Yotsuba&! vol. 15

There are some series where I grumble about how long it takes them to produce a new volume.  Then there are the series like “Yotsuba&!” where the wait is irrelevant to the fact that a new volume exists at all.  This is to say that vol. 15 is much like the previous fourteen in that it’s a charming delight as the title character experiences many new things from her own unique perspective.  These include cleaning up the house so that her dad can get out the kotatsu, actually working with Yanda for once to get a blender after he tells her about banana juice, going on a rock-finding trip with Ena and Miura, and “helping” Fuuka and Hiwatari as they cram for tests.  All of these situations are delivered with the same warmth and quirkiness that you’d expect from mangaka Kiyohiko Azuma, which means that longtime readers are not going to be disappointed by what they find here.

In fact, they might find that there’s a little more to this volume than you’d expect.  While vol. 14 surprised me by delivering this series’ first arc as Yotsuba went to Tokyo with her dad, vol. 15 looks like it’s laying the groundwork for what could be the biggest change to the title yet.  That would be Yotsuba finally attending school, as we see her shopping for paints and a backpack late in this volume.  I was perfectly fine with the title character remaining a five-year-old for the duration of this series, but this seems like a great way to add some variety to its storytelling without sacrificing its slice-of-life vibe.  Azuma even manages to sell the impact of Yotsuba growing up in a rare moment of focus on her father, Yosuke, as he realizes what this means while buying her a backpack.  I wasn’t expecting my heart-strings to be pulled so effectively with the latest volume of this series, but that’s exactly what happens here.