Another achievement for the newly married couple, vacationing together!

After a pleasant trip visiting Nasa Yuzaki's parents, the couple tour Kyoto and enjoy their honeymoon. While staying with his parents, Nasa learns something new about Tsukasa who oddly enough knows a lot about ancient Japan. However, the couple's vacation ends in tragedy when they return to Tokyo to find their home has burned down. So begins the new journey for this couple.

Readers can expect humor, awkward situations, and cute romance. The pace is still slow but that is to be expected at this point in the series.

After the first 3 books in the series I think I'm going to give up now. Overall this balances around 2stars, the art is lovely but the storyline isn't for me. Thank you for the chance to review.

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Nasa and Tsukasa finish their visit to Nasa’s parents and come back to find their house has burned down! But don’t fret, Nasa has prepared for everything with insurance, keeping his prized possessions in a safe deposit box, and storing all his documents on the cloud. They stay in a spare room owned by the family who runs the bath house, but they also need to go shopping for all new clothes. Nasa has some fun picking out outfits for Tsukasa, but things get a little awkward when she has to get new underthings. The two set up their temporary home with some old relics from the family's departed father, which include classic video games, old TVs, and some interesting furniture pieces.

These two are still ridiculously cute, but Nasa does have thoughts every once in a while about getting fresh with Tsukasa, and that occasionally has an effect on him physically that he has to hide. The daughter who runs the bathhouse has a knack for catching Nasa at the worst time when he's having these moments or doing something that could be construed as pervy. There are a couple of shots that accentuate portions of Tsukasa’s body (specifically her butt and boobs, fully clothed though) as Nasa thinks about her wearing the underthings she picks out. We still have no clue about Tsukasa's secret, but this volume provides a small tidbit as she reads texts from a really old book in the study of Nasa's father. Hata seems more focused on building the relationship between Tsukasa and Nasa, and he lays these little hints in each volume to remind you that Tsukasa is not a normal girl. I can't wait to figure out what her secret is!

Sara's Rating: 9/10
Suitability Level: Grades 9-12
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This review was made possible with an advanced reader copy from the publisher through Net Galley. This graphic novel will be on sale April 21st, 2021.

The married couple’s saga goes into its intimate phase with all its cute, embarrassing moments. And in true Hata fashion this all comes down to comedic misunderstandings and gags. One in particular involves Nasa’s reaction to his apartment burning down; more shocked of possibly doing dirty things with Tsukasa in a motel as opposed to losing his apartment and any valuables in it – after all he has prepared for the worst. Yet the epitome of this whole volume was in Tsukasa’s deliciously simple home-cooked meal when she says to her husband “That’s right. Your tongue is all mine.” If that is not sexy, I do not know what is. It is simple in its delivery yet flirty in revealing forward progression of the relationship. This volume retains the original charm of the previous three and organically adds new elements. And after reading this, I cannot wait for another comedic wholesome journey.

In this volume, the newlyweds wrap up their visit to Nasa's parents home, but not before doing a little sight-seeing and getting more hints about Tsukasa's past. When the couple arrive home, they find their apartment building has burned down; fortunately, Nasa's friend Kaname, whose family owns the bath house, offers to let them stay in an empty room behind the bath house. There's some shy awkwardness, blushing, and decisions about how they'll handle doing their laundry going on, amongst other things. I'm not saying more than that, because y'all can suffer through the tension like I did. I'll just say there's some progress made. The author is really teasing the romance out slowly, which, not gonna lie, is kinda annoying, but I'm still reading the next volume as soon as I can get my hands on it, because if nothing else, I wanna know Tsukasa's secrets! And yeah, I want them to finally get comfortable with each other and get to enjoy being in love and all that mushy stuff. Plus there's the gorgeous art! I felt this volume had more, idk, "oomph" to it than the last one, and it feels like we're settling into the story now!

#FlyMetotheMoonVol4 #NetGalley

The series continues to try to balance comedy (especially manga/anime in-jokes) with a sweet love story. This volume felt much more on the saccharine side of things, with a lot of cultural embarrassment around physical intimacy between the still newly married couple. We spend a lot of time with the two main characters, getting vignettes about how awesome they are and how embarrassing it is to hold hands or sleep on a futon next to each other (let alone kiss or go lingerie shopping). By the end, I felt like saying "OK - WE GET IT! THEY ARE AWESOME PEOPLE!" I think we're also actually at the point where the mystery of the female main character's origins and family have been back-burnered enough that I'm wondering if the author will pick it up again or if it's a McGuffin. That said, I'll likely to continue reading because the characters are sweet and I really enjoy the story when they engage with other and spend more time out of their couple bubble.

One shouldn't be too surprised to see that our favorite newlywed couple's apartment burned down while they were away (what with all of Nasa's talk about how his important documents are secure), but it does still leave readers a little flabbergasted that it happened so soon. This volume has a few more perverted jokes than previous ones, but there's still nothing actually shown, so librarians who might need to know that can rest assured. Fly Me to the Moon is one of my favorite series to debut last year (in English at least) and I can't suggest it enough!

Written and illustrated by mangaka Kenjiro Hata, Fly Me To The Moon is one of the most wholesome shonen romantic comedies you can pick up. The series focuses on Nasa and Tsukasa, a couple who got married after only meeting each other one time years ago. Fly Me To The Moon Volume 4 is published by VIZ Media’s Shonen Sunday imprint, translated by John Werry, and features touch-up art and lettering by Evan Waldinger.

In the last volume, Nasa and Tsukasa visited his parents and went sightseeing along the way. Interrupted by Tsukasa’s family, the couple’s romantic time together was shaken, but now in Fly Me To The Moon Volume 4, the romance comes back. Having gotten full acceptance from Nasa’s parents, Tsukasa showcases some otherworldly skills, swings a sword, and translates ancient historical texts in Nasa’s father’s library. But, the romance ends when they return to Tokyo to a shattering surprise—a burned-down apartment.

While each chapter is short, they’re all made special by Hata’s fourth-wall-breaking narration and the way Tsukasa and Nasa interact with each other. They’re clueless in many ways, but they’re also very much in love, and that’s why it works. Their awkward journey through married life and house hunting is adorable to read. There honestly isn’t much to Fly Me To The Moon Volume 4; no grand combat butlers busting in, just wholesome married life with two young people trying to make it.

Like the chapters before it, Hata ensures that both characters are slowly maturing. There is more intimacy in their interactions, and in the special chapter, 31.5, you get to see Tsukasa make a move. It’s all done in a way that showcases how each of them is growing comfortable with each other. And that’s what I like about the series as a whole. Then there is Kaname…

Kaname is the minor who works at the bathhouse and who is too enthusiastic and nosey about Nasa and Tsukasa’s sex life—which is still nonexistent. While it’s not as featured in volume two, the use of Kaname is frustrating and reminds me of my issues with romance made for shonen audiences. That said, this is pretty much contained to one chapter in a volume that collects chapters 29 through 38. The distribution between wholesome and cringe weighs in this volume’s favor.

That said, a long-standing issue in this volume is that when narration is used, it’s hard to tell which perspective it’s coming from. Is it the meta narration from Hata himself? Is it from Nasa? Tsukasa? Most times, it takes a couple of lines to know who it is coming from.

As a whole, Fly Me To The Moon Volume 4 is a solid entry to the series. Nasa and Tsukasa are a couple that continues to move forward and grow despite the hardships around them. And while I wish Kaname would stop making comments about sex when she’s very clearly a child, the volume is a good read overall and worth picking up.

Fly Me to the Moon Volume Four sees a major life-changing event happen for Nasa and Tsukasa and depicts how they deal with this situation.

Fly Me to the Moon Volume Four
Written by: Kenjiro Hata
Publisher: Shogakukan
English Publisher: VIZ Media
Release Date: March 9, 2021

The volume opens by finishing off Nasa and Tsukasa’s visit with Nasa’s parents. It was amusing just how hard Nasa’s dad was trying to sound hip, as well as his struggle with how exactly to have a conversation with his new daughter-in-law without anyone else around. After Tsukasa says she heard that he’s an archeologist, Nasa’s father becomes excited and takes her to the room that he works in. Tsukasa and her father-in-law have a conversation about Nasa, and Tsukasa seems to show a genuine interest in the books he has. She flips through one and chuckles at the content, saying she’d be embarrassed if someone published her love letters. Nasa’s father is taken aback because he hasn’t been able to read what it says. When Nasa later stumbles in, it was nice to see that Nasa’s father knows his son well, after Nasa acts and reacts in way his father had said in the conversation he had with Tsukasa.

But getting back to that book for a moment, there are other instances where Tsukasa seems to be well versed in ancient history, even though she claims to hate it. Her claim is that she’s good at memorizing facts and information. But while she and Nasa are out exploring historic sites in the Nara area, Tsukasa rattles off more facts than I think one would simply know from memorization. There’s still a lot about Tsukasa that’s still a mystery, so I think there’s somehow more here than Hata is letting on at this point. Hints are potentially being dropped, though, for the idea that Tsukasa isn’t everything that she seems to be on the surface.

When they return home, they discover that the apartment building they live in was hit by lighting while they were gone and burned the building to the ground. They suddenly find themselves homeless, but Nasa isn’t bitter or angry about the situation. In this crisis, he keeps a cool and level head, which impresses Tsukasa. But they get lucky when they go to the bath house owned by Nasa’s friends, because it turns out they have a separate flat that’s not being used. They are given an offer to stay there until they can find somewhere else to go.

Most of the remainder of the volume is spent in their temporary digs. We get some fun throwback to geek culture here, because this flat used to be the “geek den” for Nasa’s friends’ father (who ran out on the family for a younger woman). They discover an old computer which Nasa is able to fix up and work. He spends time programming a game for Tsukasa with a programming language that’s on par with BASIC. For someone my age, the references to BASIC and the kind of game he programmed takes me back to my childhood and made me feel nostalgic. This nostalgia may likely be lost on younger readers, though.

In this volume, Nasa’s friend Aya, who’s had a crush on him, finally finds out that Nasa and Tsukasa are married. She was oblivious to the ring on his finger and other signs that should have said something, and she only found out because her mother said it out loud. I think Aya’s reaction to finally finding this out was meant to be funny, but I just didn’t quite see the humor in it. I’m glad she finally knows, even if she had to be told point-blank. But I didn’t entirely like how Hata decides to portray her reaction.

We get one of those awkward scenes of Tsukasa and Nasa interacting with each other when he takes her out clothes shopping since her wardrobe has become more limited due to the fire. There’s still that awkwardness between them, even though they’re married. It’s not entirely clear how long they’ve been married at this point, but hopefully at some point the series will show them moving beyond this awkwardness. But then again, considering they got married well before they truly got to know one another well, this awkward stage could take a while to move past from. Depending on my mood, though, these scenes either come across as sweet and wholesome or just overly saccharine.

Near the end of the volume, Nasa gets a call from their previous landlord, saying they are working at building a new apartment building where the old one was and offering to let them rent one of the units for the same cost they were renting the old one. While this is a nice gesture on the landlord’s part, I’m not sure this entirely realistic. While insurance money will probably help with the landlord’s rebuilding cost, I don’t think it would cover all of it. Realistically, the rent would probably have to be at least a little higher for the landlord to start making back whatever money they had to put into rebuilding. But then again, I don’t know what the Japanese laws are in this regard, so I could just be looking at this through a Westerner’s lens due to my ignorance of the way the Japanese would handle this kind of a situation.

But the landlord gives them a map to the model apartment. They get the address wrong, so they end up looking at a luxury apartment by mistake. But by seeing this apartment, they decide that at some point in the future, they want to work their way up so they can afford that kind of apartment. I guess it gives them a goal to strive for in the future.

The Fly Me to the Moon manga series can be overly sweet and simplified at times, but maybe during troubled times such as these, a series like this is needed. While it may not entirely appeal to me, I can’t truly say that it’s a bad series. In fact, I think it’s a well-done series for the audience that it’s being aimed at. If you’re read and enjoyed the previous three volumes of Fly Me to the Moon, then this volume shouldn’t disappoint.

This series continues to be a lot of fun! The dynamic between Nasa and Tsukasa is so much fun. It has an air of innocence to it, while also being a fun look at their relationship. It continues to give me Princess Kaguya vibes, so I wonder how that might play into the story later!

The next volume in the series in which the couple concludes their visit with Nasa's parents. During a historical tour, Tsukasa reveals a almost personal knowledge of history. When they return home, they find that their apartment has been hit by lightning and burned down. The owner of the local bathhouse lets the couple use their spare room, and they begin to look for a new apartment.