Funny / Ayakashi Triangle

Warning! Unmarked Spoilers Below!!!

General

• Just the fact that the series is kickstarted by Shirogane turning Matsuri into a girl for no other purpose than to ruin his chances with Suzu. Hilarious in Hindsight as this is what allows Matsuri and Suzi to become close again to the point of mutually confessing to each other.
  • There's also the Badass Decay he suffers over the course of the series which starts with his attempts to steal the scroll that sealed his power away with increasingly petty and sometimes childish methods. Then after chapter 22, he loses his position as King of Ayakashi when the scroll is destroyed and grows more and more like Suzu's pet cat than a former all powerful spirit.
• The early chapters has Matsuri frequently forgetting he's a girl now such as going to the boys bathroom to use a urinal, quickly leading him to a reputation as a "weird tomboy". As the series progresses, things reverse and Matsuri does things that seem to make Suzu worry he's forgetting he's actually a boy.
• As the manga is by Kentaro Yabuki of To Love Ru fame, this naturally includes the classic Accidental Pervert trope he's so famous for. Only instead its Suzu who's the main perpetrator and Matsuri thats the usual victim made all the more better that the former is a Covert Pervert.
• One of Suzu's friends, and thus becomes Matsuri's friend after becoming female, is girl named Lu whose perception of reality is...a bit skewed. She's Wrong Genre Savvy and believes she lives in a world that is some combination of Black Cat and To Love Ru where Chronos is a global conspiracy responsible for such things as crime, terror, and spreading rumors about Matsuri being a seductress.. Meanwhile, she attributes Clark's Third Law to anything related to the supernatural despite at one point in the series being told about Ayakashi and thinks it's some type of code.

Manga Chapters

• In chapter 3, a captured Shirogane tries to suck up to Suzu to save his own life. However, Matsuri had completely covered him in paper talismans, so he has to roll over to her.
• Chapter 5:
  • A flashback to Soga and Matsuri's mission together shows Matsuri in a frantic melee with several ayakashi. One is a man-faced dog creature that, for some bizarre reason, has a stereotypical salaryman look complete with receding hairline, glasses, and a ragged tie.
  • Matsuri stops and considers leaving Shirogane to be exorcised by Soga, but then uses a nearby sign as a windboard to catch up to them. What does the sign say? "Danger: Slow Down".
• In chapter 6, Lu and Yayo find Shirogane taking the form of a regular cat visible to normal people. As Yayo cheerfully picks him up and asks Matsuri to hold him, her face becomes nearly the same as the cat's.
• In chapter 11, Yayo and Lu make Matsuri get it the onsen with them, and he keeps his eyes closed as Suzu reminds him not to look. Both end up staring at Lu, Yayo, and the ayakashi they came to exorcise. Matsuri focuses on how the ikon is growing. Suzu focuses on how it just barely obscures their nipples and groins.
  Suzu: Convenient coverage in just the right spots...
• Chapter 22 ends with Suzu tripping, pulling off Matsuri's fundoshi and putting her face right in front of his crotch the instant before he changes from male to female again. Shirogane pays special attention to where Suzu's eyes are pointing.
  Matsuri and Suzu: Oh!
  Shirogane: What are you talking to?!
  • This comes right after he asked her to become the new Ayakashi King to maintain harmony in their world only to immediately declare he's not going to allow someone so "shameless" to succeed him.
• The following chapter, Matsuri worries that the Ayakashi will not accept her as their new king only to cue a Gilligan Cut to the next day where they're having a celebration.
  Matsuri: [Thinking] They've already accepted her after only one night?!
  • When one holdout points out that Shriogane was respected for his strength to handle problems, the other Ayakashi do agree he has a point with the discussion slowly devolving into Compliment Backfire before becoming full-on insults. Shirogane is less than amused.
• In Chapter 25, Soga and Matsuri looking more and more like a couple to Suzu makes her unconscious squeeze Shirogane harder and harder. When she and Muga argue over whether the two can get married, Shirogane is tapping out and then foaming at the mouth.
• In Chapter 35, Matsuri begging Soga to still be friends keeps him from noticing he landed crotch-first onto Soga's face. Shirogane snarks that how Matsuri feels about Soga is "Not the most pressing matter at hand!"
• In Chapter 40, Matsuri regaining a certain male body part is conveyed by a very particular form of Relax-o-Vision.
  Meanwhile, in the Arctic Ocean...
  (Bowhead whale pokes its head out of the water)
• Chapter 41 sees Matsuri given a mission by the higher-ups to collect some of Suzu's Haku (spirti energy) to assess her abilities as the Ayakashi Medium. The Cold Open has this line that tells you how things are going to go...
  Matsuri: [Embarrassed] In order to complete this mission, I have to do it to Suzu while she's sleeping. [Cue Soga blushing furiously]
  • Matsuri's mission parameters: Sneak into Suzu's bedroom and uses a Special Haku Suction Device and place it into her belly button while she's asleep. Oh and Matsuri has to do it using his mouth to extract, basically meaning he's kissing her belly button. The two can't help lampshading how sexual (Soga says perverse) this sounds.
  • Reo then puts her two cents in and teases both of them by suggesting that if Matsuri doesn'y do it then another exorcist will...like Soga. Cue the older student blushing like crazy while Matsuri yells he'll do the mission.
• Chapter 79 has Suzu and Shadow Mei's first direct battle. A kissing battle to be accurate in which the two make-out to see who is the better kisser after Mei receives training. You could not make this up.
  • The Ayakashi herself is Lippy, a iyo born from the collective feelings of love and desire from people in the entertainment district, teaches Mei to kiss passionately to "fight" Suzu. She's also the one who taught Suzu when she was a child; as Shirogane notes, she's the reason the girl's a Covert Pervert Hormone-Addled Teenager.
    Shirogane: So it was you who woke the monster.
• The next chapter reveals the reason why Mr. Sujimori has a Non-Standard Character Design is because he's jinyo, one born from the feelings from battle. Matsuri's mother concedes that its hard to detect them while in battle mode, there's still a glaring clue besides his over muscular frame.
  Matoi: There aren't many english teachers out there whose clothes rip when they get excited...
  • Then you remember that Yabuki's last series also involved a faculty member whose clothes came off when he got excited though for an entirely different reason.
• The "Young Heart" arc (chapters 87-91) begins with Matsuri and Suzu investigating a sealed Ayakashi that's escaped with the mission being at the beach. Matsuri for some reason had opted for a sexy bikini which has Suzu flustered since realizing that she loves him regardless of his gender just making her Hormone-Addled Teenager tendencies worse.
  • Shadow Mei is revealed to have been the one to free the Ayakashi as part of her latest plan to take-over as the Ayakashi Medium which has the spirit possess Matsuri's bikini. The effect is Matsuri *ahem* "end up in agony" as Mei believes, hoping it will break Suzu's vision of him. It has the exact opposite effect as Suzu is turned on by the sight and Shirogane has to smack her out of it.
    • The arc can easily be called "Suzu's Young Heart needing a break from the former being a Hormone-Addled Teenager".
  • When Young Heart decides to show Matsuri Suzu's past, the telepathic link shows them a memory from yesterday of Suzu in the shower... and all evidence points to her masturbating, to the boy's embarrassment. Later when Young Heart returns, it's by barging into the shower while Suzu is in there with signs that she was about to do it again.
  • It turns out that as a child Suzu still had her memories of her past life. A young Matsuri states that the sometimes “talks like his grandpa” to her slight embarrassment. Also despite her stating that the reason she temporary left was because of Suzu Hormone-Addled Teenager tendencies, its revealed she had long hair until Matsuri said he though shorter hair suited her. She immediately has her hair cut.
  • Shadow Mei tries to convince Suzu's Young Heart to join together to overtake Suzu and wipe out humanity which the latter refuses having given up her hatred. Shadow Mei begins to declare her intention of absorbing Young Heart to gain her power regardless…but doesn't get the chance as Matsuri ninja smokes them out and the two take off.
    Shadow Mei: Hey! Listen to what I have to say!!
• Shadow Mei gives Matsuri a cursed bell in Chapter 105 that transform him into a cat and Hilarity Ensues.
  • Suzu and Shirogane are walking down the school hall after completing her Summer classes, the latter commenting it was because she was too lovestruck to pay attention in class. When she asks him whether the Ayakashi had ever been in love, he makes a dramatic show of how the King of Ayakashi had no need of such things. Then he sees Matsuri (not knowing who it is) and instantly falls for the cat.
  • Shirogane becomes every bit love-drunk as Suzu can be with Matsuri to the point that the latter tells him he shouldn't be so forceful which Shirogane calls her out on. Of course he's heartbroken when he learns the truth and blames him for leading the cat on.
  • Shadow Mei gets some comeuppance when Shirogane sees her "get in the way of his love" and uses a technique that traps her inside a giant ball of fur. The end of the chapter later shows her still trapped in it swearing payback.
  • After Soga saves cat Matsuri from an ikon attack, he assumes he's just a regular cat he needs to purified in a bath. Matsuri is understandably embarrassed... until this accidentally breaks the curse. He abruptly cheers up, assuming Soga meant this all along, even though that would imply Soga was groping him on purpose and Matsuri is still completely naked in front of him (and his sister).
    Matsuri: Soga really knows what he's doing.
  • The bath scene has a page where Matsuri is drawn as still being human, but a cat-sized one fondled by Soga's proportionally giant hands... immediately preceded by one where Matsuri is very suggestively posed while still drawn as a cat.
• Chapter 118:
  • When the chapter begins, both Matsuris are naked and wondering how the Literal Split Personality situation happened while Suzu is off to the side: you get zero credit for guessing where her brain immediately went.
    Suzu: [Happily lost in her thoughts, blushing madly] Wow, wow, wow! I'm in trouble...
    Shirogane: [Pissed as he realizes she's having one of her shameless moments] No, you are trouble.
  • For much of the series, Matsuri insists that "the real me is a boy". Yet when girl Matsuri is still wearing panties and notices boy Matsuri isn't, she argues it as as proof that he is the fake.
  • The two Matsuris get into a fight over who the real one is and his/her grandfather comes in and tells his grandchild(ren) he shouldn't fight with himself.
  • Matsuri is so desensitized to both his forms that each has zero reaction while wrestling each other in only their underpants.
• Chapter 126: When boy Matsuri starts attending school, Reo gives him a jutsu to push the Weirdness Censor to its limit.
  Reo: The jutsu will make all normal students see you as Matsuri Kazamaki's older twin brother, whose name is also Matsuri Kazamaki!
  (Shadow Mei is completely baffled)
• Chapter 144: After Matsuri reveals that he isn’t planning on changing back into a guy until after high school and is fine with dating Suzu as a girl in the meantime, Suzu then reveals an interest in learning how to cast the Gender Swap Awakening spell herself so she can fully enjoy both sides of Matsuri only to get smacked by Shirogane for her shamelessness.

Production Comments

• The author’s comments for chapter 7 point out Soga’s motives for how he wanted to meet Matsuri:
  Kentaro Yabuki: The reason Ninokuru said “I need to talk to you as an exorcist ninja" and said to suit up was of course to avoid seeing Matsuri in a skirt.
• Chapter 14 is accompanied by an anecdote of Yabuki's teenage daughter giving him publishing advice.
  Daughter: In AyaTri volume 1, will ——^note Most likely referring to nipples. be revealed?
  Me: ...? Should I?
  Daughter: Respond to expectations!
• If "Inside Matsuri" wasn't a blatant enough Double Entendre for the title of Chapter 14, the translator theorized an even more ridiculous variant:
  Satsuki Yamashita: I had a few options for the title「祭里の中に」including 'Penetrating Matsuri'. But I didn't want Editor A to think I'm a perv, so I deleted it.

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