Review by Win Wiacek

Only fourteen students have survived the cut to begin their second year training at the Tokyo National Space School. The original focus was Asumi Kamogawa and her ghostly friend Mr. Lion, but over the previous volumes Kou Yaginuma has broadened the cast, and as of Twin Spica 5 there’s particular concern about Marika Ukita .

‘Mission: 25’ begins with standoffish Ukita in big trouble in the deep woods during a training session where the students have been marooned. Asumi’s entire class are enduring a brutal survival exercise in the wilds but the former rich girl suffers from some secret mystery malady. Moreover she has recently decided to go off her meds. Now she is weak and bleeding, lost where no one can help her.

In the past Mr. Lion also knew someone named Marika Ukita, whom he befriended despite her condition and the constant angry intervention of her father. Why are there so many parallels to the present day?

‘Mission: 26’ begins with a cathartic bonding session, but the friends Asumi’s made at the nearby orphanage desperately need her help.

‘Mission: 27’ offers more insight into Mr. Lion’s past as a special guest lecturer visits the Space School. Astronaut Ryohei Haijima is a god to the starstruck kids but seems almost apologetic and embarrassed to be there, with no pride in his achievements, yet Mr. Lion knows his story. Key to Twin Spica is the Shishiga disaster from years beforehand, which has impacted to a greater or lesser extent on the entire cast and the society they live in. Yaginuma keeps returning to add to the details, and this is another of those chapters.

Focus shifts to ultra-cool Shu Suzuki with ‘Mission: 28’ as the laconic rich kid goes missing for a week whilst his classmates suffer the next devilish practical course devised by their tutors to separate potential space explorers from ordinary mortals. Concerned, they all begin searching for him and learn an extraordinary story.

The ongoing saga pauses here after ‘Mission: 28’ finds the class practising in a space shuttle trainer. As usual the tests are rigged, unfair and a complete surprise, but as she bitterly complains – as always – Oumi realises that a strange calmness and complacency has become Ukita’s new emotional state. Plans are made for the holidays, but that’s a matter for Twin Spica 7.

Although the main event goes into a holding pattern, further insights into Asumi’s childhood play out it in the equally captivating back-ups strips. The heartbreaking ‘Tiny, Tiny Aqua Star’ reveals how the little outcast was ostracised and bullied by her fellows for claiming she had an astronaut lion ghost for a friend. The unflaggingly honest waif never knew her shy classmate Shinnosuke Fuchuya was quietly keeping the worst of the class’ abuse away from her.

The manga miracles then conclude with ‘Another Spica’ which sees author Yaginuma chopping pineapples in his crappy job and enduring the self-castigating hell of a first date.

Another volume, another triumph.