At least since 1987, when Michael Jackson’s Bad album came out, and possibly before that, one of the meanings of “bad” in English has been “good,” or something like it. I suppose it sounds a little dated now to say something is “bad” in praise, as now people generally say “badass” instead. Is anyone else around here old enough to remember “Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president?” or “I love the Power Glove, it’s so bad?” Anyway, recently I have been noticing that in Japanese, one of the meanings of “good” is “bad.”

For example, on 毎日かあさん, she frequently says もういいよ！. She means something like, “Enough already!” Then in Bakuman I just read one of the artists say, “もう細かい話はいいッスよ！”, which means something like “I don’t want to hear any more details!” The literal meanings of these, of course, are nearly opposite.

I suppose in English (American English at least) we have something similar. When someone asks you if you want something, you can say, “I’m good,” which means that you are content and you don’t want what is being offered. However, if you say “It’s all good” after someone apologizes, you really do mean that everything is fine, and it doesn’t imply the apology isn’t necessary.

Good is bad and bad is good, except when it isn’t.

There is some interesting Japanese at the beginning of the Space Brothers opening song.

いつもと違う — different from usual

I don’t remember seeing that sort of usage of と before. Eijiro says you can also do “the same as usual” with いつもと同じ. Also compare the use of より with いつも, as in the phrase “quicker than usual” いつもより早く.

空気が読めない — can’t read the air

There is a Tofugu article about this concept, and apparently there is an abbreviation for it since it’s a common phrase.

http://www.tofugu.com/2012/11/19/ky-and-ambiguity-in-japan-its-difficult/

読む空気がない — there is no air to read

There is a play on words here, because the show is about space exploration, or at the very least, the dream of space exploration. Grammatically though the phrase 読む空気 is quite interesting. Eijiro says you can make similar expressions like “book to read” by doing 読む本. But compare the expression 空飛ぶ車, which means “flying car,” not “car to fly.”