For a number of reasons, releases of Yotsuba&! are few and far between. It’s simply a case where the creator Kiyohiko Azuma is just working on it irregularly. Don’t know the reasons why. That’s why over the past couple years the releases have gone like this in English:
Yotsuba&! Volume 12: November 19, 2013
Yotsuba&! Volume 13: May 24, 2016
Yotsuba&! Volume 14: November 13, 2018
For me, it’s been close to four years since I’ve read this series. I’ve simply put this on my long list of things to read and just never made time for it.
After reading volume 14 I can conclude I’ve made a grave mistake in avoiding it!
Yotsuba has a number of things happen to her: she turns into a princess, takes yoga class with Miss Stake and Fuuka, ventures into Tokyo, and is taken into a high-class, all-you-can-eat-buffet place. You’d think at least one of these stories would be ok, or good. Surely not every chapter (there are 7) can be great.
And then you read it and start crying laughing and by then, it’s all over. Yotsuba just cannot help herself when it comes to discovering new things and reacting adorably, and the cast around here feeds off her enthusiasm at every turn. How can making jewels be funny? Well, when you have her dad, Yousuke, “tricking” her into which beads to give to him, or seeing her really focused on making her own beads, it’s so endearing and lovable that you can’t help but enjoy it.
You think going to do yoga can’t be entertaining? Have Miss Stake (Hiwatari) and Fuuka bring Yotsuba with them, and you can see them play a word game on their way to the yoga place, have Yotsuba then outdo them in all the stretches, and then have them all believe they did lose weight…maybe! Want to see Yotsuba take some form of responsibility? Then have her be the one to use the train tickets on their way to Tokyo!…just not the fake one!
One of the many things I love about Yotsuba is how the characters (even strangers) react to her. You have Asagi, just chilling in her house and reading on the couch, end up taking part in Yotsuba becoming a princess. You at one point see Yousuke implore Yotsuba to not bug him at a certain time, but then he chooses to take part in her many shenanigans. What happens when you go to Harajuku? Many things can happen there, but for Yotsuba, her biggest challenge is to stop the aliens from destroying the Earth. Can she do it? Let’s just say it may involve some pleading and the cosplayer alien being understanding!
As you can probably tell, this was an amazing volume. Heck, I would normally call it out for kind of awkwardly introducing a character — we meet Koharuko, who, as it turns out, is Yousuke’s sister. It definitely doesn’t help that it’s been so long between releases for this series, but I had no idea who she was and her relation to the Koiwais when they met at a park. But soon enough, Koharuko’s personality shines when she takes them to an expensive all-you-can-eat restaurant at a hotel, and before you know it, she’s a prominent member of the team. It also shined after she learned the two had crepes and cotton candy at Harajuku, as Yotsuba, who thought about keeping the cotton candy a secret, ended up accidentally spilling the beans since her dad thought he could get away with just mentioning they only had crepes.
You should all pick up Yotsuba&!. I’m almost thinking you don’t even need to read prior volumes to fall in love with this one. It’s that great.