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Ken Murphy over at OutOfTheCradle.net has previously written glowing reviews of two anime series, Planetes and Rocket Girls (the latter winning a "Best of the Moon" award along with Lunar Pioneers), but there's one other series he hasn't mentioned. That's probably because it isn't commercially available in the US, although you can find it online if you know where to look.

Twin Spica (or Futatsu no Spica in Japanese) is the story of five kids who make it into the very first class at a special Japanese astronaut training academy. In this version of the near future, Japan has had its own manned space program, but suffered a disaster when one of its rockets malfunctioned on liftoff and crashed into a Japanese city. The main character, 16-year-old Asumi Kamogawa, lost her mother in the accident. Her father was an engineer in the space program, but now he works elsewhere. Asumi's dream since childhood has been to become a "rocket driver." Her main ally in her quest is the ghost of an astronaut who died in the accident - he always wears a big lion-head mask over his head, and so Asumi calls him "Lion-san."

Twin Spica is a "slice-of-life" drama - something you don't see in American animation. It takes its time moving the story forward, stopping to explore smaller, less-noticed themes along the way. It gives the characters a chance to develop and makes them more well-rounded. Their training at the space academy focuses on physical and psychological preparation as much as it does on physics and astronomy, which is probably a realistic depiction of what high school for future astronauts would look like. They get pretty creative with some of the tests the kids have to go through.

What I like best about this show is the way it depicts the dream of going to space. It's not a dream where everything's rosy - it doesn't hide from the fact that getting into space is difficult and not everyone will get to do it. But that just makes the dream more appealing, because the characters know what it requires and are willing to go for it anyway. Each of the five kids has a reason for being there, and we get to see what spurs them on.

As I watched this show, I couldn't help wondering how Asumi and her friends would get along with the astronauts in Rocket Girls. Asumi herself is very small for her age, which means she'd be a natural at the Solomon Space Agency. Her cheerfulness and never-say-die optimism might be too much for Yukari Morita, though.

Twin Spica also exists as a manga that is still ongoing, continuing the story well beyond the end point of the anime. I'll have to look for that and see how things turn out.