Clockwise: Kazuya Kagami, Sunao Sumeragi and Kotetsu, Kukuri-Hime-no-Kami, Kiriha, Azami, Arumi Ashimine, Mimane Miyō, Akito Ashimine
Kazuya Kagami never goes anywhere without the precious Sakura Obi his mother gave him. One day a beautiful, kimono-clad girl named Kiriha appeared before him. Kiriha naturally began to live with Kazuya in his room. Then there's Chisato, Kazuya's childhood friend with glasses and a ponytail, who meddles in his affairs. Soon there's also an overprotective older sister who seems to want to take baths with him. Jumble in a huge-chested miko, beautiful women, and hot girls, and Kazuya's happy, embarrassing, confusing life begins!
Tsugumomo originated as a manga written and illustrated by Yoshikazu Hamada. It has been running since 2007, and is published by Futabasha in a few of their magazines. It has been collected in 14 volumes. An anime adaptation was aired as part of the spring 2017 anime broadcasting season. It premiered on April 6, 2017, and can be legally viewed subbed on Crunchyroll here,
and dubbed by Funimation here. A crowdfunded OVA was completed in 2019, along with announcement for a second season that premiered in April 2020.
Note: Due to the extreme NSFW nature of the manga being in violation of TV Tropes' content policies, only tropes related to the anime are permitted.
Tropes in Tsugumomo:
- Attack Reflector: One of Mimane's abilities lets her absorb attacks into her mirror and fire them back.
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: In contrast to the NSFW manga, in the anime adaptation both nipples and genitals are absent... at least in the TV version. The Japanese Blu-ray version, however, is completely uncensored.
- Beware the Quiet Ones: Kazuya's Classmate Osamu, in two words: Flare Dragon.
- Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: Sunao's father clearly doesn't like his daughter handed away to marriage. Good thing her mother can mitigate him... with comical amount of violence.
- Bring My Brown Pants: Kyouka the flute Tsukumogami urinates herself when Kazuya stops short of killing her in his Ascension state.
- Brother–Sister Incest:
- Kazuya's older sister Kazumi had non-sisterly feelings for him since they were children, enjoys bathing with him, and at many opportunities offers her body as a means of comforting him or "teaching him the joys of older women" (when Kazuya is Mistaken for Pedophile).
- Arumi also has feelings for her brother Akito, but since both are Tsukumogami the trope is downplayed.
- Casanova Wannabe: Shirou Shiramine, Kazuya's friend, has confessed to over a hundred girls, and has been rejected every time.
- Chick Magnet: Kazuya progressively gets more and more girls attracted to him throughout the story, both human and tsukumogami.
- Combat Clairvoyance: When Akito (the scissor Tsukumogami) and Arumi (a crystal ball Tsukumogami) synchronize their thoughts with special amulets, they have this ability.
- Combat Tentacles: Kiriha can generate up to eight multipurpose sheets of fabric she can use as tentacles.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Kanaka not only utterly defeated the Mayoiga Tsukumogami, she severely injured Taguri and Yagokoro and even killed Kukuri and Kiriha.
- Doom Magnet: Kazuya is a sort of catalyst for the malevolent tsukumogami to form.
- Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Kazuya gets regularly beaten up by Kiriha and often less by other females. Other male characters fell victim to this trope such as Chisato smacking Shiro and Osamu or Sunao punching Kotetsu in the face.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Kiriha is a Lovable Sex Maniac who frequently molests Kazuya, ignoring his protests.
- Establishing Character Moment: A humorous one. The second thing Kokuyou does when she first appears is fill a restaurant table with empty plates.
- Extra Oredinary: Taguri's power is to control metals, especially money.
- Eyes Always Shut: Taguri Kaneyama is usually seen like this, but she opens them on occasion.
- Fighting a Shadow: When Kazuya, Kiriha and his friends enter a dream to stop a pillow Amasogi, they end up fighting their shadow selves. As Bakura indicates, losing to a shadow means being absorbed by it, with your personality replaced in the real world.
- Gods Need Prayer Badly: Kukuri maintains a petite appearance due to general lack of faith (and by extension, donations) from the surrounding cities.
- Heroic RRoD: Ascension mode leaves its user unable to move for about a day.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: What the Mayoiga Tsukumogami believe, and not without reason, since all of them were mistreated by their owners in the past; and there's a faction in Tsuzura Temple that believes in enslaving the Tsukumogami and disposing of rebellious ones.
- Identical Twin ID Tag: The two Azami can be distinguished by their clothes: one wears a black kimono and the other wears a black schoolgirl uniform.
- I Know Your True Name: Tsukumogamis are forced to obey any command given by their owner when using their true names, although it's useless if they can't hear it.
- Immortal Immaturity:
- Kiriha is introduced as a brash, lewd, obnoxious brat of a girl, though she does display the occasional moments of tenderness.
- Despite trying her hardest to maintain the decorum expected of a goddess and generally being much more mature than Kiriha, Kukuri occasionally acts her apparent age.
- Innocent Fanservice Girl: Kokuyou is a 'does not comprehend nudity/sexual taboo' version, though she is pretty low-key about it.
- Kill the God: What the Mayoiga Tsukumogami did and have to do, since they need the stone shard of a God's body to continue the existence of their master-free home, less they return to being ordinary objects. After Miurahi is killed by Kanaka, the remaining Tsukumogami agree to help Kazuya in finding new homes and masters for them.
- Knight of Cerebus: The moment Kanaka is revived by Azami, things get really serious.
- Little Miss Badass: Kukuri fends off the tsukumogami intent on killing her with ease, depowered as she was.
- Making a Splash: Kukuri's can create and control water, fitting as her status as a water goddess.
- Monster of the Week: At first the series consisted in Kazuya and his friends fighting Amasogi.
- Oblivious to Love: While Kazuya isn't oblivious to Kiriha and Kukuri's affections, he completely misses Chisato or Sunao's feelings. Akito is also oblivious to Arumi's feelings for him.
- Paper Fan of Doom: Chisato's weapon of choice to punish Kazuya (and specially Shirou).
- Polyamory: Hinted multiple times to be an acceptable resolution to Kazuya's Unwanted Harem.
- Sdrawkcab Name: Tadataka Tadata has the palindromic version.
- Secretly Gay Activity: In the present, Psycho Lesbian and Comedic Lolicon Taguri Kanayama disguises her sexual activities with Kiriha and Kukuri as being part of a game of chance. Even when the stakes of the game involve things like licking, kissing or dressing in sexy outfits, she pretends that it's just harmless fun for the three girls. At one point, Kiriha even tries to help Kukuri and Kaguya cheat by claiming to Taguri that she needed help going to the bathroom—an offer to which Taguri immediately jumps up and drags Kiriha to the bathroom to "help her" with. (It ends up backfiring anyway, since Taguri had already set up backup rules to the game that stated no one was allowed to change the board or cards except herself.)
- Shadow Archetype: In "Swapped!", which is loaded with Jungian symbolism, Kayuza and Kiriha must defeat their shadow-selves inside the dreamworld.
- Shotgun Wedding: Sunao's mother attempts to force her to marry Kazuya after she loses her duel to him. Her father is vehemently against this, but his attempts to intervene end up hitting Sunao instead and result in his wife violently punishing him.
- Sleep-Mode Size:
- Kiriha starts off looking like a teenager, but after fighting Kukuri she expends so much power that she reverts to a prepubescent form. This doesn't stop her from molesting Kazuya and Kukuri, and she starts developing as she regains her power.
- Due to expending so much of her power maintaining the protective barrier around the town while not receiving the requisite worship to maintain her powers, Kukuri relies on magic masks to maintain her adult form. When they're removed she reverts to a childlike form even younger-looking than Kiriha's.
- Super Mode: Ascension mode involves fusing with one's Tsukumogami, gaining an enormous boost in power signified by Mystical White Hair and a mark appearing on the user's forehead.
- Tamer and Chaster: The manga becomes increasingly pornographic, with a lot of questionable content being played for laughs and fanservice, including content of the non-consensual and even pedophilic kind. The author admits he tries to have at least one naked female character per chapter, and his goal is to show all the female characters naked at least once. The anime adaptation greatly tones down the NSFW content for a PG-13 rating — at least when it comes to the televised version.
- The Heartless: Amasogi are Tsukumogami born from peoples' negative emotions and desires and the best way to deal with them is making the person that created it to destroy it personally, otherwise the person will suffer from a curse backlash.
- Theme Twin Naming: Twins Urara and Sarara, the Shoe Tsukumogami.
- Time Master: Saori the Hourglass, Kazumi's Tsukumogami partner, although it only works on a certain area and affects everything equally.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Sunao at first was arrogant and bratty, but after losing against Kazuya, not only she apologizes for her past actions, but starts treating her Tsukumogami Kotetsu as a partner, although she's still a Tsundere.
- Tsundere:
- Despite the beatings Kiriha gives to Kazuya, she genuinely does care about him.
- After developing feelings for Kazuya, Sunao is outwardly harsh but blushes and stammers when he's sweet towards her — best illustrated when they were pretending to have sex.
- Underestimating Badassery:
- Sunao didn't think Kazuya was worthy of being a tsukumogami wielder and challenged him to combat. After some time training, not only did he get stronger in such a short time but developed a technique that trumped her own. Which ironically enough she would use later.
- As Kukuri demonstrated, just because she's weakened doesn't mean she's gonna be easy to kill, as the assassins from Mayoiga found out. None of them survive the encounter.
- Unwanted Harem: Kazuya has to put up with majority of the girls molesting, perving out, and falling in love with him, more or less unwillingly.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Kiriha and Kukuri may bicker and fight almost all the time, but were once lovers and when push comes to shove they're stalwart allies.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Every Tsukumogami is affected by objects that restrict them in object mode, such as a mirror cover for Mimane, or a scissor case for Akito.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Mayoiga Tsukumogami only want to preserve their home where they aren't abused by humans, and the only way to do it is by killing a god and taking its stone shard.
- Willing Channeler: The basic mechanic behind Ascension. Requires a great deal of trust between both exorcist and Tsukumogami as the exorcist must allow themself to be possessed without their partner overwhelming their consciousness.
- Youkai: Mainly of the tsukumogami variant.
