Even though Tsugu and Sora have grown used to their new lives running a croquette shop for Tsugu’s grandfather, this break from their regular lives must come to an end and they need to return home. As they do, former friends Asari and Yuushin seem to also realize what they’ve lost and what they truly want in their lives.
As I finished reading volume 2 of The Golden Sheep I found myself thinking that the series seemed to be reaching a stopping point and began wondering if Kaori Ozaki would drag things. Fortunately it appears that my instincts were spot on and Ozaki neatly wraps up this story of teenage growth in this third volume without overstaying its welcome. I must say that coming to this series after I read one of her previous works, The Gods Lie, Golden Sheep was a remarkably more light-hearted and uplifting series than I expected.
The Gods Lie is the story of two kids with unusual family backgrounds becoming friends but it’s also a story about loss, abandonment, death, and hard truths about the world. Golden Sheep does quite literally open on a scene of attempted suicide in the first volume but that remains the darkest part of the series and seeing Tsugu and Sora grow after it, and then later watching their other friends Yuushin and Asari grow as well, feels incredibly light-hearted. By comparison, Ozaki’s one-shot “Love Letter” included at the back of volume 3 is much darker and more of the tone I expected from Golden Sheep going in (in fact, “Love Letter” is probably the darkest of their works that I’ve read so far!).
I can’t say that “I expected this series to be a profound and dark gut-punch ended up instead being a much softer, shoulder-punch” is a complaint however, especially with how well Ozaki drew me into the entire series. I do feel that Asari’s story was very underdeveloped compared to the rest of the quartet and that is my one major complaint for the series. Volume 3 reveals that some of her underlying insecurities may stem from her long periods of isolation at a hospital as a child, giving her a sense of loneliness that she hasn’t been able to kick yet, but it’s not very well developed and I wish that Ozaki had seeded that idea earlier on at the very least.
Likewise, the story comes to a bit of a non-ending with Yuushin’s feelings over his father and his mother’s decision not to divorce him. On the one hand, the societal reasons that a couple may or may not split up, involving repercussions from their community and financial stability, can be a bit heavy for a high school aged cast but on the other hand, I lived through a divorce at sixteen and wouldn’t have found such discussions out of place. Ozaki does try to contrast this with the situation involving Tsugu’s already-divorced family, and Tsugu’s feelings that perhaps her family will get back together are very typical for some teens in her position, even if her feelings seem misguided to outside readers. But at the same time, I wondered if Ozaki was drawing through lived experiences or merely through second-hand information when it came to these complex families; the feelings are close to reality but just not quite there yet.
While short, and often uplifting, The Golden Sheep remains a roller-coaster of emotions throughout and a great choice for readers who want a realistic drama untinged by more stereotypical shōjo/shōnen tropes. Ozaki has several other series that haven’t yet been published in English and I hope we get to see more of them in the near future.