Review by Win Wiacek

Kou Yaginuma’s all-consuming epic coming-of-age spellbinder blends hard science and humanist fiction with lyrical mysticism and traditional tales of school-days and growing up, and we join Asumi Kamogawa on ‘Mission: 14’ of her time training to be an astronaut on a course most fail. The class are reassembling after summer vacation seen in Twin Spica 3, in time for the even more strenuous new training program.

This semester they deal with weightlessness training and again Asumi’s small stature is a hindrance as they all toughen up in the gigantic buoyancy water tank used to teach and refine motor skills in spacesuits.

Although all the students struggle with the arduous regime and humiliating indignities of working for hours without toilet breaks, a more pressing problem for Asumi is the muscle weakness in her left hand. As a telling flashback reveals, the deficit is a result of earlier injuries, but back then her new friend Mr. Lion taught her exercises and tricks to strengthen it.

‘Mission: 15’ finds the class observing a satellite-rocket take-off only to encounter a strident demonstration by anti-spaceflight protestors. Although the government is keen to push through a full space program, many people still live in dread of another Lion disaster and feelings run high and scared.

Marika’s unpleasant relationship with her domineering father is central to ‘Mission: 16’ as the girl ponders and discards her father’s assertion that she is “not normal”, swearing never to quit. Unable to convince her and after cruelly cutting her off from all support, he shows a surprising side.

Later, cool Suzuki takes Asumi on a ‘date’, but only to show her the secret telescope he has stashed on a rooftop, and when she gets home she finds Marika sleeping and accidentally uncovers another aspect of her enigmatic origins.

It’s Christmas during ‘Mission: 17’ so Asumi takes Marika to a shrine. The willowy recluse has never been before, and their journey strangely coincides with considerable progress for the usually befuddled Mr. Lion, who comes to some sense of clarity as readers learn more about him.

The unfolding epic pauses here with ‘Mission: 18’ as Asumi finds a rocket-shaped trinket which inexplicably links her to a somehow ubiquitous unfriendly mystery boy. Oumi tells Marika of a friend who claims to be able to sense ghosts. She also pointedly asks if Ukita thinks the hostel is haunted.

As has been the case with every volume, it’s charming, heart-breaking and thrilling, and the main story continues in Twin Spica 5, but while the main event is temporarily suspended there are more affecting revelations in the back-ups strips. beginning with the ancillary tale ‘This Star Spica’, which again draws on Elementary school days in Yuigahama, where obnoxious little Fuchuya is tasked by his teacher with befriending and looking after that weird, lonely little girl who has an imaginary lion for a friend.

Then ‘Sentimental’ follows young artist Kamoi back down memory lane to his first love before another chapter of ‘Another Spica’ finds author Yaginuma in autobiographical mode and back in his ambition-free teens, enjoying fireworks and relating his own experience with an inspirational, phantom king of beasts.

These are powerfully unforgettable tales perfect for any older kid with stars in their eyes.