“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 was given 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 there being 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 set 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 having 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.