Reviews

Twin Spica made for a solid watch thanks to its focus on Asumi and the various characters that are a part of her life in the girl's dream of wanting to be an astronaut. The anime appears to take place in the near-future considering Japan's astronautical advances have led it to just start appointing younger astronauts for the journey up in space. In this case, Asumi and a number of students her age have enrolled at a space school that recently started up where they are trained in understanding all that is needed to be known about living in space and dealing with differing situations that could occur, said training involving regular physical activity, simulated scenarios and understanding how the physics in space are much different from being on Earth. Considering my exposure to Rocket Girls and Space Brothers allowed me to gain familiarity with how astronauts are trained and both were getting backing from NASA and/ or JAXA, it appeared Twin Spica believably depicted the rigid training and knowledge one has to go through and gain in order to be an astronaut, a definite plus for this series.

The anime also has its supernatural elements shown through Asumi's interactions with the ghost of Mr. Lion, an astronaut who fell victim to a horrible space shuttle crash 15 years prior to the present events of Twin Spica. Mr. Lion serves as Asumi's inspiration to wanting to be an astronaut and serves mostly as an observer to many of the major events that effect Asumi throughout the series. One notable episode even features a dark dream where Asumi encounters the spirit of her dead mother on the Sanzu River, Japan's river of the underworld, that serves as a major element to the girl's character.

The supernatural and sci-fi elements to Twin Spica though are mostly secondary though to the title's focus on Asumi. The series quite often switches between past and present time frames in focusing on major events that effected the young girl's life from the loss of her mother from the mentioned space shuttle crash to her enrollment at the space school. Her story mostly serves to be an inspirational one considering the hardships she endured in her past from her father's connection to the shuttle crash and her out-of-place behavior to get a shot at fulfilling her childhood dream of being an astronaut.

Other characters that Marika comes to encounter also get their focus to see how they interact around Asumi and what motivations they have for either wanting to be an astronaut or trying to help or deter Asumi in any way. Notable elements of the show's character focus that got my interest came from how the space shuttle disaster effected characters who experienced its events and Marika's background. The former gets a great amount of focus through different points of the series, past and present, as Twin Spica introduces workers involved in the space shuttle program and civilians who were effected by the tragedy to any degree, including Asumi and her father. Marika's story made for the most interesting character focus I seen in the show as she seemed to have hardships placed upon her from her overprotective father who doesn't consider her to be the "real Marika" and seeming to suffer from some sort of illness as she tries distancing herself from both problems to be her own person. Sadly, both elements to the series never get fully fleshed out as the series was left open-ended following a major arc involving the show's cast.

The visuals to Twin Spica are nothing special as character designs are a bit on the plain side and the animation doesn't stick out too prominently compared to anything noteworthy like Heat Guy J and Last Exile that aired during 2003. Scenery is decently drawn with vivid colors and having a good amount of detail to the show's different settings.

Overall, Twin Spica made for an engaging and worthwhile watch thanks to its solid mix of sci-fi and supernatural elements coming from Asumi's interactions with Mr. Lion and her journey in becoming an astronaut. This is a worthwhile "hidden gem" anime that is worth seeking out if you've already seen plenty of licensed anime titles.