Ayashimon

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Japanese: アヤシモン

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Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 3

Chapters: 25

Status: Finished

Published: Nov 15, 2021 to May 30, 2022

Genres: Action, Supernatural

Theme: Organized Crime

Demographic: Shounen

Serialization: Shounen Jump (Weekly)

Authors: Kaku, Yuuji (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 6.57¹ (scored by 14,545 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #15875²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #544

Members: 35,073

Favorites: 230

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6.57

Ranked #15875Popularity #544Members 35,073

MangaShounen Jump (Weekly)Kaku, Yuuji (Story & Art)

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Volumes: /3

Chapters: /25

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Synopsis

Years ago, the death of the infamous Enma Syndicate's chairman, who united all those below him, led to numerous individual yakuza groups being created. These groups are filled with "ayashimon"—supernatural creatures possessing various powers—who now lurk in the shadows of modern-day Japan.

Maruo Kaidou, inspired by his favorite manga heroes, has spent the majority of his life ruthlessly training. He has become so strong that no business will hire him and no martial arts organization will accept him. But just as Maruo reaches his wit's end, he encounters a young girl named Urara, a yakuza head fleeing from an enemy group.

Though Urara tries to chase him away because of his status as a regular human being, Maruo jumps at the thought of an exciting fight. Now in the midst of a new world filled with individuals wielding powerful abilities, Maruo feels that he cannot return to his old, boring life. Thus, he decides to join Urara's yakuza group—becoming its very first member.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Ayashimon was published digitally as an English simulpub through MANGA Plus service. The volumes were published by VIZ Media under the Shonen Jump imprint from March 7, 2023 to August 1, 2023.

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Characters

Kaidou, Maruo

Main

Urara

Main

Akari, Doppo

Supporting

Ten

Supporting

Oboro

Supporting

Hashihime

Supporting

Kotton

Supporting

Reviews

Sep 5, 2023

10JUO

Recommended

Ayashimon was one of the most fun manga I've read since JoJo's Part 4. This has been favorite story by Kaku and I wish it never got the axe or I'd have rated it a nine or a ten. Some things I really wanted to explore more of or wanted to see a conclusion to just weren't able to be touched upon due to the cancellation.
I can't wait to see what Yuji Kaku has in store next. If you are a fan of manga that references manga in a fun way and still makes room ...

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Feb 3, 2024

FloweryIso

Mixed Feelings

Everything that makes a shounen bad is imbued into this work, and is perhaps the seeds that were sown to get the manga cancelled.

Ayashimon is a manga that took me quite a while to get through, despite only having 25 chapters available. It showed a lot of promise, even I admit this - the concept of Yakuza compromising of different mythological monsters from Japan fighting within a red light district setting certainly piqued my interest. It’s unique in that regard, a big problem in manga and anime recently has been ideas overlapping to the point that if you’ve seen/read one work from a genre ... then you’ve practically seen them all - Ayashimon’s concept stood out from this pattern.

The plot, however, was bipolar. The whiplash from dialogue heavy exposition, to a quick fight scene and then to a funny goofy “friendship” moment really battered me. There were times I was heavily invested in a scene, in the characters' emotions and motivations, the juicy bit right around the corner but it’d be rudely interrupted by a completely out of place plot point that knocked the train right off the tracks. A lot of well written scenes got absolutely demolished by the author's inability to hang onto the important panels and I felt it really diminished the characterisation of several of the cast.

The cast themselves suffered from similar issues that plagued the plot. Their base outline was really good, however as the story went on it felt like the main character remained stagnant and those around him grew.

Marou is an ok protagonist, he’s a bit boring after the 12th chapter of him trying to fight everyone who’ll agree and his design is actually rather dull and fits into the self insert style of design a lot of main protagonists suffer from. Despite his constant mentioning of manga, very weird to hear about manga so much while reading a manga, and his inability to really seem relatable I do actually think Marou could have gone somewhere.

Urara and Ten are really the cast you stick around for - both gaining a lot of development in the short amount of run time the series had, even if their developments were really fast paced and, despite feeling like their characters would naturally progress to the end of the arc, it could have been shown more than said they improved.

The art is pretty good, it’s definitely more in the classic manga style that you see in a lot of assistants' work. This isn’t to, again, say the art is bad, it’s really well drawn and the panels look gorgeous no matter where you look, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that the art style is very reminiscent of a lot of different manga and isn’t a stand out in terms of stylisation.

Overall, I’m giving Ayashimon a 6. Despite all the merit the manga has, it’s swiftly followed by many issues and problems that fundamentally lower my enjoyment while reading. I am still sad that it got cancelled as I could see it still had more to offer.

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Apr 22, 2025

Final_Verdict

Not Recommended

Ayashimon, penned by Yuji Kaku, the mangaka behind Hell’s Paradise: Jigokuraku, is a Weekly Shonen Jump series that follows a manga obsessed beat em’ up protagonist and the yakuza boss yokai girly he chooses to serve under as they try to climb their ranks through the criminal underworld. However as you may have noticed, and like many works that can’t hit a certain arbitrary number of sales, it was canned before its time, capping off at a sad 25 chapters.

Now before we get into it a discussion about the work itself, I have to lay some thoughts out about Kaku's last work. While many ... seem to laud Hell's Paradise, I honestly didn’t care for it. I thought the work was sloppy and uninteresting, and the one element that was worth caring about (the protagonist’s relationship to his wife) was not enough to carry it out of mediocrity.

Similarly, Ayashimon is generic from top to bottom. A short lived, shonen-to-the-core three volume blunder that I felt had marginally less potential than other canceled works of this ilk. There’s a mild metatextual nature to the manga in the form of a protagonist that’s obsessed with Jump, but otherwise it’s got nothing more, no legs to stand on. Like anything else, Jump goes through phases, and for the last few years a lot of its titles have been into the yakuza, mafia, spy/assassin/demon/underworld schtick and I am SICK of it. Tacking on the yokai element does not do Ayashimon any favors because the setup is already relying on genre conventions that are overdone in many of its contemporaries.

But is the presentation at least interesting, or unique? I’d have to say no. At times, the manga can get really bogged down by a heavy amount of dialogue, wherein the characters are ultimately just saying a whole lot of nothing; I didn’t feel drawn in by the setting whatsoever simply due to a bad balance between expository worldbuilding and mediocre action scenes. That’s another thing: Kaku is, sadly, not a very good artist. His style is rough and sloppy, and not in an endearing way like that of Chainsaw Man’s Tatsuki Fujimoto (whom he served under as an assistant), but in a way that sort of gives me the impression it was done hastily, and in ballpoint pen. His panels aren’t framed well, he can’t engineer very visceral fight scenes, and overall I just think it’s somewhat ugly. It skirts the edge of being serviceable simply due to competence in perspective and style, at least, but that's being kind.

So what’s left? Despite all these notes of complaint, I can’t sit here and say Ayashimon is some horrible piece of trash, because it isn't – it’s just… a manga. A short, unoriginal manga that’s got basically nothing for me, but has enough hallmarks of the shonen demographic to where I’m sure it’ll easily appeal to others. In my Red Hood review (another WSJ work canned at three volumes) I lamented the lost potential, but here I don't know if there was much to begin with. I don’t recommend it, but other than being uninspired and boring it doesn’t have glaring narrative faults that actively make it “bad,” leaving it right in the middle as plain ol’ “average,” as the majority of manga made are probably this level of amateur. I know very well that these traits win it popularity in some circles, and I’m fine with that, but I myself couldn’t willingly pass it on it to someone. There are better shonen with generic traits that have gotten, and still get, to exist as longer publications, building on their stories.

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Poll: Ayashimon Chapter 3 Discussion MegamiRem - Nov 28, 2021	23 replies	by JVskunkape »» Jun 28, 2024 6:10 AM
Poll: Ayashimon Chapter 2 Discussion MegamiRem - Nov 21, 2021	29 replies	by JVskunkape »» Jun 28, 2024 5:54 AM
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Poll: Ayashimon Chapter 15 Discussion Kuma - Mar 13, 2022	9 replies	by 123_kittie_123 »» Sep 2, 2022 1:46 PM

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