is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by

Kiyohiko Azuma is a Japanese manga artist. From 1999 to 2002, he authored the ''yonkoma'' comedy manga series ''Azumanga Daioh'', which was later adapted as an anime series by J.C.Staff. In 2003, he began ''Yotsuba&!'', a slice-of-life manga series about th ...

, the creator of ''

Azumanga Daioh is a Japanese '' yonkoma'' comedy manga series written and illustrated by Kiyohiko Azuma. It was serialized from February 1999 to May 2002 in the monthly magazine ''Dengeki Daioh'' by MediaWorks; three additional chapters were publishe ...

''. It has been serialized since March 2003 in the monthly magazine '' Dengeki Daioh'' by ASCII Media Works, formerly MediaWorks, and has since been collected into 15 ''

tankōbon is the Japanese term for a book that is not part of an anthology or corpus. In modern Japanese, the term is most often used in reference to individual volumes of a manga series: most series first appear as individual chapters in a weekly or ...

'' volumes. It depicts the everyday adventures of a young girl named Yotsuba as she learns about the world around her, guided by her adoptive father, their neighbors, and their friends. Several characters in ''Yotsuba&!'' were previously featured in a one-shot manga by Azuma called "Try! Try! Try!" The phrase ''Yotsuba to'' means "Yotsuba and," a fact reflected in the chapter titles, most of which take the form "Yotsuba and 'something''" The manga was licensed for English-language distribution by

ADV Manga A.D. Vision Holdings, Inc. (known simply as ADV and also referred to as ADV Films) was an American multimedia entertainment distributor headquartered in Houston, Texas, and founded in 1992 by video game fan John Ledford and anime fans Matt Gree ...

, which released five volumes between 2005 and 2007. Volume six was originally set to release to in February 2008, but was indefinitely delayed. At

New York Comic Con The New York Comic Con is an annual New York City fan convention dedicated to Western comics, graphic novels, anime, manga, video games, cosplay, toys, movies, and television. It was first held in 2006. History The New York Comic Con is a ...

2009,

Yen Press Yen Press, LLC is an American manga and graphic novel publisher co-owned by Kadokawa Corporation and Hachette Book Group. It published '' Yen Plus'', a monthly comic anthology, between 2008 and 2013. In addition to translated material, Yen Press ...

announced that it had acquired the North American license for the series; it reprinted the first five volumes with new translations along with volume six in September 2009, and is continuing with later volumes. The manga has frequently shown acclaim from critics and audiences due to Azuma's artistic talent, writing, and the creation and development of titular character, with the manga earning multiple awards and nominations.

Plot

''Yotsuba&!'' is centered on

Yotsuba Koiwai , also known as just , is a fictional character and the main protagonist in the comedy manga series ''Yotsuba&!'', as well as the one-shot manga "Try! Try! Try!", both by Kiyohiko Azuma. As the title character of the series and almost every chap ...

, a five-year-oldInitially, she claims to be six years old, but this is corrected by her father in chapter 36: girl who is energetic, cheerful, curious, odd, and quirky—so much so that even her own father calls her unusual. She is also initially ignorant about many things that a child her age would be expected to know—among them doorbells, escalators, air conditioners, and even playground swings. This

naïveté Naivety (also spelled naïvety), naiveness, or naïveté is the state of being naive. It refers to an apparent or actual lack of experience and sophistication, often describing a neglect of pragmatism in favor of moral idealism. A ''naïve'' may ...

is the premise of humorous stories whereby which she learns about—and frequently misunderstands—everyday things. At the start of the series, Yotsuba and her adoptive father, Yousuke Koiwai, relocate to a new city with the help of Koiwai's best friend, an impressively tall man named Takashi Takeda, known as Jumbo. Yotsuba makes a strong impression on the three daughters of the neighboring Ayase family, Asagi, Fuuka, and Ena, after Ena meets Yotsuba trying to find out how a swing works. Most of her daily activities and misadventures often originate from interactions with these characters and more, such as Asagi’s friend Torako, known as

Tiger The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus ''Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on ...

(from Yotsuba, the kanji for ''Tora'' is the same kanji in ''tiger''). The series has no consistent plot continuity—the focus of the stories is Yotsuba's daily voyage of discovery. Many chapters take place on successive days (for details, see '' List of Yotsuba&! chapters''), so that the series follows, almost literally, the characters' daily lives. The tone can be summarized by the motto, used on chapter title pages and advertising: , or in the original translation, "Enjoy Everything".

Development

In 1998, Azuma published a one-shot manga and two

webcomics Webcomics (also known as online comics or Internet comics) are comics published on a website or mobile app. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or comic books. Webcomics can be co ...

called "Try! Try! Try!", in which Yotsuba's father Yousuke Koiwai, Ena, Fūka, and Asagi first appear. Although some of these characters—including Yotsuba herself—are largely the same as in ''Yotsuba&!''; Fūka has a different character design, a more mischievous personality, and a different spelling of her given name (in "Try! Try! Try!", it is written with the

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

, meaning "wind-summer"; in ''Yotsuba&!'', it is , meaning "wind-scent").

Media

Manga

The manga is written and illustrated by

, and published by ASCII Media Works in the monthly ''shōnen'' (aimed at teenage boys)

manga magazine Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is used ...

'' Dengeki Daioh'' since the March 2003 issue, with serialization on-going. Chapters have been collected in fifteen ''

'' volumes. In English, ''Yotsuba&!'' was originally licensed by

, who published five volumes between 2005 and 2007 before dropping the license. The North American license was picked up by

, which republished the first five volumes along with the sixth in September 2009. Fourteen volumes have since been released. In addition, the series is licensed in Malaysia in both English and Malay by Kadokawa Gempak Starz, in France by Kurokawa, in Spain by

Norma Editorial Norma Editorial is a Spanish comics publisher, with its headquarters in Barcelona.Home
Norma Editori ...

, in Germany by

Tokyopop Germany Tokyopop (styled TOKYOPOP; formerly known as Mixx Entertainment) is an American distributor, licensor and publisher of anime, manga, manhwa and Western manga-style works. The German publishing division produces German translations of licensed ...

, in Italy by

Dynit Dynit Srl is one of the main Italian manga and anime publishers. Its head office is in the Cadriano ''frazione'' in Granarolo dell'Emilia, Province of Bologna.

, in Sweden by B. Wahlström, in Finland by

Punainen jättiläinen Punainen jättiläinen ("Red giant") is a Finnish small publisher of Japanese manga and Korean manhwa. It was founded in April 2005 by its CEO, Antti Grönlund. However, the publisher was acquired by Tammi in 2009. Nowadays, Punainen jättiläin ...

, in Korea by Daiwon C.I., in Taiwan by Kadokawa Media, in Russia by Palma Press in Vietnam by TVM Comics, in Poland by Kotori, in Indonesia by

Elex Media Komputindo Elex Media Komputindo is a publishing company in Indonesia which publishes books, comics, magazines, novels and other print media. Established on January 15, 1985, Elex Media Komputindo is a subsidiary of Kompas Gramedia Group. Elex is headquart ...

and in Thailand by NED Comics. Each chapter of ''Yotsuba&!'' takes place on a specific, nearly sequential day of a

common year starting on Wednesday A common year starting on Wednesday is any non-leap year (a year with 365 days) that begins on Wednesday, 1 January, and ends on Wednesday, 31 December. Its dominical letter hence is E. The most recent year of such kind was 2014, and the next one ...

. The year was initially believed to be 2003, coinciding with the date of the manga's serialization, but Azuma has stated that the manga always takes place in the present day. This allows the appearance of products created after 2003, such as the Nintendo DS Mr. Ayase plays in chapter forty-two.

Calendars

Both monthly and daily ''Yotsuba&!'' calendars have been released every year since 2005, although a monthly calendar for 2009 was not released due to constraints on Azuma's schedule. The 2005 edition of the monthly calendar featured pictures of Yotsuba playing with animals such as lions,

zebra Zebras (, ) (subgenus ''Hippotigris'') are African equines with distinctive black-and-white striped coats. There are three living species: the Grévy's zebra (''Equus grevyi''), plains zebra (''E. quagga''), and the mountain zebra (''E. zebr ...

s, and

kangaroo Kangaroos are four marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern ...

s. The 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2010 editions feature photographs altered to include Yotsuba doing such things as playing with other children or reaching for a balloon. The photographs were by Miho Kakuta, with drawings by Kiyohiko Azuma. The daily calendars have a mix of original and manga artwork, with occasional captions, as well as other fun items—for example, the 2006 calendar had a game of

shiritori Shiritori (; ) is a Japanese word game in which the players are required to say a word which begins with the final ''kana'' of the previous word. No distinction is made between ''hiragana'', ''katakana'', and ''kanji''. "Shiritori" literally means ...

ongoing through the year. The daily calendars run from April to March, following the Japanese school year instead of the calendar year. The 2010 monthly calendar was released in November 2009.

Music

Two ''Yotsuba&!'' music CDs have been released, both purely

instrumental An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to inst ...

, called " image albums". The music is designed to elicit mental images of events described by the titles. Both albums are composed by Masaki Kurihara and performed by the Kuricorder Pops Orchestra, who also worked together on the ''Azumanga Daioh'' soundtrack. * The first album, ''Yotsuba&♪'', released in April 2005, follows Yotsuba throughout the course of a typical day. * The second album, ''Yotsuba&♪ Music Suite (General Winter)'', released in November 2006, depicts the season of winter, including Christmas and New Year's celebrations. is a personification of harsh winters, similar to

Jack Frost Jack Frost is a personification of frost, ice, snow, sleet, winter, and freezing cold. He is a variant of Old Man Winter who is held responsible for frosty weather, nipping the fingers and toes in such weather, coloring the foliage in autumn, ...

Picture books

A ''Yotsuba&!''

picture book A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. With the narrative told primarily through text, they are distinct from comics, which do so primarily through sequential images. The images ...

, ''Yotsuba & Monochrome Animals'', was published on 16 December 2006 (). The book has pictures of Yotsuba playing with various black-and-white colored animals, such as

pandas Pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcal infections (PANDAS) is a controversial hypothetical diagnosis for a subset of children with rapid onset of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) or tic disorders. Sy ...

. The name of each animal is given in Japanese and English, along with the

scientific classification Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

of the

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

. Another book, called ''Find Yotsuba''—which is actually a compilation of all previously released calendar illustrations— was released on 31 August 2013 ().

Anime

An anime spin-off based on cat versions of Azuma's character

Danbo Danbo is a semi-soft, aged cow's milk cheese from Denmark. It was awarded (PGI) status under European Union law in 2017. The cheese is typically aged between 12 and 52 weeks in rectangular blocks of , coated with a bacterial culture. The culture ...

titled '' Nyanbo!'' was announced and began airing on 26 September 2016 as part of a "mini anime" program. This project did not adapt any of ''Yotsuba&!''. The spin-off is aired in Japan on

NHK-E , abbreviated on-screen as NHK E, is the second television service of NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation). It is a sister service of NHK General TV, showing programs of a more educational, cultural or intellectual nature, periodically also sh ...

and is simulcast overseas on Crunchyroll. Despite its popularity and the success of ''

'', no plans have been announced for an

anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...

adaptation of ''Yotsuba&!''. In an entry posted on his website on 15 May 2005, Azuma said there were no plans for it to be animated; he reiterated this on 5 December 2008, claiming that the stories and style of ''Yotsuba&!'' are not well-suited for animation.

Reception

''Yotsuba&!'' is drawn not in the vertical four-panel strips of Azuma's earlier series, ''

'', but in a full-page format, giving him more artistic scope. Azuma's work on ''Yotsuba&!'' has been noted for its clean art, detailed backgrounds, and expressive faces. Azuma is also praised for his joyous tone, slice-of-life storytelling, comedic writing, and eccentric yet realistic characters, especially Yotsuba herself.

The Comics Reporter Thomas Martin Spurgeon (December 16, 1968 – November 13, 2019) was an American writer, historian, critic, and editor in the field of comics, notable for his five-year run as editor of ''The Comics Journal'' and his blog ''The Comics Reporter''. ...

described the series as "read nglike a love letter to the way kids can be at the age of 2–5," and a reviewer at Anime News Network compared Azuma's ability to capture "the wonder of childhood" to

Bill Watterson William Boyd Watterson II (born July 5, 1958) is a retired American cartoonist and the author of the comic strip ''Calvin and Hobbes'', which was Print syndication, syndicated from 1985 to 1995. Watterson stopped drawing ''Calvin and Hobbes'' at ...

's in ''

Calvin and Hobbes ''Calvin and Hobbes'' is a daily American comic strip created by cartoonist Bill Watterson that was syndicated from November 18, 1985, to December 31, 1995. Commonly cited as "the last great newspaper comic", ''Calvin and Hobbes'' has enjoyed b ...

''. '' Manga: The Complete Guide'' described it as "a light, feel-good manga, like an endless summer day." Nicholas Penedo of ''Animeland'' said "with Yotsuba, we find ourselves plunged into the wonderful world of childhood," calling the French edition of volume eight, "A beautiful manga for children and adults." ''BD Gest'' praised Azuma's skill in making distinct secondary characters, calling them "immediately recognisable", and saying that they each spice up the story in their own ways. However, Azuma has been criticized for creating characters that are "too clean, too perfectly functional," for overusing "outrageous expressions and reactions," and for dragging out jokes too long. ''Yotsuba&!'' has been popular with readers as well as reviewers. For example, on Amazon.co.jp, volume six was the third best-selling comic in Japan for the first half of 2007, and volume eight was the second best-selling comic in Japan for 2008; volumes seven and eight both were number two on the Tohan comics chart the week they debuted. Volume eight sold more than 450,000 copies in 2008, making it one of the top 50 bestselling manga volumes on the

Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan and Western music. It started as, which was founded by Sōkō Koike in ...

chart for the year. The first five volumes of the English translation were each among the top 100 selling graphic novels in the United States in the month of release. Volume six of the English edition reached number 3 on the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' best seller list for manga, and it stayed on the list for four weeks. Volume 8 debuted at No. 2 on the manga best seller list. As of 27 April 2018, over 13.7 million copies of the manga have been printed in Japan and over 3 million outside of Japan, including the U.S., France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Russia, Sweden, Finland, Korea, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Awards and recognitions

''Yotsuba&!'' received an Excellence Award for Manga at the 2006

Japan Media Arts Festival The Japan Media Arts Festival is an annual festival held since 1997 by Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs. The festival begins with an open competition and culminates with the awarding of several prizes and an exhibition. Based on judging by a ...

, where the jury citation praised the vivid characters and gentle atmosphere. In 2008 ''Yotsuba&!'' was nominated for the 12th Osamu Tezuka Culture Award and the Eisner Award in the "Best Publication for Kids" category, but did not win either, and was runner-up for the first annual

Manga Taishō The is a Japanese comics award recognizing achievement in manga. It is awarded annually to a manga series published in the previous calendar year of eight or fewer collected volumes in length. The Manga Taishō was founded with the aim of re ...

award. In 2016, ''Yotsuba&!'' won the Grand Prize at the 20th Osamu Tezuka Culture Awards, sharing it with Kei Ichinoseki's ''Hanagami Sharaku''. The English translation was listed as one of the best 20 comics of 2005 by ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...

'', one of the best comics of 2006 by the staff of ''

The Comics Journal ''The Comics Journal'', often abbreviated ''TCJ'', is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels. Known for its lengthy interviews with comic creators, pointed editorials and scathing r ...

'', and one of the top graphic novels for teens in 2008 by

YALSA The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), established in 1957, is a division of the American Library Association. YALSA is a national association of librarians, library workers and advocates whose mission is to expand the capacity of l ...

. Volume one was named Book of the Month in the June 2005 issue of ''

Newtype USA is a monthly magazine publication originating from Japan, covering anime (and to a lesser extent, tokusatsu, manga, Japanese science fiction, seiyuu, and video games). It was launched by publishing company Kadokawa Shoten on March 8, 1985, with i ...

''. There was an exhibit of ''Yotsuba&!'' artwork at the Gallery of Fantastic Art in Tokyo from 2–17 December 2006. The lead article of the May 2009 issue of the Japanese design magazine ''Idea'' was a study of ''Yotsuba&!'', focusing on book design, interior layout, and how translated editions were handled.