It wouldn't surprise me if Suzu manages to exorcise the curse out of Male Matsuri while still keeping his body/soul intact. The chapter highlights how shamelessly perverted Suzu is but she's also shamelessly greedy. She wants the Matsuris to coexist because she wants all of Matsuri, and she likely has the power to get what she wants.
The point in my previous post was, when Suzu's life is at stake over it, Matsuri shouldn't have hesitated at all over being stuck as a girl! Their time should have been spent wondering about the necessity of killing boy Matsuri, possible ways to save him, or what to do as a girl if he did died.
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Even with his gender to differentiate them, the story's struggled to use the second Matsuri as a character instead of a plot device.
Edited by thatother1dude on Jul 9th 2023 at 8:56:44 AM
The point is that at this point not killing him would either lead to the original Matsuri losing out by comparison (one of an interchangeable pair) to something they basically spammed out in a minute, or 'well, I guess all of this wound up resolving super conveniently without any of the character introspection mattering in the end'.
So, ideally, he dies. :T
He dies or girl Matsuri is able to save and merge with his mind, not his body.
The series has constantly made it seem like Matsuri's gender could end either way—which I think has been a huge narrative burden when the character has put so little thought into it. I'm gonna use a folder to rant about why, with a heavy dose of "What does this story even think gender is?" Apologies if it's not that well put-together, I already spent way too long on it.
As far as the Male Gaze is concerned, Matsuri is indisputably a girl. Her body is constantly shown off (sometimes in ways coded as sex with men), she suffers the most sexual humiliation of any character (which may even involve Soga), and her gender presentation is uncharacteristically feminine in every aspect but speech. We even got a plotline to justify Matsuri wearing frilly panties!
Matsuri's experiences pretty severely downplay any discomfort at being a girl. Physical dysphoria was an immediate non-factor. He rarely cares about his friends calling him a girl. The indirect effects of becoming a girl were explicitly a gain for his social life. Most of the acknowledged downsides come down to harassment or expectations of romance with boys, which aren't generally considered a good basis for gender identity. And the only real bridge-too-far has been dating, but Matsuri's reasons for that are transparently-sexist and he's repeatedly gotten close to abandoning them.
And let's examine what Matsuri's gender means to Suzu. I'll give credit for eventually making it really obvious Suzu is bisexual, not seeing Matsuri as a boy despite his lack of visible masculinity. But that, along with her complete monogamy, is blatantly tailored to imply she'll be "straight" the second Matsuri is male again. The possibility she could have a preference for Matsuri's gender was brought up then awkwardly walked back to "take what she can get".
All this to say, Matsuri has been written as ambivalent enough about their gender that they're gonna be happy with whatever deal they're arbitrarily given. With all that in mind, a girl-Matsuri end wouldn't be a fix-all, but a boy Matsuri-only would be atrocious—worse than the half-joke I just posted—and not just for being boring. It would exhaust any benefit of the doubt that the story cares about Matsuri's gender identity, bodily autonomy, or consent, showing the actual gender politics of this series are:
- It's OK for girls to lust after, make out with, and even molest each other, but not for them to date, especially after high school.
- Any female body is a sex object, and its owner may not be respected as a man.
- A character's physical sex not matching their original is a problem to be solved, regardless of what the character actually feels about it.
Edited by thatother1dude on Jul 9th 2023 at 11:48:09 AM
I think it'd just be so very underwhelming from a story perspective, since the story's wound up with any sort of personal development or progress hinging on Matsuri's being a girl. If it just incidentally gets undone without any issue or further sacrifice, then basically the entire narrative arc of the story is... what? Matsuri stops putting Suzu on a pedestal and Suzu gets to be OP?
Sure, it's an option, but it'd be rather boring.
Considering he only got a social life after becoming a girl, you wonder if the story will bother showing how being a boy will effect that. He's barely talked to anyone but Suzu. Also, her family still believe the Matsuri from Suzu's childhood was always a girl.
It's ironic how Matsuri dismissed the idea of staying a girl because of Kachofugetsu... and boy Matsuri has spent zero time with them and even got left out of their groupchat.
As much as the series has hinted Matsuri would accept being a girl if they couldn't change back, it's avoided the idea of Matsuri electing to be female even temporarily.
And as abruptly as asked and then dodged the question "Would Matsuri prefer being a girl if it improved their relationship with Suzu?", the idea of Matsuri's female form only existing to fulfill Suzu's sexual whims is creepy on several levels.
Edited by thatother1dude on Jul 11th 2023 at 7:54:53 AM
And we'll keep having more chapters spent on a fight against people neither Matsuri or Suzu have any meaningful connection to.
I did recently consider the only other ones who could stand up the Gogyosen that aren't under their authority were him and Rochka. Which I didn't want because the Ayakashi Medium trio were already enough.
With Matsuri and Suzu both incapacitated, we're at that stage of a battle where supporting characters will fight the villain until they're back up.
There's another new chapter next week, which will be four in a row, while there's usually only three. Most likely this is compensating for the previous break after only two chapters.
When Soga gives Matsuri that box, it's gonna look like proposing with a wedding ring. It'd be an appropriate thing for Matsuri to notice, given they should remember when Girl Matsuri asked about being Soga's bride and Boy Matsuri saw him stare lovingly at Girl Matsuri. But I'm not hopeful of that even if this is close to the ending.
Whatever Matsuri's supposed to get, it probably includes an outfit change. I just hope isn't not comically skimpy unless the manga is willing make the tone a lot sillier along with it.
I'm also having a hard time guessing the function of the "special item", especially when the problem is "Matsuri is too injured to stand". So I'll throw out a wild guess: it's a reversed imitation of the Gogyosen's own jutsu, which will actually split girl Matsuri off into an ayakashi, who can merge Suzu to produced a fusion still capable of fighting.
The suits are another Black Cat reference, to the Chronos Numbers. Kotobuki is based on Train Heartnet, though different enough it's only obvious now* that he pulled out a gun with similar engraving.
It was never stated Garaku can make waterproof constructs without ink, but it makes sense in hindsight. Washing the ink off the seal he put on Matsuri did not remove it. When he was patching up Mei's injury, he outright said "I'm converting my ayakashi energy into paint" and we've seen her swim and bathe without it opening her injuries.
Even in Suzu's big time to shine, she's still talking about Matsuri. Which is made a bit more palatable by how "her memories of Matsuri are her power" having a literal meaning of "she stares at Matsuri so much, it taught her martial arts".
I wondered why the previous chapter that connected Ayakashi Triangle to Yamato Gensouki showed Iyo but not Shion. So is Suzu noticing their resemblance basically a Lampshade Hanging or hint at some literal connection?
Edited by thatother1dude on Aug 13th 2023 at 11:35:58 AM
Chapter 141: I think I forgot that Matsuri wearing normal underwear was like training for his spiritual power, and apparently the fundoshi lets him unleash it all. The real joke was that the fundoshi turns Suzu on enough that they're able to fire a wave motion beam out of horniness. Never change, Yabuki-sensei.
Editing a post doesn't mark it as unread, so other posters are gonna miss that you did that.
And yes, it appears I was wrong about it lasting to volume 17. Volume 15 and 16 will have an extra chapter or two each, so we probably have two or three chapters left (or the equivalent length in longer chapters).

Honestly if this is the last arc, maybe it'll just be a super convenient 'oh look combine them and now Matsuri's a guy again and none of this actually mattered at all'.