Agents of the Four Seasons – Dance of Spring Volume 1 Manga Review

Once upon a time, there was only Winter. The world only knew the darkness and cold of that season alone. But Winter was lonely, so it created Spring. Eventually, Summer and Autumn came about, solidifying the four seasons.

The seasons were once brought about by the gods, but eventually the duty to cycle through the seasons came to rest on the shoulders of humans. Known as the Agents of the Four Seasons, these individuals travel the land, performing rituals to bring their season about. That’s how it’s supposed to be, anyway.

For ten years, the Agent of Spring has been missing, and the land has not seen the season at all during this time. Until now, that is. Hinagiku, the Agent of Spring, suddenly reappeared and revitalized the land with her season. But just because she’s finally returned doesn’t mean the questions surrounding her disappearance have been answered.

The Good

As someone who hates the cold and how early the sun goes down in winter, I’m a big lover of Springtime. This first volume gave me good vibes as I huddled in layers of blankets to read it. Seeing the snow melt away to reveal blooming Sakura flowers on the pages was magical. The volume nails down the ideas behind the cycling seasons and places a heavy emphasis on rebirth throughout its multiple plot points.

The artwork does quite a bit of heavy lifting with pushing these themes, showcasing melting snow and blooming flowers in beautiful strokes across the page. It evokes a nostalgic feeling, as though the artist was influenced by early to mid 2000’s shojo titles like Queen’s Quality and Shugo Chara!

While not much happens in this volume, there is a lot of world building and foreshadowing.

The Bad

Foreshadowing should be done lightly. A dash here and there to clue observant readers into where the story is going next. It shouldn’t be slathered on like icing on cupcakes, which is what Agents of the Four Seasons does. Between the massive amount of page space dedicated to a seemingly one-off character’s side story and the flashbacks explaining why Hinagiku went missing for ten years, the volume never found its footing in the now. Instead, I feel like I could guess the entire backstory with 75% accuracy off this single volume alone.

Sakura’s adoration for Hinagiku and her steadfast determination to protect her didn’t elicit any feelings from me when this sort of thing would usually draw me in quickly. This is due to the plot being told rather than shown, not to mention the repetitiveness with which these points are explained. The series explains what the Agents are on every other page, sometimes with hardly any changes to the wording.

While the landscapes were nice and I liked the character designs, in execution, the artwork fell flat. Characters were static and emotions were dulled, both visually and in the writing itself. Scenes where characters were running or dancing look as if the characters were posed in that stance instead of drawn while performing those actions. Tears came off as artificial and gratuitous. There are three facial expressions: neutral, crying, and panicked. Yet none of them were strong enough to convince me the characters were feeling anything. The whole volume felt static, in direct contrast to the theme of rebirth and new growth.

The Verdict

As a whole, this volume was just okay. Not enough happened to make it exciting; none of the characters endeared themselves to me, except maybe Winter (he’s a broken boy that I’m ready to fix); and though the art had some good moments, the pretty landscapes and character designs weren’t enough to counteract everything else being so static and dull. Add on the sheer amount of flashbacks that lead to obvious plot twists and poor pacing, you’re not left with much to fawn over. I didn’t dislike this manga, but it didn’t surpass my expectations either. I think there’s a chance for Agents of the Four Seasons to turn my opinion around and I’ll be on the lookout for subsequent volumes. But I won’t be hunting them down.

If you liked Agents of the Four Seasons – Dance of Spring, you may like…

• Sunbeams in the Sky
• My Happy Marriage
• QQ Sweeper

Credits

Manga Adaptation by Nappa Komatsuda
Original Story by Kana Akatsuki
Character Design by Suoh
Translation by Sergio Avila
Lettering by Chiho Christie
Published in English by Yen Press