She looks like an ordinary fifteen year-old girl excluding
the cat ears. Kotoha is a sixteen-year-old girl with a talent for karaoke
and a fixation with guns. Aside from a cast of strange girls, Akina is an
ordinary guy living an unordinary life as the director of the Hiizumi Life
Counseling Office, where Ao and Kotoha are employed. Together, they solve
various cases around town ranging from criminals and demons to why a little boy
is depressed.
The story of Yozakura Quartet is
well-done, but also fairly random. Many things just aren't explained in
this volume. Why is Hime the mayor of Sakurashin? Why does one
character seem nice at one time and evil another time? Why does Akina
help solve these cases when he's a normal human being?
Yozakura Quartet's pacing ends up
being very confusing as well. There are times when the reader will see a
new character, only to have no explanation as to who that character actually
is. This might be some sort of a way to immerse a reader into the story
by way of minimal explanation, but it takes multiple readings to really grasp
the situation. This somewhat unorthodox method of storytelling isn't
completely without benefit, as all of the characters actually become rather
developed in a short amount of time. The character development takes place
throughout the entire first volume of Yozakura
Quartet, during interesting action sequences and everyday mundane
activities.
Yozakura Quartet definitely seems to be
going in a direction where at least some of these issues will be explained, and
it's quite possible that this can become a truly amazing series as a whole.
As the first manga alone, however, it is too confusing to tell how this series
will end up.
Rating: 7.0 out of 10.0
All-in-all: I personally
really liked Yozakura Quartet, but if
things don't start getting explained in volume two, I doubt the series can
remain interesting. The characters kept this volume moving, and it will
be nice to see if more stories are introduced for the next volume.
*tsundere - A character trait describing a personality that is cold and
distant, but dramatically changes to caring and kind in certain situations.
*satori – a Japanese Buddhist word for “enlightenment”, however in the context
of the manga it describes a type of demon that can read people's minds.
