Boy did I like this manga so much more than I expected. I'll start this off by saying that I normally don't love manga having to do with young children. Sweetness and Lightning, Love so Life, Gakuen Babysitters, they were all cute enough for the most part, but they weren't anything that I would want to read a second time. For me, cute just isn't enough to hold a series in high regard. And on the flip side, the only comedy I liked enough to read multiple times is Grand Blue. Everything else, especially the more pure slice of life ones, are kinda fun in the moment, but I usually forget about them in the long run. So when I was recommended to read Yotsubato!, which is essentially the two of those combined, you can understand why I had mixed feelings. With that being said, Yotsubato was such a treat to read through and has since become one of my favorite manga of all time.

The story follows the adventures of this 5 year old girl, Yotsuba, and her friends and father. It starts out with her moving to a new town and getting acquainted with her neighbors, a family of three girls. As she gets to know them and their friends more, she goes on the simplest of trips that end up becoming fun adventures with her bright and loud personality. That's about all that there really is for the plot of the story, with each chapter or two representing some trip or experience she has. There's no real change or growth in the characters, but things that happen in one story do carry over to the next ones.

So obviously with the plot being what it is, the characters and comedy really carry the manga. It's hard to go over every single one, but to sum it all up, everyone in the series has their own child-like traits that come out as they go along to Yotsuba's pace. No matter if they are adults, high schoolers or grade schoolers, they all have to adapt and go along with Yotsuba. But the thing is, it's not like they begrudgingly do it a lot of the time: they too end up having a lot of fun being like a kid again. Yotsuba herself is always bright and cheerful, always playing around, laughing, having fun at the smallest things, crying when she gets in trouble, being both easily angered and amused. In a word, she is just like a regular kid.

The comedy in Yotsubato is surprisingly really good. During the first few chapters I thought that it would be just another comedy manga where I found find amusing, but not really laugh out loud funny, but once I hit the 9th chapter I found myself laughing so much, which is a trend that continued. I couldn't really tell you exactly what was so good about the comedy. In some ways it reminded me of Calvin and Hobbes where Calvin would surprise the adults by saying things that you would never expect a child to be saying, there were parts that were just so wholesome that I couldn't help but laugh and smile at, and there were parts where it was just like a real kid trying to weasel their way out of some sort of punishment they deserve. If I really had to describe it, I'd say that it was funny because I can remember all the times I've seen real kids, or even my younger self, doing all these things and remembering how funny they were to watch.

I realize that this review will never do Yotsubato! the justice it deserves as a manga so the only thing I can do is suggest you go read the first few chapters since it sets the pace of the whole story. But to sum up, Yotsubato! is a manga that knows how to get into the mind of a child and helps you remember what you were like back then. So go and get swept up along with the joy that is Yotsuba and have fun like a kid once more.