LEDOOO-GEN

And overall, after several examples of veteran authors not working out in the magazine, even with high expectations, almost everyone was wary of Ayashimon. They asked themselves: “Is it going to be that good?”. Well, I'll be brief: The series has serious problems, but it also has emerging qualities that could render the series a more interesting product than it actually is. Without further ado, let's go to the review of the first 7 chapters (first volume) of Ayashimon.

Ayashimon starts with three color pages (two of them together) to present the universe of the series, a strategy that is used by several manga, as it is extremely effective. We typically see three uses of color pages in the first chapter:

    Universe introduction: Perhaps through a flashback of an important moment (Example: Birth of the protagonist, attack of a monster that will be relevant in the story or emergence of the main villain)
    Scene just before the beginning of the chapter: They are the simplest of all, it is very common for the initial colored page to be that, with a successive double page only artistic.
    Future Scene: Usually a Flashforward of a scene at the end of the chapter or a future moment that will be very important to the series (for example, the fight between the villain and the protagonist).

There are few mangas that escape these three schemes, they are already functional schemes and at the same time very general. Ayashimon chose the former, and sincerely introduced his universe very well. Soon we can understand that it is a world full of ayakashi and that they are related to yakuza – a mixture not entirely innovative, but which always arouses the curiosity of many readers -.

After the great color pages, the author started to develop a story. And immediately one sees the defects that will run through all the first seven chapters of the series. The first of them is the similarity with two Shueisha series: One Punch Man and MASHLE, which is already a comedy of the first. The manga follows the same scheme as the funny protagonist who defeats enemies with one punch. In addition to this formula being a little saturated (Both One Punch Man and MASHLE are trying to distance themselves from this concept), Ayashimon fails to understand how the very formula he uses works.

What accrues to both MASHLE and One Punch Man is that they were initially COMEDY works, intended to make readers laugh. As the chapters progress and the Battle-Shounen elements increase, the frequency in which the protagonist and enemies are defeated by a fist decrease (in this case, giving more prominence to secondary characters). This is because victory with a fist served for these series as an ANTI-CLIMATE comedy:

    Anti-Climate Comedy: In this case, it would be the use of an anti-climax to break, in a comical way, the spectator's expectation. The author in the case presents an extremely potent enemy, which seems to be one of the biggest creatures and opponents in existence, and that in a normal Battle-Shoune, would have to pass several volumes to be defeated. However, with a simple fist, the protagonist defeats him. It's a deconstruction of the Battle-Shounen concept that makes the reader laugh.

The problem is that, if the author wants to propose something more serious, this concept ends up not working, because it is the construction of the tension between the two adversaries that makes the readers like the fights of the B-Shounens.

Narrative deconstruction works with comedies, but not with more serious manga, in fact, we have the opposite effect, creating in the reader a disappointment that the battle did not take place. And this is where the author, Yuuji Kaku fails. Not realizing that MASHLE and One Punch Man are comedies that morphed into Battle-Shounen (and with increasing seriousness, that deconstruction has diminished). Ayashimon is not a dramatic manga, but it is much more serious than a comedy. It certainly takes itself more seriously than the two aforementioned manga, and this ends up not matching the “One Punch Man” formula.

Literalmente todas as batalhas até o capítulo 7 terminaram rápidamente, com um esquema parecido: O vilão que dá uma sequência de golpes no protagonista (que se anima por ter sido golpeado), para logo depois a batalha terminar com a primeira investida do herói. Talvez não no primeiro punnho, mas certamente na sua primeira investida. O autor ainda tenta empurrar uma narrativa que o protagonista deve utilizar a “sua cabeça para poder vencer”, mas em nenhum combate vemos a necessidade dele utilizar uma real estratégia; é simplesmente frustante.

The second problem of the series also falls on the protagonist's lap: His personality is unbearable and is, in my opinion, the main reason why I ended up not liking Ayashimon. Maruo is empty, uninteresting, generic and irritating, and his companion Urara, even though she's a better character, can't make up for how unbearable Maruo is. The way in which the author tries to reassert certain aspects of his personality (how he is a MANGA FAN or how he LOVES to FIGHT) is what makes Maruo such a boring character; their motivations are also unconvincing. By the way, references to older manga are nice, but nothing new: We have at least five manga in the magazine that continually reference other works.

In conclusion, Ayashimon's last major flaw is the lack of chemistry between the two protagonists: Maruo and Urara simply seem like two characters from two different stories placed in a single manga. The reader is not conveyed a feeling of friendship, love, companionship, hatred, rivalry, between the two. The author even tries to emulate some emotions in the relationship between the two, but he always sounds cold and salty.

But Ayashimon doesn't have only flaws. It has a “NEUTRAL” and a “QUALITY” element. Its neutral element is art, which even though it is good, I believe that the author's previous work delivered better paintings. Yuuji Kaku has a more 80s art, in many simple moments, but with a unique design, this is seen on a small scale in Ayashimon, but it still hasn't gotten as interesting as it was in Jigokuraku, the author's previous work.

Finally, his great quality is the universe, which he presented so well on the initial color page: When the protagonists enter the world of the Ayakashi, the story becomes more interesting (even keeping all the aforementioned defects), this happens because this monster reality together with the yakuza is very curious and catches my attention. The Yakuza's subdivision into several clans, each with its own characteristic and level, gives enormous potential to the story.

Ayashimon, in my opinion, delivered a bad first volume – with an irritating protagonist, a misuse of an already saturated formula and with an interaction between characters that doesn't work – but in compensation it has a universe that I find attractive. Knowing the author, I still believe that Ayashimon can improve, but it is necessary to focus a little more on his universe and solve the aforementioned problems. For now, it's a manga with bad chapters.