Star Student Selection 星・徒・選・抜

Air date: May 27, 2012

Important things that happened

This episode is a reference to the manga "Twin Spica", which is a story about teenagers who train to become astronauts. Notable comparisons:
- Both have a skinny antagonistic girl.
- One of the tests to become a student in the manga is being locked in a confined area in a group, and being forced to line up dominoes. In this, they have to fold cranes. There's also a substory in Twin Spica about origami.
- The students in Twin Spica are forced to deal with unexpected troubles, in the way the Fourze students are. An instance that occurs in both is a student becoming unwell while in the confined room.
- Another test in Twin Spica is taking apart equipment, mixing the group parts together, and reassembling them. In Fourze, the groups are forced to put together a robot using parts that the group shares.
Karen Takizawa blogs about being on Fourze.
Eline's "Uchuu iku zo" parallels Gentarou's "Uchuu kitaaa". In fact, she recognizes him as Fourze for it. This becomes an issue later since she tells Libra that he neglected to mention that fact.
Apparently Eline's Japanese is imperfect. She makes little mistakes here and there. That's how Gentarou recognizes her in Aquarius form. Since she's a teenager still in her flashback, she's probably been in Japan at least a few years.

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