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The family fun shenanigans of the past few weeks have been great, but I’m glad that Mission: Yozakura Family is giving us another proper Spy Mission once again; what’s more, it all revolves around Taiyo finally uncovering the secret of his family’s murder. These types of episodes, focusing on humor and planting the seeds for the show’s overall story, are the kind I love to get from M:YF, and “Tanpopo” doesn’t disappoint. Well, for the most part, at least.
Before we get to any of that, though, we have to mention the best part of the episode, which was the segment that saw Taiyo infiltrate the Library of the Dead to uncover secret documents that revealed a deadly connection that tied both his and Mutsumi’s families to the mysterious “Tanpopo” organization. Sure, the story progression and stuff is great, but did you guys see the spooky murder librarian Me-chan? She stabbed people in the face for making too much noise in her library, which is to say any noise, and she was awesome! Granted, I’m married to a cool, spooky librarian, so I might be a little biased towards Me-chan.
Granted, I left that ominous “mostly” tag in the trailer, and I’m a little confused about how this all plays out. While I don’t necessarily disagree with the notion that Taiyo’s family has just been caught up in a larger conspiracy that’s essentially harvesting the Yozakura family’s special super-powered blood chemicals, the way all this information is delivered feels a little anticlimactic, at least so far. This is supposed to be a game-changing reveal of the moment that changed Taiyo’s life forever, but it feels like you could just completely remove the murder of his family and the rest of the story would be more or less the same. I don’t know; I was hoping for more, but we’ll see where things go in the future.
Besides, the hospital break-in also gives us a new mystery for Taiyo to solve and the opportunity for Taiyo and Mutsumi to team up on a mission and disguise themselves as an old couple. It's just too cute, especially when Taiyo says he doesn't know if he can live without Mutsumi. God bless these adorable kids who have sweet love for each other, and God bless those creepy murderous librarians.
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Mission: The Yozakura Family is now streaming on Hulu in the US and on Disney+ in other regions.
James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop culture, you can also find this information on Twitterhis blog and podcast.