REVIEW: Don’t Sleep on Agents of the Four Seasons

Spoiler: This review contains spoilers for Agents of the Four Seasons, Episode 1 “The Dance of Spring”

Spring is here, and Agents of the Four Seasons welcomed the season in the most dazzling fashion. If there was a perfect episode to start spring, Agents of the Four Seasons would be it. When I think of spring, I think of new beginnings. Beauty. Hope. And that was how I felt finishing the episode.

Based on a light novel by Kana Akatsuki who is best known for writing Violet Evergarden, Agents of the Four Seasons is set in a world where the gods of the seasons lend their powers to four select humans where they’re entrusted to welcome their respective seasons. They are known as the Agents of the Four Seasons with each Agent accompanied by a Guard who protect their respective Agent from harm.

The world right now has only known three seasons: winter, summer, and fall. There is no spring; it has not arrived for ten years and people are bracing themselves to endure yet another prolonged winter as they have been for the past 10 years. But all that changes.

Hinagiku, the Agent of Spring, arrives at Ryugu with her Guard Sakura Himedaka accompanying her. Hinagiku is wary of crowds, choosing to hide her face and stay silent when she’s around other adults, speaks haltingly, and often refers to herself in the third person–perhaps due to her trauma of being held hostage for a decade.

By contrast, Sakura is brash and outspoken–and fiercely protective of Hinagiku. She shoulders a lot of responsibility for the Agent of Spring’s well-being and from the flashes of the past that we see, she continues to wallow in vehement self-loathing and guilt for losing Hinagiku ten years ago. She gets so furious at herself she even starts cursing herself, saying if she could, she’d go back in time and kill her past self.

Episode 1 doesn’t yet divulge what happened 10 years ago, though little hints are dropped: Sakura possibly sacrificing herself to save Hinagiku, Sakura’s vehement hatred of winter, and by extension, Rosei, the Agent of Winter. All of that seems to imply that Sakura partially blames Rosei for Hinagiku’s kidnapping.

On the other hand, Hinagiku worries that Rosei will be disappointed in her because she’s not the same person she was ten years ago anymore. And more importantly, after being gone for so long, she’s unsure if anyone even needs spring anymore? Does anyone need her?

It’s hard getting back to a world where it feels like it moved on without her. It’s hard to find your place in a world who seems to have forgotten about you.

But meeting Nazuna makes Hinagiku realize there are people, even if it’s just one little girl grieving the loss of her mother, who needs spring. Who needs her. And that’s enough.

The soundtrack was one of the standouts for me. The majority of the episode has music playing but it isn’t ostentatious. It’s soft and delicate, with only a few notes that become a little more subtly accented. This mood pervades even throughout the more tense moments like Nazuna lashing out at Hinagiku, highlighting how fragile Nazuna and Hinagiku are.

The build up to Hinagiku’s spring rite is beautifully done as Hinagiku and Sakura realize what the arrival of spring will bring for Nazuna. The music becomes tentatively hopeful before it stops, pauses for Hinagiku to start her ritual. Wit Studio did an incredible job of animating in this portion of the episode; as she swipes her fan through the air, what follows is just the faintest touch of pink replacing the white snow. I had literal goosebumps erupting on my arms when we got to the end and saw Rosei watch the news announcing the return of spring.

The sapphic vibes between Hinagiku and Sakura are strong. There’s no way that shot of Sakura and Hinagiku smiling with their eyes closed, their faces basically touching, just as the narration says this story is about “a commonplace love story” isn’t intentional.

However, the lore of the world seems to imply otherwise: Long ago, the world only knew Winter. Unable to bear the pain of solitude, winter created spring and the two fell in love. Winter then created autumn and summer who then had the brilliant idea of creating the Agents of the Four Seasons, thus granting winter time to “love spring forever.”

It’s kind of (very) romantic. So even though I’m hardcore rooting for a Hinagiku and Sakura ship, I wouldn’t be too mad if the story turns out to be a Hinagiku and Rosei relationship. Either way, I’m here for the mythology, rescue, friendship, romance, and (apparently) murder.

Yen Press publishes the light novel and you can bet that I’ll be running to purchase it.