First Glance: The Yuzuki Circle of relatives’s 4 Sons
Premise
Hayato, Mikoto, Minato, and Gakuto are four male siblings whose parents died two years ago. They coexist in a comparatively peaceful environment while juggling their respective overlapping schedules of job, school, and relationships with both their neighbors and each other. Well, that’s it.
Artemis’ verdict: Perfectly Pleasant
The Yuzuki Family’s Four Sons may be the perfect show for anyone searching for something different from a high school dramedy or an isekai/isekai-like fantasy series. Although it may not be the most nuanced tale overall, it also doesn’t really strive to be. It’s just another one of those endearing, genuine slice-of-life programs where every character gets about the same amount of screen time to showcase their different struggles and victories over the course of, say, a year or so.
As I mentioned earlier, The Yuzuki Family’s Four Sons isn’t particularly a nuanced or sophisticated series, and most viewers can probably spot the individual plot beats a mile away. However, each member of the core cast has distinctive quirks and peculiarities of their own that are very clear from the outset. In spite of this, there’s enough variation in the characters’ ages (23, 13, 12, 6) to prevent the show from being overly monotonous or stagnant. I also appreciate that the most of the drama is focused on the family’s home life; although we do see them attend school and engage with classmates, etc., the drama is more about the family than it is about the school.
Regardless, the first scene of this serves as a fairly accurate preview of the series, so if you watch it, you should be able to predict what to expect in terms of tone and content as well as the straightforward yet endearing visuals. I think I’ll stick with this one, but how well it works for you will depend on how patient you are with slow-moving slice-of-life and coming-of-age stories.
Jel’s verdict: I’m rooting for Brother Falcon
Even though this episode is fairly boring in every way—from the characters to the plot—it nevertheless made my lifeless, frigid heart soften a little. Even though the episode was somewhat predictable, having a family-focused plot is a welcome change of pace. It’s quite endearing that the four boys are all trying their hardest in their own unique ways. If they can maintain that balance, I think this may be a very great show. I’d interested to see how they continue to blend the program’s lighthearted tone with the extremely serious situations the family finds themselves in.
Regretfully, the primary discussion around this episode has revolved around the appalling official subtitles on Crunchyroll, which were removed for a while but have since been restored. In the best case scenario, the translation was completed by an unqualified individual; in the worst case scenario, as most people are guessing, they seem to have been machine translated. There are hints everywhere, such as when one of the brothers’ names is translated literally as “Falcon.” This program deserves much better, so maybe Crunchyroll learns their lesson and fixes the subtitles (not holding my breath).
