Review by Win Wiacek

The yearning, imagination and anticipation of space travel is paramount to this inspirational manga series from Kou Yaginuma, who explores the future via Asumi Kamogawa and her dream of going into space.

Plans were made for the holidays in Twin Spica 6, and ‘Mission: 30’ begins with Asumi and her classmates enjoying their seaside vacation in the largely restored resort town of Yuigahama, even Ukita. Nevertheless the still-quite-formal living enigma is plagued by feelings that she has been here before. These phantom memories increasingly draw her to a secluded shrine dedicated to the disaster. As previously seen in a sequence of flashbacks, she has an ancient and inexplicable connection to a boy who grew up to be Mr. Lion.

‘Mission: 31’ finds Marika succumbing to her inner torment and wandering off to find the isolated monument commemorating the Shishiga disaster. She becomes dangerously lost and her mysterious medical malady overwhelms her.

She and Asumi wait together to be found in ‘Mission: 32’, deep bonds are forged and Marika at last reveals the truth about herself and why it is that the events of Mr. Lion’s past are so similar. We are afforded a glimpse into events prior to and following the crash of the Shishiga and it becomes clear that both girls are afflicted with the same unquenchable need to escape Earth.

With ‘Mission: 33’ the truth over the Shishiga’s terrible events starts to unfold. Mr Kamogawa was once an engineer on the program, and his former colleague Takahito Sano is now one of Asumi’s professors at the Space School. When they meet again, their previous history and relationship is examined and reviewed for the first time in years. Yaginuma supplies an awful emotionally tense foreshadowing of the tragedy to come.

The second half of this book concentrates on the students returning to school and their next semester of training. In ‘Mission: 34’ Asumi’s relationship with orphan student (and apparent anti-space program activist) Kiriu seems to be developing into more than mere friendship. In one of Yaginuma’s heartbreaking touches Kiriu volunteers at a hospice and is trying to learn the harmonica so that he can play to an old woman with dementia.

‘Mission: 35’ to ‘Mission: 38’ concern school tests assessing strength, ingenuity and fortitude with the class divided into teams and transported to a decommissioned prison. Their task: to break free within seven days. Asumi has a special reason to return to Tokyo as rapidly as possible as she has a date.

The present day ends on a melancholy note, to be continued in Twin Spica 8. and the series continues to be a compulsively addictive serial.

Two autobiographical back-ups reveal memories of Yaginuma’s first dates, first drives and first loves.