Yotsuba&! (Originally Yotsubato!) [Manga]

[Ragnar]

Vol. 1

From the genius of Azumanga Daioh comes Yotsubato!, another wonderfully charming slice-of-life manga. This time, however, it follows a normal graphic-novel format instead of the traditional 4-koma comic strips. Although at first this is a bit of a shock, his level of humour and zaniness remains the same.

Yotsuba and her father, Koiwai, move into a new neighborhood with the help of the family friend "Jumbo" (he lives up to his name, and says his father's ancestors were giraffes...). Yotsuba is an orphan who was unofficially adopted by Koiwai, although the details of this are not yet clear, but she has no adoptive mother. She is soon introduced to Emi, Fuka, and Asagi, the three sisters in the house next door.  Yotsuba also is gifted with endless energy, and finds an outlet for it in running around the neighborhood all willy-nilly. To the occasional embarrassment of her father, however, she seems to have no knowledge of anything around her, or any idea how to interact with people; needless to say, this gets her into trouble a few times.

If forced to make a comparison to Azumanga, I would say that Yotsuba is most akin to some bizarre fusion of Chiyo, Osaka, and Tomo.

(Note about the title: as the character "to" can mean "and" in Japanese,
ADV decided to translate "Yotsubato!" into "Yotsuba&!" This mainly serves to add to the chapter titles, some of which are "Moving," "Manners," and "Global Warming;" the effect is that when the chapter names are prefaced by the main title on the chapter pages, they effectively become "Yotsuba and Moving," "Yotsuba and Rain," etc. Personally, I can see the point of this, but I think that "Yotsuba&!" is a rather awkward title. I plan on referring to it as "Yotsubato!" except for "formal conversation," such as this review. I would also suggest pronouncing the title "Yotsubato!")

Rating: 9 out of 10. Very enjoyable and unpredictable. I am looking forwards to volume two.

EDIT: Note: Interestingly enough, on the Borders receipt for this item, it is listed as "Yotsubato!"

[yukatado]

I did rather enjoy the original in Japanese. I would have prefferred that they had simply left the title as is though.