Manga Review: Yozakura Quartet

Title: Yozakura Quartet
Author: Suzuhito Yasuda
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Shonen, Supernatural, Slice of Life
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: S
Humor: A
Action: A

Impression: This story takes place in a town surrounded by seven gigantic Sakura where humans and youkai live together in peace. This peace is upheld by a foursome who run an office purposed with taking care of youkai-related issues including rampaging youkai, rampaging half-youkai as well as babysitting kindergarteners. This office officially consists of a telepathic fox youkai, a kotodama user, the town’s 16 year old mayor and an ordinary human. Quite a solid series this one. There’s quite a nice assortment of colorful characters in this series with uniquely memorable quirks and they’re all given appropriate amounts of screen time. This does hamper with the plot’s progression a little bit since the author seems to prioritize them over the overarching plot. On the other hand, it does make for excellent story arcs but the series itself hasn’t shown us anything that looks like a halfway point for the story even after forty chapters. Now that I think about it, I honestly can’t predict what might come up in future arcs thanks since it still feels like it’s missing more key characters or plot devices that would determine the ending. As of the latest chapter I’ve read, we have the heroes, the things at stake, the key villain, the imminent and eventual threats but not anything that really ties them together or any urgency to take care of things. As good as I find this to be, I still feel it’s a little too early to expect this to end brilliantly but I’m certainly going to stick with this the rest of the way.