Warning: This Review contains Unmarked Spoilers

It seems today that anime/manga is primarily known for violence and sex. But you may be asking about where are those good old fashion values on which we used to rely? Luckily there is a manga about a family guy it’s named is Spy x- Wait that's the wrong series I meant to say Mission: Yozakura Family.

“For 60 years, Sunday has meant God, Football, and Family Guy, and later, to a lesser degree, The Simpsons.”

Peter Griffin

Sundays are usually the days of the latest chapters for series that run in Weekly Shonen Jump. A magazine that’s known for big hits like Dragon Ball, One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen, the list goes on.
Jump has diverse catalogue for what it offers and while their action mangas are the most well known there's also Sports (Haikyu and Slam Dunk), Rom Coms (Nisekoi and Bokuben), Gag Manga (Gintama, Saiki K, Roboco), Thriller (Death Note), the list goes on.

Before we talk about Mission: Yozakura Family we have to talk about the series mangaka himself Hitsuji Gondaira.
As a child he never thought about becoming a mangaka but enjoyed drawing as a hobby and wanted to be an oceanographer, however he decided to give manga a shot and participated in the 43rd JUMP Treasure Newcomer Manga Award and received an honorable mention for his one-shot IBIS. He will continue to make a couple of one-shots with one of them Genjui Toteku being the Winner of the 2015 Weekly Shonen Jump Golden Future Jump.
His first series that was serialized was Demon Prince Poro’s Diaries in 2017 in probably one of the most legendary batches in Jump history

Demon Prince Poro’s Diaries lasted 17 chapters and got axed. As far as the rest of the batch goes We Never Learn and Dr. Stone were the only successes of the batch, Robot x Laserbeam had minor success but it couldn't continue and got axed but at least the mangaka has a recent hit in Kill Blue. Hungry Marine, while axed the mangaka managed to get his second hit series with Cosmos. And U19 became a meme.

So this leads us to Yozakura Family which started in late August 2019 and lasted until January 2025. When the series’ first chapter came out not a lot of people expected it to last long in the magazine, heck Chapter 18 convinced many people it was on it's way out and it's Table of Contents rankings and sales weren't convincing that it was going to stay in the magazine for awhile but surprisingly enough not only did it not get axed but it lasted long enough to get an anime and have 29 overall volumes. Not only that but as of the making of this review it’s the 37th longest running series in Weekly Shonen Jump.

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History

My oldest memory of this series has to be an email from Shonen Jump when the series’ first chapter was released. The premise gave me Nisekoi vibes but it isn't fake. But I wouldn't be interested in the series until late 2019 but unfortunately it looked like it was in a position of which it was going to be axed, but luckily when the first volume came out it wasn't bad enough to get axed and looked like it was growing in popularity.
I read the manga in early March of 2020 as in weeks before the pandemic happened. I officially became up to date with the series around the pandemic and when I became up to date around the Marble Decoding arc.
The series had an underdog mentality as it never gained immediate recognition but was gently growing in popularity as time progressed.
Stuff like another Jump Cover, a physical English release, and an anime looked impossible based on it's rocky first year but here we are.

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Story 10/10

The story is split into 3 Saga: The Tanpopo Saga, The Momo Saga, and The Asa/Timeskip Saga.

The Tanpopo Saga:

The story is about Taiyo Asano who lost his family and is unable to cope with it but he has his childhood friend Mutsumi who's the only thing in his life left.
Everything changes when Taiyo's teacher Mr. Hirukawa asked him to visit his office because he wants to kill him because Mr. Hirukawa is actually her older brother Kyoichiro and wants to protect Mutsumi from everything and everyone, however Taiyo's life was saved miraculously and when he wakes up he find himself surrounded by Mutsumi and 5 other people who are her siblings and all of them are spies. The only way for Taiyo to avoid getting killed by Kyoichiro is by getting married to Mutsumi because the Yozakuras most important rule is “No killing among family”. In which they do.

The earlier chapters were more episodic with it being a more of a mix of Gag, Romantic Comedy, and action. There were some smaller arcs like the Flower Bin arc but they didn’t exactly contribute to the main story.

The Kuroyuri arc is where the series started to become interesting. The arc centers on Taiyo teaming up with government spies called the Hinagiku to go on a mission to investigate a politician by the name of Yoshimasa Kuroyuri.
This is the arc where the series becomes special with the arc. As we found out that Kuroyuri’s real name was Kurogao who worked with politicians as a spy killing certain people as ordered, however everything changes on his daughter Yuri’s birthday in which they discover that there was a bomb hidden as a birthday present and it killed her and as a result Kurogao felt betrayed by the people he onced worked with and took revenge on them with him eventually planning to assassinate the Deputy Prime Minister on live TV but is stopped by Taiyo and the Hinagiku. The arc ends in a bittersweet way in which Kurogao accepts his own defeat after his fight with Taiyo and gives Taiyo a map to find a tree and inside of the tree there’s a small box that will tell him about the information of his family (Which is actually a marble).
This is the arc that made me fall in love with the series in the first place and I have a special place for it

However the story starts to kick in around the introduction of the Tanpopo in which we meet the Tanpopo leader Makoto Kawashita who’s a doctor and a Director of the Kawashita Medical Office and he’s plotting something called “The Seed Sowing Project” in which he needs Mutsumi’s heart to create Someinine which is a protein found in the Yozakura Family head that can be able to give people power and abilities.
We are also introduced to the Yozakuras’ father Momo Yozakura who is working for Tanpopo, he also intentionally injures Taiyo so that Mutsumi can be able to give him Yozakura blood in order to make him stronger and unleash his blooming.

But the arc where the series found it’s identity is Gerbera where Taiyo searches to find both Momo and Kawashita in which he finds them on a train along with a woman named Hakuja.
Hakuja explains to Taiyo that it's her fault that his parents died as she was an ill patient in the hospital Taiyo’s parents (who were doctors) worked at. She would later meet Kawashita who would give her a drug that could cure her illness, however she would found out that more than 10,000 other people have used the same drug and almost all of them didn’t even make it past 2 years with her being the sole survivor. In order for Kawashita to cover up this he would have had to kill Taiyo’s parents to hide the evidence, so as a result Taiyo’s entire family was killed.
The fight between Taiyo and Hakuja is incredible with the arc ending with Hakuja dying and Taiyo telling her that his family’s death wasn’t her fault.

All of this leads up to the next arc which is the Yozakura Front Lines in which it’s a battle between the Yozakura family and the Tanpopo.
This is where the series starts to become like a regular Battle Shonen and it did it pretty well.
The fights in this arc were spectacular. Each of the Tanpopo members had something that made them unique.
All of this leading is a big twist and that being Kawashita was collaborating with the first head of the family Tsubomi Yozakura to eliminate the entire Yozakura family so she would not be known as the first head but rather Tsubomi Yozakura.

The Momo Saga:

After defeating the Tanpopo, one of the members Ai gets adopted into the Yozakura Family because she’s been isolated throughout her whole life and needs to become more socialized.
We also see Taiyo’s blooming going out of control until he decides to go to sleep where he sees the first head Tsubomi in his dreams asking him to kill her but in order to do that he needs to talk to Kawashita and get his Silver Rank Spy License before doing so.

The Silver Rank Spy Exams was a really fun arc to read. Seeing Taiyo overcome obstacles in order to get his exam was nice to see.

After Taiyo receives his Silver Rank Spy License Kawashita reveals that Profuse blooming is the way to kill Tsubomi and not only that but Momo is a clone of Tsubomi before he dies.

We also eventually get to meet the 2nd and 5th heads of the family and they were pretty interesting to say the least.

Kyoichiro also disappears from the family because he wants to destroy the previous family heads who are eating Mutsumi, and it leads to a one sided fight where Kyoichiro wins.

Because of how crazy Momo is, the Spy Association decides to punish the entire Yozakura family for it. As a result of this we will get to meet Gold Rank Spies such as Kai, Shura, Hulang, and Alexandryu in which they, alongside the Yozakura family, would plan to capture Momo within 3 days.
Although Momo would mind control Futaba and Shinzo.

The Sibling Search is incredible as not only were the rest of the siblings able to find a way to get Futaba and Shinzo out of Momo’s mind control, but Momo himself was an incredible antagonist in this arc. Special mention to his blooming “Dreams”.

Not to mention Kyoichiro opening his eyes and unleashing his blooming “Void” was amazing to see as well.

We eventually see the father of Tsubomi, Asa who’s responsible for everything in the series. The reason why Momo was crazy in the first place was because he found out about Asa’s existence and rebelled against him.
The Yozakura family find an envelope from Momo which is actually a video about him explaining his ability to predict what people would say and telling his children about a plan to destroy Asa and each of his children receiving their own letter and it ends with everyone going their separate ways for 5 years.

The Asa/Timeskip Saga:

5 years later we get to see that Taiyo and Mutsumi have 2 twin children: Alpha and Hifumi.
This is also the start of Asa’s plan to have the Yozakura family under his control as he targets Taiyo and Mutsumi’s children.
The twins are also sent to Teiou Academy which is a school made by the Spy Association and the school’s Principal is none other than Kyoichiro.
Kyoichiro also explains to the twins about Asa’s plan with the twins wanting to join them but in order to do this they need a stamp from each of the family members to join the rest of the family.
For over a couple arcs we will get to see the twins meet the rest of the siblings in order to get their approval in order to join the fight against Asa and it was pretty fun to see.
After collecting everyone’s stamps it leads us to the final arc with that being the battle against Asa aka The Second Yozakura Front Lines.

The final arc is everything a final arc should be amazing fights, great character conclusions, and emotional moments.
The final arc is everything you could ask for a Battle Shonen and it manages to give you a satisfying conclusion where Asa is defeated and the Yozakuras are able to live out their lives as normal human beings.

Overall the story is incredible and it gets better as the series goes on.

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Characters 9.5/10

The Characters are incredible.

Taiyo is not only one of my favorite animanga protagonists but in fiction in general. As his development from becoming shy as a result of his family’s death to becoming a more confident person in order to protect Mutsumi from danger and his relationship with the rest of the family is really good.

Mutsumi is a fantastic character. While she doesn’t fight like the rest of the members of the family, she does her job pretty well as being the head of the family she helps assist the family when it comes to their missions.

Kyoichiro isn’t a character you expect to like with his siscon tendencies but his character is phenomenal as despite initially wanting to kill Taiyo because he always hangs out with Mutsumi he grew to tolerate him over time even if he still hated him or wanted to kill him. He’s also a great mentor to Taiyo as well.

Futaba is amazing. I love that she's the most mature and reasonable one of the family as well as being the voice of reason.

Shinzo is another character I love. He initially starts out pretty shy except when he’s around his weapons but gets more confident later on.

Shion, I love her gamer chick vibe as well as her hacking skills.

Kengo, I really like how his blooming is able to read people’s minds and understand their thoughts, and he is pretty funny at times.

Nanao has to be my least favorite of the siblings. That doesn’t mean I hate him but compared to the rest he’s not exactly my favorite compared to the others but I do love his love for science and his relationship with Rinne.

Goliath is pretty cool, especially when he becomes a giant.

The family maid Ayaka is really fun and I really love her relationship with Shinzo especially when she cheers him on.

Ai was one of the members of the Tanpopo who was abused by her mother until Tanpopo member Mizuki rescued her. Although he was a better parent to her than her mom, he harshly disciplines her but he would sacrifice himself in order to save Ai.
As a member of the Yozakuras, Ai becomes Taiyo and Mutsumi’s daughter and we get some sweet moments with the three. Ai is definitely one of my favorite characters in the series.

Mutsumi’s grandmother and grandfather Keiko and Ban are also really nice characters. While they don’t get as much focus later on, it was fun to see them when they did appear.

Momo is a fantastic character as finding out Asa’s goal he intentionally became a madman just so that his children can become stronger and defeat Asa. He also serves as a great antagonist for the second Act.

Tsubomi is a tragic character because as a result of Asa’s abuse towards her she wanted to eliminate her descendants so she can just be a normal human being.
It was also great to see that she helped the twins in order to defeat Asa.

Speaking of the twins, they're solid additions to the cast, it was great to see them help the rest of the family fight Asa.

Asa is the perfect villain for this series. He wants the family to stick to the status quo and all the events in the series were as a result of his doing.
His conversation with Taiyo before they fight was incredible to read with Asa believing that the twins are a threat to the family because they represent the end of the Yozakura family and their descendants will become normal people.

The Hinagiku were pretty good characters but I wish they got a lot more focus as they rarely appear after Front Lines. The same thing can be said for Seiji.

The Tanpopo were great antagonists.

Kawashita is one of those “Love to Hate” type villains. He’s a psychopath but a well written character.

The other members such as Akai and Aonuma were solid characters in their own but my favorite out of all of them would have to be Hakuja who was a great antagonist in the Gerbera arc.

As for the rest of the spies? Other spies I like would have to be Kai, Me-chan, Sosuke, Tsukiyo, Hulang, Shura, and Kurogao.

There’s also Hatoda, he’s nothing other than a stalker. That’s about it.

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Art 10/10

The art starts out as nothing special but gets better over time.
With the art of the spreads and fight scenes being the highlights
Youtuber YozakuraSensei made a video covering the evolution of the art of the series which I highly recommend checking out.

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__Enjoyment 10/10
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This was one of my favorite mangas to read as new chapters were coming out. It’s been a blast to read this series from start to finish and I’m really going to miss it.
I love everything this story has to offer: the story, the action, the characters, the romance, the comedy. This is one of those mangas that can appeal to anyone no matter what your preferences are for manga in general.

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Overall 10/10

Mission: Yozakura Family has been a blast to read weekly. It’s one of my favorite works of fiction ever created and it holds a special place in my heart.
It has everything you could ask for in a manga: Great characters, a couple with great chemistry, really well done fight scenes, amazing antagonists, and a satisfying ending.
Overall I’m really going to miss this series, but luckily we have season 2 of the anime on the way.
I wish nothing but the best for Gondaira when he makes his next work.
Overall, I give this series a 10/10.
Thank You Hitsuji Gondaira for everything.