Manga Review – Mission: Yozakura Family

A relatively new, currently running manga franchise that has my attention every week when a new chapter drops is Hitsuji Gondaira’s spy-themed action-comedy series, Mission: Yozakura Family. As of the writing of this review, the series is currently running in Japan’s Weekly Shounen Jump, and boasts an impressive offering of 152 serialized chapters. Mission: Yozakura Family is also available in an official digital format in most other parts of the world via the MangaPlus mobile app from Shueisha, which keeps current with the most recent Japanese release of the series in a variety of languages. Mission: Yozakura Family is a series that will undoubtedly appeal to a large majority of shounen manga fans due to its charming art, lovable characters, wholesome family-bonding moments and vibrant, easy-to-follow action sequences.

Mission: Yozakura Family follows Taiyo Asano, an orphaned high school student that marries into the infamous Yozakura spy family, and in doing so, gets caught up in a world of action-packed espionage and infiltration. After being the only survivor of a tragic car crash that kills the rest of his family and leaves him orphaned, Taiyo has a hard time making emotional connections with others for fear of losing them again, until he meets his bride-to-be female lead of the story, Mutsumi Yozakura. The pair’s marriage inducts Taiyo into the Yozakura family, an almost mafia-style family of spies, consisting of the head of the family, Mutsumi herself, and her six siblings. Upon becoming a member of Mutsumi’s family, Taiyo must adapt to a new way of living filled with not only information gathering, hunting down targets and espionage as a way of living, but also being a member of a family again, getting past the emotional walls he built up upon the passing of his blood-related family, and connecting with his eccentric in-laws. This mixture of combat packed plot progression that we have all come to expect from Weekly Shounen Jump titles, and the more touching, family-bonding, daily life moments are what make Mission: Yozakura Family my personal favorite series that is currently running in Jump.

While we have touched a bit on Taiyo’s character in the plot summary, the rest of the core cast of characters is just as lovable and enjoyable to follow their adventures and mischief with each new chapter. The narrative is very character and family driven, and has really done a lot so far to make each character feel unique in both an aesthetic sense, as well as in their demeanor and personality. No two members of the Yozakura family are similar, and everyone who picks this story up is bound to have a favorite of the bunch. Characters like the eldest brother, Kyoichiro, who is always dressed to the nines in a suit and tie and protective of Mutsumi almost to the point of a complex, Shion, the middle sister who is a shut-in gamer that supports the family’s spy operations through hacking and cyber warfare, Nanao, the youngest of the group, a genius scientist and master of poisons with an odd appearance of almost always wearing a bucket with a smiley face drawn on it over his actual face, to my personal favorite, Futaba, the eldest sister and master of hand-to hand combat that also has a loving, motherly personality and is the most mature of the bunch, despite having the appearance that she could be the youngest upon first glance all breath a unique charm into this story that build it into a truly memorable experience.

The art of the series is another ingredient that makes the series so enjoyable. Fans of what I would consider the 1990’s and 2000’s style manga art, complete with the spiky, punk-inspired hairstyles, large, emotive eyes and thick, hard outlines will undoubtedly find this series pleasing to the eyes, as Mission: Yozakura Family uses these conventions as the outline. Hitsuji Gondaira then injects their own unique vision to that formula to make the art really pop out, and gives little details to each character’s design to make them memorable long after your read. That goes doubly so for characters like Nanao and his bizarre and memorable appearance, or Mutsumi’s dyed streak in the side of her hair that is reminiscent of MySpace scene girl fashion of the 2000’s. Coupled with the character building from a narrative standpoint, the art of Mission: Yozakura Family makes the characters stand out from the pack of contemporary shounen character design and separates them from the pack, for the better.

With the franchise’s current popularity on its home turf of Japan, and the newly released English physical release of volume one this October from Viz Media, there is no better time to give Mission: Yozakura Family a chance and see what makes the series so charming. Fans of shounen manga who enjoy a more even split of action scenes and character development are sure to find something they enjoy within the pages of Mission: Yozakura Family.