Twin Spica

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Twin Spica
ふたつのスピカ
(Futatsu no Supika)
GenreScience fiction, Drama, Supernatural
Manga
Written byKō Yaginuma
Published byMedia Factory
MagazineComic Flapper
DemographicSeinen
Original run23 January 2001 – 05 August 2009
Volumes16
Anime
Directed byTomomi Mochizuki
StudioGroup TAC
Released November 1, 2003 – March 27, 2004
Anime
Released June 18 2009 – July 30 2009

Twin Spica (ふたつのスピカ, Futatsu no Supika) is a Japanese science fiction manga series by Kō Yaginuma. It began serialization in the seinen magazine Comic Flapper in January 2001. Twin Spica tells the story of a group of Japanese high school students training to become astronauts.[1]

The manga has been adapted by Group TAC as a 20-episode anime television series that first aired on NHK's BS-2 satellite service between November 1, 2003 and March 27, 2004. The anime has been translated into English and other languages by the anime television network Animax, which has broadcast the series on its networks in several regions, including East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia and Latin America.

Besides the anime, Twin Spica has been adapted into a 7-episode drama series for NHK's Drama 8 in 2009. The drama pronounces a lot of points that show up in the latter parts of the manga (like Kiriu, albeit with changes), but also eliminates a couple of elements in the story (the complete removal of Lion-san being the most glaring change).

The series title comes from the binary star system Spica. It is the brightest star in the constellation Virgo and one of the brightest stars in the sky. Spica is really two stars that circle each other, though from a distance they appear as one, which parallels the series' running theme of friendship.

Story

The primary setting of Twin Spica in the near future at the Tokyo Space Academy, where high school students train to become astronauts. Asumi Kamogawa (鴨川アスミ) has dreamed of going to space since she was a child. Her experiences in school and her relationships with her friends, family and teachers are the central themes of the story. The manga and anime series both have a relaxed, slice of life pace.

Several chapters of the manga and episodes of the anime are flashbacks and explore the childhood of Asumi and some of the other characters. When she was a baby, Japan's first manned rocket (called Shishigō (獅子号) "Lion") crashed into Asumi's hometown of Yuigahama, killing many people and critically injuring her mother, who finally died after many years in a coma. While trying to accept her mother's death, six year old Asumi met Lion-san (ライオンさん, Raion-san), the ghost of a young astronaut who had been on board the rocket. Inspired by Lion-san's stories of space, Asumi made it her goal to become an astronaut herself.

The early storylines of the manga and the anime adaptation are very close to each other, but later they diverge as the anime sets up an original ending. The anime covers most of the manga's story from volumes 1-3 and takes bits and pieces from later volumes.

Characters

Asumi Kamogawa (鴨川 アスミ, Kamogawa Asumi)
The story's main character. After her mother died when she was young, she grew up with her father. She is the only one who can see Lion-san, whom she met soon after her mother's death. After meeting Lion-san, she becomes resourceful & determined to become an astronaut. When her name is written in kanji (her name is in katakana), asu means "tomorrow" (or in this case "future") and mi means "look". She is very dedicated to her friends, willing risk her life help them.
Lion-san (ライオンさん, Raion-san)
  • Voiced by: Takehito Koyasu
Lion-san meets Asumi when she is young and introduces himself as a ghost. He wears a large lion mask that covers his entire head. He comforts Asumi during the difficult time after her mother's death, and fosters her interest in space. He had a relationship with Asumi's elementary teacher, Yuuko Suzunari and gave her a small lion doll with a wedding ring inside before he died. His real name is Takano. In the anime, he degree of memory loss, only by end of the series does he regain part of it. He has only minor supernatural abilities, such as jump high. He does fatigues like normal living human. His missing memories includes a brief relationship as child with the "first" Marika Ukita. At the end of the anime series. Lion-san plays his harmonica which Asumi's friends are able to hear. They witness Lion-san as he removes his lion mask and wishes Asumi goodbye, leaving his harmonica behind for her.
Marika Ukita (宇喜多 万里香, Ukita Marika)
A classmate of Asumi's, she is a loner and generally treats her peers coldly. She justifies her attitude by reflecting on the difficult childhood she endured, which comprised mostly studying in isolation. Marika's backstory is unusual, but is only touched upon in the anime. In the anime, Marika is a bad relationship with her father whom is controlling, trying to make act like "first" Marika Ukita. Marika also suffers from illness which she hides from the others.
Shinnosuke Fuchūya (府中野 新之介, Fuchūya Shinnosuke)
Asumi's childhood friend, whose ends up following her to take the astronaut course. He likes Asumi and always looks after her but hasn't really revealed his feelings to her. He is nicknamed Fucchi (ふっち) by Kei.
Kei Ōmi (近江 圭, Ōmi Kei)
The first girl Asumi meets during the Space School entrance exam. Sociable, gregarious and frank, she is Asumi's first female friend in the astronaut course.
Shū Suzuki (鈴木 秋, Suzuki Shū)
The top student of their course, Shū is often depicted as a laid-back, easy going guy. Despite the facade, he tries his best to reach for his dream—to become an astronaut.
Suzunari Yuuko (鈴成由子)
  • Voiced by: Risa Mizuno
Asumi and Fucchi's grade school teacher. Also Lion-san's ex-fiance.
Tomorō Kamogawa (鴨川 友朗, Kamogawa Tomorō)
Asumi's father
Kyōko Kamogawa (鴨川 今日子, Kamogawa Kyōko)
Asumi's mother, who serverely injured by the crash of the Shishigō (獅子号?) "Lion" spacecraft. She was laid in a coma until she died many years later when Asumi was six years old.
Takahito Sano (Sano-sensei) (佐野貴仁, Sano Takahito)
Sano is one of the teachers in the space school. Sano attempts to sabotage Asumi because he falsely believes her father was partially responsible for the Shishgou disaster. He gets in trouble for this and resigns. He resurfaces in the manga with insights on the Shishigou incident and, once again, gets in trouble for it. However, he eventually reconciled with Asumi's father.
Toshiko Shiomi (Shiomi-sensei) (塩見敏子, Shiomi Toshiko)

In the anime and manga, Shiomi-sensei becomes the voice of reason when Sano creates trouble for Asumi. In the drama, his gender was changed.

Nishida-sensei (西田先生, Nishida sensei)
  • Voiced by: Masaya Takatsuka
Kasane Shibata (柴田 かさね, Shibata Kasane)
  • Voiced by: Tomoe Hanba
Kasane, a survivor of the Shishigou incident, is Asumi's childhood friend. Because of the crash, she has a horrible burn mark on her left arm. In the present, Kasane goes to an all-girls school. In the manga, her first reappearance shows her sleeping in Asumi's dorm room, which is a few volumes after her reappearance in the anime.
Ringo Sakashita (坂下 リンゴ, Sakashita Ringo)
  • Voiced by: Junko Ishī
Ringo is the dorm manager for the Kamome dorms.
Kiriu (桐生)
Kiriu is an orphan and is initially shown as activist against space exploration. He closely resembles Takashi Shimizu, Asumi's junior high friend. He first meets Asumi on a rally against a rocket launch and gets mad at her. Their relationship, which is not in the anime, develops in the manga. In the end, however, Kiriu leaves to do volunteer work elsewhere.

In the drama, he was given the first name, Haruki, and his character studied at the aerospace school.

Ukita Senri (宇喜多千里)
  • Voiced by: Bin Sasaki
Marika's father
Suzuki Haruo (鈴木春夫)
  • Voiced by: Bin Sasaki
Shu's Father, who owns the Suzuki corporation. He opposes Shu's path to becoming an astronaut. In the end, he lets Shu live his life.
Suzuki Sakura (鈴木さくら)
Shu's stepsister.
Shimizu Takashi (島津タカシ)
  • Voiced by: Daisuke Fujita
Takashi is a classmate of Asumi in junior high school. He was also her classmate in elementary school but he was too sickly to regularly attend school. His story is mainly shown in the flashback episode/chapter, "Asumi's Sakura".
Tokushima Mikan (徳島みかん)
Mikan is Asumi's underclasswoman in the space school.
Yamamoto (山本)
  • Voiced by: Hiroshi Shimozaki

The other examinee that was with Shu and Fuchuuya during the Space School's entrance exam

Music

Anime

Opening Theme

  • "Venus Say"
Lyrics by: Haruichi Shindō
Composition and arrangement by: Akimitsu Honma
Performed by: Buzy

Ending Theme

Lyrics by: Rokusuke Ei
Composition by: Taku Izumi
Arrangement and performed by: BEGIN

Original Soundtrack performance: Kazunori Miyake

Drama

Ending Theme

  • "Ahead of eyes" (瞳の先に, Hitomi no saki ni)
Lyrics, Composition, Arrangement and performed by: Orange Range

Production

Twin Spica shared part of its production staff with another anime series that ran at the same time on NHK, Planetes. From this, the production staff slipped several easter egg cross overs into Planetes. Some of these include:

  • The hotel on the ISPV 7 Space Station is called the Hotel Spica.
  • Episode 20 of the Planetes anime featured an isolation test which mirrored the isolation test which was part of the National Space Academy entrance test in Twin Spica.
  • Inflated spherical escape pods, or "rescue balls" are featured in both series at some point. Thou balls in Twin Spica were solid-state constructions verses inflatable ones portrayed in Planetes.

Episode List

Anime

[2]

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# Title Original air date

Drama

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# Title Original air date

Manga

Twin Spica is published by Media Factory in the magazine Comic Flapper, and collected in 15 tankōbon volumes as of June 2009.[1]

No. Release date ISBN
1 January 2002978-4-8401-0428-9
2 April 2002978-4-8401-0440-1
3 November 2002978-4-8401-0468-5
4 May 2003978-4-8401-0490-6
5 October 2003978-4-8401-0906-2
6 April 2004978-4-8401-0944-4
7 December 2004978-4-8401-0984-0
8 May 2005978-4-8401-1307-6
9 December 2005978-4-8401-1349-6
10 March 2006978-4-8401-1377-9
11 November 2006978-4-8401-1635-0
12 March 2007978-4-8401-1687-9
13 December 2007978-4-8401-1984-9
14 March 2008978-4-8401-2205-4
15 June 2009978-4-8401-2576-5
16 October 2009—

In addition, an illustration book (ISBN 978-4-8401-1380-9, published March 2006), a 2 part novel (ISBN 978-4840110624 & ISBN 978-4840110808, published April 2004), and an official guide to the anime (ISBN 978-4-8401-1041-9, published April 2004) have been published.

References

  1. ^ a b "Twin Spica (manga)". Anime News Network. Retrieved 2009-07-02.
  2. ^ Twin Spica (anime) Anime News Network. Retrieved on 2008-10-10.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Twin_Spica&oldid=306779502"