Kakuriyo: Bed and Breakfast for Spirits (Kakuriyo no Yadomeshi in Japanese) is a Japanese light novel series written by Midori Yūma and illustrated by Laruha, which began publication in 2015. A manga adaptation was drawn by Wako Ioka in 2016. A 26-episode anime television series adaptation by Gonzo premiered on April 2, 2018.
Basically Japanese Mythology meets Cooking Stories, meets Arranged Marriage.
Kind but practical college student Aoi Tsubaki has the ability to see Ayakashi (spirits or demons), a trait she inherited from her recently deceased grandfather. In the habit of feeding ayakashi in the Apparent Realm (the human world), she gives food to a hungry ayakashi at a shrine. But soon after, our heroine is kidnapped by said ayakashi - an ogre called only "The Master" (O-danna-sama). He takes her to the Hidden Realm - where all the Ayakashi live and reveals himself to be the innkeeper of a prestigious establishment called Tenjin'ya. And, more importantly, Aoi's late grandfather owed him a debt and had promised Aoi as collateral - meaning that as compensation, Aoi must marry the ogre. Aoi negotiates with the Ogre instead, choosing to work off her grandfather's debt by cooking at a restaurant at the inn.
However this deal comes with a time-limit, and Aoi finds herself in a Beauty and the Beast style situation (complete with magical flower), as if she cannot pay off the debt, she will be forced to marry the Master - which, as the story progresses, starts to look like less of a chore. Other plot points involve Aoi's tragic past, her different interactions with other employees at the inn and the dangers of malicious ayakashi.
Has been compared to Kamisama Kiss.
Kakuriyo: Bed and Breakfast for Spirits contains examples of:
- Abduction Is Love: The plot kicks off with Odanna abducting Aoi to Tenjin'ya. She is not happy about this.
- Accidental Marriage: Though it's an arranged marriage to pay off a debt, the suddenness of the reveal has shades of this.
- Aliens Love Human Food: Ayakashi are rather fond of certain dishes and food items from the human world so it is a small surprise that Aoi soon finds work as a cook.
- All-Loving Hero: Aoi is nice to everyone she meets and ends up taking care of people who actively despised her or tried to cause her harm on multiple occasions, such as Akatsuki and Oryo.
- Arranged Marriage: Aoi is in one courtesy of her grandfather, Shiro. Her finding out about it, when her would be husband abducts her no less, and her subsequent attempts to get out of it form the plot of the series.
- Asian Fox Spirit: Ginji.
- Bar Full of Aliens: Fantasy version of this as both the inns Tenjin'ya and Orio'ya serve alcohol.
- Cast Full of Pretty Boys: Odanna, Ginji, Akatsuki and even Byakuya all apply.
- Cerebus Syndrome: While the series doesn't stop being light-hearted and optimistic it does take a slightly darker tone when Ranmaru forcibly brings Aoi and Ginji to Orio'ya and Raiju shows up.
- Connected All Along: When she was a child Aoi was saved from starving to death by a mysterious masked ayakashi. When she gets to the ayakashi realm she immediately tries to find said ayakashi and asks Ginji to help. Turns out said ayakashi is Ginji.
- Cute Monster Girl: Kasuga the Tanuki with her raccoon ears applies. Subverted by Suzuran's ayakashi form, as she turns into a massive earth spider - and is pretty handy in a fight.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Odanna is an oni, a creature usually depicted as capricious and hedonistic - and he is those things, but also shows a genuine concern for Aoi's happiness.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Aoi ends up causing this to happen to multiple people. Examples include Ranmaru, Akatsuki, Byakuya, Oryo, Hideyoshi, etc...
- Extraordinary World, Ordinary Problems: Aoi gets yanked into the world of ayakashi and what does she end up doing? Trying to find a job at the inn Tenjin'ya to pay off the debt her grandfather saddled her with. Trying to open and run a restaurant. Helping prepare for a local festival. Trying to find somebody she once met during her childhood. Dealing with hostile co-workers. Etc....
- Famous Ancestor: Aoi's grandfather was rather famous in the ayakashi realm, something she was surprised to learn about. She is less pleased with the debt his escapades in said realm left her with.
- Fantastic Racism: Many of the inn's inhabitants feel Aoi makes an inappropriate bride and employee because she is a human.
- Festival Episode: Happens twice, once with Tenjin'ya and once with Orio'ya. Aoi does the cooking for both festivals.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: Aoi in the Hidden Realm and Tenjin'ya.
- Food Porn: Lots of loving shots of Aoi's cooking.
- Geisha: Suzuran is a very popular geisha in the capital.
- Horrifying the Horror: Raiju, who is a very powerful demon and a nasty piece of work, is terrified of Tenjin'ya's chief accountant Byakuya.
- I'm a Humanitarian: The ayakashi are outright stated to eat humans on occasion, which is why Aoi was taught how to cook. Giving an ayakashi tasty food can discourage them from eating a human.
- Impossibly Delicious Food: Central to the plot is Aoi's skill as a chef and how everybody falls in love with her cooking when they try it.
- Important Hair Accessory: Odanna gives Aoi a camellia hairpin made out of rose quartz that resembles a real flower blooming. Story wise it serves as a timer for Aoi to pay her debt; the time limit expires when the bud does bloom in full.
- Inn Between the Worlds: Tenjin'ya is an ayakashi inn that houses a portal connecting the human and ayakashi realms. It mainly serves as a rest stop for ayakashi coming from or going to the human world.
- Interspecies Romance: Aoi and her relationship with Odanna and Ginji is the main focus of the series but there are others like Nuinoin and Ritsuko.
- Little Bit Beastly: There are several examples in the series with a couple of the most prominent being Ginji and Ranmaru.
- Love Triangle: One starts to develop between Aoi, Odanna and Ginji. Aoi is in a pre-arranged marriage contract with Odanna she wants out of initially but the more that she stays around him the more she starts to like him. Meanwhile, Ginji was the one who acted the nicest to Aoi when she arrived at Tenjin'ya and they grow progressively closer as the series goes on. There is also the little fact that Aoi promised to marry Ginji when she was little, something Ginji has not forgotten.
- Mundane Luxury: Ayakashi are particularly fond of sweet food. Chocolate bars, ice cream and other food items imported from the human realm are considered delicacies.
- Parental Abandonment: Hooo boy, Aoi's father is never seen, and her mother just up and leaves one day, almost causing her very young daughter to starve to death - if not for the intervention of a mysterious ayakashi.
- Punny Name: Odanna-sama means "master of the household", as he is the innkeeper, and carries a more archaic meaning of "husband".
- Really 700 Years Old: Most of the ayakashi qualify as they were all alive long before Aoi was born. Ginji in particular makes a comment about watching Dutch trade ships coming into port in Nagasaki. The Dutch trading outpost in Dejima, Nagasaki lasted from 1634 to 1854; meaning Ginji is, at minimum, over 170 years old at the youngest and Ginji, Ranmaru and Odanna are stated to be pretty close in age.
- Real Men Cook: The majority of male characters are capable of making at least some dishes by themselves.
- Serious Business: Apparently the ayakashi take their cooking very seriously and Aoi preparing a meal for a festival is treated as a grave undertaking.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Most characters have one and Aoi spends a great deal of time trying to find out what it is for everybody she meets so she can fix it for them.
- Trapped in Another World: Aoi when she gets taken to the ayakashi realm against her will. She does eventually get the opportunity to go back to the human world.
- Token Human: Aoi is the only human character in the main cast and the only human staff member at both Tenjin'ya and Orio'ya.
- Urban Fantasy: The story takes place in modern day Japan, albeit a good chunk of it is spent in the ayakashi realm.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Several characters demonstrate this ability on occasion.
- Akatsuki and his sister Suzuran alternate between human forms, giant spiders and smaller sized spiders.
- Ranmaru alternates between his normal near human form, a giant wolf and small dog form.
- Ginji, being a Kitsune, takes the cake. We have currently seen his normal near-humanoid form, him disguised as an ordinary human, him changing into a woman and a small child, a giant nine-tailed fox form, and a normal-sized fox form with nine tails.
- Work Off the Debt: The main underlying plot is that Aoi's grandfather, Shiro, saddled her with a large debt to the ayakashi inn Tenjin'ya and she has two options to get rid of said debt. Either enter into Arranged Marriage with the inn's headmaster or work off the debt in a short amount of time. The story then follows her attempts to pay off the debt and get out of the marriage contract.
- You Sexy Beast: Many of the ayakashi are...not unattractive. Especially Odanna and Ginji.
