Yotsuba the adventurer

Life can be pretty amazing when you're five years old. Just ask Yotsuba, the main character of Kiyohiko Azuma's current manga Yotsuba&! Every day is an adventure for her. She's just moved to the big city with her father and there is so much to discover. There's her new neighbors with three daughters for her to play with, and her dad who works at home, and there's always Jumbo to play with. A trip to the department story is full of surprises. A race to the top of the stairs at the local shrine reveals a magnificent view. There are fireworks with friends and a park to play at. There are doorbells to ring, pictures to draw, flowers to give away, fish to be caught, and the accursed Yanda to defend the house against. Yotsuba's life is full of wonder and discovery, and we could all learn something from her ability to enjoy everything.

Volume 1

Kiyohiko Azuma had some small measure of success creating comics based on characters from Battle Athletes and Tenchi Muyo for Pioneer's fan club. So it was something of a surprise when his first full-length manga, Azumanga Daioh, became an international success. The manga was drawn in the 4-koma (4-panel) style. It was a wonderfully fun and funny story about a groups of girls in high school. The characters were memorable with great relationships. The humor was quirky and light-hearted, the art style was simple but expressive. A well-received anime was produced that simply added more fuel to the story's international appeal. Both the manga and anime are among my favorites and you can look forward to articles about them in the future.. Once the story ended, the question was what he would do for an encore.

Volume 2

The answer is Yotsuba&! It's the story of a happy five-year-old girl, Yotsuba. She lives with her father, Koiwai (first name unknown). Koiwai works as a translator and has just moved to Tokyo with his daughter. Having lived in the country, everything is new to Yotsuba and every day is an adventure. Koiwai is not her real father, but the details of how she came to live with him are sketchy. Everyone who sees her thinks she's a foreigner. Her name is the Japanese word for four-leaf clover, which is apparent in her unique hair style: four green pig-tails. Living next door is the Ayase family. The father is always at work so is seldom seen, but the mom is a housewife and takes car of the home and their three daughters. Asagi is the oldest daughter. She's in college and has a devious sense of humor. She also has a good friend Torako who drives a Fiat and smokes like a chimney. Yotsuba looks up to Asagi and thinks Torako is the coolest person in the world. Ena is the youngest daughter. She's in junior high and is very sweet and kind. She also has a good friend, Miura. Miura is a bit of a tom-boy and is very out-spoken. Since they are the closest to Yotsuba's age, she plays with them a lot.

Volume 3

The middle daughter is Fuuka. Fuuka is love. She's in high school and is a very good student. She's even the student body vice-president. She tries hard to act as a big sister figure for Yotsuba, but often ends up being the recipient of many of Yotsuba's more exuberant shenanigans. She's a great character and an obvious favorite with the fans. Another important character is Jumbo. His real name is Takashi Takeda, a rather common name, so everyone calls him Jumbo because of how tall he is. He's a florist in his father's shop and is a very close friend with Yotsuba. Every time he shows up, she gets excited because something fun is going to happen. Jumbo and Koiwai have obviously been friends for a long time, since they have a finely honed comedic timing together. The final important character is Yanda. He's a young guy and works with Koiwai. He acts cool and teases Yotsuba mercilessly. He is Yotsuba's mortal enemy, and even Jumbo and Koiwai give him grief for his attitude.

Volume 4

The art style is similar to Azumanga Diaoh, simple but expressive. He doesn't bother with backgrounds often, but when he does, they're beautiful and nostalgic. He's abandoned the 4-panel style for the freedom of chapter-long stories. The humor is, as I said before, quirky and light-hearted. It's also laugh-out-loud funny. Every single chapter will make you laugh. Yotsuba's amazement with the wonders of living in the city are a constant source of humor. Koiwai, Jumbo and Asagi are great comic characters, and Fuuka and Ena are great straight men (women?) That's the real appeal of Fuuka. She's like the Bob Newhart of the story, her reactions to everything from Jumbo and Koiwai's lame comedy to Yotsuba's antics really drives a lot of the humor. And then there's Yanda. Whenever he arrives, you can always expect hilarious sparks between him and Yotsuba. 

Volume 5

Unlike Azumanga Daioh which followed the girls from starting high school through graduation, there is no overall story arc in Yotsuba&! Each chapter is a self-contained story. One of the more hilarious episodes concerns Yotsuba, Ena and Ena's friend Miura. Miura goes to visit Ena wearing a Japanese scarecrows head which looks like a stuffed archery target. The problem is that Yotsuba is terrified of them. So Miura keeps teasing her with it, pretending to be an evil scarecrow. Ena isn't impressed and grabs a frog she just captured and shoves it in Miura's face. Miura is terrified of frogs, so she runs for cover behind Yotsuba who grabs the closest thing she can to fight off the evil scarecrow. Unfortunately, it's Ena's beloved teddy bear which causes her to freak out over the beating it's taking. It's a three-way circle of terror as frog, scarecrow and teddy bear do their damage. The punch-line comes after the story, showing a simple sketch of a teary Ena sewing the arms back on her teddy bear.

Volume 6

Yotsuba&! was released in the US by ADV Manga. ADV had previously released both the manga and anime adaptation of Azumanga Daioh, so it was no surprise they also licensed Yotsuba&! The problem was that ADV was at the beginning the downward spiral that sadly saw them finally shut down last month. The manga division had been launched with great fanfare, but far too many titles of limited appeal diluted the few successes, leading to a huge cutback in production. ADV published 5 volumes of Yotsuba&! over a rather sporadic schedule, but it soon became clear that they wouldn't be publishing any more. Thankfully, Yen Press, a new manga publisher with some deep pockets acquired the license and have finally released volume 6 after an approximately two year wait. At the same time, they released volumes 1 through 5 with completely new translations. I bought all six of the Yen Press volumes to support their rescue of the title. It also means I've now got three different versions of volumes 1 through 5: Japanese, ADV and Yen Press. But that shows how much I love this title. This is a title that celebrates joy, discovery, wonder and the love of life. If you've never read a manga title but would like to try one, give this one a try. And remember to live like Yotsuba: enjoy everything.