By Kou Yaginuma. Released in Japan as “Futatsu no Spica” by Media Factory, serialized in the magazine Comic Flapper. Released in North America by Vertical.

I know that I spent a bit of time last volume going on about how much I liked the way the author uses Mr. Lion in this series, but it’s really hard not to do so again with this volume. I was expecting him to have some sort of connection with Marika’s family which explains why he’s so troubled by her, but I wasn’t expecting the connection to be as strong as it was. It’s also clearly baffling, given the time frame, and while we still don’t quite know what’s going on with Marika, we’re now definitely thinking along the lines of ‘who is she really?’ rather than just lonely rich kid. Although, especially in the flashbacks, that’s an important part. Notably, though, we actually see the origin of the Lion Head – and it’s connected to Marika, not Asumi. There’s some stunning work here.

Elsewhere, we see Asumi try to reach out once more to the boy from another school we saw last volume. There’s lots of interplaying issues here – the prejudice towars space flight, young crushes, trying to decide on a future for yourself that’s feasible as opposed to just a crazy dream – and it’s very telling of the series that there aren’t any good, handy answers. Asumi and Kiriu clearly share a connection that’s more than just ‘he looks like my old dead friend’, but I don’t get the sense that they’re going anywhere romantically, any more than I do from Asumi and her Unlucky Childhood Friend Fuchuya. That said, the final bit with the spaceship keychain was undeniably sweet.

And of course there is more harsh training. Seriously harsh – the kids, having been told they’re testing their ability to be locked in a small space capsule, and carted off into the middle of nowhere, placed away from each other in the middle of a huge forest, and told to get to a point within 5 days using the very rudimentary map provided. They do have trackers on (provided no one loses theirs), but it’s still survival training at its best. Naturally, our heroines barely blink at this, and merely go about the business of trying to get there as fast as possible so they don’t wash out of the program. Again, Asumi’s drive and abilities boggle the mind – that’s one impressive kid. We don’t see how things end up, thanks to the huge flashbacks with Mr. Lion, so I’m definitely looking forward to Volume 6.

It’s very odd to see a series have such a sense of the epic while still remaining so intimate. Heck, even the author’s ‘Another Spica’ end stories, while consisting of the usual self-deprecation I’ve come to expect from Japanese manga artists, make me wonder if they’re telling part of a larger story about the author. The scale of Twin Spica is one of the best things about it, and it continues to remain one of Vertical’s absolute best titles.

By Kou Yaginuma. Released in Japan as “Futatsu no Spica” by Media Factory, serialized in the magazine Comic Flapper. Released in North America by Vertical.

This volume of Twin Spica, while still starring Asumi, does flare out a little more to show the others in the ensemble cast. Asumi’s main role here is to once again find that things are not going to be as easy as 1-2-3, as we find that as physically powerful as she is, she has a weak left hand grip as a result of the accident with the spaceship. This, of course, is a problem when you are trying to maneuver through space. We also meet a young man from a different school, who not only despises the space school for unstated reasons (though it’s suggested it’s because the school gets tons of funding that people feel would be better spent elsewhere), but also reminds her of her middle school ‘boyfriend’ whose death we saw in the previous volume.

Of the other characters we see in depth, Mr. Lion was the one that most surprised me. Dead mentors generally don’t get many opportunities to grow and change, but as Mr. Lion is thinking about who Marika reminds him of, he is reminded of a time right after he died, when he helps his estranged father on a long hike (and, as it turns out, it’s the beginning to an even longer journey – this flashback is clearly meant to evoke Asumi and her mother in Volume 1). His father, of course, is heartbroken at his son’s death, and even though he doesn’t know who Mr. Lion is, he still pours his heart out. Having Mr. Lion as a regular in the series allows us to take a very interesting look at death and those left behind, which so far is one of the main themes of Twin Spica.

The other character we see more of here is Marika, and while we don’t get a complete backstory, we do see a few things that show us there’s a lot more going on here than just a lonely rich girl and her overprotective dad. The dad is back here, offering her medicine which she refuses to take. I’m trying not to spoil the revelations here, but clearly they point to something bigger than I was expecting, and intrigued to see how it gets handled. That said, Marika is still, at heart, a lonely rich girl, and the scene of her trying to ask Asumi if she wants to go to the New Year’s temples is adorable.

After a short 6-page side story showing a young Fuchuya being told to watch over the middle-school Asumi, who has trouble making friends, we get what may be the first unrelated short story of the series, about a man and woman who dated years ago meeting in Tokyo as adults. Of course, it has themes of spaceflight as well, and I had briefly wondered if the hero was meant to be Mr. Lion at a younger age. Certainly the heroine looks a lot like I suspect Asumi will as an adult. As with most of Twin Spica, the story evokes bittersweet yet sentimental nostalgia.

This series is never going to be full of big gosh wow moments, but I doubt anyone reads it for that. It’s a peaceful, understated look at spaceflight, with appealing characters and a good sense of pacing. While it may drown in its sentiment a bit much sometimes, honestly I wouldn’t have it any other way.

By Kou Yaginuma. Released in Japan as “Futatsu no Spica” by Media Factory, serialized in the magazine Comic Flapper. Released in North America by Vertical.

As we get into the third volume of Twin Spica, it becomes clear that one of Yaginuma’s strength’s is how to pace things out. I didn’t get this at first, as when I finished the first chapter I felt that the whole ‘Asumi runs away’ was resolved entirely too neatly. But of course it’s not resolved at all, as we see the teacher continuing to show bias against her once she returns – as well as seeing that he’s been ordered to by higher-ups, for reasons unknown. For once, we’re reading a 16-volume series that feels like it’s been plotted out to 16 volumes in advance, rather than one where the editors said “this is a hit, can you add 12 plotlines?”.

One plotline that I’m surprised we haven’t seen yet is the student bullying. Perhaps because Asumi is bullied enough by her teacher, the students here seem to stick together. Not just her circle of friends, either; we see a great scene where the students are all put on a spinning, revolving wheel of death and forced to do math. Asumi, of course, handles the g-force with ease, as we have already seen that physically she is badass. If tiny. When she finishes, the other students crowd around to congratulate her and wonder how she can do such things. They also join Kei is protesting the teacher’s bullying of Asumi. They’re the anti-Gakuen Alice students. (At least so far.)

And a lot of this volume is devoted to showing us that even the cold or ‘villainous’ characters are just human beings after all. Not only is Sano, the aforementioned teacher, being told to try to get Asumi to quit (which to be fair he doesn’t push against too hard), but he then resigns after a brief crisis of faith (involving some backstory for The Lion, the tragic accident that powers much of this series). Asumi comes to realize that he, just like her, is a dreamer who wanted to see humanity get into space, but was simply crushed by events. The best art in the volume shows her confrontation with Sano as he leaves the school, showing that she knows what he’s dreaming of.

We don’t get Mariko’s backstory here, beyond her clearly being rich and lonely, and her parents being very overprotective and wanting to isolate her. But that’s enough for now, and she certainly remains one of the characters I want to see more of (I will admit that their other friend Kei, who is likeable enough, I don’t really feel the same way about.) Mariko needs to open up, and starts to do so here a bit, overpowered by Asumi’s basic niceness (at times this reads very much like a shoujo manga).

There’s more main story here, so we only get one ‘side story’ starring Asumi as a child. This one being a very melancholy tale from her middle school days of her brief friendship with a sickly boy who is the only one besides her that can see Mr. Lion. However, I’m definitely more into the main story by now. I want to see Asumi do more spaceflight stuff, and see more of Mariko. And I definitely want to find out why the higher-ups in the school seem to have it in for Asumi. Is it entirely related to her father’s work on The Lion? In any case, this series continues to be almost impossible to put down.