content of this book is mainly to describe the author's accompanying wife, who is also the first female astronaut in Japan, to work hard to become an American NASA astronaut. This book had a great influence on Oyama, and some of the creative ideas for "Cosmic Brothers" later came out of here.
At that time, the recommendation of this book to Oyama Zeya was his editor Sadoshima Yongping, because of the failure of the previous two works, Oyama Zeya seemed a little discouraged, when discussing new topics with the editor, Sado island Yongping just finished reading this book, he said to Oyama Zeya, or you try the theme of the universe, this kind of villain role, the main theme of daily life may be more suitable for you, it is better to get a short story to see the effect. After being persuaded by the editor,Ogama at the end of 2007, he handed over a test-and-test short story, which was also the prototype of the later Cosmic Brothers.
When Yasuya Koyama was asked why this work is in the form of two brothers as protagonists together, he said that the book that originally taught Xiang Iwanqi mainly described the process of the couple working hard to become astronauts together, and he wanted to change to a boy, and the two brothers became astronauts together, wouldn't it be interesting? It was decided to adopt this dual-protagonist model, although the brother's role was heavier. The origin of the brothers' names is also more interesting, the younger brother's name is to have a "to" pronunciation at the end, so that the name will sound more handsome. The pronunciation of the name of the elder brother Rokutai makes people want to laugh as soon as they hear it, which is very similar to the pronunciation of "muda" in Japanese for "futile". Another point is to make the names of these two people their representatives, so that people can immediately think of this as a character in "Cosmic Brothers" when they mention the sixth wife or the day people. In addition, the source of the brother's hair design is to see a member of the American rock band the strokes, and feel that it will appear more obvious when placed on the brother.
After deciding to create this work about chasing the dream of the universe, the biggest problem facing Oyama was how to ensure the professionalism of aviation knowledge. So he directly contacted the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), who was responsible for answering and supervising professional questions on the one hand, and visited the process of astronaut training in JAXA as a source of settings in the work. After that, Oyama Went to NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) in the United States to collect materials, and received strong support from the other side. It can be said that the training content that appears in "Cosmic Brothers", as well as professional mechanical equipment and scenes, are all well documented, which shows that Oyama has made a lot of effort.
After a period of preparation, the main chapter of "Cosmic Brothers" began to be serialized in the January 2008 issue of "Morning". This magazine is a weekly magazine, and the advantage is that it can have more time to arrange content, and the disadvantage is that the weekly rush is tighter. For Oyama, this is a somewhat unpopular subject, but whether it can get the affirmation of the reader is still unknown, but at least for him, he is very happy to be able to create this very interesting work, if someone starts to like the universe because he has watched this work, this is the best reward for him. When asked about the motivation to create, he once replied that he had always felt that although creating comics was for readers, it was more important to create for himself, otherwise he would not have persevered under such a difficult situation.
The content of "Cosmic Brothers" is set in a bit of a near future, talking about the brother Nanbo Rokuta born in 1993, and the younger brother Nanbori Who was born in 1996, the two brothers accidentally saw a UFO in the sky in the suburbs one night in July 2006 when they were young, and the other flew to the moon after a flash in the sky, the excited brothers were attracted by the vast and magical universe, and became aviation enthusiasts, and determined to work hard to learn, and became astronauts when they grew up. The two of them go to the universe together and explore the secrets of this infinite starry sky!
Time flies, childhood dreams and how many people can still remember when they become adults, more than ten years later, in 2025, his brother Nanbo Liutai has given up his dream halfway and become an automobile designer. On the other hand, his younger brother Minami bori, who always insisted on his dream, became one of THE latest batch of NASA lunar astronauts through his own efforts, and the only Japanese. Just as the whole of Japan was cheering and celebrating for the Japanese, Liu Tai impulsively beat the other party behind his boss because he heard his boss say his brother's cool words behind his back, thus making himself an object of rejection in the automotive industry, so that while he could not find a job, he could only guard his parents to do a family squat, confused every day, not knowing what he could do after that.
Liu Tai's mother really couldn't see her son continue to be so decadent, so she secretly sent Liu Tai's information to JAXA to participate in the astronaut selection once every few years, so that when Liu Tai received a reply letter from the primary election, she was still inexplicable. Encouraged by her younger brother, Ri-Iljin, and the old acquaintances, 31-year-old Rokuta decided to continue her childhood dream of becoming a true astronaut.
For the sixth wife, as an older brother, it is very gratifying to see the achievements of his younger brother Day and Day, but at the same time, he will sigh that he has not been able to move forward together. Liu Tai has always had a lack of self-confidence in his heart, this is because he felt that he had not been able to run through his dreams, was consistent, and gave up being a deserter in the middle of the way, and he was really sorry that he took his brother as the object of pursuit, but now he wanted to turn around and become a new person chasing his brother's footsteps forward. And becoming an astronaut requires a series of trainings, which may be an impractical choice for the 31-year-old six-tai who has no preparation and foundation, but in the end he stood out from hundreds of applicants. Moreover, in this selection, Liu Tai saw the same people who also harbored cosmic dreams, and even fifty-something people who had failed many times and still tried not to give up.
When Rokutai passed the JAXA astronaut candidate primary with his own ability, the Japanese on the other side also successfully landed on the moon by rocket and became the first Japanese to land on the moon, which made the Japanese famous in Japan, but also made the brother of Rokutai under great pressure, although Rokuto was indeed happy and proud of his brother, but the naturally optimistic Rokutai also secretly vowed to try to catch up. When he and four other JAXA selected alternate astronauts went to NASA for further training, the Japanese had an accident on the moon, lost contact, and finally relied on the japanese to wait for the rescue, but no one expected that this accident had laid a shadow on the Japanese, causing him to return to earth after the sequelae, so the Japanese had to find a way to solve this problem, otherwise he would never be able to go to the universe again.
Since the beginning of the series in early 2008, "Cosmic Brothers" has attracted a group of readers who like this manga by virtue of the author's Narrative Ability of Zeya Oyama and rigorous evidence, and in the 2009 "This manga is really great" ranking, the male to the manga ranked second, and in 2011 won the Elementary School Hall Manga Award General Department Award, as well as the Kodansha Manga Award General Department Award, while the work received high praise and attracted the attention of many investors. Later, it was adapted into an anime in the hope that more people would like the performance of this work. It is precisely because "Cosmic Brothers" suddenly announced that it will be adapted into a live-action movie and an animated version at the same time, which makes this work enter the vision of more people. When the live-action movie version starring Oguri Shun and Shosei Okada was released in 2012, the tv anime version on the other side also began to be broadcast in April, and for a while, the three aspects of movies, animation, and manga went hand in hand, instantly triggering a cosmic boom. It can be said that 2012 is the most fruitful year of "Cosmic Brothers", in addition to these three, supporting information books, special TV programs, radio dramas, live-action games, etc. have also appeared, making the popularity of "Cosmic Brothers" this work has increased, Oyama Himself also relies on the authorization of a single book and various copyrights, earning more than 900 million yen a year, and "Cosmic Brothers" has also become a Japanese phenomenon-level work.
When all 99 episodes of the animated version were played in March 2014, the boom of "Cosmic Brothers" came to an end, but during this period, the animated version did attract many new readers for the original, and because of the popularity of the universe theme, it correspondingly attracted more public attention to JAXA. At the same time, JAXA also allowed real-life active astronauts to participate in the animation dubbing, cameoing in the original character created in his own image, and even the manga author Oyama Shuya himself also made a cameo voice in the animation and said a few lines.
The live-action film version had to be cut and adapted due to the length of the film, and the short 2-hour movie version could only select part of the plot, and many settings and numbers were relatively reduced. The anime version has not been fully produced because the manga is still in serialization, and if you want to feel the charm of "Cosmic Brothers" better and more completely, you have to return to the manga itself. In the manga version, Koyama describes JAXA and NASA astronaut training in detail, which is also the material he has accumulated over many days in the two places.
Now the latest content of the Cosmic Brothers manga is that the Japanese are finally recovered and can enter space again, and this time he will join the Russian team, and the other side of the sixth side has finally landed on the moon and arrived at the location where the Japanese accident occurred.
"Morning", with The Sixth Ether as the cover, is linked to the movie "The Martian".
At present, "Cosmic Brothers" is still in the series, according to the current progress and the rhythm of the author, there should be a period of time before the end, if you are interested in the theme of the universe, you can choose this comic to watch, those who are still full of dreams, may wish to see how this 31-year-old half uncle, step by step, became a legendary astronaut!
After all, people always have to have a dream, what if it is realized?
【References】
Cosmic Brothers Japanese Wikipedia
Interview with Hiroya Koyama of the Space Brothers
Keiichi Tanaka interviews Yasuya Koyama
Koyama's response to the live-action movie version
Cosmic Brothers Special Interview with Yasuya Koyama
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Original: m.anitama.cn/article/99d1766145986fee?utm_source=toutiao