Twin Spica is about a group of friends that want to become astronauts. However, unlike Stelliva of the Universe, it is more of a slice of life anime and down to earth. For the most part Twin Spica is character driven focusing mainly on Asumi and later on Marika. What differentiates Asumi from other leads in other "HS space dramas" is that she is a very strong willed and determined character despite her diminutive stature. She has gone through a lot and yet has never whined or cried. We are later introduced to her friends when she goes to theacademy. For the most part they're pretty clique/standard. Marika on the other hand may be the "stoic/cold/loner" part of the clique but has an intriguing back story. Its just too bad that we don't get to know more about her. One of the things that worried me about Twin Spica was "lion-san" when I was reading a synopsis. "Lion-san" is a person that wears a lion mask and is a mentor to Asumi. Thankfully Lion-san wasn't distracting, in fact he fits in very well.

As I said before, Twin Spica is character driven. For the first 8 some episodes the focus was mainly on Asumi and flowed perfectly abiet slow paced. After that it loses a bit of focus and at times become too slow paced. I was confused as to where the development and focus was going. You could say that the story became too non-linear. While it was all very interesting and ties together it could have been handled much better. For example, while Asumi may be strong it just that she may be a bit too strong this early. They show how she developed by devoting entire episodes showing her past. Again the flow of the story felt a bit muddled in the middle but gets back on track for the end. As for the ending, it may be a bit too open for some. There are a lot of unanswered questions especially Marika and may seem to be an odd place to stop. However, considering the nature of the anime I felt that it was perfectly fine.

As for the technical aspects, nothing stood out too much. The character designs reminded me Tezuka Osamu and Studio Gibli works. Fantastic Children comes to mind in terms of similar character designs. Animation was standard for tv anime. The music was pretty good and the ED was very fitting. As for the OP.... it was good but it felt odd having something fast paced for such a slow and somber anime.

Twin Spica is a character driven story about a group of friends that want to become astronauts. However, the story losses focus a bit in the middle and the ending maybe a bit too open for most people. Overall Twin Spica is very heartwarming, heartbreaking, and somber piece.