Manga / You Are Being Summoned, Azazel

aka: Yondemasu Yo Azazelsan

Center: Azazel. From top right, clockwise: Salamander, Sakuma, Beelzebub, Moloch, Akutabe and Undine.

You Are Being Summoned, Azazel (Yondemasuyo, Azazel-san) is a manga by Yasuhisa Kubo which ran from 2007 to 2018 in the Seinen magazine Evening, and a 2011 anime series from studio Production I.G.

Demons do exist. They are powerful, malicious, vindictive and... cute as hell!

The mysterious and knowledgable detective Akutabe and his young, increasingly less naive assistant Rinko Sakuma, make use of their powers to solve cases.

The anime adaptation of You Are Being Summoned, Azazel is directed by Tsutomu Mizushima. It's crazy and profane.

A second season of the anime began airing in April 2013 under the name Yondemasuyo, Azazel-san Z.

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You Are Being Summoned, Azazel provides examples of:

• Aerith and Bob: In a way: most angels and demons have a proper angelic/demonic name and a common Japanese first name (Azazel Atsushi, Beelzebub Yuuichi, Undine Megumi, Salamander Kimitake, Moloch Yoshinobu, Zeruel Takeru, etc.). The angelic/demonic names function as surnames.
• Affably Evil: The demons. While Sakuma does get along with Azazel, Beelzebub and most other demons, they don't particularly like her or care about her well-being, and they're sometimes seen plotting her and Akutabe's demise.
• All Myths Are True
• Animation Bump: Episodes 5 and 6 feature looser-than-usual animation direction by Chiaki Nakajima, who in the past has worked on The Tatami Galaxy and the token realistic Art Shift episode of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt. As a result both episodes are some of the best looking in the show, with 6 having some of the most expressive and lively character movement in the TV series, not to mention some interesting scene composition and use of color.
• Archangel Lucifer: Lucifer is apparently not the king of the demons, but he is the highest ranking and probably most powerful demon. And he loves reminding others about this.
• Ass Shove: Azazel attacks Sakuma with his pitchfork in this manner in the first episode of the second season.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Beelzebub's true form is a huge, monstrous fly with a tiny crown on its head.
  • And then in episode 10 of the second season, there's the exhibitionist, or rather his penis.
• Badass Bookworm: Akutabe is almost always seen reading something, from grimoires and newspapers to (apparently) children's books.
• Balloon Belly: Happens to Gusion after he cleans up the evidence to a mess Koutarou made.
• Berserk Button: Do not question Beelzebub's... peculiar eating habits.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Do not piss Sakuma off. EVER.
• Beyond the Impossible: Many of the things Akutabe does, when he bothers to. One would be smashing into another dimension with just a punch. This is thoroughly lampshaded by the demons.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Some of the demons. When first introduced, they can be pleasant or polite. However, once we get to know them, their true nature comes out.
  • Incubus' humanoid form actually has sheep like wool and ram horns. He first seems nice, pleasant, and eager to please. Episode 12 shows a different side to him. His justification for his actions? He's a demon. (Incubi are demons that rape women while they sleep afterall.)
    • As it turns out it was just an act.
• Black Comedy
• Black Comedy Rape: The fate of the summoner from episode 4 of the second season, which he unknowingly brought onto himself by dragging innocent people into his despair.
• Blind Without 'Em: Sakuma.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Koutarou, with the exception being that he dug himself out of his own mess when Sakuma and Akutabe didn't feel like helping him out.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: A number of times, most obviously when Lucifer specifies his sacrifice (marijuana leaves) and Azazel worries about the manga influencing the readers.
  • In episode 12, Beelzebub looks at the camera to tell the audience to treat their grandmothers well.
  • The Behemoth story, big time. A manga editor at Evening (the magazine Azazel-san is published in) wants to murder Kubo Yasuhisa and the entire plot revolves around Evening. Sakuma even likens a manga with half-assed artwork to Hunter × Hunter.
• Brought Down to Normal: Inverted; Akutabe allows Beelzebub to take his normal form in the real world by releasing the barrier that makes them into cuddly plush toys. It lasts for two episodes, and then for the rest of it outside the Demon World he's a toy again.
• Butt-Monkey: Sakuma and Azazel, the latter even more so.
• Call-Back: In the first episode of season 2, we see a praying mantis and lizard in seperate containers, two previous transformations from season 1.
• Catchphrase: Strawberry Warrior's is "Nyorin!"
• The Chew Toy: Moloch. He's a powerful demon of destruction... and the first time we see him (in the OVA), Akutabe forces him to eat beef curry.
  • Azazel even more so, as he constantly gets to be on the receiving end of Akutabe's and Sakuma's wrath.
• Cluster F-Bomb
• Corrupt the Cutie: Sakuma's slowly getting there.
• Council of Angels: Uriel, Raphael, Gabriel and Michael, four (Arch?)angels who seem to be by God's side at all times in the form of four various types of women (The Stoic, giant boobs, The Pollyanna and Gonk). They are also in charge of making angels fall, cutting off the angel's wings and destroying their halo, before God banishes them to the human world.
• Cosplay: Sakuma's forced into this so that she can get some notes for a test. She later joins for real once she finds out there is a profit to be made.
• Crapsack World: Happens to Golgotha Middle School thanks to Undine. The whole setting of the series can probably qualify as one.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Anytime any of the demons try to go up against Akutabe they lose. Terribly.
• Cute and Psycho: Beelzebub usually comes off as a pleasant (in his own way), well-mannered person... until he slips into the darker side of his persona, which is foul-mouthed, vulgar and violent.
• Cute Little Fangs: Azazel's girlfriend, Kiyoko in her humanoid form. Azazel himself has them as well but they're not very cute.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Azazel's "The End of Son"^note "son"/"musuko" is a slang for "penis" in Japanese attack which works on pulling in all the 'negative' energy and focusing it on an opponent, removing their sexual drive. Borders on Awesome, but Impractical as the first time he uses it in an episode he suffers a Heroic Red Ring of Death, including Blood from the Mouth, and although it had a big start it doesn't seem to do much. It does take effect much later though, turning the tide in the battle. Repeated use just wears him down more and more.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Many members of the otaku circle Sakuma joins have suffered severe traumas due to bullying and other abuse in the past.
• Deadly Gas: In his monstrous form Beelzebub's breath is comparable to really, really noxious gases. It shreds/dissolves a normal demon's skin.
• Death Glare: Akutabe pretty much all of the time, but Sakuma has a mean one too.
• Demon Lords and Archdevils: There is a hierarchy in Hell, it seems, with different demonic families having one chosen representative with a special power. This representative is the one who gets summoned by a demon summoner. If one dies due to an angel or other ways, the family chooses a new representative to replace the previous one. Some families seem to be more royal than others, like Beelzebub's, but Lucifer just seems to be the strongest Demon there, rather than a leader. Being royalty seems just a title which doesn't mean anything practical.
• Despair Event Horizon: Marukome hit this hard, and rather than pulling himself out of it, gets a demon that embodies despair.
  • Azazel then trumps it in Episode 12 of the second series. His mother is sleeping with Incubus, he is considered a joke by humans, his girlfriend and mother are both ashamed of him, with his mother even wanting to disown him, and then he sees Incubus get it on with Kiyoko, the closest thing he has to a girlfriend and someone he loves. Incubus was actually raping her, but Azazel doesn't learn of that, and just assumes she was cheating on him. Seems like an extreme case of Break the Haughty as well.
• Disappeared Dad: Azazel has a father, it seems, but we've never seen him. He does mention in the second OVA about whether his father is ill, but apart from that it's just his mother.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The "Azazel chews on a Zaku's leg" scene. The leg is even pixelated!
  • Sakuma's reaction to Salamander putting her words back inside her.
  • Salamander's spit is awfully thick. And white. And sticky.
  • Sariel's hairstyle makes his head look like a penis.
  • Strawberry Warrior licking the condensed milk off the strawberry in the mock opening...
• Deranged Animation: The series is mostly realistic, as per Production I. G.'s usual art style. Oftentimes the animation goes nuts though, almost to The Ren & Stimpy Show levels. Off-Model is used to indicate certain changes in someone's personal (Zeruel's animated face seems to literally collapse into a mirage of colours when he finds out he doesn't have a grimoire, and Akutabe is animated (And drawn with a weird expression in the manga) to just a choppy human shaped thing when he tells Undine he loves her.
• Eldritch Location: The Demon World flip-flops between this and just plain Dark World
• Energy Ball Of Potty: Beelzebub tries to blast Akutabe with one. Obviously, it doesn't work.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: And cats, and pets, and er, hobos, apparently, in the first episode of the second season. Although not in response to the demons; it's to Akutabe.
• Extreme Doormat: Himoi, a cheerful one.
• Fan Disservice: Dochin plays a prank on Osanai, where he ends up spotting a hidden camera in a female's toilet, causing him to take it, and sneakily put it into a different toilet. Which is the one that the old, aged Principal then uses to relieve herself, while on Osanai's recorded video that he is watching on his PC. Osanai reacts like you expect.
• Flipping the Bird: Lucifer likes to do this.
• Forced Transformation:
  • If you abuse or damage a grimoire, you get turned into an animal. Okada gets turned into a chubby lizard while Seiya becomes a praying mantis. These transformations mean the transformed quickly lose their memories as a human too.
  • Sakuma is nearly turned into a cow by Moloch (in the first OVA) when she fails to provide him an adequate sacrifice.
  • Later she actually turns into a panda when Behemoth decides he doesn't want her sacrifice after all. She only turns back when Behemoth accidentally destroys the sacrifice, a PSP.
• For the Evulz: "I want to see what it's like for a demon of lust to feel ultimate despair" said by Incubus as he's about to rape Azazel's girlfriend to make him think she's cheating on him. When asked why he'd do such a terrible thing, [[spoiler: Incubus basically says "I'm a demon. It's what I do" before leaving with a Psychotic Smirk.
  • Subverted. It was all a plot by Kiyoko to make Azazel awaken and become the ruler of Hell.
• Four-Fingered Hands: The demons. Humans have normal five-fingered hands.
  • The anime gives the demons in their humanoid forms five fingers.
• Freudian Slip: After cosplaying for a while, Sakuma's speech patterns accidentally slips to the Strawberry Warrior's.
• Fundoshi: Salamander is always wearing one.
  • When Beelzebub is thought to be dead he changes his usual white fundoshi to a black one.
• Gag Series: Well, duh.
• God: Has a sense of humour and has told Angels on Earth to find grimoires. Appears as just a shadow outline of a person on a throne, and wants to find someone who is funnier than him.
• Godiva Hair: Undine.
• Gonk: Oh, so many. Case in point: Sariel.
• Good is Not Nice: The angels, as we've seen so far.
• Gratuitous English: Mostly the American "sumo wrestler" in volume 4, but Salamander also has a couple of instances. And Lucifer's tattoo says "God /bless/ fuck your ass".
• Green-Eyed Monster: Undine is the personification of Envy.
• He Knows Too Much: Moloch No.2 learns something about Akutabe that Akutabe really wants to keep a secret. It doesn't end well.
• Hellish Pupils: Lucifer (duh).
• High-Pressure Blood: Every single time. In the very first episode a small cut on Sakuma's finger spurts out fountains of blood.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Maria, from the exhibitionist's past, who ran an orphanage with the money. The exhibitionist—a priest, then—couldn't handle the truth.
• Hot-Blooded: Salamander.
• The Idiot from Osaka: Azazel.
• I Ate WHAT?!?: Moloch, a bull-type demon, is forced to eat beef curry, only realising halfway through what it is.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: The exhibitionist to Sakuma, but he's averted from doing anything truly horrible by, of all things, Azazel.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Akutabe impales Azazel, Beelzebub, and Salamander with Sakuma's umbrella.
• Impossible Shadow Puppets: God seems to spend his time playing about with this. He is literally just a shadow, and he makes reasonable shapes (A penis, a barking dog, etc) but can apparently emulate defecating and turn his face into a pair of breasts which jiggle.
• Inconvenient Summons: The demons are often in the middle of something when they get summoned.
  • Played with when Sakuma summons Beelzebub while he and Lucifer are duking it out at full strength, saving the world of demons from serious damage.
  • The third time Azazel is summoned, he's having sex. The first time Beelzebub is summoned, he's on the john. Which actually makes for a good case of foreshadowing.
• Invisible to Normals: The demons by default. They can make themselves visible at will. However, humans with the potential to be Demon Summoners can see them all the time (Azazel speculates it's because they lack a fundamental human trait.)
• It's All About Me: Lucifer. Oh Lucifer. But then, he represents Pride.
  • The sheer size of his ego makes him one of the few demons who are not intimidated by Akutabe.
• Jerkass:
  • Akutabe. He seems to have a soft spot for Sakuma, though.
  • Most demons are as well, when they're free to do whatever they please instead of cowering from Akutabe. Then again, they're demons.
• Karmic Transformation: Happens to anyone who betrays the contract with their contracted demon without the protection of a grimoire. Like Okada and Himoi.
• Killed Off for Real: Moloch, it seems.
• Killer Rabbit: All the demons, with special mention to the demon looking like a turtle/rabbit hybrid.
• Large Ham: Salamander!
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Gusion's ability, Oblivion.
  • Also happens to Koutarou as a sacrifice for his contract to Gusion. He loses the memories of his grandfather.
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: A red-haired Cloud, blue-haired Suiseiseki and orange-haired Miku in episode 9, the Major in episode 10. Gonked out, of course. Many more appear in the convention (a transparent parody of Comiket) featured in episode 10.
  • The corresponding manga chapters have more: Goku and Vegeta, Hakuoro, Gintoki, Usagi, Yukimura, and of course the inevitable Rei.
  • The Magical Girl Show Within a Show "Strawberry Warrior" seems to be based upon Ojamajo Doremi.
  • Volume 2 has an employee of Evening hugging a plush Moyashimon toy (both Azazel-san and Moyashimon are published in Evening).
• Locked into Strangeness: After realizing what Akutabe really is, Moloch version 2 has his hair turn white.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: Azazel. You mileage on the "lovable" part may definitely vary.
• Loves Me Not: Undine does this in episode 7 to some screaming and obviously-in-pain mandrakes.
• Microwave Misuse: A scene in Episode 2 has Beelzebub (a fly) trying to put his, uh, "meal" inside a microwave, even as Sakuma warns him not to. He gets stopped by Akutabe.
• Mood Whiplash: One moment, it's Marshmallow DJ. The next, Moloch is dead.
• More than Mind Control: Salamander's ability, Revolution, which makes people believe in what they say if they really think the opposite.
• Mortality Ensues: What happens to angel when they fail God. They lose their status and become human.
• Motor Mouth: Half of the people exposed to Beelzebub's ability, Divulgence, become this. The other half, well...
• Mouthy Kid: Koutarou.
• Nobody Poops: Oh, so much averted. Hell, it's one of Beelzebub's abilities.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Salamander's entire character is a parody of Yukio Mishima. (Although obviously he doesn't look like Mishima, being a small, red lizard, his fundoshi-and-katana outfit is a Shout-Out to Mishima. His full name is Salamander Kimitake. Kimitake was Mishima's real first name.)
• Occult Detective: Akutabe. Sakuma begins by studying under him, albeit reluctantly at first, but is now a fully fledged one.
• Only in It for the Money: Sakuma.
• Only Sane Woman: Sakuma, Akutabe to some extent, being always on the spot about things and noticing the details.
• Otaku: Sakuma grudgingly cosplays for some in her university to get her hands on some notes. Of course, due to the nature of this show, they are mocked endlessly from all ends of the Otaku spectrum.
• Our Angels Are Different: They can't interfere with human affairs unless inflicted by a Demon, and can't use their angelic powers to fight unless they need to. They have wings, but only use them to ascend to heaven, and are charged with finding grimoires in the human world. If an angel takes a grimoire up to Heaven, the demon dies, permanently. The angels currently on earth appear to have a time limit set on finding grimoires, and up above there seem to be 'angel families' (Zeruel has a mother and two cats, for example) and apartment blocks. If an angel fails in getting a grimoire, see Mortality Ensues.
• Perpetual Frowner: Akutabe, Salamander
• Personality Powers: A few demons have this. Azazel embodies lust and is a huge pervert, Beelzebub uses filthy language, Undine's envy makes others lives worse, and the Moloch family appears to always be violent, angry muscleheads, among others. Some summoners also end up getting demons with powers appropriate to them (A perverted exhibitionist gets a demon that can make him invisible, although perhaps a subversion while Marukome, who has lost all hope for happy living, gets Eurynome, who embodies despair. Kotaro gets a demon that can eat memories due to the trauma(?) of his grandfather passing away, while the haughty and proud 'President' in the third OVA gets Lucifer, a similarly minded demon). In both cases, however, there's a few subversions too as Eurynome is more about causing despair than being it, and Sakuma is nothing like Azazel or Beelzebub despite having contracts with them.
• Pop Goes The Demon When Azazel pushes Kyoko too far, her response is to use a spell that holds him in place and makes him burst. Painting the room in his blood and mushed body parts, to Beelzebubs absolute horror.
• Punny Name: Akutabe's and Sakuma's names are puns on "aku" (evil) and "akuma" (demon), respectively. The latter becomes a plot point once.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: It's when Beelzebub uses his powers.
  • Happens sometimes when Akutabe gets mad.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Incubus rapes Kyoko to mess with Azazel's mind and drive him to despair. Sakuma, up till now becoming more and more like Akutabe with her wanton torturing, destruction and abuse of demons, suddenly takes on a whole new light and demands Incubus explain why. He just responds with 'I'm a demon' and leaves, Sakuma angry and left to comfort Kiyoko. It turns out it was just a hoax.
• Rock Me, Asmodeus!: Lucifer tries to demonstrate his awesome guitar-playing skills to Akutabe, but his cute koala paws make it difficult. (He also wears leather pants and sunglasses, and has the ego of a rock star.)
• Satan: Lucifer, a fallen angel.
• Scaled Up: While fighting Beelzebub Lucifer turns into his true form, a huge black dragon.
• Seppuku: Salamander tries to commit seppuku a couple of times, but never gets to go through with it.
• Shapeshifting: Undine's ability, Jealousy. She mostly uses it to Gonk people up, but she can also use it on a much larger scale.
• Ship Tease: Akutabe and Sakuma, especially in episode 9 when Akutabe asks Beelzebub and Azazel to go see what Sakuma's up to when her work habits change.
  • In the manga Akutabe lets Sakuma get away with pretty much anything, including quitting, destroying his office in a fit of rage (over Azazel's behavior of course), and then quitting again... He's also very keen on having Sakuma work for him: first he uses her debt to him to keep her around; when she first quits he pretends not to care but then invites her back telling her it's the only way for her to know who cursed her; and when she quits again he apparently keeps pestering her to come back. At this point she even wonders aloud if he's in love with her, but he doesn't react to that.
• Shout-Out:
  • One of the segments from the ending of episode 10 mirrors the iconic fall of Queen Beryl.
  • Undine's powers turn Golgotha Middle School into something straight out of Fist of the North Star.
  • The murder mystery episodes in season 2 features Shallow Parodies of multiple detective characters, including a manzai duo named Hajime and Shinichi. invoked
  • In episodes 9 and 10 of the second season, the museum thief "48 Faced Freak" is man who runs around in black gloves, boots, mask, and nothing else (though he does wear a bra for some reason), just like a certain Go Nagai heroine. He has bunny ears on his mask, jumps up into air, and can appear anywhere (thanks to his demon's powers).
• Show Within a Show: Two. Strawberry Warrior and 'Mossan and friends' (A show based around Moloch's cute form).
• Sliding Scale of Comedy and Horror
• Stalker with a Crush: Okada.
• Stealth Pun: In universe, Moloch gets a show named after him, and it's noted in the anime how the merchandising has gone through the roof with popularity around his character. Get it? He's become a Cash-Cow Franchise.
• Straight Man: Akutabe and Koutarou.
• Straw Misogynist: Salamander.
  • Because of this he is the least popular demon in the manga among female readers. One of the reasons why the director of the anime gave the role to Kazuya Nakai was to boost Salamander's popularity. It worked.
  • He's so bad, the first thing he does to Sakuma when she greets him is spit on her face. Later, when the man who summoned him introduces himself to her, Salamander chastises him.
• Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: Sakuma claimed to be able to see one after Undine had "cured" her myopia.
• Stylistic Suck: Namaste-chan.
• Sudden Humility: After spending most of his introduction being a thorough haughty Jerkass, Moloch is forced into obeying Akutabe's laws. To wit: He gives a polite 'Itadakimasu', and eats his own kind (Bull demon forced to eat beef). He then proceeds to cry all the way back to the Demon world.
• Super-Deformed: Mixed with Sleep-Mode Size in the first OVA. The demons are properly monstrous in hell, but in the human world they become absolutely adorable.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Akutabe.
• Throw the Book at Them: Akutabe is fond of doing this to his demons, with the added effect that the books he uses are grimoires, and touching a grimoire has very painful consequences for demons.
  • Sakuma is learning how to do this.
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Undine's parents. Though they're not really human...
• Toilet Humour
• Too Kinky to Torture: Salamander is quite the masochist.
• Took a Level in Badass: Sakuma, in the second OVA.
  • In the manga she eventually learns how to handle demons, and becomes almost as bad as Akutabe.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Curry for Beelzebub.
• Tsundere: Kiyoko is this with a mix of Sugar-and-Ice Personality for Azazel, smothering him with kisses and proclaiming him her true love in one instance and then threatening to murder him if he doesn't shape up soon enough in the next (as a bonus, she's voice by Rie Kugimiya). Undine also applies in a way, and thinks Akutabe is this thanks to Koutarou convincing her so.
• Unusual Eyebrows: Akutabe and Lucifer have none.
• Villain Protagonist: Pretty much everyone except Sakuma, who is more of a neutral/anti-hero anyway.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: In Episode 4.
• Vulgar Humor
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Poor, poor Moloch.
  • His younger brother doesn't fare much better either.
• Yandere: Undine

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