Ayashimon

It's sad that this series has been cancelled. I thought that Yuji Kaku had a lot of potential built up in these few 25 chapters. Ayashimon was a series I really wanted to see succeed and I thought it would, but it seems JUMP doesn't want to let any series grow a develop into its own. Ayashimon had a very cool world built around the story. The power system was interesting to say so, but I think it was one part of why Ayashimon did not survive. The main character Maruo has a personality that I loved, and his power was kind of a mysteryand I wish the series would have gone over why he is so strong, but it would have happened later in the series I bet. Yuji Kaku's art and paneling is amazing in this series, and I think was very eye catching.

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 manyseem 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.

It was a shame to see this series end in only 25 chapters, but so is the nature of weekly SJ releases and their cut throat serialization standards. So while only 25 chapters may feel like not enough for an honestly decent and fun series, it wasn't really able to capture me in any particular way across these last 6 months. Unlike some of the more popular SJ releases I felt that this title was somewhat lacking of a voice and personality of its own, which sometimes made it hard to come back to week after week. The general premise wasfun, but I believe it's main compromising factor was the general lack of characters to really get invested into. The main cast of characters wasn't necessarily bad in the time I spent with them, but they didn't really capture me in the same sort of way the Jujutsu Kaisen cast did, and I believe that it is that lack of overflowing personality is what really hinders the overall enjoyment to be had from Ayashimon. I could definitely taste the potential, but unfortunately it couldn't quite get those sparks to fly before its time was up. And without having a meaningful ending it's kind of hard to recommend this work in its current unfinished state. However, I see a lot of promise in this author and I look forward to seeing what they come up with next!

“What I want isn’t the truth. I want revenge.” - Urara, Chapter 2 Ayashimon, like a number of Shōnen series that found themselves being ended before their time, was a manga that struggled to form a coherent identity for itself. At times it felt like a rehash of currently popular themes stuffed into a battle manga’s coat; quickly becoming trapped by this identity and unable to find its own voice. This meant that the potential established in the earlier chapters was quickly lost as it began to feel like a collection of repeated clichés. By establishing a clear goal in its opening chapter, Ayashimon wasgiven a strong start; offering a plot that tackled the inherently interesting topics of fighting and revenge. These gave the reader something to latch onto, helping them to get invested in the superficial narrative. Unfortunately, there was nothing else offered by the narrative as it struggled to balance the battle genre with a more emotional side that allowed the reader to care about what was happening. This doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a potentially darker side to the narrative, but Ayashimon struggled to commit to these elements. It felt like there was a failure to trust that the readers would remain engaged in the story if there wasn’t the promise of an imminent fight. This reliance on fighting to maintain attention led to a number of other problems; such as the lack of emotional investment. There was also a reliance on exposition in order to tell the reader what was happening and why characters were acting in certain ways. It created a distance between the reader and characters because we never got to see the world from any particular perspective. It was as if the author didn’t have confidence in their premise, haphazardly telling the reader what they should find interesting rather than letting that interest grow naturally. The reliance on exposition also reduced some of the potentially interesting conflicts into feeling one-dimensional. With having a large number of fights in such a short run, it is easy to feel like they aren’t fully developed and so exposition took the place of drama. I do think that the ending does a good job of representing the general tone that Ayashimon sets up. While it could have been paced a little more fluidly, the open-ended approach avoided any hasty attempt to resolve numerous plot lines. However, this might be frustrating for some as a large number of questions that the series established were never answered. This lack of conclusive ending works well because, for the most part, Ayashimon was treated as a rather one-dimensional series; limiting itself almost immediately by a superficial attachment to a 1v1 fight style. There seemed to be a pattern of the author establishing the potential scope of the story and then almost immediately limiting it. This led to a number of conflicts being unable to reach any meaningful depth as they became too reliant on the main character. This created a problem when the protagonist is treated as a meathead who is obsessed with manga. While proudly displaying inspirations on their sleeve is nothing new for manga series, Ayashimon’s over-reliance on its odd brand of forced meta-comedy felt out of place. Having the main character be obsessed with wanting to be the main character wasn’t a bad choice, but there would usually be some sort of internal challenge to this type of dream. For Marou, however, there was no sense of internal complexity. He was simply someone who wants to be cool and this made him feel flat. Outside of his manga obsession, Marou was established as a conventional protagonist, being someone who pushed through conflicts no matter what was in his way. While this can be a solid foundation for a character, the reader was not given any sign of internal growth, making it difficult to form an emotional connection with him. This led to the author telling the reader things about Marou rather than letting the readers understand who he was through the story's progression. He ended up feeling more like a plot device than a character which made him a little grating after a while. His relationship with Urara was also seemingly trapped in stasis, struggling to develop any meaning to it. This was a huge missed opportunity as their personalities should complement each other well. One of the main reasons this ended up failing was that Urara was mostly there for her backstory; rarely showing any aspects of her present personality outside of the opening chapters. This was a shame because she seemed to be an intriguing character with a lot to offer. Instead, rather than building up her character, Ayashimon ended up focusing more on the character of Ten, someone who didn’t offer all that much to the early story. While a main trio is often a staple of Shōnen, especially in action-based series, his introduction caused a loss of balance between the characters. There was a wider problem in how characters were handled; the reader didn’t see them having active roles. Both Ten and Urara’s roles are centred around Marou which meant that we didn’t see them act of their own accord. It would have been nice to see them show some form of development or importance to the story outside of the main character, especially as Urara should functionally be the most important character. The inability to balance characters was something that affected a number of the side characters as they struggled to land any impact or leave an impression. They felt more like two-dimensional tropes as opposed to developed characters. Readers weren’t given any reason to connect to them, meaning that some potentially interesting plot points lacked an emotional weight to them. There were, however, a couple of characters who stood out; retaining a layer of mystery that made the reader want to know more. Unfortunately, due to the series ending, these mysteries could end feeling more frustrating than exciting but it showed that there was potential for Ayashimon. The character designs were also quite interesting, especially those who weren’t part of the main cast. This was especially true for those used as a part of the environmental storytelling. They formed an interesting world that could have been better explored. It's a shame that there wasn't more faith placed on Kaku’s ability to visually tell a story. This would have alleviated the reliance on exposition and allowed the art some room to shine as it was often the quiet moments of Ayashimon that stood out the most; developing the characters in more meaningful ways. There was also an inconsistency in the tone of this series; especially with the darker elements that were demonstrated in the world-building of the opening chapter. Unfortunately, the story immediately limited itself to the yakuza groups and while it could have expanded out later in its run, it ended up feeling like wasted potential. I should add that a couple of stylistic choices ended up feeling out of place; especially in regards to battle choreography considering this was Ayashimon’s main focus. If the series was going to take the meat-head fighter approach, then it would have been cool to see a little more variation in the earlier fights to show that the fights weren't going to be the same fight, with the same plot beats but with a different opponent. Overall, it was the self-imposed limitations that end up causing the most problems for Ayashimon, taking a strong idea and turning it into an identity crisis. This is often rooted in a lack of confidence in both the story and the reader which can be very difficult to overcome. While there were definitely faults in Ayashimon, I believe that it was ultimately a combination of reader expectations and lack of strong characterisation that led to this series meeting a premature end.