Live action TV
Description
Naoto Fukuda is a supporting character in Space Brothers who first appears as a candidate in the 2025 JAXA astronaut selection exam. At the time of the exam, he is fifty-four years old, making him the oldest member of Team A. His lifelong dream, which he wrote about in a sixth-grade essay, is to build Japan's first manned rocket and ride it into space. He has spent most of his career working in rocket development, and when he learned that the astronaut selection exam would be held again in 2025, he immediately left his job to try for a second time, having also taken the exam in 2008.
Naoto is calm, good-natured, and naturally becomes the coordinator of his team during the closed-environment third-stage test. He has a dry sense of humor and a persistent, almost stubborn optimism. He describes the group of people who cannot stop thinking about space and rockets as making his blood stir, and he feels that his dream still has a long way to go. Despite his age, he refuses to accept that he is at a disadvantage, telling himself that even a fake youthfulness for just two weeks is acceptable. This determination is tested when his glasses are accidentally broken by a fellow candidate, and he initially hides the difficulty he faces reading screens and equipment without them. He eventually receives a replacement pair after another candidate discreetly requests help from JAXA on his behalf.
During the third-stage exam, Naoto receives a green card task to destroy the clock in the facility without telling anyone. He carries out the instruction silently, and when Mutta Nanba witnesses the act, Naoto refuses to explain. This moment becomes part of a larger series of green card challenges that test the team's trust, but Mutta eventually realizes the truth and shakes Naoto's hand, solidifying their bond. On the final day of the test, when the team is asked to select two members most fit to be astronauts, Naoto privately believes he will be excluded because his real age cannot be disguised and his future as an astronaut would be shorter than that of younger candidates. The team ultimately uses a rock-paper-scissors method proposed by Mutta, and Naoto accepts the outcome with grace.
After the exam, Naoto is not selected as an astronaut, but he does not give up on space. He is recruited by a private company called Swingby, which aims to realize Japan's first manned spaceflight. Over time, he becomes a key figure in the company, developing the Ares I rocket and coordinating with JAXA and NASA on multiple missions. He leads the effort to launch the FUJI return capsule, which successfully brings back protein crystallization experiments from the International Space Station. When Mutta and another astronaut become stranded on the Moon due to a solar flare and equipment failures, Naoto works closely with NASA's Walter Gates and JAXA's Tadashi Hoshika to prepare a rescue mission using a Russian Soyuz launched from Japan. He personally oversees the immense pressure and checklist verification required for this unprecedented operation. He writes a banner for Mutta that reads, "My next dream is to hear all your moon stories. I'm looking forward to the toast. One more push!" reflecting both his personal friendship and his unwavering commitment to supporting those who reach the destinations he helped make possible.
Naoto was previously married, but his family broke down before 2025 due to his total dedication to rocket development, and he has a daughter named Ryoko from that marriage. He has a peculiar habit of fighting with his stubborn bedhead every morning and possesses the unusual skill of playing air shogi. Beyond his technical expertise in rocket engineering and mission coordination, his most defining ability is his resilience: he pursues his childhood dream across decades, shifts between roles as candidate, engineer, manager, and facilitator, and never loses sight of the goal of putting people into space, whether he is the one riding the rocket or the one sending others safely onward.
Naoto is calm, good-natured, and naturally becomes the coordinator of his team during the closed-environment third-stage test. He has a dry sense of humor and a persistent, almost stubborn optimism. He describes the group of people who cannot stop thinking about space and rockets as making his blood stir, and he feels that his dream still has a long way to go. Despite his age, he refuses to accept that he is at a disadvantage, telling himself that even a fake youthfulness for just two weeks is acceptable. This determination is tested when his glasses are accidentally broken by a fellow candidate, and he initially hides the difficulty he faces reading screens and equipment without them. He eventually receives a replacement pair after another candidate discreetly requests help from JAXA on his behalf.
During the third-stage exam, Naoto receives a green card task to destroy the clock in the facility without telling anyone. He carries out the instruction silently, and when Mutta Nanba witnesses the act, Naoto refuses to explain. This moment becomes part of a larger series of green card challenges that test the team's trust, but Mutta eventually realizes the truth and shakes Naoto's hand, solidifying their bond. On the final day of the test, when the team is asked to select two members most fit to be astronauts, Naoto privately believes he will be excluded because his real age cannot be disguised and his future as an astronaut would be shorter than that of younger candidates. The team ultimately uses a rock-paper-scissors method proposed by Mutta, and Naoto accepts the outcome with grace.
After the exam, Naoto is not selected as an astronaut, but he does not give up on space. He is recruited by a private company called Swingby, which aims to realize Japan's first manned spaceflight. Over time, he becomes a key figure in the company, developing the Ares I rocket and coordinating with JAXA and NASA on multiple missions. He leads the effort to launch the FUJI return capsule, which successfully brings back protein crystallization experiments from the International Space Station. When Mutta and another astronaut become stranded on the Moon due to a solar flare and equipment failures, Naoto works closely with NASA's Walter Gates and JAXA's Tadashi Hoshika to prepare a rescue mission using a Russian Soyuz launched from Japan. He personally oversees the immense pressure and checklist verification required for this unprecedented operation. He writes a banner for Mutta that reads, "My next dream is to hear all your moon stories. I'm looking forward to the toast. One more push!" reflecting both his personal friendship and his unwavering commitment to supporting those who reach the destinations he helped make possible.
Naoto was previously married, but his family broke down before 2025 due to his total dedication to rocket development, and he has a daughter named Ryoko from that marriage. He has a peculiar habit of fighting with his stubborn bedhead every morning and possesses the unusual skill of playing air shogi. Beyond his technical expertise in rocket engineering and mission coordination, his most defining ability is his resilience: he pursues his childhood dream across decades, shifts between roles as candidate, engineer, manager, and facilitator, and never loses sight of the goal of putting people into space, whether he is the one riding the rocket or the one sending others safely onward.