English Dub Review: Mission: Yozakura Family “Prison Break Grandpa”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Taiyo meets the Yozakura grandfather, Ban, on one of his many breaks from being imprisoned. Later, The family goes out shopping and stumbles upon an underground organ smuggling ring.

OUR TAKE

Turns out there was a five chapter arc in the manga that the anime completely skipped over? Well, that’s weird but probably had a good reason for it, which is exactly the type of reasoning that I expect from people who are fans of the new addition to the cast, Ban Yozakura, as well as his wife Keiko. Interesting that we’re meeting the grandfather and grandmother of all of the family members we know so far, as opposed to the parents, but their rather suspicious absences seem to be being saved for some bigger lore reveals down the line, possibly as late as past this first season, so we’ll put that aside for now and focus on what’s in front of us. Though honestly, even speculating about things to come would be more interesting, since this episode is pretty much just another comedic slice of life episode, though even those have their necessities and reasons for happening. Taiyo meeting Ban is just one more step in him becoming accepted as part of the family after all, especially since Ban shares a specific trait with Taiyo as someone who married a head of the Yozakura family. The main difference between them is just that Ban was a criminal while Taiyo was a regular student, but both seem to be getting a sense of purpose and community from joining the Yozakuras.

And really, the Ban half of the episode is the more substantial part that’s worth discussing, while the other half is just some family shenanigans. Those are plenty of fun, don’t get me wrong, but we’re getting rather close to the halfway point and it would be nice to see this story move onto the next level for both the characters and the plot. Luckily, next episode seems to be the end of this loose arc right before such a shift occurs, so there’s that to look forward to. And uh…oh, crap I gotta come up with eighty more words. Well, I suppose my overall thoughts on the show so far is that it remains a positive experience overall, just not something that feels all that exceptional or worth properly recommending. Still, this manga continues to persevere within the pages of Weekly Shonen Jump among the likes of recently concluded My Hero Academia and the soon to be concluded Jujutsu Kaisen, so clearly there’s something that has held people’s attention that we may just have not gotten to yet in the anime.