is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by

Yuji Kaku is a Japanese manga artist. After working as an editor, Kaku began working as manga artist in 2009 with ''Memory Customs'', a one-shot published in ''Jump Square''. In 2013, he launched his first series, ''Fantasma''. After working as an assi ...

. It was serialized in

Shueisha (lit. "Gathering of Intellect Publishing Co., Ltd.") is a Japanese company headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The company was established in 1925 as the entertainment-related publishing division of Japanese publisher Shogakukan. The foll ...

's ''shōnen'' manga magazine ''

Weekly Shōnen Jump is a weekly ''shōnen'' manga anthology published in Japan by Shueisha under the ''Jump'' line of magazines. The manga series within the magazine consist of many action scenes and a fair amount of comedy. The chapters of the series that run ...

'' from November 2021 to May 2022.

Plot

is an unusually strong boy and an avid manga fan who dreams to be a "manga hero". Repeating the special training that appears in manga that he has read since early age, Maruo became able to break rocks at the age of seven. One day, he meets , an ''

oni An is a kind of ''yōkai'', demon, orc, ogre, or troll in Japanese folklore. Oni are mostly known for their fierce and evil nature manifested in their propensity for murder and cannibalism. Notwithstanding their evil reputation, oni possess ...

'' ''ayashimon''—a kind of ''

yōkai are a class of supernatural entities and spirits in Japanese folklore. The word is composed of the kanji for "attractive; calamity" and "apparition; mystery; suspicious." are also referred to as , or . Despite often being translated as suc ...

'' able to shapeshift into humans—chased by an ''ayashimon'' ''

yakuza , also known as , are members of transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police and media, by request of the police, call them , while the ''yakuza'' call themselves . The English equivalent for the ter ...

'' gang. After Maruo easily defeats the gang, Urara, impressed by his strength and by the fact that he is a simple human and not an ''ayashimon'', recruits him as the first member of her ''yakuza'' group. Maruo, hesitant at first, accepts her offer, realizing that he can experience life as a manga protagonist following the path of a ''yakuza''.

Publication

Written and illustrated by

, ''Ayashimon'' was serialized in

's ''shōnen'' manga magazine ''

'' from November 15, 2021, to May 30, 2022. The first collected ''

tankōbon is the Japanese term for a book that is not part of an anthology or corpus. In modern Japanese, the term is most often used in reference to individual volumes of a manga series: most series first appear as individual chapters in a weekly or ...

'' volume was published on March 4, 2022. The manga was simultaneously published in English by

Viz Media VIZ Media LLC is an American manga publisher, anime distributor and entertainment company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1986 as VIZ LLC. In 2005, VIZ LLC and ShoPro Entertainment merged to form the current VIZ M ...

and Shueisha's ''

Manga Plus ''Manga Plus'' (stylized as ''MANGA Plus'') is an online manga platform and smartphone app owned by Shueisha that was launched on January 28, 2019. It is available worldwide except in Japan, China, and South Korea which already have their own se ...

'' online platform.

Volumes

References

External links

* * * {{Weekly Shōnen Jump - 2020–2029 Shōnen manga Shueisha manga Supernatural anime and manga Viz Media manga Anime and manga about the Yakuza Yōkai in anime and manga