The beginning of a new week can only mean one thing: time for new Weekly Shonen Jump! This is where Jacob investigates the latest and greatest in the magazine, telling you what’s worth your time and what’s not. You can find coverage of other series under the tag Jump Time. Here’s Mission: Yozakura Family chapter 85.
Although the evil is already defeated, there’s still some cleaning up to do in Mission: Yozakura Family chapter 85. It essentially acts as an epilogue to the latest ‘Yozakura Front Lines’ arc, but does set up some important things for the future.
First of all, last week’s chapter left off on a tantalizing cliffhanger. Momo and Ban come face to face in a secluded seaside cavern, as it seemed as if the husband of the former family head was abandoning his collaborators in the form of Tanpopo. Mission: Yozakura Family chapter 85 explains why: he only wanted to deliver his wife Rei’s heart to a mysterious antagonist known as ‘You-know-who.’
This answers one of the questions that came when Kawashita was defeated back in chapter 83: who was going to be the bad guy now? Mission: Yozakura Family chapter 85 also sees all of his former test subjects locked behind bars, so there seemed to be a serious villain-shaped hole. Nevertheless, this line from Momo seems to signal that this problem will be remedied sometime soon.
It’d be downright rude to pass by this section of Mission: Yozakura Family chapter 85 without mentioning the incredible art. This arc has been full of outstanding visual compositions, but the moment where Ban shoots Momo might just be my favorite: the way that Gondaira uses small black panels to make Momo stand out with a white outline is very stylish. He also appears to die from this, but I’m not exactly convinced.
The rest of this chapter is dedicated to (quite literally) drawing a line under this latest arc and tying up any remaining loose ends. Gondaira does this by having Mutsumi write an actual report for the Spy Association, thus only taking up a couple of pages. Next, there’s a bit of comedy as the rest of the family members wind down and crack a joke: it’s almost refreshing considering just how serious much of the Front Lines arc has been.
This poses an interesting question: will Mission: Yozakura Family go back to the same old, same old after chapter 85? There’s no denying that the series has changed a lot in the past couple of months, but I hope that the series doesn’t inadvertently undo all of the progress it has managed to make. A touching encounter between Mutsumi and Taiyo in front of Rei’s grave sees the narrator declare that ‘we returned home… and resumed our everyday Yozakura life,’ but which everyday Yozakura life is this? Is this the one with the rubbish episodic storylines featuring one-off characters, or the one that’s focused on more serious action storytelling?
I’d much prefer the latter, but this is ultimately a choice for Hitsuji Gondaira to make.
You can read Mission: Yozakura Family chapter 85 for free via VIZ Media.