Today, the 144th and final chapter of Yabuki Kentarou’s Ayakashi Triangle was published on Shueisha‘s Shounen Jump+ website, ending the manga’s three-year run. The sixteenth and final volume including all remaining chapters will be out on December 12, 2023.
A Jump veteran, Yabuki got his start on Weekly Shounen Jump in 1999 with Yamato Gensouki, which however only ran for two volumes. Much more successful was his second series Black Cat, running from 2000 to 2004 for twenty volumes and receiving an animated adaptation by Gonzo. He later teamed up with writer Hasemi Saki and illustrated the To Love-ru series from 2006 to 2009, which featured very similar characters to those of Black Cat. In 2010, he illustrated a manga adaptation of Matsu Tomohiro’s Mayoi Neko Overrun! (though it was inexplicably discontinued a year later), while also working with Hasemi on the sequel series To Love-ru Darkness.
After illustrating the Hatena Illusion light novel series, he also published a manga adaptation of the Darling in the Franxx anime from 2018 to 2020 on the Shounen Jump+ website. Finally, he published the Reo x Leo one-shot on February 9, 2019, on Weekly Shounen Jump, which would become the inspiration for Ayakashi Triangle, sharing the same theme of romantic attraction that transcends sex and gender while adding folklore and mythology elements.
“AyaTora” itself started June 15, 2020, on Weekly Shounen Jump, before ending publication there on April 18, 2022 and resuming on April 26 on the Shounen Jump+ website, while including previous chapters (except for chapters 74 and 75, which were only published on the magazine and physical volume print). As of August 2022, the series’ first nine volumes sold more than 1,300,000 copies. Viz Media initially licensed the series in English on the MANGA Plus website but also withheld chapters 74 and 75 while terminating volume sales around the same time. Seven Seas Entertainment later picked up the license and released an uncut edition, both digitally and in print.
An animated adaptation produced by Connect (Strike the Blood, Armed Girl’s Machiavellism, Slow Loop) was announced on December 18, 2021, during Jump Festa 2022. It premiered on January 10, 2023, on GYT and other networks, but suffered production delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and went on hiatus between March and July 2023. The twelfth and final episode will air on September 26, 2023. Crunchyroll licensed the series in English.
On one hand, the Kazamaki ninja clan, are hunters of malevolent apparitions (or ayakashi) who wield powerful wind techniques. On the other, the so-called “ayakashi miko“, were born with exceptionally high life energy that attracts ayakashi to their side, and were once offered in sacrifice to them. Kazamaki clan youth Matsuri wishes to spare his childhood friend Kanade Suzu, an ayakashi miko, the same fate, and the two frequently clash on whether or not all ayakashi are harmful. It’s not until an ancient and powerful cat ayakashi called Shirogane approaches Suzu in disguise, and Matsuri fights to protect her, that the two realize each other’s feelings. But Shirogane refuses to be nothing more than the catalyst that brings a pair of lovestruck teenagers together: before Matsuri’s sealing scroll can finish him off, he uses the last of his strength to cast a curse on Matsuri… which turns him into a woman! What shape will their relationship take from now on?
