Anime: Futatsu no Spica

Twin Spica ignites its storyline with a depressing introduction, and follows it out with the excitement of watching the main character overcome the barriers between a human and dream. However, because it relies too heavily upon the past and ignores its captivating science-fiction fantasy nature, it mutates into a "delinquent child" in comparison to its matured capabilities.

Asumi wants to go to space, with Lion-san...

Asumi's mother died. Furthermore, her father was involved in a serious incident that resulted in the death of astronauts, citizens, and even the reformation of a space organization. However, this doesn't stop her innate desire to go into outer space. Can Asumi overcome the challenges that await her? Being short, facing crises with friends, and recalling the tragedy around her mother, it seems like everything in the world could be against her, even with the help of a friend hiding behind a lion mask...

At first, the concept of a man walking around with a lion's head made me believe this anime to focus on the cheesy childish side that it often dedicates bits and pieces of its story to. In fact, there are various chunks of story from the past that poke from the surface during random episodes of the anime.

Shortly after this, though, the story begins to shape a rather creative science-fiction element, focusing on the terse training of astronauts. I can't exactly say it competes well with some of the tests in Planetes, but it doesn't fall short at all with its excitement. Also, the characters in the story, because of their personality structures, are able to add an "at home" kick to the anime. It feels like I'm watching a school anime, a science-fiction adventure, and a "slice-of-life" with every passing episode. To earn these three aspects within one anime, Twin Spica perpetuates itself into a realm of anime not often explored.

And then, towards the end - it loses its focus. The story starts to shape into a rather obtuse "friends are the strongest bond" theme, and dies out into a cheesy conclusion. I feel cheated by the ending, but I cannot deny the rest of the anime's power because of such a faulty finish line.

Characters: errr...

Though I had mentioned above that the characters add a personal feeling to the anime, they don't excel beyond the average schoolkid personality. Asumi is typical; Marika is VERY typical; Lion-san is unique, but he doesn't exactly suffice for the blandness of the other creatures running amock in this story. I don't mean to bash the characters personalities, but rather that the anime took on an image that couldn't be satisfied with their personalities.

I would say even though Asumi and Marika take on rather weak personalities, their development does demonstrate them to be much more balanced than a typical "school" anime. Therefore, Twin Spica draws forth enough from it's character to still supply itself with emotions - just don't expect much more.

Audio: nice - except for the ED. :-)

And I'm not kidding. The opening, Buzy (by Kujira) has been on my Winamp playlist for almost half a year now, and it still hasn't gotten old. However, the ED is the complete opposite - it sounds like a middle-aged Japanese guy singing while squeezing his nuts. Pardon my vulgar language, but listening carefully, it really does sound that way!

The background music is to die for, with the unique implementation of the accordion in some of its orchestrations, and a multitude of little cute sounds that suggest a "slice of life" atmosphere on the right occasion. I can't say anything bad about any of the seiyuu - they all did their job.

Not too big on the animation.

While I love the story. Twin Spica is an anime that doesn't impress me very much with it's animation. I didn't like the character designs; they reminded me of something between Airmaster and Uninhabited Planet Survive. While I hated the former, and adored the latter, them tied together really does point out to somewhere in between. Also, the key animators must've gotten lazy, since the character faces would even rearrange at certain points of the series. I can understand that anime is time consuming, but there are plenty of animators out on the market that produce much higher quality animations at the same pace.

Just don't expect anything too flashy from it, and enjoy it because it's animated.

Definitely a keeper, but only for people who love this sort of anime.

Personally, I feel how I have described above. It started on a good ground, but fell short because of a disagreement between the plot and the dramatization. If this anime had taken it's time, perhaps it could have even shaken a tear from my eyes, otherwise it's better for people who like this sort of anime.

Last of all, even with my judgment, I strongly suggest this to people who like drama, since they will get a taste of it on occasion as the story progresses in this anime.

A sci-fi series with very little sci-fi, but rather heartwarming drama.

Unfortunate events[/b]

Twin Spica is one of those series which suffers from a childish start of the series and the fact that it was so slowly fansubbed that people forgot all about it. This resulted in people dropping the series after 1-2 episodes, or people who never managed to watch it after the first 6 episodes, because it was never fansubbed after that during the year it was released in.

Animation[/u]: Simple character design, but rather nice surroundings.

While one is easily tempted to say Twin Spica has unimpressing animation, this is not entirely untrue. The animation isn't that great, but it does fit the series. The series has a main protagonist who is quite naive and innocent, so the series breathes that atmosphere as well. The animation supports it in such a way that with simple character design and quite simple (but not cheap) surroundings, the atmosphere adds to the story.

Voices[/u]: Uncommon voices, but talented voiceactors.

There aren't many characters in this 20-episodes long series. The voiceactors who appear do a good job though. They don't have the usual highpitched voices, which give the series at first a little odd sound, but one really learns to adapt to them. The voice of Lion-san for instance is a voice which expresses a sort of laid-back attitude, while not making him look like a useless fool. That alone gives him enough credit to justify the mark.
Shuu also does that same sort of trick. His character breathes the exact way as the voiceactor uses the voice for him. The other characters are done well, but those two are especially done well.

OP/ED: Catchy upbeat OP-song.

The OP-song is done very well, with Buzy displaying a great upbeat song, supported by a few catchy shots of animation. They actually used a differently worded version for the anime than the original song they released, which is worth mentioning.
The ED-song on the other side, sounds depressed and the animation which supports it also feels wretched, for some reason. The animation looks like paintings, but the impression that gives is more scaring than beautiful, imho.

Story[/u]: Very little sci-fi, lots of real life drama.

While one believes a sci-fi series should have astronauts, space shuttles and other things, Twin Spica has very little of that all. The series mainly focuses on the life of the main character who tries to get to a college where they get educated in order to become an astronaut. But even that often seems like merely a background story, only there to support the main character. Remarkable realistic scenes are the domino-scene, as well as the ball-scene (you'll understand once you see them). Those are so well done that it is hard to give this series a bad mark on the story-part.
Still, although it doesn't get done badly, it's just not the main focus of the story, which unfortunately results in an ending which feels as if it's not done yet.
The story of the life of our heroine is told very well though, with both dramatical as sad events passing the revue.

Characters[/u]: Few characters, nice development.

There are about 6-7 regular characters and although some make many appearances, they often cannot be hold responsible for being a main character. They almost all exist for just supporting the main character, so they don't get as much development as they should be getting, mostly due to the slow pace of the anime.
Still, when they get development, they get it well. The green haired girl is one of the characters who comes out pretty well and I'm glad about that.
Eventually, none of the characters feels left out or misplaced. One would rather wonder why there are no more episodes in order to continue their development. This alone shows that a series doesn't need perfectly developed characters in order to feel satisfied with seeing them.

Value[/u]: Easily rewatchable

Twin Spica's story flows slowly and since it focuses on the life of a character rather than a story itself, it's easily rewatchable. Due to the series main theme and pace, it's an accessible series, where both young and old can find themselves amused by watching. The heartwarming story of the heroine is told very well and the setting is beautifully placed. This results in a story where you can rewatch the series with either parents, grandparents or kids and still enjoy it.

Very few things are done badly in here, making this a very nice series which is probably so undervalued and underrated that it's almost painful. Make sure you watch at least up to episode 4 though; the beginning is a bit too childish and things change for the better later on.

The animation for this anime is nice. The character design for Asumi seems a bit odd, it took a few episodes for me to get past the red circles on her face. The animation is fluid and there is no use of stills.

The opening song for this anime is great, I loved it. The voice actors are good. The end song wasn't that good and there wasn't really any music in the anime, or maybe it was just really forgettable.

The story is about Asumi trying to become an astronaut, but with an interesting twist in that she can see an astronaut ghost who was killed in a crash and he helped her with her training to become and astronaut all through her childhood. The pacing of the story suffers from sudden flashbacks though. In one episode Asumi is freaking out because she is having flashbacks of when her mother was killed in the spaceship crash that killed Lion-san, the astronaut ghost she talks to, then the next two or three episodes are a flashback of her childhood. This is done again, one or two more times in the twenty episode run. It ruins the pacing, and although the flashbacks are interesting, they seem abrupt. There is no smooth transition to a flashback, just an episode ends, and you expect the next one to conclude what happened, but the next episode is a flashback. That detracted from the story, and is the reason I did not give story a 10.

Characters are the best part of this. Asumi is a very lovable heroine. All the side characters are interesting, although the 2 male side characters are underdeveloped compared to the three girls.

This is a drama type anime so there is really not much rewatch value. It is worth watching once, but nothing to make it worth a rewatch.

I did enjoy the anime alot while it was ongoing though. It is a very entertaining show.