chapter 4: "Yotsuba & TV" (21 July)
Is it really safe to give Yotsuba control of the remote?

The plottiest chapter yet: The Koiwai's neighborhood association membership form shows up at the Ayase's, and Fuka's mother asks her to take it next door, thus giving Yotsuba a further lesson in doorbells, this time from the other side of the buzzer -- though she fails to generalize its meaning from "Jumbo's at the door" to "a person's at the door." (Watch her categorizations in the future -- there's some good ones.) After some oversharing about Koiwai's slacker dress-code and too much fun with tape measures, Fuka offers their old TV -- that flatscreen really was new. As they get ready to leave, Jumbo arrives and Captain Obvious makes her first of four appearances in this chapter. Yes, Jumbo IS huge,* and yes Koiwai's wearing pants, and yes Fuka's moe when she's flustered -- now let's go next door and get the TV, 'k? Mrs. Ayase is totally charmed by Yotsuba's cuteness, even if using a leading question to try to get a child to say "Thank You" not only crosses cultural boundaries, but works just as poorly in all of them. Jumbo, meanwhile, babbles like a teenage boy when he meets Asagi, and at Captain Obvious's fourth appearance, Jumbo runs out of comebacks and goes primal, thus making his second social mistake of the afternoon.

This is better -- the humor comes from ordinary interactions of quirky characters, not comic exaggeration. I like the initial framing: as the story starts, characters are in the middle of doing things that gets interrupted by the main events -- thus giving the impression we really are getting a slice out of their lives. But best of all, Jumbo's deadpan comebacks get their due, flustering every Ayase. Or at least, deadpan until he meets Asagi. "Bah, clothes, who needs 'em?" I know it's not translated that way, but I imagine her response is being idiomatically something closer to "Al-righty then." And while Koiwai may tell Jumbo he was fine, Fuka's expression shows he clearly wasn't. Is this Koiwai being reassuring, Koiwai being a weirdo, or Fuka being easily flustered? Possibly all three. After all, Koiwai is a weirdo, just in a much more low-key way than Yotsuba.

Okay, so EVERYONE's more low-key than Yotsuba. Work with me here.

Koiwai and Jumbo continue to interact like old friends, with a running joke of chop-sockey mock-confrontations. Indeed, Jumbo's interactions (and not just the jokes about his height) carry this chapter, despite the mild skeeviness of suggesting Koiwai + Fuka. Not that we ever get Koiwai's age, though my impression is late 20s. Nor is crushing on a college student much better. One thing I noticed this time is that Jumbo's initial deadpan manner plays into the older Ayases' incredulity in the final panel: the guy who off-handedly claimed to be part-giraffe, roaring? Combined with the absurdity of a giraffe roaring, that's good story structure.

Oddly, the splash page cannot take place until after the next chapter. I wonder if Azuma hadn't thought about the remote when he drew it. OTOH, I sorta wonder whether the reason Jumbo didn't appear at the end of chapter 1 was to set up a chapter of initial meetings.

Favorite panel: Fuka responding to her mother's call (page 118 frame 2) by craning back and upside-down, rather than turning. Well-observed, that gesture.

Scattered notes:

• Note that on the next day, all the boxes in the Koiwai's living room have now been opened, though the linens aren't yet put away.
• There's something odd about how embarrassed!Fuka is drawn at the top of page 130. The large black eyes thing, or something. Oy.
• We get evidence that Yotsuba's pigtails do behave like real hair, in that they can be flapped up and down. I was starting to wonder.
• Told ya Asagi's eating that ice cream would be important.
• Except, if Asagi ate the last ice cream, what was Yotsuba given? Someone else's ice cream, in a flavor Mrs. Ayase doesn't like?

And remember, O best beloved, you mustn't forget that no-good Yanda.

* 210 cm, or almost 6'11" -- huge enough here, gigantic in Japan.

---L.