Queen's Quality – Vol 4 – Manga – [Review]

By: v.o.lynnQueen’s Quality Volume 4 by Kyosuke Motomi is a parable of self-care, mindful temperament, and, of course, undermining yourself with negative thoughts.After the recent emergence of the Black Queen in last volume, Fumi is struggling with how to balance the White Queen and Black Queen inside of her, but also how to study for finals while under all of the extra pressure at home! Queen’s Quality still has a lot of focus on Fumi and Kyutaro as they try to find their way through the difficult path that Fumi has before her.On top of the more mundane pressure of helping Fumi study, Kyutaro finds himself at odds with a mysterious character named Ataru, claiming to be Fumi’s friend from before she became a sweeper.The “cannot spit it out” love story between Fumi and Kyutaro bonds them together, and although the emergence of Ataru is a promise of potential secrets, sweeping his mind clear of the myriad negative thoughts left to fester there will be no small task for these sweepers!A very special part of the book is set aside for downtime, where the pair of sweepers are taken to Mizuho’s Massage parlor (Mizuho being another sweeper in Kyutaro’s family), aptly named Nirvana. Unlike a lot of series that send characters directly from one conflict to another, the way-point is a welcome pause in the pacing while helping both Fumi and Kyutaro tackle their stressors in different ways. Kyutaro, through acupuncture and talking it out, and Fumi, through relaxing properly for the first time since the beginning of the series.You can’t run on fumes all the time. You burn out. You break down. And at worst, you give in to all of the worst feelings inside yourself. And unless you take care of your own fears, negative emotions, and irrational thoughts, they become something larger and more difficult to control.If you need to get caught up on Queen’s Quality, there’s actually a handy guide at the top of the book to get you all caught up, and familiarize you with a few of the key characters for the story.You can check out a free preview here on the Viz.com site!