TWIN SPICA 09 - Tapa blanda

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 influenced her life for as long as she can remember.

In the ninth volume of Twin Spica, Asumi and her classmates are getting closer and closer towards graduation, and changes in store for this group of friends. There will be good-byes to be said and that might end up causing some tension within this group. Some of that friction might be spurred on from outside of the Tokyo Space School as the media has caught on to the identities of at least one prime candidate.

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.