Series synopsis:Gorou Saruwatari and Lostman are mountain climbers who have ascended some of the highest mountains around the world. At the peak of Mount Everest, they see the ISA Space Station in the sky above and become determined to go into space. At the same time, NASA begins a program to research and obtain a new energy source which has been discovered on the moon. Gorou and Lostman attempt to join the program through different approaches: Lostman becomes a pilot and Gorou takes a job as a construction worker.

Moonlight Mile was to me one of the highlights of 2007. We don’t often see this kind of anime. Ultra realistic hard sf , without typical anime conventions, with believable complex characters and real human conflicts. It was a story about taking first steps in conquering the space showing how it could really look like. There were no living mechs there, no 13 years old pilots with mysterious powers. The characters are all grown ups who achieve their dreams through hard work and dedication.
It’s not that I don’t like more fantastical approach, but seeing good old fashioned hard SF in anime was very refreshing. The series has won me after 5 minutes. In the very first scene of first episode we see a female astronaut on moon who’s landing craft was destroyed. The help from base will come in 12 hours, while the astronaut has enough oxygen to last only 5 hours. Fortunately on map she sees abandoned container with oxygen, 105 kilometers away. So astronaut starts running, she’s heavy ( her body mass plus the suit weighs 140kgs), but the running speed is 6 times faster than on Earth thanks to lower gravity. Unfortunately running in -150 degrees Celsius causes the legs to get severe frostbites. Now when was the last time we’ve seen SF anime with such realism?

I would even dare to say that Moonlight Mile is SF equivalent of Monster or for those older readers anime equivalent of Joe Haldeman’s Forever War.If that’s not a recommendation then I don’t know what could be.

First season (subtitled “Lift Off) ended at episode 12. The second season(14 episodes long in total) begins right where first one ended. In typical Moonlight Mile style the OP sequence is composed of images from events far ahead (most of which we won’t see in this season). It’s as nice as always, it teases the viewer and gives the series an epic feeling.
First episode is Lostman-centric. We’re shown his attempts to win the trust of his subordinates, which isn’t easy, because every one of them is much more experienced than him and they don’t like the idea of having a rookie as their captain. It’s action-packed episode with first real space combat we’ve seen in the series. It was a real blast to watch it. Combat is handled as realistically as everything else in the series, the space follows newtonian physics, so the battle is like a more tactical version of Battlestar Galactica or Babylon 5 space fights than what we saw in Star Wars.
Second episode jumps back to Gorou as he welcomes new astronaut onboard the space station. It might sound less exciting than Lostman episode, but trust me: there are plenty of thrills in this episode (getting into space without suit and taking shower in ZeroG FTW!)

To sum up it’s a very good start for second season. The quality of storytelling didn’t drop even a bit. Plus it’s fascinating to see just how different Lostman and Gorou are. And despite those differences (or maybe because of them) I still cheer for both of our heroes. Although from the future teasing it looks like sooner or later the viewer will have to choose where his loyalties lay.
It’s a shame big fansub groups avoid this series (it was announced as licensed, but that was a year ago and so far no news about release have been posted), so we have to wait a long time for new episodes (the series long ended airing in Japan). Still, it’s worth the wait. If you’re new to Moonlight Mile go download the first season and then join me and my fellow suffering souls in the agonising wait.

And hopefully somebody will scanlate manga in the future as there’s no word on third season yet and already 14 volumes of manga have been published.

ratings:
Episode 1 : 9/10
Episode 2 : 8/10

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