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Reviewed by James Hanrahan Surrounded by seven giant magical pillars, the town of Sakurashin is defended from supernatural menaces by her honor, Mayor Hime Yarizakura, a 16-year-old girl with supernatural strength and resilience. Backed up by her LaCrosse stick and her teen-aged team of (mostly) magical civil servants from Sakurashin’s Hizumi Life Counseling Office, she is willing to give her all for her town, even if it means killing a puppy to do it. Her team consists of: busty, bespectacled Kotoha Isone who uses magic words; a telepathic, cat-eared, good natured demon girl named Ao and Akiina Hizumi, a brave clever guy who is, well, ordinary. (But he’s nobody’s Zeppo.) In this volume they fight off a possessed gunman that thrives on fear and a possessed corgi that becomes a monster. Other stories have the heroes training together and playing with children. Hints are given as to team members’ back-stories, terrible things to come, and a member of the team may have some sort of connection to a burgeoning evil that will threaten Sakurashin in the future. Let me say that this book is SLOW! No spoon-feeding the story here. You really have to read the whole book to get as much information as I just gave in the descriptions of the characters above. (Do those count as spoilers?) The chapters may be a bit slow but there’s plenty of action and some funny bits. You might have to be patient to wait for the story, but the artwork is easy to follow, simple and clean. Even in the author’s bonus manga in the back, though, the author’s best friend says Yozakura Quartet really picks up with volume 2. Another fun fact from the bonus manga is to read that the original Japanese editor suggested that the manga really needed a girl with glasses in it. I assume the busty part and the fact that she also likes (like, she LIKElikes) girls was marketing to get that otaku trifecta/hat trick. The stories are not exactly what you might think of as typical modern superhero fare (probably a good thing) but Del Rey really pushes this manga as a superhero book, using the phrase three times in their information about the book on their webpage. Many other reviewers seem to have picked up on that trend as well. I personally found that kind of strange, and was rather surprised to read it on the Del Rey page after reading the manga. The phrase “super-powers” is used one time in the manga, which also surprised me, taking me completely out of the story for a moment. Nobody says Naruto has Ninja "powers" or that Monkey D. Luffy has gum-gum fruit "powers," though they very obviously do have abilities beyond those of mortal men. I will say that if you have to think of the Hizumi Life Counseling Office as a super hero team you could do a lot worse. These four teens are caring, positive and fully dressed. They have flaws but the flaws are simple ones. I liked this, and give this book a "B-", and am waiting for the second volume. Comment on this review of Yozakura Quartet v1 on the Manga Life Forums. |
6 October 2009
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