Spoilers (super major ones will be marked)

Mission: Yozakura Family is a series that came out in the Spring 2024 season. It ran for 2 consecutives cours and had 27 episodes.
The anime adapted (most of) the first 10 volumes of the manga.
Rather than being a rather straightforward 1 on 1 adaptation. The anime wanted to focus more on the overall story. You see the early parts of the manga kind of screamed “It was getting axed” until it didn’t. The earlier portions of the manga were more Gag centered being more episodic than just having an overall story right away. Having Chapters that didn’t really correlate with the overall story the series was trying to make. The story portion of the manga started to kick in around the introduction of the Tanpopo. So in order for the anime to work SILVER LINK. rearranged certain chapters in order to make the earlier episodes work well.

And because I have to talk about it. Yeah, the anime is a Hulu/Disney+ exclusive. I mean on paper it isn’t really that bad because both are one of the biggest streaming services worldwide, but their problem is that they don’t advertise most of their shows. Like you couldn’t legally watch Summertime Rendering when it was released weekly and then it was dumped on their streaming service months after it ended. Thankfully that complaint has been fixed because the majority of their other exclusives have weekly releases.
Call it “the bare minimum” but Yozakura was one of their better shows they advertised

▶ Like I remember when the first episode released Disney+ advertised it on their header because I had to Hulu bundle and I also remembered going on Instagram and randomly seeing them advertising this anime which is something

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History

I’ve read the manga since March of 2020 and have been excited for it every since and like any fan of a new manga (particularly of a Jump Manga) you hope it survives and gets an anime adaption. Which it did. I remember how excited I was because this is one of the first manga I’ve read before it got an anime.
I waited for the day the anime premiered so I could finally see one of my favorite mangas getting animated.

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Story 9/10

The story centers on Taiyo Asano, a boy who lost his parents and younger brother as a result of a car crash and as a result he becomes more introverted. However he has his childhood friend Mutsumi Yozakura who is the only comfort in his life left. Everything changes one day in which the School’s Vice Principal Mr. Hirukawa asks him to come to his office. The reason why is that he wants to kill Taiyo because he is close to Mutsumi, however Taiyo’s life is saved miraculously. He wakes up and finds himself with Mutsumi along with 5 other people who are her siblings and all of them are spies, and that Vice Principal Mr. Hirukawa is actually the oldest sibling in the family Kyoichiro who after having an incident which almost killed Mutsumi he wanted to protect Mutsumi from anything. In order for Taiyo not to be killed by Kyoichiro, he and Mutsumi will have to get married because the Yozakuras most important rule is “No killing among family”. And that’s how the story begins.
The series starts out pretty episodic as it starts out with Taiyo adjusting to both spy life and becoming a member of the Yozakuras. One of the things I prefer in the anime over the manga is that each of the family members were given their time to shine. While the earlier chapters did have some sort of them most of the earlier chapters of the manga barely had the “Yozakura Family” part of the manga as it felt like it was just introducing a new character every chapter. The series as a whole starts to get interesting around the introduction of the Hinagiku and leading to the first series arc the Kuroyuri arc in which Taiyo has to investigate a politician named Yoshimasu Kuroyuri. This arc hooked me into this series when I read the manga and made me the fan of this series I am today. The anime nailed the emotional moments and even some of the action of this arc pretty well. The actual story starts to take a turn around the introduction of the Tanpopo in which we discover what actually happened to Taiyo’s family and their plan to steal Mutsumi’s heart for their seed-sowing project. The moment the series finds its identity is around Gerbera in which Taiyo heads to a train looking for the Yozakura siblings’ long lost father Momo who had previously injured Taiyo in order for Mutsumi to transfer her blood to Taiyo so that Taiyo would become stronger. We would meet Hakuja who was one of the Tanpopo members but also knew Taiyo’s parents and blames herself for their deaths. As she was ill and was on the verge of dying but was saved by Tanpopo leader Makoto Kawashita who injected Hazakura into her but he had also done this with other patients but Hakuja was the only one who lived as the others who were injected died. So as a result he tried to cover it up by killing the Asanos. Episode 20 was the peak of the series, everything about this particular episode was perfect with the animation and emotion being the best parts of this episode.
The battle between the Yozakura and the rest of the Tanpopo was phenomenal with Taiyo vs. Kawashita being the best part.
Overall the story was really good.

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Characters 9/10

I really liked the characters
Taiyo Asano is one of my favorite protagonists ever. Taiyo initially starts as this introvert who’s unable to cope with his family member’s death but thanks to becoming a member of the Yozakuras he becomes a lot more confident and grows as a person.
Mutsumi is generally a really fun and interesting character. She’s the head of the family and while the head is the ordinary person in the family that’s what I love about her.
Kyoichiro is a rather complex character for me to simply describe. While he is obsessive, the mystery of his character is what makes him interesting.
Futaba is an amazing sister. Easily one of my favorite characters.
Shinzo is awesome. At first he just looks like a scaredy cat but his knowledge on weapons and his badass moments makes him one of my favorite characters.
Shion has a laid back personality which I really like. And her hacking abilities are cool.
Kengo is a rather fun energetic animal but can be able to understand people which I think is cool
Nanao is my least favorite of the siblings but that doesn’t mean I hate him. Nanao is solid. I just think the other siblings are better.
Special mention to Keiko and Ban. The grandparents of the Yozakura siblings. Ban is a goofball but is also a solid mentor, while Keiko is more laid back especially when she isn’t dealing with Ban.
Ayaka starts out as this crazy yandere who wants to kill Taiyo but becomes a lot less crazy once she becomes the family maid.
Hotokeyama is a solid character.
I really liked Hinagiku and it was great that the anime gave them a bigger role overall. My favorites would have to be Rin, Momiji, and Sui.
Kuroyuri starts out as this weird politician but the twist being that he wants to kill many politicians as he felt he was betrayed by them as when he was celebrating his daughter's birthday one of the politicians gave her a present which killed her. Kuroyuri was the first great antagonist the series had.
I liked Hoshifuru a lot. I loved his personality and I enjoyed the twist that he was observing Taiyo to see if he was worthy enough to get his spy license.
Me-chan is menacing.
The Tanpopo as a whole are really great antagonists.
Makoto Kawashita is one of those “Love to hate” type villains as he’s really hateable but he’s done so in a well written away, with the twist of

Spoiler, click to view

him collaborating with one of the Yozakura family members

in order to eliminate the Yozakuras was pretty shocking.
Nohmen was fine.
Yama-chan I gotta respect his love for dogs but other than that he’s also fine.
I love Hakuja. She’s easily my favorite out of all the Tanpopo members as her backstory was amazingly done. She was an ill patient who desired to live more than anything else, but when she met Kawashita and he cured her by using Hazakura it cost her two people in her life she grew a connection to which were Taiyo’s parents. Her character as a whole was tragic but the conclusion to her character was tearjerking to watch.
Akai is hard for me to perfectly describe. Her backstory is tragic, being about someone murdering her family members and then Kawashita using her siblings’ body parts in order to save her life and give her Hazakura. Akai really has this IDGAF attitude and that’s what’s pretty unique about her.
Aonuma is a character I really like. His backstory was that he was homeless and lived in cardboard boxes along with a woman named Hako who refers to as “Granny Hako”. They don’t get along, but one day when it was cold outside Hako left Aonuma in the cold but when Aonuma woke up the next morning Hako gave Aonuma her coat and leftover food. I also like his ice abilities.
Kurosawa is a rather silent character but his character as a whole is solid.
Cha-Cha is a menace who prides himself on his intelligence and thinks everyone other than him is stupid. Yeah.
Mizuki is another hard to describe character for me. Because he has a rather cruel way of disciplining his adopted daughter Ai in which he traumatizes her by placing his hand on her head. But his backstory involves him living in a town where a disease was killing a lot of people and they could do nothing about it, but Kawashita saved his life. I also felt his death was done in a bittersweet way in which he apologizes to Ai for scarring her as a result of his cruel way of discipline.
I love Ai. She’s a rather fun character to watch and is easily one of my favorite characters.

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Animation 7.5/10

The animation is solid. When it’s great it’s great. And when it’s bad it’s bad. The sakuga scenes in this anime are amazingly done like the fight scene with Taiyo and Hakuja. It shows you how much passion SILVER LINK. for this anime.
But there are some times where the animation is rather poor, take episode 24 for example.
Overall the animation for the most part is solid.

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Enjoyment 9.5/10

I love this anime. And as a fan of the manga I enjoyed how SILVER LINK. adapted this manga. The anime isn't perfect by any means but the positives weigh out the negatives pretty easily.
A special mention to the voice acting in both Japanese and in English. I love the VAs performances as their characters, my favorite being both Katsuyuki Konishi and Sean Chiplock as Kyoichiro.
I also liked how the anime fixed certain problems the earlier chapters of the manga had as it wasn’t just always introducing new characters for the sake of it and actually focused on the family aspect of the series.

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Overall 9.5/10

Mission: Yozakura Family was one of the manga I couldn’t wait for it to receive an anime adaptation, and now that the first season is finished I can’t wait to see more of it now that Season 2 has been confirmed. So overall I enjoyed the first season of the anime and I can’t wait to see more of what SILVER LINK. has to offer.