Looking back on the premiere of Astro Note, I would say it was more interesting than actually good. I mean it wasn’t awful or anything, but the humor was kind of spotty and the obvious tack it was sailing on seemed a little forced.  Well, this second episode was clearly better in my book  – and not just a little better, a lot.  There were a number of reasons for that but they add up to a marked improvement, which is what really counts.

One of the first things that appealed to me here was that Astro Note overtly acknowledged the Maison Ikkoku connection, which somehow makes a big difference sub-textually. There’s no disputing now that it’s a homage, and as I noted last week authenticity is critical for a series this abjectly retro to work. It also markedly changed in terms of humor. Rather than a string of gags, this was more or less a narrative. The humor was character-driven (at least some of it). In short the first episode tried way too hard, and this one benefitted from being a lot more relaxed.

Fleshing out the backstory helps too. We now that that the old landlord Tasuke was very likely a “Widow” too, and that he probably hid the key Mira is looking for somewhere in the house (maybe in the Showa umeshu). There’s another alien species looking for it – the “Hubbys”. I enjoy that these names exist for no other reason than to cause a misunderstanding with Takumi – I think Rumiko would approve. The Hubby have sent a robot spy to search for the key, and it infiltrates Astro Lodge posing as a Roomba (which is a fun way to update the 1980’s-style storyline).

We also know why Mira’s last name is Gotokuji, and I’m kind of embarrassed I didn’t make the connection last week since I visited Gotokuji when I lived in Tokyo. That places Astro Note in Setagaya, and even if that’s not where Maison Ikkoku was it has the same sort of vibe. The humor overall worked better for me here – for example the run-in Takumi has with the oba-san in town. That whole bit with her using the Kansai-ben for candy (“Ame-chan“) because she was expanding her vocabulary was hilarious. And giving out candy to strangers is, like, the ultimate Japanese oba(a)-san move.

Basically, Mira and Takumi just come off more like actual characters now and that helps. She’s basically a bored aristocrat who just wants to escape her responsibilities and have fun (and Naosuke’s job is to nag her about it). But she accepts that those responsibilities (peace in the universe) are important and she is trying to do what she came to do. On that score her fiancee “Shoin Ginger” (another big name seiyuu, Fukuyama Jun) shows up, and he’s exactly the sort of ludicrous popinjay you’d expect him to be in this sort of series.

“Sasuga” is a very important word in the Japanese language. Like so many it’s hard to translate literally but more or less means “as expected”. It says something about Japanese culture that this can be the highest compliment one can give, though it can also have negative connotations depending on context. For a show like Astro Note it can cut both ways, and indeed I think it has in the first two episodes. This one was much more in the positive sense, and that gives me a lot of hope going forward. A show like this can be comfort food for an old-timer like me, and there’s nothing wrong with that.