The Yuzuki Family’s Four Sons – Episode 1

What’s it about? The parents of the Yuzuki siblings died in an accident two years ago and while the eldest sibling, Hayato tries his best to keep their family together, it’s still challenging for them to adjust to their new reality.  Despite their daily hardships, the brothers love each other immensely and are all willing to help ease their older brother’s stress.  

It’s unfortunate that such a wholesome show has been saddled with terrible subtitles.  I understand that translating during a simulcast is difficult and it’s natural that mistakes will happen.  However, rather than a human error, the continuous repetition and awkward sentences feels like a machine translation was used to get the job done faster—something that, according to AniFem Discord users, does not affect either the Spanish or French subtitles.  If that’s the case, then that’s a damn shame, because The Yuzuki Family’s Four Sons deserves more eyes on as a beautiful story about familial love.  

Even though the third son, Minato narrates most of the premiere, I get the impression that future episodes will shift around each brother’s perspective in order to examine how they’re all handling their new family dynamic.  It isn’t easy for any of them, since suddenly their eldest brother is no longer just their sibling but their parental guardian.  That’s a huge change and it’s no wonder Hayato looks so exhausted throughout the entire episode. Minato’s desire to alleviate his brother’s stress is sincere and frankly adorable, but like most children his age, he doesn’t realize he isn’t ready to handle household responsibilities.  Unfortunately, his attempts to help with chores causes more problems, much to Minato’s frustration.    

Hayato knows Minato’s heart is in the right place, but all he wants is for his little brothers to enjoy being kids.  Despite Hayato’s best efforts, the kids did lose a semblance of their childhood after their parents died.  They’re more conscious of their surroundings and aren’t as carefree as they used to be.  The kids are also keenly aware of all the sacrifices Hayato is making for them and it’s honestly bittersweet seeing the children be mindful of their actions.  Obviously, Hayato doesn’t want his brothers to feel that way and tries to work even harder to provide a stable home environment.  

We see a glimpse of how Hayato is dealing with his stress and it’s clear he’s struggling with his new responsibilities.  It’s hard raising children and Hayato, himself, is only in his early 20s and like most folks his age, is trying to figure out how to be an adult.  It’ll be interesting to see how the series explores his conflicting feelings between his sense of responsibility versus feeling like he’s missing out on his youth.  

Minato’s melancholy feelings resonate throughout the entire episode as he recalls memories of his parents.  Everyone still quietly grieves over them, and it’s really heartwarming seeing the brothers try to compensate for their loss by making sure all of them are present for their milestones.  Granted, it wasn’t a good idea for Minato to take his younger brother to see the fireworks alone, but then again, he also didn’t want to deprive Gakuto from making happy memories as a family.  Even Hayato can’t get mad at Minato, ’cause he knows his baby brothers are trying their best to create a sense of normalcy.  Grief is an underlying theme in the show and there’s no doubt the brothers are still processing their pain, even so, the final shot of everyone watching the fireworks reassures me they are going to be just fine. 

Thankfully, I know enough Japanese that the subtitles didn’t completely ruin my experience, and hopefully Crunchyroll fixes this problem soon so that more people can give this lovely show a chance.  This show definitely deserves our rigorous three episode test just to make sure it remains on our readers’ radar.