Twin Spica #06: Twin Spica, Volume 6

Asumi's latest and most challenging flight simulation trial continues.  She along with her classmates have been put into small escape pods, the actual pods that the International Space Station currently uses, to simulate traveling through space and an atmosphere re-entry.  The pods are then covered and transported into the Japanese wilderness where after some rough handling and a designated allotment of time the pods automatically open up leaving the students disorientated and desperate to find civilization.  

While the pod simulation course is clearly rigorous, there is no doubt that the survival element once the pods open up is much more grueling to these young prospective space travelers.  Each one will have to use everything they have learned so far in class to find their way to a designated rendezvous spot.  Unfortunately for Asumi, some of her friends will not be able to make it on their own.  This was to be expected.  Obviously the entire course was designed to weed out those who lacked the right stuff.  However, no one ever imagined these particular students would struggle and how they would react to the environment might be a better gauge for their character than any test has ever shown.

And then it's mid-terms.  The TSS is abuzz as this year's exams now provide an additional element to space education...Language training.  Apparently one student nailed every other exam but English, where she just eeked out a D.  Does that mean she had a perfect score up that point?!

Born in 1973 in the Iidabashi district of Tokyo, comic artist Kou Yaginuma made his debut with the Twin Spica pilot story The Fireworks of 2015 (originally published in the July 2000 issue of Media Factory's Comic Flapper magazine).  That heartfelt story coupled with Yaginuma's warm artwork won the young artist won over many comic fans on his way to becoming the year's biggest new artist.

He followed his debut with a follow up mini-series called Asumi focusing on the early childhood of Twin Spica's young heroine Asumi Kamokawa.  The Asumi series was such a runaway success Media Factory signed Yaginuma up to pen Twin Spica for Comic Flapper in the Fall of 2001.

Since Twin Spica's debut, Yaginuma has drawn promotional illustrations for the NHK, Japan's PBS.  He has also worked with Japan's brightest young animation director Makoto Shinkai drawing the cover art for the novelization of Shinkai's internationally recognized one-man CG movie Voices of a Distant Star.

Twin Spica is Yagunuma's English language debut.