Yoshinozuikara
Yoshi no Zuikara: The Frog in the Well Does Not Know the Ocean

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After the successful, 18-volume run of "Barakamon", Satsuki Yoshino presents a spiritual sequel which flips the script and tells its story from the opposite perspective.

STORY

I call it a "spiritual sequel" because there is zero plot overlap and no knowledge of "Barakamon" is necessary to understand the manga. While "Barakamon" told the story of a privileged young man from Tokyo's high art scene adjusting to the simple life in Japan's rustic Goto Islands, "Yoshi No Zuikara" (The Frog in the Well Does Not Know the Ocean) takes a different approach and tells the story of a Goto Island native leaving his shell and learning to ... interact with the wider world. This different viewpoint makes what could have been a simple rehash of Yoshino's previous work feel distinct. And that different viewpoint is critical, because "Zuikara" heavily relies on slice-of-country-life elements and the actual plot is quite straightforward. You won't stay here for the twists and turns, it even calls itself "The story of the uneventful days of an unremarkable manga creator", but if you're up for another relaxing trip back to Nagasaki prefecture, this story will fit the bill.

ART

Solidly drawn. The manga can have its occasional "talking head" segments, where most attention is given to medium-shots or closer images of characters simply speaking, but good attention is given to backgrounds. This focus on backgrounds typically comes in when the manga is focusing on something suitably "rustic" such as a mochi drying rack or fishing boat dock. Characters are also distinct, although you can occasionally notice traces of "Barakamon"characters in their designs. Kudos to Satsuki Yoshino for varying his usual style a bit for his manga-inside-a-manga scenes, where we see the slice-of-life manga our main character is himself creating.

CHARACTER

A slice-of-life story lives or dies by its characters (a revolutionary, unheard-of statement, I know) and "Yoshino No Zuikara" delivers and entertaining cast. This series' subtitle of "The Frog in the Well Does Not Know the Ocean" is telling, as our MC, Naruhiko Tohno, fits that bill. The "Frog in the Well" is an old Japanese proverb to the effect of "A person with limited experience has a limited perspective", and Tohno's life experience is quite limited. Since he's able to earn enough money to pay his own way and is capable of (limited) social interactions he may not qualify as a full-blown hikkikomori shut-in, but he's not a whole lot better either. As the story progresses, he finds himself having to grow as a man and being drawn out into a greater connection with people in the wider world- ironically due to his manga about a naive, insular boyhood. The first two volumes have focused primarily on main character Tohno himself, but I imagine that as this manga's run continues, more development and characterization will be given to the supporting cast- although Tohno's energetic-but-tactless assistant and a 10 year old girl obsessed with one of his characters is already quite entertaining.

ENJOYMENT

You need to go into this one expecting a relaxed slice-of-life story. S-O-L tends to be a "love it or hate it" kind of genre in my experience, and I haven't seen anything here which would truly change the mind of the "hate it" crowd. But if you liked "Barakamon" you'll like this one too.

OVERALL

In the final analysis, "Yoshi No Zuikara" fits neatly into its genre and the mould of its spiritual predecessor, but it has enough uniqueness and positive attributes to make it a worthwhile read.

tl;dr: A slice of life that’s a bit interesting at times not ever particularly funny or deep and thus just okay.

This manga is a slice of life about a mangaka that lives on a small rural island. The core of the manga is the protagonist, Naruhiko, gaining more confidence in himself. He seems to see himself as a failure of a mangaka and failure of a human that’s just barely hanging on by a thread. This manifests in him trying to be successful through copying market trends and not at all trying to put any of his own life experiences into the manga, as he ... believes the life he’s lived is pretty worthless and always will be. However, he eventually gets pushed into doing a slice of life manga based on his surroundings by his editor and it actually becomes pretty successful. And with that he tries to take a more optimistic view on life and experience more of what the world is offering him.

While this is a slice of life manga, it’s the type that focuses just as much if not more so on trying to show character development as it does on comedy and just showing characters living their lives. However, it isn’t very successful at doing so. It doesn’t do a good job of establishing Naruhiko’s character before it starts throwing events at him that result in character growth, and the character growth itself is pretty rushed. As such, it doesn’t feel all that cohesive or all that satisfying to read about. Furthermore, Naruhiko’s the only character that really stands out at all in the manga. There are of course other reoccurring characters, but they aren’t all that memorable and their connection to Naruhiko isn’t established all that well. The only character that feels like they actually had a strong impact on Naruhiko’s character growth is his editor, but she has very little presence as she’s in a far away city and they mostly communicate solely through phone, which resulted in the growth that does occur due to her feeling pretty abrupt and random. There are characters for whom it feels that something more was definitely going to be done with as there are hints at complications to backstories and such, but the manga ends before any of that occurs. Thus the cast overall is lacking in depth and hard to get all that invested in.

On top of that, the slice of life aspect and comedy aren’t that great either. The slice of life is a scattershot of a bunch of different topics without any cohesiveness to them. It can be interesting at times, but it hops around too much to really get into anything enough for it to feel like it’s really adding to the manga. The comedy is also lackluster due to it being pretty character focused but most of the characters not being all that funny. The only character that really stood out in that regard was the tsundere fan, and while I suppose that she’s the character with the third strongest presence in the manga, it still doesn’t feel like all that much and certainly not enough to hold up the manga.

The art is pretty good in terms of quality and decent in terms of style in general. As such it’s good at conveying the story that it’s telling. However, it never really has panels that look especially good and as such considering the grounded setting, the art can get kind of dull.