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by: Yaginuma, Kou

ISBN: 9781934287842 | 1934287849

Mission: 01 contains the first four chapters of Twin Spica and three additional short stories set in the world of the property. In a Tokyo in the not too distant future a young girl studies deligently with ambitions of soon attending space academy. If things work out just right, her future may very well be among the stars as well. And yet, everytime she looks up to the stars with tremendous hope for the future, there is a sense of melancholy in her heart. A sadness surrounds Asumi, as the very concept of space exploration has profoundly changed... MORE her life for as long as she can remember. But she is not alone...A young man wearing a lion's mask is always beside her. He speaks of the constellations and galaxies as if he they were like home. He knows what it is like to love the stars--slightly bitter and yet always so warm and inviting. Truth is he has gone through much of Asumi is just experiencing. And now in spirit he will forever be with Asumi guiding her on her path to space where she hopes to be reunited with the spirits of not only her space traveler friend, but the mother she lost more than ten years ago. The Fireworks of 2015:Yaginuma's debut comic is the pilot story in the Twin Spica universe, detailing a world a five years before the events in the series. Set in a time between Asumi's adventures in Tokyo Space School and after the tragic the Lion Shuttle accident, we are introduced to Asumi and her guardian angel Lion. Like Asumi, Lion has a strong connection to the stars but there is someone very special to him on Earth that he cannot say good-bye to yet. Asumi:Five years after the Lion Shuttle tragedy and the Kamogawa household face another sad event--the passing on Asumi's mother. Gravely injured in the accident, she has been on life-support all this time. In a series of dreams, Asumi not only meets and walks with her mother but sends her off to the stars. Yet Another Spica:In a short story exclusive to this release, Mr. Yaginuma details his own real life Twin Spica moment, where he believes encounters a living version of Asumi!

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"In a Tokyo of the not-too-distant future a young girl looks up to the stars with melancholy in her heart and hope in her eyes. Thirteen-year-old Asumi Kamogawa's whole life has been tied to those stars; her future may very well be among them. And she is not alone... Asumi is just one of many young people with ambitions to become a member of the first class admitted to the Tokyo Space School. In this first volume Asumi is put to the test to determine if she has what it takes to get into this elite space academy. Her struggles do not begin in the classroom or at the test site, though. First Asumi has to convince herself and her father that she ultimately belongs amongst the stars."--P. [4] of cover.

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.