Yozakura Quartet, Vol. 1

By Suzuhito Yasuda
Del Rey, 224 pp.
Rating: 13+

In Manga The Complete Guide Jason Thompson has a very nice essay about the American super hero comics genre and how they relate to manga:

“Manga hereos generally fight for personal reasons, to protect the ones close to them – this line is repeated in countless manga – unlike American superheroes, who traditionally patrol the world looking for trouble… In manga, it is typically villians who are obsessed with abstract morality, whereas the good guys are concerned with their family and friends.”

Goku, for example, is fighting for his friends and family, and Naruto fights to protect his village.

This concept is incredibly important in understanding Yozakura Quartet. Hime is the teenage girl mayor of the small town of Sakurashin, and as such she is also the town’s protector. Hime works out of a small office with Ao, Kotoha, and Akina, other super-powered teens with the exception of Akina, who is just an ordinary boy. Hime accepted her position at a tender young age when the previous village leader died. Sakurashin has some kind of demon problem, and is surrounded by seven gigantic holy pillars, like smokestacks.

Ao is a cat-eared demon with the ability to read minds. Kotoha has the ability to fight with words (reminiscent of Loveless) and she wears fetish glasses… I wonder where one can purchase megane-fetish frames (like in Air Gear)?

I don’t read traditional super hero titles because I’m uninterested in the premise and I can’t take a lot of bikinis and cleavage. I am very enthusiastic about a teenage girl mayor and friends, however, this is shonen manga, so the fetishy socks and skirts tend towards a Charlie’s Angels¹ atmosphere (where Charlie is an meek school boy checking receipts). There isn’t a lot of cleavage, but there is otaku fanservice.

The girls aren’t just kicking demon/serial killer ass all the time, they also end up staffing an underfunded kindergarten and caring for a lost puppy, which reinforce traditional gender roles in a disappointing way.

I enjoyed the art of the book, with dark, dark inks. I found the character design appealing, but the action a little hard to follow. It’s no Q-Ko Chan, but I to re-read several sequences.

By the end of the book I found myself wishing I was watching an anime version of the property. Anime tends to smooth out manga story problems and weak action scenes in the transition to storyboard. Exactly one month after the release of the first volume, an anime series was announced.

Del Rey has an uncanny knack of picking up manga with related anime titles. Mamotte Lollipop had a 2006 anime series which was recently picked up by Funimation. Nine volumes of The Wallflower were released Stateside before the anime began airing in Japan. Almost every Del Rey title I can think of has an anime series attached (exceptions: My Heavenly Hockey Club, Love Roma, Q-Ko Chan).

Yozakura Quartet was heavily marketed as a super-hero title, but I’ll be reaching for volume two for moe reasons (megane, cat-ears, tsundere – or tsunshun).

¹ I didn’t pull the Charlie’s Angels comparison out of thin air – the editor mentions the title in a comic in the author’s notes.

Yozakura Quartet, Vol. 2

By Suzuhito Yasuda
Del Rey, 224 pp.
Rating: 16+

My disappointment in Yozakura Quartet volume 2 is as deep as the Huautla cave in Mexico (as featured in Yakitate Japan! volume 10). I became really attached to Hime and Kotoha in volume one, but they are largely absent from volume two. Rather than developing existing characters further, additional characters are introduced as Yasuda further explores Sakurashin and its relationship with demons.

When vampires were introduced in the second chapter it took a lot of self-restraint not to throw the book against the wall and scream, “Damnit! I didn’t sign up for this! Why does it always have to be vampires?!” Fortunately, the twin kid vampires are used as a vehicle to introduce the rules of Sakurashin’s demons, and only reappear briefly.

It turns out ramen delivery girl Rin is a Jiang Shi, a hopping corpse, which is cool, because I have not read a lot of manga featuring hopping corpses (like Zombie Loan).

The premise is interesting enough: Out-of-skew with their own dimension, demons/vampires/Jiang Shi have strange powers and lack immortality in the human word. Sakurashin is a unique city where demons are allowed to live and work in peace before dying human-like deaths or being “tuned”.

Outside of more backstory and more character introductions and foreshadowing, nothing actually happens in volume two. The author admits in the extensively padded-out afterword that he did not paginate volume one correctly and all the short, crappy stories in volume two were intended to be included in volume one. His explanation makes sense, but it comes off as a lame apology for an inexcusably bad second volume.

“There is a saying among manga readers,” Yasuda remarks in the afterword, “Manga done by illustrators aren’t interesting.” I had never heard this saying before, but now I wonder, why was the art so much worse in volume two if Yasuda has a background as an illustrator? If Yasuda has three assistants, why are so many of his backgrounds gray gradient fills?!

In one chapter all the characters, including the new extended cast, get drunk at sakura viewing picnic, thus the jump in age rating from 13+ to 16+. Unfortunately we haven’t gotten to know the characters well enough for this chapter to be funny. This chapter is representative of the filler arc feel of the book.

And all that stuff I said about heroes and the theme about protecting the town? Forget about it! It turns out Hime is just a town mayor, a chouchou instead of a shichou. Her role as a protector seems altered in light of the revealed purpose of Sakurashin.

“The story is going to really start moving in volume 3,” Yasuda assures us. But will it be too little too late?

Volumes one and two of Yozakura Quartet are available now.