The third episode of the Fuji TV Monday Getsuku drama "Canned Mackerel Goes to Space," starring actor Takumi Kitamura , aired on April 27th. The episode featured the graduation of students such as Shunichi Asano ( Natsuki Deguchi, who had been working tirelessly with him to develop space food. On social media, many expressed regret that the graduation was "too soon."
◇The following contains spoilers.
Nami and her friends were given the opportunity by Yuki Minagawa (Sonim) of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Space Education Center to present on the "design of canned mackerel that would work as space food." They worked hard to create prototypes over the 10 days they were given, but they were unable to create a form that would be safe and delicious for people going into space to eat.
On the day of the presentation, Nami and the others honestly reported that they had not been able to meet the technical challenges, but appealed to Yuki, saying, "We believe that if we had more time, we could definitely complete it." Furthermore, they appealed to the audience by saying that they wanted to transport canned mackerel, a school tradition, from the town of Obama in Fukui Prefecture to space.
Afterward, Yuki went to Wakasa Fisheries High School and gave a lecture about what life is like for astronauts. Yuki promised Asano that she would connect him with the person in charge of space food, but Nami and the others were facing graduation day.
Hayase Ikoi, Tsubasa Nakagawa, and Ashikawa Yuzu will appear as the second generation of space food development students, carrying on the aspirations of Nami and the others. On social media, there was excitement with comments such as, "The first generation students have graduated," "In a normal drama, graduation means the end, but in Sabachu, graduation is just a stepping stone and the goal is still far away," "It's sad that the first generation is graduating already, but I think this feeling will probably come back again," "It's really sad that Natsuki Deguchi, Kodai Kurosaki and the others are graduating, but I'm looking forward to what happens next," and "I'm looking forward to the second generation, and I'm also looking forward to seeing how the first generation will be involved!"
The drama is an original coming-of-age story based on the true story of students at a fisheries high school in Fukui Prefecture who challenged themselves to achieve their big dream of "developing space food."
