Sakura Quest Episode 1 Review – “Off to a Magical Manoyama”

A normal girl who’s tired of living in the countryside gets roped into becoming the queen of a place in the countryside.

(Spoilers in this review) 

Koharu Yoshino’s happiest memory is being crowned and treated as royalty. However, she’s not sure if that was an actual memory from her childhood.

In the present time, she’s tired of being considered normal and is struggling to secure a job after graduating from her junior college in Tokyo. She also refuses to move back to her family’s house in the countryside. It’s a tough world out there for millennials. But then she receives an offer: become the queen of Manoyama, the Kingdom of the Chupakabura (as a figurehead to help with bringing in tourists)! I didn’t think the myth of the Chupakabura existed out of South America, but I guess we all learn something new every day.

Due to her desperation (and her own negligence in reading the contract terms), Yoshino is slated to be the queen of the town for an entire year. She spends the second half of the episode trying to return back to Tokyo and manages to get some of the townsfolk to understand her situation. However, she ends up spending the night in the Chupakabura Palace and realizes that her happiest memory did actually occur since she was the 10,000th guest.

Her co-worker, Shiori, and the old geezer in charge of this tourism campaign business believe that Yoshino has accepted the job since they found her sleeping in the throne while dressed as a queen, but Yoshino is still on the fence over this entire situation.

A lot of coincidences have happened here in the first episode and some situations almost seem too perfect. But like what the old geezer said, “This was somehow meant to be.” Sometimes things line up and appear almost magical in how everything works out. Perhaps the sham kingdom of Chupakabura can become something authentic and can change Yoshino’s heart in due time.

The background art, as expected of PA Works, is really pretty. That’s their trademark after all…oh, c’mon, don’t look at me like that. I’m not a studio snob. It’s just that this one is common knowledge, isn’t it?

I think a lot of people can relate to how this episode went. We’re scared of being considered just normal. We also don’t want to be abnormal (Yoshino didn’t take being called abnormal by the manger of the former dorm well, either). We want to be special and we want to shine. That way we can proudly say we did something with our lives and be content with how things went and how people won’t forget us. Well, I’m just speaking for myself, sorry.

Currently yuri undertones are very subtle, but Shiori seems to really, really like Yoshino. There’s still time, yuri fans!

I kind of summed up how I felt about this series so far in an manner that isn’t very eloquent, but I’m also running late for work. Hopefully this is acceptable.