Yozakura Quartet

There are few times when an avid anime fan goes into something expecting so much and gets so little in return. Yozakura Quartet happens to be one such example. Based on a much more highly acclaimed manga, the first episode starts off with all one could expect from a show that could deliver. Interesting, well-drawn characters centered around at least a moderately unique plotline. The music and sound quality are top notch and there are even early introductions to romance possibilities.

However, as some stories tend to do, that’s when the train leaves the tracks. Yozakura Quartet is about a group of young people (there are ... 5 of them actually, and originally 6 so the title really makes no sense) who protect a town that harbors both humans and Youkai. An evil Youkai, who has possessed the body of the best friend of two of the members, is out to seek the destruction of the town and bring about an era of all-Youkai rule, essentially snuffing out humans.

The first few episodes start slowly and then immediately we’re introduced to Enjin, the protagonist, who it turns out is far stronger than they. There’s no real room for development or explanation of how they’re related and it seemed to me that maybe this should have been a 24 episode series. But for some inexplicable reason, the story decides to stick with random fights throughout the rest of the series, leading to mindless, repetitious dialogue that we could have seen coming using “fill-in-the-blanks.” The heroes never grow in strength as the finale comes either, so the ending is an extreme example of dues ex machina, which is like a death warrant for any anime anyway. There are too many characters to fill the time slots, the relationships between the characters don’t grow an inch and several of the plot lines are never resolved.

There were some good things. As said before, the music was excellent and the ladies were very nice to look at – they were anything but bland or clichéd. The villain and his sidekick were diabolical and deserved a better defeat. And the art really was stunning in several points of the anime.

All in all, though, this was an anime that was a disappointment far greater than a regular bad show, because it had potential and went nowhere.

Yozakura Quartet was only a twelve episode series. That's not a lot of episodes to go wrong with. A basic plot and story can easily be done in twelve episodes. Characters can be fleshed out in twelves episodes. Yozakura Quartet did not manage to do any of that.

Story - 3

The first few episodes showed how much potential Yozakura Quartet had. They were interesting and hooked me instantly. The rest of the show continued to mock me as if saying I was a fool for having any hope in the plot. The characters made stupid decisions and many plot points never made sense or were poorly ... explained. Do not be tricked by the strong beginning.

Animation - 8

The animation was pretty good. The character designs were wonderfully done, and all the fight scenes were fun to watch, if taken out of context. The plot seriously hindered my enjoyment of the fights, unfortunately.

Sound - 7

The OP/ED themes were okay, the actual score was nothing special. I really didn't pay much attention to the score, which means at least it didn't bother me. The seiyū's on the other hand were too good for this show. The seiyū's for Chiaki Shinichi (Nodame Cantabile), Shinku (Rozen Maiden), Suigintou (Rozen Maiden), Sebastian Michaelis (Kuroshitsuji), Nagi (Kannagi), Yin (Darker than BLACK), and many more were wasted voicing dull, irritating characters.

Character - 5

The characters started out okay, but slowly a serious case of bad characterization appeared. By the end of the show, I could only stand to watch around two or three characters. The rest made multiple stupid decisions and contradicted their behaviour from before.

Enjoyment - 3

Pretty animation and nice sound will go nowhere if the story fails and you want to strangle to the main leads. The story was a giant letdown, but every week I hoped it would get better. But it didn't.

Overall - 5

So much potential, so little results. Yozakura Quartet was mediocre to core. I didn't exactly hate it - I was disappointed by it. Please, don't waste your time with this anime when there are plenty of others (Kamisama Kazoku, for example, is by the same author and is so much better) that aren't such a letdown.

There are anime which are loyal to their original source. And then there's this anime: Yozakura quartet. A show with so many potential and it all went down the drain. Let me explain why this show was such a waste of time.

First, the plot. There are plot holes EVERYWHERE! From the first episode, we are only introduced to the city, not the characters. So from the first episode alone, I was left utterly confused. It just got worse as the episodes go on. There were literally plot holes in every scene, leaving me with nothing to work on. I loved the manga, but this adaptation ... just killed me.

Don't even get me started on the characters. It wasn't enough that they weren't introduced in the earlier episodes. No, they had to be downright useless! Instead of doing something that should've resolved the conflict, they only made it worse by not resolving it sooner! My hatred for the main characters only made me want to cheer for the bad guy.

And worst of all, the BGM. It did not blend well with the atmosphere of the series. For a show which deals with japanese folklore, English songs aren't the best choice. And I'm very specific when it comes to music. This is possibly the worst BGM to be used for this series.

To sum it all up, it wasn't enjoyable. Not one bit. To be honest, I only watched it for the sake of finishing it. I absolutely do not recommend this adaptation to anyone. You'll just end up wasting your time. It sure wasted quarters of my time.

Alright first off, the story is just about how four members of Hiizumi's Everyday-life Consultation Office live. They live in a world full of you could say demons or monsters. Anyways the 4 members to protect their town from the bad demons and keep the good ones together in a healthy community.A very useful tactic Akina uses is a power where he uses "tuning" to rid of the bad youkai that cause chaos in the ir town, which helps some problems with the bad youkai.
When You first start watching the anime it seems very interesting and you really want to watch more. Now the thing ... is when you watch more it starts to get very boring and leaves the person bored out of their mind. Mainly every episode does the same thing they talk excessivley about sometimes very pointless or uninteresting, or running around trying to defeat a bad youkai. Also randomly out of know where you learn of this guy that everyone thinks is this guy named Gin, Now a thing I noticed is, why didn't they discuss this character earlier? They make it seem like you already know who this guy is and all of sudden its some sort of bad guy?The music is fairly decent in this anime. The opening is quite enjoyable to listen to and sort of catchy. Same for the ending.The characters seem to be quite bland and none of them seem like a character you would want to add to your favorites list. They are so much like typical characters. Either they're nice,friendly and cute or they are just the character thats always pissed and thinks they're better than everybody and it makes it quite boring.In general this anime lacked interest to me and you may only want to watch this if you absolutley have nothing to watch.