Twin Spica 2

Where were you when the first International Space Station was scrapped and dropped into Earth's atmosphere?

It was Asumi's first day in space school, and she promised Lion she would not cry or be homesick as she will be leaving her quiet seaside town for the big city. Waiting for her in Tokyo will be a lot of work. She is going to have to go through the rigors of space exploration training at the Tokyo Space School. After hours, Asumi will focus her efforts on homework, when not earning her tuition at the neighborhood Denny's. It is not unccomon to run 20 laps around the campus each day. Follow that up with physics and advance mathematics courses in the classroom. Only to close the night by mapping out the constellations in the southern sky.

This is just what she expected the TSS to be, and yet why is it so hard to invision going to space someday? With all of the work she and her classmates are efforting, why does space still feel so far away?

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.