Twin Spica volume 5


By Kou Yaginuma (Vertical)
ISBN: 978-1-935654-02-5

This compellingly intimate paean to the wonder of the stars originated in a poignant short story: Kou Yaginuma’s ‘2015 Nen no Uchiage Hanabi’ (‘2015: Fireworks’), published in Gekkan Comics Flapper magazine in June 2000.

The author subsequently expanded and enhanced his subject, themes and characters into an all-consuming epic coming-of-age spellbinder which wedded hard science and humanist fiction with lyrical mysticism and traditional tales of school-days friendships the inescapable shocks of growing up.

Small, unassuming Asumi Kamogawa always dreamed of going into space. From her earliest moments the lonely child had gazed with intense longing up at the stars, her only companion and confidante an imaginary friend dubbed Mr. Lion.

When she was a year old, the first Japanese space launch ended in catastrophe after rocket-ship Shishigō (“The Lion”) exploded before crashing back to earth on the city of Yuigahama where the Kamogawas lived. Hundreds were killed and many more injured.

Perhaps the cruellest casualty was Asumi’s own mother. Maimed and comatose, the matron took years to die and the long, drawn-out tragedy deeply traumatised her tiny, uncomprehending daughter.

The trauma also crushed her grieving husband who had worked as a designer on the rockets for Japan’s fledgling Space Program.

In the wake of the disaster, Tomoro Kamogawa was assigned by the corporation who had built the ship to head the reparations committee. Guilt-wracked and personally bereaved, the devastated technologist visited and formally apologised to each and every survivor or victim’s grieving family. The experience harrowed and crushed him.

He is certainly no fan of the space program nowm having lost wife, beloved engineering career and his pride to the race for the heavens. Raising his daughter alone, he worked two – and often three – menial jobs at a time for over a decade and cannot countenance losing the very last of his loved ones to the cold black heavens…

In response to the Lion disaster, Japan set up an Astronautics and Space Sciences Academy. After years of passionate struggle and in defiance of her father’s wishes, in 2024 Asumi – an isolated, solitary, serious but determined teenager – was accepted to the Tokyo National Space School. Without her father’s blessing, she reluctantly left Yuigahama and joined the new class.

Amongst the year’s fresh intake were surly, abrasive Shinnosuke Fuchuya (an elementary school classmate who used to bully her as a child back in Yuigahama), jolly Kei Oumi, chilly Marika Ukita and spooky, ultra-cool style-icon and fashion victim Shu Suzuki who all gradually became the shy introvert’s closest acquaintances.

Every day Asumi nudged inexorably towards her goal: the stars. Ever since the crashing rocket had shattered her family, she had drawn comfort from the firmament, with Mr. Lion staring up at the heavens at her side – especially drawn to the twinkling glow of Virgo and the alluring binary star Spica.

And now she was so tantalisingly close…

Small, poor, physically weak but resolutely capable, Asumi endures and triumphs over every obstacle and she still talks with Mr. Lion – who might just be a ghost of a crewman from the Shishigō…

All any student can think of is space travel, but they are harshly and perpetually reminded that most of them won’t even finish their schooling…

At just four feet, eight inches tall Asumi is constantly struggling to meet the arduous physical requirements dictated by the Academy but has already survived far greater problems. She is still adjusting to the busy life of Tokyo, sleeps in tawdry communal women’s dorm “The Seagull”, struggles with many of her classes and subsists on meagre funds, supplemented by part-time jobs.

Individual stories are broken up into “Missions” with volume five covering numbers 19-24, as well as offering an entrancing sidebar autobiographical vignette about the author’s own teenage years.

It begins in the Seagull hostel where mysterious Ukita – who has recently rejected her rich overbearing father’s domination – now resides with Asumi. The solitary girl is subject to strange spells and is clearly suffering from some mystery malady. Only recently, spectral Mr. Lion saw Ukita dump a package of pills off a bridge…

Now he informs concerned Asumi that she has arbitrarily moved into the storeroom but before he can disclose more their mutual attention is diverted by the spectacle of a satellite soaring through the night sky.

Their s turn to romance and the ghost tells of his love – a dalliance which changed his life…

It was summer and he was in third grade when a strange new girl (who looked just like Ukita) moved to a big mansion in the hills for the vacation months…

At the academy next day Oumi is teasing Asumi about a boy. He was part of an anti-space program protest but Asumi was drawn to him and they had a “moment” after he picked up a rocket-shaped trinket she had lost. He also reminded her of a boy from her past who died of cancer during elementary school…

Although she doesn’t know Kiriu yet, the orphan is utterly infatuated with Asumi, and when the bullies at his posh school – North Star High – attempt to take the trinket, the scholarship boy suffers a harsh beating trying to protect the keepsake…

Impetuous Oumi later drags the diffident Asumi to the gates of North Star to arrange a meeting but Kiriu, still smarting from his battle, reacts boorishly and sends the infatuated girl packing. Later, poor long-suffering Fuchuya finds Asumi tearfully watching the stars from a playground…

‘Mission: 20’ begins with unsinkable, meddlesome Oumi researching the survivors of the Lion disaster, trying to get a handle on Kiriu’s overreaction. What she discovers breaks her heart…

As the second year of study begins Fuchaya tries once more to penetrate Ukita’s shield of stoic isolationism as Mr. Lion warns Asumi that he might be away for a while.

As the cadets bury themselves in hard work and study, Oumi one day sees Kiriu leaving the Sunflower Children’s Home and has a heart-to-heart with him about Asumi. The little matchmaker then arranges for her dumbfounded friend to meet the fractious lad…

He’s not there when she visits the orphanage but Asumi is swiftly swamped by Kiriu’s adoring younger “brothers and sisters”. Meanwhile, the quiet scholar is turning the city upside down trying to replace or repair the rocket token smashed by his thuggish classmates…

Asumi eventually finds him scouring parkland outside his school searching for the fragments of the broken toy. As they hunt together he lets slip that once upon a time space was his only dream too…

At her lessons soon after, a package arrives for Asumi. It is the (badly) repaired rocket keychain.

Joy is quickly replaced by sadness and fear as ‘Mission: 21’ opens with a list of students who have been axed from the program. Budget cuts and public opinion have affected the future of astronaut school and although Oumi, Fuchaya, Ukita and Suzuki have made the grade too, only fourteen cadets now comprise the entire Second Year…

Later relaxing in the public Planetarium, Asumi again meets the boisterous youngsters from the Sunflower orphanage and learns lots more about Kiriu before indulging in some shared speculation about life on other worlds. Later she meets always-tense Fuchaya who has a new bee in his bonnet. His latest growth spurt has him worried that might grow too tall to be an astronaut…

His odd behaviour seems justified when the class face their next test: being locked in tiny escape pods for hours to learn their psychological reaction to enforced extended claustrophobia…

Sadly that’s only the first part of the problem. The second half is a survival exercise. When the students finally emerge from the capsules they are all marooned in deep woods. Separated from each other and with only minimal equipment, they have to fight their way to a distant pick-up point…

The whole effort is tough and scary for meek Asumi but elsewhere in the vast forest Ukita has even bigger problems: she’s begun to cough up blood…

In yet another wooded section Mr. Lion is visiting the old summer house of his first love and recalls how he broke all the rules to befriend the lonely sick girl imprisoned there…

The make-or-break endurance test continues in ‘Mission: 22’ as Asumi starts her arduous trek back to civilisation whilst pensive Mr. Lion follows a memory trail to the rocket he built of junk when he was kid.

He had been playing there when the girl from the house first found him. She was quiet and lonely and clearly quite ill. Her name was Marika Ukita…

Decades later another girl with that name is failing fast as ‘Mission: 23’ opens. The spirit of the Lion is lost in reverie, remembering how his Ukita used to sneak away and help build his – no, their – rocket in the woods.

She was fascinated by his tales of space flight and the history of exploration. She told him about the only joyous moment in her life, when her over-protective dad took her to see a play called Beauty and the Beast…

When the big annual fireworks festival was beginning the boy made a lion-mask like the Beast’s to wear, but she never came. He had to break into the mansion to show her. She was very sick but wanted to dance with him…

And in the present, despite constantly doubting herself, Asumi struggles on and perseveres…

The intricate interlocking revelations conclude in ‘Mission: 24’ with Asumi storming towards the finish only to encounter another escape capsule, surrounded by droplets of blood. In another time, if not place, the tragedy of the past climaxes as the boy is confronted by Marika’s father who furiously beats the young intruder…

Later the horrified lad learns more of his friend’s terrible disease when her stern patriarch visits his own dad in a panic. The dying daughter had quietly rebelled when told she was being sent to a Swiss sanatorium for her health. She slipped out of the house when no-one was watching and has vanished. Of course the boy knows where she has gone and rushes off to save her…

To Be Continued…

Although the main event is temporarily suspended there is still more affecting personal revelation in store, as ‘Another Spica’ finds author Yaginuma in autobiographical mode and back in his ambition-free teens, sharing his own romantic travails with a confessor who might also be a phantom king of beasts…

These powerfully unforgettable tales originally appeared in 2003 as Futatsu no Supika and in the Seinen manga magazine Gekkan Comics Flapper, targeting male readers aged 18-30, but this ongoing, unfolding beguiling saga is perfect for any older kid with stars in their eyes…

Twin Spica filled sixteen collected volumes from September 2001- August 2009, tracing the trajectories of Asumi and friends from callow students to competent astronauts and the series has spawned both anime and live action TV series.

Twin Spica has everything: plenty of hard tech to back up the informed extrapolation, an engaging cast, mystery, passion, alienation, angst, enduring friendships and just the right touch of spiritual engagement feeding the wild-eyed wonder; all welded seamlessly into a joyous, evocative, addictive drama.

Rekindling the magical spark of the Wild Black Yonder for a new generation, this is the sublime poetry of science and imagination cast as a treat no imagineer with head firmly in the clouds can afford to miss…

© 2010 by Kou Yaginuma. Translation © 2010 Vertical, Inc. All rights reserved.

This book is printed in the Japanese right to left, back to front format.