Manga / Ayakashi Triangle

Color Page for Chapter #14^CharactersCenter: Matsuri. Clockwise from top: Lu, Suzu, Garaku, Shirogane, Soga (with Ponosuke on his arm), and Yayo

Ayakashi Triangle (あやかしトライアングル) is a manga by Kentaro Yabuki that began running in Weekly Shonen Jump in June 2020 and moved to Jump+ in April 2022, concluding in September 2023 at 144 chapters over 16 volumes.

Matsuri Kazamaki and Suzu Kanade are a teenage boy and girl who grew up close together because of their shared ability to see ayakashi, spirits that are invisible to most people. Suzu is an "ayakashi medium" whose spiritual power attracts ayakashi for good and ill. Learning this years ago inspired Matsuri to follow his family tradition and become an exorcist ninja who could protect her and others from dangerous ayakashi.

The day before the two were to start high school, Shirogane, the King of Ayakashi, reveals Suzu's nature to her and attempts to eat her to take her power for his own. Matsuri is able to seal away his power before that happens, but not before Shirogane casts a spell that turns Matsuri female.

With no way to reverse the spell, Matsuri is forced to live publicly as a girl for the foreseeable future. Together, he and Suzu try to find some way to get the heavily-weakened Shirogane to reverse the transformation, all the while dealing with other ayakashi and Suzu's growing power.

Ayakashi Triangle marks Yabuki's return to Weekly Shonen Jump after the original run of To Love Ru ended in 2009, and the first time he has written and drawn a series by himself since Black Cat wrapped up in 2004. It is based on Yabuki's previous six-page oneshot Reo × Leo (れお×レオ), which was published in Jump as part of "J Romcom Festival!" for Valentine's Day 2019.

Chapters are officially released in English the same day they are published in Japan, on Manga Plus (website and app). The chapters from the Weekly Shonen Jump run are available on Viz Media's website (though not the Shonen Jump app). Manga Plus also has simultaneous release of chapters in Spanish. The Japanese publication moved from Shonen Jump to the digital app Shonen Jump + in Spring 2022. As with its sister series, Seven Seas Entertainment has picked the English license for an uncut physical (and digital) release of the collected volumes.

A televised anime adaptation was announced at Jump Festa 2022. It's produced by Connect and premiered in January 2023, but due to industry-wide production issues the latter half of twelve episodes were delayed until August, coincidentally ending just after the manga. The first trailer for the anime can be found here.

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Tropes:

A-C

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: Matsuri's pinwheel is drawn using a 3D model, which is why its complicated design always looks exactly the same. For informal sketches, the artist hand-draws a flat, simplified version. The anime uses CG when the pinwheel spins, but otherwise draws it as flat, resembling a manji.
• Aborted Arc: When Garaku first tells Suzu to start training her spiritual powers, he says she has the potential to become an "ayakashi god". Although her training becomes a recurring aspect of the series, and it's shown a fully-realized ayakashi medium has basically unlimited power, any mention of an "ayakashi god" is dropped a few chapters later.
• Aborted Declaration of Love: Suzu tries to confess to Matsuri, but gets cold feet worrying he'd only love her like family, and pretends she just wanted to ask for sweet potato. Matsuri then reveals he already bought a sweet potato for her, something Suzu finds so kind and considerate, it gives her the courage to actually confess (while stuffing it into her mouth).
• Accidental Aiming Skills: When Haya has trouble practicing shuriken throwing, Ponosuke tries to show her up. He throws a kunai in entirely the wrong direction, but it still manages to hit Shadow Mei square in the head. Fortunately, her Battle Aura destroys the weapon on contact, but she still almost kills them over it.
• Accidental Time Travel: Suzu straying from the path to Uraomiko while wishing Matsuri had never been turned into a girl sends her to the time and space Matsuri was in a few hours before the transformation, seemingly in response to her own emotions.
• Achievements in Ignorance: When Matsuri is turned into a cat, Soga rescues him from an ikon. Still thinking he's a regular cat, Soga gives Matsuri a purifying bath in case he was infected by the ikon, which changes Matsuri back into a human. Judging by his reaction, Matsuri thought Soga did this all intentionally.
  Matsuri: So it can be broken by cleansing! Soga really knows what he's doing.
• Actor Allusion: At the end of the Recap Episode, Shirogane shouts "I'll be back." in Gratuitous English. Tesshō Genda voices both Shirogane and the T-800 from The Terminator.
• Adjective Noun Fred: A panel where Suzu taste-tests a donut has her refer to herself as Dessert Detective Suzu, which is accompanied by a fake logo that spells her name out with pastries.
  Shirogane: You already have plenty of titles. No need to add any nonsensical ones.
• Aesop Amnesia: Once Soga learns Matsuri is in love with Suzu, he tells Matsuri not to let having a female body stop him from pursuing Suzu romantically. Despite seeming convinced, later chapters show Matsuri still thinks he has no chance unless he can reverse his transformation. Eventually, Matsuri comes to the outright opposite conclusion: he shouldn't date Suzu as a girl, regardless of what she wants, simply because he still considers himself a guy.
• Affectionate Pickpocket: Inverted in one chapter where Shadow Mei sneaks a small iyo into Matsuri's body while hugging him.
• Ageless Birthday Episode: One chapter is about Matsuri's first birthday after starting high school and becoming a girl. Although it has a specific date (August 8th) that implies he turned sixteen, no one says a specific age then or chapters set months later.
• Alien Fair Folk: One ayakashi possessed a cymbal and flew around near a road, causing people to report UFOs. When Lu investigates the area, she runs into Shirogane, who had shapeshifted into Matsuri's male form. She had only seen that form in her dream, so she assumes "Shiromatsu" was a psychic alien and his ninja gear was a spacesuit. Shirogane decides to go along with it, and when he leaves her, the cymbal ayakashi passes overhead, convincing Lu he'd flown off to space.
• Almost Kiss:
  • As Matsuri grabs Suzu's protectively in Chapter 2, their faces get within inches of an Accidental Kiss. Matsuri didn't notice because he was looking away at Suzu's attacker, but Suzu was looking straight at Matsuri, her thoughts showing a mix of surprise and excitement.
  • An ayakashi in a haunted houses ends up making Suzu and Matsuri reenact the lives of the couple who used to lived there, which they don't really resist even as it's about to make them kiss. They're stopped, and freed from its control, by Suzu's inner ayakashi medium, who's displeased they would accept such "false happiness".
  • Suzu tries to kiss Matsuri twice in a row after they confess love for each other, but he dodges the first and Shirogane smacks her in the head for the second.
  • After losing a keepsake of Matsuri, Suzu asks him for a kiss as a condolence. He obliges, but is cut off when Une reveals she found the lost object. Suzu then grabs Matsuri while begging to continue, but he refuses.
• Alone with the Psycho: Sosuke is able to get Suzu alone in a secluded area by approaching her when Matsuri was otherwise occupied, getting Lu and Yayo to think he was interested in Suzu romantically, and informing her of an ayakashi injured by the road. Once Suzu uses her powers, Sosuke devours the ayakashi that she healed, grabs her, and disappears.
• Alternate Identity Amnesia:
  • Matsuri spends some time hypnotized into believing he was always a girl, showing a completely different personality that lacked his original memories. After changing back, Matsuri regards the things he did as a "weird dream" that he doesn't dwell on.
  • Suzu merging with Shirogane somewhat makes her behave like a cat, and blurs her memory of what she did until they separate.
• Always in Class One: Suzu, Matsuri, Yayo, and Lu are in Hokusai High School class 1-A.
• Ambiguously Absent Parent: Until the end of the fifth volume, Matsuri is only shown living with his grandfather, and the single reference to his parents was Muga thinking he looks like his mother. Then his mother shows up, and it's revealed she moved for work eight years ago. His father was already "not around" by that point, and apparently hasn't been since.
• Ambiguous Clone Ending: Discussed by Matoi when there's a boy and girl Matsuri. She knows one is physically the human original and the other a duplicate, even if they don't know which yet. But the copy's mind was an exact copy, so they're still functionally the same person.
  Matoi: It's true that one of them is an ayakashi... there can only be one physical body. But even if the body's an ayakashi, it's hard to say it's a fake if the personality's real.
• Amnesia Episode: A two-chapter story has Matsuri put under hypnosis that makes him lose all his personal memories and believes he was always a girl. This causes Matsuri to reciprocate Soga's crush on him, but Soga is so put off by Matsuri's personality change that he doesn't feel any regret as he helps break the spell.
• Amnesiac Resonance: Even after Matsuri loses all his memories, he's still fond of Soga—but since Matsuri also thought he was always a girl, "she" falls in Love at First Sight. Then Matsuri's memories are restored and, in a comical aversion of Amnesiac Dissonance, he doesn't question this at all.
  Mei: Ninokuru is the only guy around the same age who Matsuri trusts and confides in. If the hypnosis makes him think he's a girl, of course Matsuri would be drawn to him!
• Anatomy of the Soul: The series loosely mixes together the concept of hun and po with qi/ki to get kon/hun/spiritual energy and haku/po/life energy. Humans possess both, but it seems other sapient lifeforms can possess just one or the other. Ayakashi only have haku, to the point they're entirely made of it. A piece of Matsuri's spirit was able to act independently when sent into Lu's mind (with an appearance representing his self-image rather than his current state), though he seemingly couldn't talk.
• Anchored Ship: Matsuri is against any kind of romantic relationship while he's still female, sidestepping the issue of sexual orientation by saying it's because he's "not really [himself] right now". Even after finding out Suzu still wants to date him when they're girls, Matsuri insists they wait until he's male again, though Suzu is clearly trying to convince him otherwise.
• And Here He Comes Now: Seconds after Shirogane describes Garaku taking after his creator by liking cats, Garaku pops up in the (second floor) window, celebrating that he finally found Shirogane.
• Animal Talk: Played with when Matsuri is turned into a cat, rendering him physically incapable of human speech, but still unable to understand or speak cats' language. Shirogane's attempt to communicate completely fails, but he does manage to hear what he wants to hear.
  Shirogane: How's this? Meow meow meooow meow!
  Matsuri (thinking): I don't speak cat! But...
  Matsuri (aloud): Meow meow meooow. (Can you understand me?)
  Shirogane: You wanna be my mate?!
  Matsuri (thinking): That's not what I said!
• Animals Lack Attributes: Averted; Shirogane has visible testicles and so does one regular cat viewed from the back. When Matsuri is turned into a cat, a back view shows a vulva. Oddly, male cats show no sign of a penis and an anus may or may not be present and drawn as an "X".
• Anywhere but Their Lips: Suzu once kissed Matsuri on his ear (possibly more than once).
• Arc Welding: Several minor ayakashi in the first volume have human faces and articles of clothing. The second volume introduces ikon, a type of amorphous ayakashi born from negative human emotions which are becoming strangely prevalent in Omiko City. It's then revealed in volume three that ikon gradually mutate to become more human-like, first to the aforementioned human-faced monsters, then to be flat-out able to pass for human.
• Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: One mission required Matsuri to get close to Suzu in her sleep. When the latter is woken up in front of Matsuri, she assumes he came to have sex. She pretends to still be asleep, hoping the very confused Matsuri will continue whatever she thinks he came to do.
• Armor-Piercing Response: When Matsuri is split into a boy and girl, the girl claims to be real because only she has the mark of the spell that first turned them female. The boy Matsuri incredulously replies that's proof the girl is a fake, as Matsuri was originally male and insisted he wouldn't be the "the real him" until he was a boy again. Girl Matsuri doesn't have any reply but to start a fight.
  Boy Matsuri: Just look in a mirror. Your silvery hair because of Shirogane. Your body. The Gender Swap Mark. All that came from being hit with Gender Swap Awakened.
• Art Imitates Art:
  • Garaku's animated drawings homage classic Japanese art. One is a swarm of rabbits and frogs, like those featured in Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga. Another is an octopus drawn like two in The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife.
  • As Soga enthusiastically encourages Matsuri, the background becomes a seastorm like what's shown in The Great Wave off Kanagawa.
• Ass Shove: When Reo goes to fight a kappa, she uses his habit of taking humans' shirikodama against him, putting a fake covered in anti-ayakashi poison in front. A bonus comic even shows her head poking out of a bush when she's preparing herself.
• Ate It All: Suzu tries to make food good enough to tame Shirogane, but her taste-testing repeatedly leads to her eating it all first.
• Attractive Bent Species: After Shadow Mei turns Matsuri into a cat, Shirogane's ranting about being above romance are cut off when he sees cat Matsuri and starts aggressively pursuing him. Matsuri is disgusted and so is Shirogane once he finds out, accusing Matsuri of leading him on.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Suzu and Matsuri stand back-to-back and arm-to-arm as they use the former's exploding paper and the latter's wind for a Combination Attack to destroy the legs of Rochka's Snowlem.
• The Backwards Я: The English volumes and serialized chapters from 50 onward use a logo◊ that's similar to the English text in the Japanese logo, but stylized as "AYAKASHI TRIΔNGLE". The Spanish logo◊ does the same for all four As, thus "ΔYΔKΔSHI TRIΔNGLE". The French logo◊ writes the title as "AYAKASHI TRIΛNGLE".
• Bait-and-Switch: Shadow Mei says she heard Suzu fused with Shirogane, then hands Matsuri the kind of bell that goes on a cat collar. What seems like a setup for Suzu to somehow train her new power was just a distraction, as the bell puts a curse on Matsuri the instant it touches him.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy:
  • Zig-zagged in the second chapter when Matsuri examines himself in the mirror: The full body view of his breast has blank space where his nipples would be, the closeup appears to have some areola around his fingers, and his reflection has a nipple visible as a tiny spec.
  • In most cases, nipples have very clear outlines in many shots, but no shading.
  • In a remarkable aversion, a Panty Shot of Matsuri in the fifth chapter has very blatant camel-toe and bits of female genitals poking out the side of his fundoshi.
  • The artists also reuses the To Love Ru trick of showing nipples and even female genitalia in reflection, particularly Shirogane's eyes, which partially obscures the sight with his slit pupils. This happens in Chapter 98 as he confronts Lucy, who suffered Demonic Posession while she was removing her panties for a bathroom break. Also happens in Chapter 117, when the Gogyosen's curse splits Matsuri into separate male and female bodies, and the latter falls on Shirogane.
  • Oddly enough, male characters are drawn with nipples in the rare cases they're seen shirtless, a detail the artist usually left out in his earlier work. This is particularly apparent with Matsuri's aforementioned split into a boy and girl, where the exact same panels will only show nipples on the former.
• Bathos: An entire chapter is spent over Matsuri struggling to get by without his fundoshi. His angst and determination to do whatever it takes to get stronger is played seriously, despite revolving entirely around his underwear.
• Bathroom Brawl: Rochka confronts and threatens Suzu while the latter is taking a bath. This was less because she was vulnerable than because Ungaikyo's powers let Rochka come in through the mirror. Matsuri then comes out of hiding, accidentally pulls Rochka into the tub, and the hot water sends the snow ayakashi running off in pain.
• Battle Discretion Shot: Matsuri begins one chapter half-naked and facing down a charging ayakashi. After one panel of Sword Sparks, the next is him showing off his malfunctioning Transformation Trinket to Soga at school.
• Beach Episode:
  • Though taking place in a mountain creek rather than a beach, the mission to defeat the Hiderigami has Matsuri's group change into swimwear and play in the water in order to draw out the wrathful ayakashi they came to fight.
  • The first chapter after the magazine change takes place at an actual beach, where Matsuri, Suzu, and Shirogane stop an ayakashi, that Mei unleashed, from harassing tourists by giving them the chills.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: Reo, whose clan rely on a very keen sense of smell, skulks around Hokusai High School and ends up being sniffed out by Suzu's origami dog.
  Reo: A dog's sense of smell, huh? It's truly embarrassing for a Korogi to be found out by scent! And I was careful about which way the wind was blowing.
• Big Fancy House: The Kazamaki clan have a large, traditional Japanese house. However, it's so "traditional", Matoi and Rochka both consider it run down and antiquated.
• Big "WHAT?!":
  • Chapter 3 ends with Shirogane yelling "What?!" in response to Matsuri's plans to make Shirogane his "pet".
  • Chapter 7 ends with the same character having the same reaction to (a duplicate of) Suzu kissing Matsuri.
  • Shirogane, this time joined by Suzu and Matsuri, again says (or perhaps just thinks) "What?!" at the end of Chapter 31 when Garaku says he loved Suzu's past life.
• Birth-Death Juxtaposition: Garaku was born in adolescent form from an ink brush the instant the brush's owner died right besides it.
• Bisexual Love Triangle: Matsuri gets split into male and female bodies by the Gogyosen, and the two soon start fighting over Suzu. Male Matsuri initially believes that he has an advantage for being his original sex, only to realize that Suzu has grown closer to his female self. He later nearly has sex with her, but is obliviously under control of the Gogyosen to spread their curse to Suzu through the act.
• Bishie Sparkle: Reo is surrounded by sparkles after she transfers to Hokusai and the males students look at her.
• Bittersweet Ending: The Jinyo arc ends with Sosuke and his army of iyo defeated, Shirogane firmly on the side of good, and Matsuri given a few hours in his male form, during which he bonds with Suzu and realizes he's in love with her. However, Shirogane's power is gone for good, Suzu has to fill his place as King of Ayakashi, Matsuri has no clear means to become male again, and him being female still tremendously complicates any romance with Suzu.
• Black Comedy Rape: When Suzu is attacked by an ayakashi-created nightmare of Matsuri, she reasons that because it's just a dream, so she's free to molest it into submission. Suzu takes control of the dream to strip the nightmare Matsuri down to a skimpy bikini, coat its body in condensed milk, and lick it off. It even looks like Suzu is performing cunnilingus when Shirogane yells that the nightmare's creator was already defeated.
• Black Speech: The chant Matsuri performs to exorcise an ikon is written in indecipherable faux-hiragana scribbles.
• Blood Magic: To use the god-sealing scroll, Matsuri drew a pentagram on it with his blood.
• Blindfolded Vision: Matsuri is blindfolded when taken to a hidden ayakashi village, but has no problem walking unassisted, even on terrain that causes Suzu to trip (and pants Matsuri) with her eyes wide open.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation:
  • When ayakashi from the moon visit, they talk about taking the food Suzu offered, but Matsuri misunderstands and thinks they're taking Suzu. The last phrase they say is "itadakimasu", which is typically said before meals, but literally just means "I receive". In the English version, they outright say "Thank you for the meal", making Matsuri's misunderstanding a complete non sequitur.
  • The English title of chapter 130 is "Matsuri's Love and Suzu's Determination", but only because someone read "rabu (love)" where the original title reads "bura (bra)", even though the title page is girl Matsuri showing off her bra peeking out of her shirt.
• Blunt "Yes": Shirogane tries to shame Reo for smelling Matsuri's dirty clothes, but she isn't put off even slightly.
  Shirogane: An undeniable pervert!
  Reo: (drooling) Yes!♫
• The Body Parts That Must Not Be Named: Despite its graphic sexual content, dialogue never directly mentions genitals, even when they're made relevant by Matsuri's sex-transformation.
  • As Matsuri looks as his now-female crotch, he simply mutters "I see." The English version has an only slight-more specific comment about "what's going on down there".
  • After Suzu gets a very close look at Matsuri's crotch right as he changes from male to female, Matsuri's embarrassed thoughts are "She saw it both ways..."
  • Shirogane having a cold makes Matsuri's penis temporarily come back without affecting the rest of his body right as Rochka is looking. Neither is direct about what's happening (Rochka because she literally doesn't know the word).
    Rochka: I don't have anything like that!
    Matsuri: I don't know what's going on either. It looks like... I have both?!
  • After inspecting her child's new body literally first-hand, Matoi comments that "So even this part has changed!"
  • In the most extreme case, Matsuri describes his transformation to Haya, including an anecdote about peeing with his new body, but his language is no more specific than having "lost an essential part of me down there".
    Suzu: (heart-eyed) His essential part...
    Shirogane: Stop trying to picture it in your mind!
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: Garaku has Suzu fold paper cranes to control her haku. Not only can she bring them to life with her power when they're done, the folding itself helps her focus.
  Garaku: You can focus your mind as you fold, and you'll be able to tell immediately if you fail.
• Breast Attack: Inverted when Shadow Mei and Matsuri are stuck in an enclosed space that shakes around. Mei's huge breasts smack Matsuri upside the head so hard, he snaps back limp as if knocked out by an uppercut.
  Matsuri (thinking) What a heavy blow.
  Shadow Mei: That wasn't an attack!
• Breast Expansion: Reo once tried to undo Gender Swap Awakened with an exorcising incense, which seems to work at first when Matsuri's chest goes flat. However, not only does he find himself still female down there, his breasts rebound bigger than before (they returned to normal after a good night's sleep).
• Broken Masquerade: Most of the cast have known of the existence of ayakashi for years or are completely ignorant of it, but the end of volume six has Yayo start to see them thanks to being possessed by one.
• Brought Down to Normal: A curse placed on Matsuri by Garaku prevents him from using his spiritual powers until it wears off over time, which will seemingly take days or weeks.
• Bust-Contrast Duo: Matsuri's female form is quite busty, contrasting Suzu's far more modest chest. Inverting the usual personalities, Suzu is gentle and motherly, while Matsuri is antisocial and over-serious.
• Camping a Crapper:
  • When Sosuke wants a one-on-one rematch with Matsuri, he attacks him as soon as he's alone, which ends up being when he goes to the bathroom at school. Matsuri knocks him off the stall door he was hanging over, giving himself time to properly dress for a fight.
  • During a camping trip, Lu ends up possessed by a ghost when she leaves the tent to use a dug-up latrine. Her panties were down at the time, and soon fall off her legs entirely, distracting Matsuri with her exposed crotch until Shirogane transforms into a new pair.
• Canon Welding: Yamato Gensouki (Kentaro Yabuki's first serialization) is eventually established as the series' distant past, at least in Broad Strokes. A flashback uses the same design for Empress Iyo, who was the first ayakashi medium. It has elements of Fully Absorbed Finale, partially resolving the plotline Cut Short in Yamato Gensouki: Iyo's power came from being a human incarnation of the goddess Amaterasu. The Onmyoren, the story's villainous organization, failed to conquer Japan but still exists as the Gogyosen, who founded and have authority over the Exorcist Ninja Association.
• Can't Act Perverted Toward a Love Interest: Shadow Mei normally shows her naked body without hesitation, but a Love Potion makes her shy around Matsuri.
  Why am I embarrassed? I gave up on being human a long time ago!
• Cassandra Truth: Lu eventually becomes fully convinced extraterrestrials and similar phenomena are real, but when Suzu and Matsuri try to tell her of an actual supernatural event (Matsuri being turned into a girl), Lu thinks they've been "invaded by the poisonous radio waves from minus space"
• Caught with Your Pants Down: Matsuri walks into Reo's room when she's barely-dressed and greatly enjoying running a fan over her bare crotch. Humorously, Matsuri doesn't react to her being scantily-clad (until her breasts pop out of her shirt), and Reo is only embarrassed because he saw her room was such a mess.
• The Cavalry Arrives Late:
  • A few minutes after Matsuri's fight with Sosuke, Soga finishes off all of Sosuke's iyo and arrives to backup his teammate.
  • Matoi and Muga attempt to arrest the Gogyosen while Matsuri and Suzu battle their avatar. By the time they reach the Gogyosen's chamber, Suzu and Matsuri's had already destroyed said avatar, which also killed the Gogyosen themselves.
• Cellphones Are Useless:
  • A major part of the first chapter is Matsuri having to guess where Suzu is to save her from Shirogane, even though both are later shown with cell phones. It turns out the two had grown so distant, they never exchanged numbers; Matsuri's contact list was just himself and his grandpa, and Suzu was surprised Matsuri even had a cell phone.
  • When Sosuke kidnaps Suzu, he deliberately leaves her cellphone behind so she can't call for help or be tracked with it.
  • Despite being a notable Camera Fiend, Lu never even considers taking a picture with her phone when she encounters someone she believes is an alien, leaving her with no evidence of the encounter.
  • Matsuri hurries to reach Suzu to tell her about Mei and Sosuke coming after her, but reaches her too late to help. He never considers calling her cellphone, despite being shown doing so just a few chapters earlier.
• Chainmail Bikini:
  • Parodied; when Suzu asks if Reo has any cute ninja gear to try on, Reo puts her in the absurdly revealing "Sexy Gear". It has a giant ribbon for a partial bra, a micro-thong that doesn't even cover her whole crotch, and absolutely nothing inbetween. Neither Suzu nor Matsuri can understand why anyone would ever fight in it.
    Reo: An ayakashi would go down so easily with this seduction trap!
    Matsuri: Why would you seduce an ayakashi?!
  • Reo once modified her group's exorcist gear into swimsuits: Soga's became swim trunks, leaving his chest completely bare. Her and Matsuri's become incredibly skimpy bikinis. Suzu then alters her ayakashi medium outfit into a less-revealing swimsuit. In all cases, their gear continues to protect them from heat despite covering much less of their bodies.
  • On Matsuri's birthday, Reo's present is "updating" the suit into another Sexy Gear. It has similar bottom parts, an even skimpier top, and covers Matsuri's arms and shoulders more than the regular outfit. Matsuri doesn't find this out until going into battle, but true to Reo's expectations, it saves the day by seducing a swarm of ayakashi. Matsuri has it changed back anyway.
• Changed My Mind, Kid: Seeing Soga dash off to hunt down Shirogane, Matsuri initially stops and says he's glad someone will get rid of him for threatening Suzu. However, remembering Suzu's determination to keep Shirogane alive, Matsuri is next seen riding a detached sign to save Shirogane at the last second.
• Childhood Friends:
  • Suzu and Matsuri have been friends since early childhood, both because they could see ayakashi together and grew up close by. There are signs of a budding Childhood Friend Romance, more so on Suzu's sides, and their relationship has been rough since Matsuri became a exorcist ninja.
  • Reo and Soga have known each other since early childhood because their fathers are close work friends. They've never really been on "friendly" terms though, as Soga was constantly running in fear of Reo's inventions she wanted to test on him.
• Children Do the Housework:
  • Matsuri does all the housework because Seigen is too elderly to do them anymore. After Rochka moves in, she's shown helping as well. Une doesn't, presumably because she doesn't have any hands.
  • As Suzu's parents often work late at the family's restaurant, she and her younger brother Ritta sometimes make dinner.
• Claimed by the Supernatural: Matsuri's sex transformation left a mark centered on his navel consisting of overlapping male and female symbols with a spiral in the center. Curiously, the symbol shown when the spell was cast was rotated 180 degrees, making the male symbol point down and the female point up. Like the ayakashi who left it, the mark is Invisible to Normals. When the mark is drained of haku, temporarily restoring Matsuri's original form, the mark fades heavily. It's solid again the instant it reactivates.
• Clarke's Third Law:
  • Lu notes that aliens visiting Earth must have abilities humanly indistinguishable from magic. However, this line of thinking causes her to mistake actual magic as being caused by aliens.
  • Shadow Mei believes the "online shopping" Garaku used to get her a dress was some kind of magic spell.
• Clothing Damage:
  • Matsuri once suffered a rather literal Wardrobe Malfunction when using his choker, leaving his ninja suit only partially formed. Luckily, his fundoshi (the one article of clothing he wears with both outfits) and sword were in-tact.
  • Matsuri gets engulfed by Chirizuka Kaiou's corrosive wind, and though its effects are reversed before it can hurt him, most of his battlesuit instantly disintegrates and stays gone. Oddly, his regular clothes were undamaged when he changed back into them, but he still needed to repair the suit.
  • While Garaku's seals are preventing him from externally releasing his kon, Matsuri learns the Inner Storm jutsu to enhance his strength by channeling his wind internally. The seals finally wear off just as he's showing off the jutsu later, tearing up his own school uniform with the sudden outburst of wind.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy Donpa's Crimson Gourd sucks up anyone who responds to him saying their name, then gradually converts them into sake. Matsuri, Suzu, and Shadow Mei all have special outfits to protect their bodies, so their clothes melt first.
  • Medusa's petrifying glare causes Lucy's outfit to crumble into pieces when Sosuke protects her from taking it directly. Matsuri later stabs his pinwheel into Medusa's left eye to slow its petrification, causing his maid outfit at the time to turn to stone and crumble before his body is affected.
  • Matsuri suffers a point-blank flame jutsu from his male self possessed by the Gogyosen. While he's briefly seen in tatters while engulfed by the attack, he involuntary reverts to his intact school uniform once his choker breaks from the damage.
• Cock Fight: Boy and girl Matsuri kick off their competition over Suzu by literally fighting over who gets to be with her. Suzu is aroused at them fighting over her, but on Shirogane's insistence breaks up the fight—which works because their wind ends up pulling her shirt up, exposing her breasts to both.
• Color Failure:
  • In the anime, Suzu turns monochromes when Matsuri admits that he never had any girl or guy friends.
  • Suzu goes all-white when she sees an amnesiac Matsuri falling in Love at First Sight with Soga.
• Comic-Book Time: Though the series has the months pass in Webcomic Time, the year seems to have a sliding timescale, even if it's not run long enough for it to be obvious. The first chapter was published in 2020, but a 2023 flashback chapter had August 1st on a Monday, as in 2022.
• Commonality Connection:
  • When she was very young, Suzu loved playing with ayakashi, but was driven away from other humans because they thought she was making them up. Once Matsuri met her and made it clear he saw them as well, they quickly became inseparable.
  • Lu and Matsuri bond over similar tastes in (invokedgenerally male-oriented) manga.
  • Matsuri and Garaku both fell in love with different reincarnations of the ayakashi medium. Though Matsuri initially thought that made Garaku a romantic rival for Suzu, they eventually bond over it as Matsuri realizes that Garaku was Good All Along.
  • After they start Sharing a Body, Shirogane and Kanade overlook their many differences by focusing on their mutual annoyance at Suzu being a pervert.
• Compliment Backfire: Reo has an odd way to express approval for Suzu's ayakashi medium gear.
  Reo: The tackiness is quite lovely!
  Suzu: That's not a compliment!
• Congruent Memory: Matsuri has worn fundoshi with all his outfits ever since he decided to become an exorcist ninja. Consequently, changing to a different type of underwear initially negates his superhuman agility, leaving him too clumsy to clear a vault in gym class.
  What's wrong with me? I can't do anything right. My lower body feels weak.
• Conversational Troping: Matsuri asks Soga how his hopes of a Childhood Friend Romance stacks up to a theoretical Reincarnation Romance. Soga assesses that between the two tropes^*"Flags" in the Japanese version., Matsuri is at a disadvantage, but not an insurmountable one. Matsuri is consoled, but also wonders how Soga knows the word "trope".
• Cool Gate
  • The shrine Matsuri and Suzu have hung out at since they were children has a mihashira torii, a gateway with three pillars, creating three different gateways. It's important enough that the gate is the only feature in Suzu's Mental World, where it symbolizes the ayakashi medium's spirit being split into three pieces.
  • Uraomiko can only be accessed by walking through seven torii gates (regular two-pillars one) in a specific order.
• Corner of Woe: Soga sulks with his hand on the wall when thinking about how easily Garaku subdued him even while holding back enough not to hurt him. Matsuri cheers him up (and makes his heart skip a beat) by encouraging them to both get stronger together.
• The Corruption: When Suzu's little brother Ritta is attacked by an Ayakashi that traps him in a nightmare, the culprit is a Baku a normally benevolent Ayakashi that had been corrupted before she purifies and saves them both. Then Une is similarly stricken with this corruption and tries to kill Suzu but is also saved. Matoi (Matsuri's mother) wonders if its perhaps the work of Shadow Mei but the her son isn't so sure, especially since all her schemes (while part of a gambit to pull a Grand Theft Me Split-Personality Merge) have never involved directly harming Suzu let alone kill her.
• Costume-Test Montage: During a shopping trip, Matsuri tries out four different girl outfits: a boyish look with shorts, a sundress, an Elegant Gothic Lolita getup, and Magical Kyouko cosplay. Each gets a Reaction Shot from Reo, Suzu, and Shirogane, the first always being excited, while the other two are put off by the increasingly absurd outfits Reo picked ("What's up with the selection in this store?") and Matsuri happily going along thanks to Reo's incense.
• Cover-Blowing Superpower: Inverted and defied by the boy and girl Matsuri. When the girl uses Matsuri's wind ninjutsu, Rochka thinks that proves the other is fake, but is immediately dissproven.
  Rochka: (points at boy Matsuri) I know! The one who can't control wind is a fake! I'm so smart!
  Boy Matsuri: (creating a gust of wind in his hand) No, I can control it too.
• Covert Group with Mundane Front: The Korogi clan run a tool shop for exorcist ninja that doubles as a toy store. Alongside mundane merchandise are things like swords and scrolls that have been rendered Invisible to Normals.
• Creature-Hunter Organization: Matsuri and others work under the Exorcist Ninja Association, a secret organization founded by the government of Japan hundreds of years ago. They provide local agents across the country with special knowledge, training, and equipment to protect the public from dangerous ayakashi.
• Cross-Referenced Titles:
  • Soga's introductory chapter is titled "The Lightning-Fast Exorcist Ninja". The chapter that introduces his father is titled "The Lightning-Fast Father".
  • The first chapter is "Matsuri, Suzu, and the Ayakashi", while the last is "Matsuri, Suzu, and the Grand Conclusion".
• Crossover Cosmology: Despite always being referred to by a Japanese word, ayakashi exist all over the world. Since many are tulpa shaped by human belief, they correspond to their native mythology. One chapter sees Snegurocha, the snow maiden of Russian folklore, coming to Japan to claim the title of King of the Ayakashi.
  Garaku: In this global era, it's not surprising to see foreign ayakashi around.
• Crossover Punchline: In chapter 8, Shirogane tries to track down an ayakashi by smell, but ends up finding a cartoon standee of Kyouko from Black Cat and To Love Ru.
• Crush Filter:
  • As Soga is conflicted on treating Matsuri as a guy but being distracted by his looks, we get a closeup where Matsuri is drawn with doe eyes, full lips, Bishie Sparkles in the background, and his cleavage prominently visible.
  • The positions are reversed in a later chapter where Matsuri has lost his memories and believes he was always a girl. Matsuri falls face-first into Soga's chest and looks up to a Soga who's drawn with wide, bright eyes—lacking their usual heavy shading or sharpness—and a phosphorescent background.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: Lu correctly guesses Shadow Mei is afraid of getting her picture taken because she's a Fish out of Temporal Water, even though it's because Lu believes in time travel instead of knowing she's Really 700 Years Old.
• Curse:
  • Shirogane's spell turns Matsuri's female and leaves a mark on his abdomen. Rather than physically transforming him once, the spell is persistently maintaining his female form through the mark. Shirogane claims he could remove it, but only if his power is restored, and if he perishes it will become completely irreversible.
  • Shadow Mei once harasses Matsuri with a bell that turns him into a cat (and thus unable to use his spiritual powers). This curse was much easier to remove, as it's broken by a standard purification ritual that was meant for something else entirely.
• Cut Himself Shaving: Injuries Matsuri received in a fight with an ayakashi are brushed off as from a "bike accident" while talking to Ritta.

D-F

• Declaration of Protection: After coming to love Suzu, Soga decides to let her know he plans to join Matsuri in protecting her. Unfortunately, he messes up his words, and says Matsuri is the one he wants to protect. Much later, Soga intentionally swears to protect Matsuri when fighting jinyo Mei, during which he finally refers to Matsuri as a friend and not just a rival.
• Defensive Feint Trap: After a humiliating moment where Matsuri is forced to run away while pulling his underpants back on, he turns around and uses a blind corner to catch his pursuer by surprise with a kick.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: As Shirogane boasts his status as the king of the ayakashi, Suzu expresses amazement while continuing to give him an unwelcome belly-rub and coos about how cute he is.
• Different for Girls:
  • Matsuri generally doesn't even try to act feminine, but struggles with the few attempts he does make to fit in as a girl. His lack of modesty with his skirt during simple gestures like running up stairs or continuing to sit down with his legs spread out causes Suzu to repeatedly reprimand him, and he's had to be dragged out by teachers for continuing to accidentally use the men's room. Matsuri's one attempt at being feminine, as a disguise, failed immediately by being so over-the-top cutesy.
  • Another issue Matsuri doesn't understand is how people view him interacting with (what is now) the opposite sex. Everyone sees his casual interaction with Soga as romantic (completely missing his actual love for Suzu), and Matsuri's female friends pester them to get together. When the idea of Soga dating someone else comes up, it's pointed out Soga could come off as unfaithful if they keep acting as they do, leaving Matsuri utterly aghast.
• Disapproving Look: Matsuri became part of Suzu's group of friends to bodyguard her, and so claims he shouldn't have to bother being friends with Yayo or Lu. After one Page-Turn Surprise to Suzu's very bemused and shaking head, Matsuri immediately reconsiders.
• Discount Lesbians: Most romantic and sexual situations are between two females, which is unusual for a work in a mainstream shonen magazine, but they almost always involve Matsuri, who was original male and still identifies as such. This has caused some debate as to whether or not the series belongs in the Yuri Genre (it's not advertised as such).
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Kana Ichinose and Miyu Tomita perform the anime's ending theme in-character as Suzu and (female) Matsuri.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Matsuri's male-to-female transformation once caused him to suffer burning abdominal pain and find a very unpleasant surprise when he checked his crotch. But he wasn't suffering a First Period Panic, Shirogane's cold was adversely affecting Matsuri through the transformation spell—including temporarily making his genitals change back.
• Dogpile Of Doom: As Matsuri runs after Suzu and Sosuke, Lu and Yayo jump on top of him, (somewhat correctly) assuming he wants to keep Suzu from making a boyfriend. It doesn't seem to slow Matsuri down much, and he's able to shake them before reaching his destination (though not in time to help).
• Dope Slap: Matoi slaps Matsuri hard in the face for saying they shouldn't fight Suzu at all when she's possessed, insisting he try to find some way to help instead of just standing by.
• Doppelgänger: Also known as an Omokage Shadow, one appears in chapter 7 and 8.
• Doppelganger Link: Suzu can create a duplicate of herself called an omokage, whose senses are linked to hers.
• Double-Meaning Title: Chapter 14, which ends with a G-Rated Sex scene where Suzu puts her haku into Matsuri's body, is titled with the rather blatant Double Entendre "Inside Matsuri".
• Double Standard: Rape, Female on Female: The manga often has female characters casually grope others with little consequence, including Yayo (initially) and Reo. In one extreme case, Matsuri's mother confirms he'd become entirely female via Crotch-Grab Sex Check (made worse by her being disguised as someone he barely knew at the time). Despite Matsuri being the most common victim (overlapping with Double Standard Rape: Female on Male), he gets much angrier at hands-off boys who merely ogle or hit on girls, and seems to think being a guy mentally makes it wrong for him to touch Suzu beyond Holding Hands even when she asks him to.
• Dragged by the Collar:
  • Although Suzu manages to persuade Matsuri to befriend Yayo and Lu, she still has to literally push him along to meet up with the pair.
  • Suzu again tries to push Matsuri and carry Shirogane into a meeting with Ponosuke and Soga. Both of them end up getting away from her.
  • Matsuri comes to Soga's class and calls for him by name, making them think Matsuri is his girlfriend, and irritating Soga so much he lifts Matsuri off the ground by the shirt and carries him into the hallway.
• Dramedy: The manga's default tone is comedic, but even aside from perilous situations, there's a decent amount of character drama, often juxtaposed with more comedy.
• Dreaming of Times Gone By: One chapter begins with Shirogane dreaming of decades in the past, when he was worshiped as a god, and conversed with a little girl who says no one else believes he exists. By the end of the same day he reunites with her, as it turns out she is Reo's grandmother.
• Dropped After the Pilot: In Reo × Leo, the protagonist's father is set up as an antagonist who changed him into a girl in the first place. Matsuri's father in the actual series is barely ever mentioned.
• Dub-Induced Plot Hole: Both the English and Spanish simulpublishing skip chapters 74 and 75 for content reasons, rendering future references to their events (most notably Lu discovering Matsuri was male, but mistaking him for an alien) inexplicable.
• Dub-Induced Plotline Change: The French version of the manga has some strange deviations that tend to either create plotholes or need even stranger methods later on to fill them in.
  • The first appearance of Suzu's omokage has it changed to some kind of shapeshifting spirit instead of Enemy Without, its later appearances treat it as a separate entity, and Shadow Mei claims to be the shapeshifter even though she was still sealed away in the original version.
  • A brief but amusing example occurs when Reo reveals her grandmother is the principal of Hokusai High School, which allows her to transfer there. In French, Reo says the principal isn't actually her grandmother, so there's a line awkwardly inserted in the next volume where Suzu says Reo was just pretending.
  • In the original version of Chapter 40, Une and Rochka have no idea Matsuri used to be a boy, the former asking what Shirogane's jutsu did to Matsuri, setting up an Unsettling Gender-Reveal at the chapter's end. In the French version, it's implied they were already informed of Matsuri's gender between that chapter and the previous, as they switch to masculine address and Une instead says she knows what Shirogane jutsu did.
• Dude, She's Like in a Coma: When Suzu falls asleep beside Matsuri, he spends five minutes hovering above her with his lips pursed, ready to kiss her until he decided he still wanted to wait until he's a guy again. Suzu's consent was definitely not an issue, as she not only wanted to kiss already, but she then springs up, points out he was about to kiss her, and steals a kiss right then.
• Dutch Angle: When Kanade tries to undo Matsuri's curse through the mark it left on his abdomen, the panel shows Matsuri flipped upside down. This subtly misdirects you to think the mark had rotated as when it was first applied, but it had actually stayed in place because Kanade was unsuccessful.
• Dynamic Entry: Matsuri flies up directly in front of Sosuke as he pursues Suzu, catching him by surprise before punching him in the face so hard he bounces along the ground.
• Eaten Alive: When Sosuke's Engulfing Shadow absorbs an ayakashi's energy, he also eats (part of) their body. Suzu ends up deliberately feeding her omokage to it, experiencing the pain as it gets chewed up and swallowed.
• Ecchi: Panty Shots and nudity are common, as are characters getting in incredibly suggestive situations.
• Embarrassing but Empowering Outfit: An indirect example; Matoi concludes regular panties can strengthen Matsuri—not immediately, but as a means of training his spiritual powers based on embarrassment itself.
  Matoi: Since you're a boy, you prefer traditional fundoshi! But now you must start wearing panties! You'll feel resistant and experience great discomfort, but those emotions will serve to strengthen your spirit and be far more effective than any ascetic training you might do under a mighty waterfall! This is training only you can do!
• Embarrassing Rescue: Matsuri is silently ashamed of himself when Suzu saves his life for once, clearly seeing it a failure on his part to be protected by the one he wanted to keep safe.
• Embarrassing Slide: Kanade's attempt to give Matsuri a Pensieve Flashback accidentally starts with a memory of Suzu masturbating while calling out Matsuri's name.
  Matsuri: (covering his face and looking away) What are you showing me?!
  Kanade: Oh, my bad. This is from her shower yesterday.
• Emergency Transformation: When Shirogane is badly wounded, Suzu's attention is divided between healing him and fighting the enemy that caused the injury. She then figures out she can kill two birds with one stone by taking Shirogane into herself temporarily, healing him while giving Suzu the power to defeat their enemy.
• Empathic Environment: After Matsuri is forced to kill an ayakashi Suzu thought she could save, heavy rain falls to emphasize their melancholy.
• Elemental Rivalry: Matsuri has wind powers, while his rival and partner Soga is associated with thunder and lightning.
• Energetic and Soft-Spoken Duo: Yayo is loud and very expressive, while Lu talks quietly and hardly emotes at all. Despite contrasting temperaments, their actions and trains of thought tend to be highly synchronized.
• Epic Fail: Kanade hands Matsuri a Love Potion to use on Shadow Mei so she'll help them. Matsuri refuses and dumps it out the window... where it immediately falls onto Mei's head.
  Shadow Mei: Wha—sand?! Jeez!
  Kanade: Ooh. Nice wind jutsu.
  Matsuri: It wasn't even my wind!
• Epiphany Comeback: By his rematch with Sosuke, seeing Suzu really had become Shirogane's close friend makes Matsuri realize he has better options than a straightforward attack. Instead, he uses an as-yet-unmastered technique to calmly wait for Sosuke to attack first and create an opening.
• Erotic Dream:
  • A pirate-themed omake celebrating the 1000th chapter of One Piece has (male) Matsuri leading a crew of ayakashi onto an "island" that's actually a giant Suzu's bare thigh. Suzu flicking them away reveals this was a dream by a panicked Matsuri, who a caption describes as "still a young man at heart".
  • After multiple instances of Ritta walking in on his sister being sexually aggressive to Matsuri, he has an Anxiety Dream of the pair heavily making out in skimpy clothing.
• Everyone Can See It: Zig-zagged concerning Suzu and Matsuri's attraction to each other. From the beginning, Seigen knows how they feel for each other, Soga suspects Matsuri's feelings enough to ask him, and Reo knows she can barely compete with Suzu as a romantic rival. Later on, Soga realizes Suzu loves Matsuri when she hugs his temporarily-restored male form, and can't believe Matsuri didn't come to the same conclusion. On the other hand, Yayo and Lu haven't noticed their attraction at all; thinking Matsuri is a girl makes them disinclined to think of the two as a couple. After Yayo finds out Matsuri was originally male, Suzu admits to her she's in love with Matsuri, and Yayo says it's not surprising given their history.
• Exact Words:
  • Suzu introduces Matsuri to Lu and Yayo as a friend of hers from elementary school. This is technically true, but leaves out that Matsuri was already a classmate of theirs in middle school when he was still a guy.
  • Suzu asks Matsuri why he's quiet whenever Lu or Yayo are around, which he excuses as not knowing what to say to girls. Suzu asks what he does with his male friends, and Matsuri admits he's really not used to talking to much of anyone.
  • Matsuri says he carries the God-Sealing Scroll around all the time for good luck because his family are descendants of ninja. He leaves out how he himself is a ninja.
  • Shadow Mei tells Matsuri she "Came up with a good idea" after hearing Suzu merged with Shirogane to become a cat, implying she had something relevant to Suzu's power. The actual "good idea" it inspired was using a cursed bell to turn Matsuri into a cat.
• Exactly What I Aimed At: Matsuri throws a shuriken in Garaku's direction, who assumes it misses when it hits a faucet and makes water flow out. Later, Matsuri throws a spiraling ball of wind at the water, spraying it all over and dissolving Garaku's drawings.
• Expository Pronoun: Matsuri normally uses the masculine pronoun ore even after becoming a girl, but switches to watashi when under an illusion that makes him act like he was always a girl.
• Eyes Are Mental: When Matsuri is turned into a cat, most of his body looks semi-realistically cat-like, but his eyes are exactly the same as when he was human.
• Faceless Masses: Incidental characters are often drawn abstractly enough that they have little facial detail, sometimes even when they have dialogue.
• Failed Attempt at Drama:
  • Sosuke plots to attack Matsuri while standing on top of a telephone poll, but a police officer shouts that it's too dangerous to stay up there.
  • Suzu tries to reintroduce herself to Sosuke after he regains consciousness, but her mouth was full from eating a donut, rendering her words indecipherable, and she chokes on it for a second.
  • When Matsuri is unable to fight an enemy attacking their house, Seigen tries to step in himself, but throws his back out just standing up too fast.
• Fake Weakness: Water nullifies most things created by Garaku's artwork, but when he uses it to apply a curse, it stays in effect even if the ink is removed. He still let Matsuri think it would wash off to divert his attention. When Suzu breaks Garaku's brush in the same fight, he pretends he's defeated as an excuse to leave, even though he had a backup.
• Fan Disservice: The effects of Sosuke's Vampiric Draining of Matsuri are visualized as his naked body missing the paralyzed parts. This leads to a Boobs-and-Butt Pose where Matsuri's thigh and buttock appear torn out, and a frontal view where the same goes for his breast, abdomen, and even his crotch.
• Fancy Camping: Lu's camping trip starts out with her personal attendants setting up a camp with a full living room (with entertainment center and hardwood flooring), showers stalls, portable toilets, gourmet meals, and even food stands. She shoes them away so Kachofugetsu can camp on their own with more limited supplies—though they need Matsuri's experience and leadership to get by, and Lu wishes they still brought the porta-potty.
• Fanservice Cover: Some of the title pages include very racy illustrations, often in otherwise clean chapters. For instance, the cover of chapter 29 has Matsuri holding a guitar that barely obscures his nudity.
• Fantastic Religious Weirdness: When Yayo was possessed, she grabbed as many holy symbols as she could, from several different religions: a cross, Buddhist prayer beads and chant, and a Shinto charm. (She also threw in salt and garlic.) They had no effect whatsoever.
• The Farmer and the Viper:
  • Suzu defends Shirogane from Matsuri's initial suspicion, figuring Matsuri was just being paranoid again. However, Shirogane was planning from the beginning to kill Suzu, and treating him nicely didn't change his mind. This is subverted long-term, when Shirogane being forced to live with Suzu gets him more attached and ultimately convinces him to abandon eating her.
  • Suzu's later attempt to spare the Hiderigami is less successful, as he simply pretends to accept it as a way to attack her. Matsuri abruptly kills him before Suzu even realizes the Hiderigami's trick.
• Fastball Special: In chapter 8, Matsuri uses a blast of wind to send Shirogane at Suzu's omokage, and while in midair he transforms into a (fake) crepe (which was meant as a distraction, but solved the problem entirely by fulfilling the omokage's Ghostly Goals).
• Faux Yay: Matsuri and Reo once pretended to flirt together in front of other students to distract from rumors about Suzu. From Matsuri's perspective they're both pretending to be lesbians, though it's debatable if Matsuri's "pretending", even if he's not in love with Reo. Of course, unknown to Matsuri, Reo really is attracted to girls and Matsuri in particular, so she sees it as an opportunity to make a move on him.
• Feet-First Introduction: As Matsuri's mother removes her school teacher disguise, the first we see of the real her is a closeup of her foot. When Matoi shows up in her battle suit for the first time, we again first see her feet, showing that it also includes high heels.
• Fertile Feet: Two different times, Suzu's presence in a stream causes fish-like ayakashi to awake from their dormancy and start floating around her in the air.
• Festival Episode: Chapter 111 has Matsuri's household observing Tsukimi, where people view and make an offering to the full moon in autumn. Suzu's presence causes ayakashi from the moon to actually visit.
• Fighting from the Inside: Matsuri is forced to suck out a spirit possessing Suzu via mouth-to-mouth. This wouldn't be strong enough by itself, but Matsuri breaks Suzu from her dormancy and gets her to add a needed push. Comically, this was an accident on Matsuri's part, and worked because Suzu really wanted to kiss Matsuri.
  Suzu: I heard Matsuri's voice. I can tell what's happening now. We're in the middle of a kiss. This is my body, so please get out! Now!
• First-Episode Twist: The first chapter plays out as the beginning of a Childhood Friend Romance mixed with a supernatural action story. Near the end, Matsuri is changed from male to female for the foreseeable future, something the advertising gave little to no hint of.
• First Law of Gender Bending: Shirogane turned Matsuri female, and is seemingly the only one who can change him back. Shirogane has no reason to do so, as Matsuri is his enemy, and would only be able if his full power was restored—which Matsuri can't allow, because then Shirogane would kill Suzu and likely others. Matsuri himself almost makes this change permanent when confronting Shirogane outside his house; he'd gladly exorcise the ayakashi to keep Suzu safe even if it meant that he'd seal away the only individual who could reverse his transformation. Eventually, Suzu discovers she has the potential to remove ayakashi curses, but this particular one is far beyond her current capabilities. Shirogane eventually gets his powers back after becoming Suzu and Matsuri's ally, but loses them more permanently before he can change Matsuri back—partly because Matsuri refused to release them when they had the time. Thereafter, Matsuri's best chance for being male again requires Suzu to develop her powers enough to restore Shirogane's, not knowing for certain if it's even possible or how long it would take. Much later, it's discovered Suzu's training alone won't ever make her powerful enough, as she also needs to fuse with a piece of her past life that split off—which Suzu can't do unless she convinces her not to destroy all human civilization.
• First-Name Basis:
  • Most of the cast go by their first name, as they're either peers or supernatural beings with Only One Name.
  • After their initial meaning, Reo and Suzu go by first name, but then Suzu switches back to "Korogi" when Reo transfers to the same school. Reo complains, so Suzu calls her "Reo" again (though in Japanese she still says "Reo-senpai" instead of "Reo-chan").
  • As they've known each other since childhood, Reo is initially the only other student to call Soga by his first name. Tellingly, Soga does not return the favor.
  • After a Platonic Declaration of Love, Matsuri finally starts addressing Soga by his first name, though he occasionally falls into old habits (calling him "Ninokuru" in English and "(Soga-)senpai" in Japanese).
  • Rochka initially called Matsuri by last name, even in the moments where she thought of him more favorably. After moving into his house and becoming like a surrogate little sister, she refers to him by first name—even when she's mad at him.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: As Matoi fights Shadow Mei, the halo the latter summoned behind herself vanishes suddenly between panels. Shortly thereafter, it's revealed she had switched places with a duplicate, and the real thing still had the halo out.
• Flash Step: Various ninja characters will appear or disappear in a blur. It's generally not a combat technique, just a dramatic way to enter or exit a scene.
• For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: Garaku gets Matsuri to blend in with ayakashi by pretending he's an ayakashi disguised as a human. Specifically, Garaku puts him in a kimono and fox mask that hides his human spiritual presence, so ayakashi assume Matsuri is a kitsune.
• Forced Transformation: After Shadow Mei decides to take all her grudges out on Matsuri, the first thing she does is use a cursed bell to turn him into a cat. This was meant purely to humiliate him, but also leaves him helpless against an ikon attack until Soga saves him.
• Forceful Kiss:
  • In chapter 7 and 8, an ayakashi duplicate of Suzu sneaks into Matsuri's room and kisses him, acting on her guess that a True Love's Kiss could change him back into a boy. Matsuri was too surprised to resist at first, but once the kiss turned heavy, he pulled away just as the ayakashi disappeared.
  • Shadow Mei tries to break up Matsuri and Suzu by suddenly grabbing and kissing Matsuri in front of every girl in their swim class until he breaks away. Suzu responds by kissing Matsuri even more deeply.
    Mei: (thinking) What? Tongue?! You can do that? (speaking) Pretty impressive.
• The Force Is Strong with This One: The ability to see ayakashi is closely related to the ability to feel their energy in proximity. If an ayakashi's energy is too weak for you to feel, you probably won't be able to see it either. Ayakashi can also conceal their strength in various ways: Shirogane's Sleep-Mode Size makes him seem much weaker, while a fully-formed jinyo like Sosuke is difficult to tell apart from a regular human even from sensing his energy.
• Forgot About His Powers: When Soga is forced to carry Matsuri while retreating, it slows him down enough that their opponent catches up with them. Matsuri has previously shown he could use his wind make Soga faster while carrying him, but apparently was just too surprised to try it in time.
• Forgot I Couldn't Swim: When Matsuri has his spiritual powers sealed inside, he attempts to use his choker to at least battle with his sword and armor. When nothing happens, Matsuri sighs in annoyance as he realizes he needs his powers to suit up.
• Foreshadowing: When Matsuri exorcises the ikon possessing Lucy, his kon manifests in her mind as his male form. Later, Hinojiki devours most of his haku, which he notes to taste like Shirogane's haku. Matsuri seemingly dies, only to later show back up as a boy. Turns out Hinojiki really was eating Shirogane's haku, which the Gender Swap Awakened mark coats Matsuri in to maintain his female form, so instead of killing him, it allowed him to temporarily regain his original male form.
• Four-Girl Ensemble: Kachofugetsu consists of Suzu (the sweet one who is also the Team Mom), Yayo (the most energetic and openly sexual), Matsuri (who presents himself as a tomboy), and Lu (who looks and acts the most childish, though she's not entirely innocent). Before Matsuri joined, the other three fit the The Three Faces of Eve, with Suzu, Yayo, and Lu as the Wife, Seductress, and Child, respectively.
• Fourth-Wall Portrait: Garaku is introduced sketching Donpa the kappa giving him some information, giving him the sketch afterward. The drawing is more realistic than the actual artstyle, which causes the Donpa to tear it up.
  Donpa: It's so realistic, it's creepy, ‘ppa.
  Garaku: But I paid so much attention to the textures!
• Friend Versus Lover: Matsuri spends one chapter preemptively worried that Soga getting a girlfriend would hurt their friendship. Not because it would take up all Soga's time, but because Lu and Yayo say girls can't be close with guys that are dating other people (though that may be because they assume Matsuri loves Soga).
  Yayo: [Soga and Reo are] definitely gonna be a couple! Then you won't be able to talk to him as freely as you've been doing!
  Matsuri: What?! Seriously? If Ninokuru gets a girlfriend, I can't talk to him anymore?!
  Yayo: Of course not. You're a girl, so you have to be considerate of a guy's girlfriend.
  Matsuri: I need to go talk to him!
• Frothy Mugs of Water: A flashback appears to show Mei sharing sake cups with Tanumaro's ancestor, with her drinking from a comically oversized one despite only being sixteen. However, their bottle is labeled "甘酒 (amazake)", indicating it's a drink with little to no alcohol—Mei's large cup was a joke on her sharing Suzu's Sweet Tooth. The official English and Spanish versions don't translate the label, making it seem like she's drinking much more alcohol than originally intended.
• Full-Name Basis: Soga is so impersonal, he calls even close acquaintances by their full name (just their last if he wants to be brief). Bizarrely, he also applies this to himself—not just when introducing himself, but for internal monologues.
• Fun with Homophones:
  • Shirogane's spell that changed Matsuri's sex is written "性・醒・流・転". The punctuation indicates each kanji is a separate word, thus "Sei Sei Ru Ten" (which literally translates to "Sex Awakening Exile Alteration"; in the English version "Gender Swap Awakened"). It's also a near homophone for "生々流転 (Seisei Ruten)", a four-kanji idiom describing the flow of souls through a cycle of reincarnation (as Matsuri is "reborn" in an altered body and takes up a new identity).
  • An ayakashi medium ability known by Mei is called "Life Halo". In Japanese, it's "Mei Kourin (命光輪)", a play off her own name (and even using the same kanji) that could be interpreted as "Mei Halo".
  • Before cutting her hair short, Suzu considered her hair's length a sign of spiritual power, saying "Hair (kami) leads to the gods (kami)."
• Fusion Dance: In chapter 101, Suzu accidentally this as a technique when she absorbs a badly injured Shirogane into her body, gaining cat ears and a tail, his abilities, but heavily influenced by his cat Ayakashi nature. Kanade (the personality with the Ayakashi Medium memories) fuses with him allowing Shriogane to slowly recover while she can exist outside of Suzu as a separate being. Unlike Suzu, Kanade isn't influenced and the two even agree to work together to the goal of restoing the cat ayakahsi to full power which in turns will allow Matsuri to become a boy again.

G-I

• G-Rated Sex:
  • Suzu once tried to reverse Matsuri's transformation by sending her haku into his body, which happens in an absurdly sexual manner: Both are on Suzu's bed, Matsuri's shirt is open, and Suzu's hand is on the spell mark on his exposed abdomen. The dialogue and positions (Matsuri on his back, Suzu over him) are suggestive of Suzu having a role that is not only dominant, but specifically male.
    Matsuri: Something hot is flowing into me from Suzu.
    
    Suzu: You felt what came from me go inside of you?
    Matsuri: Yeah... Does it... make you tired or anything?
    Suzu: Not at all.
  • During a heatwave, Suzu is repeatedly left collapsed and heavily panting, begging for Matsuri to cool her off with his wind, and moaning in relief whenever he does. Matsuri is fully aware of how suggestive things are (and quite aroused because he has a sweat fetish), but Suzu obliviously throws out comments about Matsuri "doing it [to her]".
    Suzu: I think we should do it in my room. Our homework.
• Gag Censor:
  • The magazine version of the manga usually censors via Barbie Doll Anatomy, but occasionally uses a sticker of Shirogane's head, playing on his role as a prudish Straight Man. The first and most extensive was during a makeout contest between Suzu and Shadow Mei as they start to tongue each other. Note that other kisses weren't obscured at all (even when they showed tongue) and the sticker covers practically nothing. In some panels, it's squashed like a physical object, making it look far dirtier.
  • The TV version of the anime has a wide variety of Shirogane stickers over most nudity, only using Barbie Doll Anatomy if the scene is more serious.
• Gender Bender: Matsuri is turned female by Shirogane's spell to hinder his relationship with Suzu. The only sure way to change back is for Shirogane to undo it himself, but it's speculated Suzu could do the same if she were to fully realize her powers as as ayakashi medium.
• Gender Bender Angst: Matsuri wants to be male again and has shown no desire to adapt to being a girl, but he's not very upset about it either, and would even accept staying as one forever if he has to. Eventually, though, Matsuri himself starts to see staying female as worse than he first thought, especially since he assumes that means he's stuck as Suzu's "girl friend" even though Suzu is still attracted to him.
• Gender-Bender Friendship:
  • While the two have been close friends even before Matsuri's transformation, he directly asks to be one of Suzu's girl friends in her group to make sure he can defend her from hostile ayakashi. Though she was previously skeptical about Matsuri getting closer just because he became a girl, she takes no issue with it by the time Matsuri actually asks. In a twist, Suzu is attracted to Matsuri both in male and female form, and is (at least subconsciously) using being "both girls" as an excuse to get closer to him romantically. Living so closely with Suzu directly leads to Matsuri realizing he loves her.
  • In a straighter example, Matsuri's newfound closeness to Suzu leads him to sharing her friendship with Lu and Yayo. It turns out that, besides Suzu, they aren't just his first female friends, but his first other friends at all.
• Gender Vocabulary Slip: Invoked by Haya after she pretends to be her brother. Once she has the information she came for, she deliberately breaks her cover by ending her sentence with "-tte kanji" (a feminine mannerism particularly associated with Gyaru Girls). The English translation renders this as a Valley Girlish use of Like Is, Like, a Comma.
• Gentle Touch vs. Firm Hand: After Shirogane is made the Kazamaki family "pet", Matsuri is very short with him, not expecting much besides to keep him from causing more trouble, while Suzu hopes she can befriend and reform Shirogane by treating him with kindness.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: When Matsuri desperately begs his mother Matoi not to kill Suzu under Mei's possession, she slaps him in annoyance and chews him out for expecting her to go easy on an enemy who explicitly plans to destroy humanity, suggesting that he at least find his own way to resolve the issue.
• Get Out!: Matsuri, believing she's an Opposite-Sex Clone who doesn't belong at the original's home, ends up sharing a bath with Soga at his house and asks if she'd be happy as Soga's bride. Soga throws Matsuri out of the tub while yelling to leave. He may have just meant "get out of my sight", but Matsuri leaves his house entirely.
  Soga: Kazamaki would never get swept up in things and lose sight of himself! Go sort yourself out!
• Getting Hot in Here: Sharing a camping tent with Matsuri gives Suzu an Imagine Spot where they strip down to avoid the heat—while rubbing their bodies together for no reason.
• Ghosts Abhor a Vacuum: Reo is introduced sucking up an ikon into a hand-pumped tube; a solid ayakashi like Shirogane merely gets his tail stuck in the nozzle. The talismans wrapped around the cylinder are meant to keep things inside, but they're able to break it open by force.
• Gift-Giving Gaffe:
  • Reo's made a habit of giving Matsuri feminine, often revealing clothing he's not remotely comfortable wearing. She even "updates" Matsuri's ninja suit as a birthday present, only for him to later discover she turned it into a Chainmail Bikini.
  • Rochka's birthday present is a replica of a rare figurine from Matsuri's favorite manga. The problem is, it was made of ice.
    Matsuri: This is awesome! Thanks, Rochka!
    (the figure melts instantly between panels)
    Matsuri: (dejected) Thanks, Rochka...
• Gilligan Cut: Shadow Mei ends one page saying Suzu and Matsuri won't be able to win her over with a day on the town. The next page is her freaking out over the variety of desserts made available since her time.
• Gone Horribly Right: Three men disturb Shadow Mei's dwelling, an abandoned hotel, by hanging around to drink. As a peace offering, Matsuri gathers a bunch of ayakashi together to scare them away. But the men tell others about what they saw, causing far more people to skulk around on a Scare Dare—so many that the authorities end up hastening its demolition, leaving Mei without a home.
  Shadow Mei: (angrily marching away with her things wrapped up in a cloth on her back) Humans... Matsuri Kazamaki... I will never forgive either.
• The Glomp:
  • Shortly after her introduction, Reo hugs Matsuri and pulls him to the ground. The English version even translates the sound of them hitting the floor as "glomp".
  • Matsuri gets tackle-hugged again, except by Suzu, when he turns out to have survived Sosuke's draining his Life Energy.
• Gratuitous English:
  • The second word of the Japanese title is the English word "triangle" transliterated into katakana, instead of the language's own word for triangle (sankakkei).
  • When Lu notices Matsuri is like a ninja in chapter 6, her text box in the Japanese version spells out "NINJA" in all-caps English letters.
• Groin Attack: While possessed by an ayakashi, Lu knocks Matsuri over by kicking him square in the groin.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Soga is a Close-Range Combatant who uses arm blades. By contrast, Reo uses gadgets and incense, while most of Suzu's powers make her The Minion Master in one way or another. Appropriately, Matsuri uses his sword, shuriken, and wind spells at both close and long range.
• Hair Color Dissonance:
  • Matsuri's male form, Matoi, Suzu, Soga, and Sosuke most likely all have black hair. However, color pages show Suzu, Soga, and Sosuke's hair as dark shades of purple, blue, and green, respectively, and give Matsuri and Matoi's streaks of dark red.
  • Matsuri's female form is described as having silver hair, but it's colored with a slight pink shade.
• Halloween Costume Characterization: One Halloween illustration has Suzu dressed as a succubus, playing on her libido.
• Happiness in Mind Control: When forced to reenact the daily lives of a Happily Married couple by an ayakashi, Suzu and Matsuri are fully aware they're being controlled, but don't resist much at all. They just focus on how close they feel without anyone else around. However, when an outside party frees them, they don't take any particular issue.
• Happy-Ending Massage:
  • After Matsuri wonders if it'd be better if he stayed a girl, Suzu asks him to massage her arms and thighs. It was a way to demonstrate Matsuri wasn't comfortable touching girls, and thus still a boy at heart, but Suzu was also enjoying it sexually.
  • Suzu tries the same tactic to break Matsuri out of hypnosis that made him believe he was always a girl. However, Matsuri turns out to be an excellent masseuse when not distracted like he was last time. End result: Suzu collapses in sexual ecstasy without Matsuri being any the wiser.
  • Matsuri performs an exorcism on Suzu's brother Ritta while claiming he's giving him a pressure-point massage. Matsuri's verbal and body language are so unknowingly sexual, Ritta thinks he's being seduced. Afterward, Suzu asks for the same treatment, getting a Dope Slap from Shirogane.
    Matsuri: Just count the stains on the ceiling or something for now. Okay, Ritta?
    Ritta: Um... okay!
• Headbutt of Love: Kanade relays her memories to Matsuri by gently tapping their foreheads together. Because the former is much smaller, she has to stand up on the rock Matsuri was sitting on.
• Healing Shiv: In cat form, Suzu purifies a corrupted Une by chomping into her neck and ripping out the impurity with her teeth.
• Heat Wave: After being released, the Hiderigami causes a heat wave in Omiko City that brings temperatures over 40C / 100F even by mid-morning.
• Heel–Face Brainwashing: Kanade proposes using a Love Potion on Shadow Mei so she'll fall in love with Matsuri and cooperate with them. Matsuri refuses, but has to deal with it anyway when it gets on Mei by accident.
• Heroic Second Wind: In a ridiculous example bordering on parody, Suzu passes out from overheating, then gets back up so Reo won't be the only one to put suntan oil on Matsuri's body.
• Hidden Elf Village: In the mountains near Omiko City is Uraomiko, a hidden village inhabited by ayakashi who've lost their place in the modern world. It's located in a Pocket Dimension where the sky looks like a painting, accessible only by walking through seven torii in the proper order.
• Hit Me, Dammit!: Matsuri invites Shadow Mei to beat him if it'll help her get over her grudge on humanity. Matsuri tries to absorb her attacks with his wind shield, but he's only partially successful.
• Holding Hands: Matsuri doesn't want to date Suzu while he's still a girl, but she convinces him holding hands is "something that even friends might do".
  Matsuri: (red-faced) This is embarrassing.
  Suzu: Just deal with it!
• Honorable Marriage Proposal: Parodied; Suzu brings up how Matsuri said couples shouldn't even kiss before they're married, but they've already done that twice.
  Suzu: (laying over Matsuri) If you're concerned about the proper order of things, then we have to get married, right? We've already kissed.
• Hot Springs Episode: Chapter 11 has Matsuri and Suzu visiting Lu's Big Fancy House to exorcise an ayakashi possessing her, under the pretext of a sleepover, and Lu insists they start by using her family's open air bath together. This puts Matsuri, who doesn't think he should be seeing girls naked, in an awkward position when Lu and Yayo refuse to let him bathe separately. However, the actual bath is cut short when Lu's possession causes her to pass out.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Matsuri is shorter than all the girls his age but Lu, barely reaching his senpai Soga's shoulder.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • In Chapter 75, Lucy bathes with Matsuri to closely inspect his body after becoming suspicious that he's a actually a boy (he is, and has admitted so by this point, but she didn't take him seriously), much to the distress of a spying Suzu.
  Suzu: How shameless...!
  Shirogane: It's irritating to hear that from you.
  • In Chapter 105, Shirogane dismisses romance as unnecessary for the King of Ayakashi... only to instantly fall head over heels for a female cat, which was actually Matsuri after Shadow Mei put him under a curse for a prank.
  • In Chapter 124, Reo creates a Blob Monster to analyze male and female Matsuri and distinguish the actual human body from the ayakashi. Female Matsuri mocks male Matsuri for squealing from the experience, and proclaims that she'll be able to withstand it... but doesn't even finish her sentence before the slime turns on her, producing sensual moans.
• I Am Not Weasel: The first time Reo sees Shirogane, she wonders if he's an "ayakashi pig". Much later, Yayo makes the same mistake.
  Shirogane: I'm a noble white cat!
• I Can't Feel My Legs!: Sosuke's surprise attack paralyzes Matsuri's leg, and his inner monologue expresses the loss of feeling before collapsing.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Matsuri kills the Hiderigami when Suzu thought he was reforming, and repeatedly says "I had to do it."—honestly convinced he did the right thing, but worried Suzu may resent him anyway.
• Idiots Cannot Catch Colds: Suzu mentions she's never gotten sick. She theorizes being an ayakashi medium gives her Ideal Illness Immunity, but it doubles as an unstated joke about her scatterbrained personality.
• Ignore the Fanservice: When Soga gets a wish from Rochka, he uses it to stop getting flustered by Matsuri. He doesn't flinch even when he ends up staring at Matsuri's bare breasts. Matsuri squeezes them around Soga's arm to see how much he can take, but then the spell wears off and Soga passes out as usual.
  Soga: My rival is a bit exposed. So what?
• I'll Be in My Bunk: One chapter has Matsuri suddenly flirting with Suzu to distract her from boy Matsuri. After she licks some cream off Suzu's face, there's a closeup of Suzu trembling with arousal. The next panel has Suzu stepping out of the girl's bathroom, sighing in relief.
• Imaginary Love Triangle:
  • There is a Love Triangle between Matsuri, Suzu, and Soga, as Soga and Matsuri both love Suzu, but Suzu ends up mistaking Soga as her rival for Matsuri's affection. She's not totally wrong—Soga is also attracted to Matsuri—but he's unwilling to act on it, and it's only thanks to a series of misunderstandings that Suzu is worried they're fooling around.
  • Similarly, Lu and Yayo (who only know Matsuri as a girl) think Soga and Matsuri form a different love triangle where Reo also loves Soga. The reality is that Soga and Reo are mutually disinterested, and Reo also loves Matsuri.
  • Matsuri comes to fear Garaku as a romantic rival for Suzu's affection because Garaku knew Suzu's past life, even though there's no signs of attraction between them (not to a mention a huge age difference).
• I'm Crying, but I Don't Know Why: Seeing Garaku's painting of a tree made Suzu tear up and feel nostalgic, even though the tree was torn down over a century before she was born. She's reacting to subconscious Past-Life Memories of hanging around the tree.
• I Meant to Do That: During a mission to raid Shadow Mei's base, Reo and Suzu spend so long fighting over Matsuri that their enemy (who saw them coming) gets tired of waiting and comes out herself. She asks if that was intentional and says it would be very clever if it was. After a Beat Panel each, Suzu and Reo confidently say (or rather, think) it was, and Shirogane shouts that they're lying.
• Important Haircut: Suzu had long hair when she met Matsuri, which she considered a sign of her spiritual power. Matsuri told her it looked like it would get in the way, which inspired Suzu to split off a new personality without Past-Life Memories—the Suzu the series follows—right as her mother cuts her hair to the bob-style she's kept for the rest of her life.
• Incompatible Orientation: Suzu and Matsuri began the series with a heterosexual romantic tension, then Matsuri's sex is changed involuntarily. Though this hasn't actually eliminated any chance of a relationship between them, the idea it could is still brought up or assumed:
  • Shirogane made Matsuri female entirely to foil Suzu's crush on him. To Shirogane's surprise, Suzu remains attracted to Matsuri, though she's far more reluctant. Matsuri doesn't notice this though, and still assume he can't be more than Suzu's "girl friend" unless he changes back.
  • Suzu possibly develops the opposite concern—of Matsuri only becoming attracted to guys—because of his growing closeness to Soga. Although it's also possible Suzu just fears Soga specifically as romantic competition, even if Matsuri's transformation made him bisexual.
• Inconsistent Dub:
  • The term "senpai" is usually left out entirely in the English version, except in chapters 7 (Matsuri calls Soga "my senpai") and 9 (Suzu call him "Ninokuru-senpai"). The volume version removed both (changing the first to "older than me", and removing the latter honorific entirely).
  • Once Matsuri puts "(Soga-)senpai" on a First-Name Basis, the English version has him switch between "Soga" and "Ninokuru" randomly before gradually settling on the former.
  • "Ded Moroz (Дед Мороз)" transliterated into Japanese becomes "Jedo Marōsu (ジェド・マロース)", which Rochka usually shortens to "Jedo (ジェド)" when referring to Seigen. The English version's first translator always used "Ded", how the name is typically translated from Russian, while the second once mistook it for the English name "Jed" before correcting it the next time.
• Indirect Kiss:
  • A supernatural version: Suzu's Enemy Without ends up sneaking into Matsuri's room at night and forcibly kisses Matsuri. While Suzu and Matsuri were whole buildings apart, Suzu's senses were linked with her doppelganger, so both felt as if they really were kissing. Both end up pretending like it never happened.
  • An illustration shows Matsuri offering Soga a drink from his water bottle as they exercise together, with Ponosuke in the background. Matsuri is oblivious to the implication, Soga nervously turns away, and Ponosuke blushes furiously.
• Indulgent Fantasy Segue: Suzu spends one chapter asking Matsuri to touch in her ways that are only appropriate because they're "both girls". Matsuri complies without complaining, then imagines suddenly grabbing Suzu's breasts, and decides they still shouldn't be doing this kind of thing.
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: In chapter 2, Suzu uses her own Sweet Tooth as an excuse to follow Matsuri chasing Shirogane.
  Yayo: Suzu, where are you going?
  Suzu: Gonna see if the cafeteria sells creme brulee!
  Yayo: I doubt it.
• I Never Said It Was Poison: After Suzu heals a small ayakashi, Sosuke says he was surprised an ayakashi medium can really do that. Suzu realizes too late that she never said she was one, and that Sosuke was just pretending to barely know what ayakashi were.
• I Never Told You My Name:
  • When Matsuri sees Suzu's brother Ritta for the first time in years, he calls him by name and observes his growth, even though Ritta's never seen Matsuri as a girl before. Matsuri hastily says they met briefly before, and when Suzu calls Matsuri by name, Ritta remembers him and concludes that Matsuri was always a girl.
  • Shirogane knows Lucy and Yayo's names from hanging around the school, but they only know him as a stray cat. When Shirogane appears before Lu in the form of boy Matsuri, he blithely refers to her by name, making her think he's a telepathic alien.
  • When Matsuri first encounters Mei's omokage, he assumes she's a regular human he's never met before. That she identifies him by name (or at all when he's supposed to be Invisible to Normals) is one hint otherwise before she starts viciously beating Matsuri.
• Inner Monologue Conversation: Several times, Suzu and Matsuri seem as if they're conversing when their dialogue is only in thought balloons. Presumably they're in sync enough to judge each other's intent nonverbal.
• Instant Cosplay Surprise:
  • Reo gives Suzu a "cute" ninja suit, and since it's put on via transformation, Suzu can't tell it's a Chainmail Bikini until she's already wearing it.
  • After Matsuri accidentally gets himself into a shopping trip for girls clothes, Reo has him smell incense to give him the courage to wear any outfit without hesitation. It works so well, he ends up putting on a set of frilly lingerie and stepping out of the dressing room before he realizes he's changed underwear at all.
  • When Reo modifies the exorcist ninja's suits for a mission, she doesn't explain why until after they've been changed in a poof of smoke to swimsuits. Matsuri is briefly embarrassed by how revealing she made his.
• Instant Costume Change:
  • Matsuri minimizes the amount of time he has to spend in the girl's locker room by changing clothes for gym class super fast. It has the unintended bonus of denying Shirogane a chance to steal the scroll tucked into the back of Matsuri's sports bra.
  • Exorcist ninja gear doesn't only switch the wearer instantly into a battlesuit, they can be further modified with a portable external device while still being worn. Suzu can modify her ayakashi medium costume similarly without any kind of external tool.
• Instant Ice: Just Add Cold!: Matsuri jumps into a bath Rochka had drawn for him, and it's so cold he's immobilized and covered in ice when he jumps out. He's fine afterward, though Seigen grimly notes that someone his age would have died of shock.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: Matsuri refuses to believe Suzu can manipulate haku to affect anything seconds before she actually makes her plush doll start moving on its own.
• Insulted Awake:
  • Soga's resistance to women granted by Rochka melts away just as Matsuri rubs his exposed breasts on his arm, causing him to faint like usual. Cut to Shirogane sleeping in Suzu's room, far from the situation, suddenly waking from his nap to scream "shameless!"
  • Subverted in a chapter where Shirogane starts fading from a loss of purpose. Reo and Suzu try to do perverted things for him to continue existing to lecture them for. It turns out Shirogane doesn't like being a Straight Man enough for it to resolve his existential crisis, especially when Matsuri ends up doing it for him.
    Shirogane: I'm useless... I'm just trash that can't even give a good scolding!
  • Played straight later on when Kanade starts Sharing a Body with Shirogane. Matsuri asks what happens to his consciousness when Kanade is in charge right before Suzu lands breast-first in Matsuri's face, and Shirogane takes back over to shame them.
• Interrupted Bath: Matsuri's Shower Scene in chapter 3 is interrupted by Shirogane, who came disguised as Suzu in an attempt to steal the god-sealing scroll.
• Intimate Healing: After a battle, Suzu walks in on Reo rubbing something all over Matsuri's naked body. Turns out it was ointment for Matsuri's injuries.
  Reo: I have a special ointment that works great on bruises.
  Shirogane: You don't have to apply it like that though!
• Intimate Lotion Application: It's a Running Gag that Reo takes advantage of the fact Matsuri is now a girl in order to do questionable perverted things to his body without him complaining or noticing, such as her rubbing suntan oil on his breasts or applying ointment on his injuries while he's naked. Suzu always gets jealous when she learns about it.
• Intoxication Ensues: Suzu tries putting catnip in Shirogane's food, which he quickly gobbles down without knowing while disguised as Matsuri. He ends up mistaking Lu for a pile of dumplings and rants about her "belonging to him" before passing out.
• Invisibility Cloak: Exorcist ninja's battle gear renders them Invisible to Normals just like ayakashi themselves. The Kotorogi clan put their exorcist ninja tools in packaging that does the same, letting them offer their wares while pretending to simply be a toy store. Reo has her own version that's an actual cloak and even the spiritually-aware can't see her through, though they may still notice she's in proximity.
• Invisible to Normals: Ayakashi are invisible and inaudible to humans unless they have some kind of spiritual power (even if they aren't able to use it) or the ayakashi takes deliberate efforts to make themselves visible.
• Ironic Echo:
  • In her head, Suzu describes Matsuri as "cool" when thinking of when he rescued her from an ayakashi at school. A flashback in a later chapter shows Matsuri had the same reaction to Suzu when he saw ayakashi following her.
  • When Matsuri asserts he'll protect Shirogane purely on Suzu's behalf, Soga replies "Infatuated with a woman? How juvenile." After Soga accidentally looks up Matsuri's skirt and runs away in shame, he chastises himself with "I'm… so juvenile."
• It Only Works Once: The god-sealing scroll that took away most of Shirogane's power took decades to create, and can't be used twice. Since it was the only way Matsuri was able to defeat him, Shirogane would be all-but-unstoppable were his powers restored.

J-M

• Journey to the Center of the Mind: When Lu is possessed by an ikon in chapter 11, Matsuri uses his fan to expel it from her body in her sleep. To his surprise, this involved a piece of his spirit entering her body, then showing up in her dreams (in male form) to defend Lu and get her to aid in the ritual.
• Jumping the Gender Barrier:
  • Soga and Matsuri share a mutual respect as colleagues, and after Matsuri is turned female, Soga quickly becomes infatuated with him. Soga's rather unhappy with this, as both wish to still see Matsuri as a guy.
  • Subverted on Matsuri's side: Despite growing much closer and affectionate to Soga after becoming female, and constantly being seen as his girlfriend, he isn't actually actually attracted to him and hasn't noticed Soga is.
  • Played with when Matsuri temporarily loses his memory and believes he was always a girl. "She" falls for Soga immediately, apparently a subconscious effect of his suppressed memories, and asks him out. Soga, to his own surprise, suddenly stopped finding Matsuri attractive when he was acting so "girly".
  • The idea is addressed more seriously when Matsuri is seemingly split into male and female halves. The girl assumes Suzu would get with her boy self and that she isn't welcome in their old home, and so seriously asks if she'd be happy as Soga's bride... which Soga angrily rejects again for basically the same reason.
• "Just Joking" Justification: Matoi asks her child if Suzu would still side with humans if she gained her Past-Life Memories of being killed by them, pointing out how many powerful enemies that would give them. When Matsuri is offended by his mother's attempts to sow doubt in his best friend, Matoi brushes it off as just a means to make him flustered.
• Ki Manipulation: Powers in this setting are mostly based on two kinds of ki-like energy; kon/spiritual energy and haku/life energy. Most humans can only strengthen and manipulate their kon, which is what powers like Matsuri's ninjutsu are based on. Ayakashi powers use haku (they don't have any kon), but they don't seem to be able to manipulate it in the same way. Ayakashi mediums possess not only an unusually large amount of haku, but are uniquely able to control it, giving them powers that are especially effective on ayakashi and related phenomena.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: Sosuke eating Matsuri's haku leaves him disarmed, on his knees, and with an arm and leg unable to move. After briefly gloating, Sosuke continues to eat Matsuri's life away, piece by piece.
• Killing Intent: Parodied in one scene that ominously focuses on Suzu as Reo smells how lustful Suzu's intent to Matsuri is at the moment.
• Kinda Busy Here: Suzu makes a move on Matsuri during his birthday, and they're in the middle of making out when their friends call and invite them to karaoke. Suzu happily goes along, as she was secretly is relieved they had a reason to stop there. She'd planned to show off how little she was wearing under her hoodie, but was getting cold feet.
• Kissed Keepsake: After Matsuri uses Suzu's handkerchief to dry off his bare chest, she turns down his offer to have it cleaned before giving it back. Later that night, Suzu starts smelling it.
• Lady and Knight: Matsuri is an exorcist ninja sworn to protect Suzu, a very kind person whose nature as an ayakashi medium gives her a sort of authority among ayakashi—Suzu's ability to command them is what first brought Matsuri's admiration. Garaku admiringly calls them "The lady knight protecting her princess."
• Last Het Romance: Comically invoked by boy Matsuri, who sees Suzu favoring his girl self and worries she was only ever into girls.
  Imaginary Suzu: Sorry, Matsuri. I think I like girls♥
• Last-Name Basis: Characters usually call Soga "Ninokuru", as most of the named students are a year younger than him.
• Last-Second Word Swap: Suzu is once forced to cut off her omokage from telling Matsuri "suki ([I] love [you])" at just "su". Later, Suzu cuts off her own attempt at the same and instead says "suītopoteto (sweet potato)". (The English version made the cut-off phrase "sweet [on you]".) Somehow, just from that first incident, Matsuri decided to buy her a sweet potato bun.
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo A cart-racing game Matsuri plays with Rochka clearly features the title character of Cheburashka and his nemesis Shapoklyak, but they're only shown from the back.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: One chapter ends with Shadow Mei teasing some sort of revelation about Matsuri that only she's aware of. She's nominally Thinking Out Loud, but effectively talking straight to the audience.
  Shadow Mei: (turning to face the reader) Well, I guess I could tell them.
• "Leave Your Quest" Test: When Matsuri is struggling with his training, Reo offers him a respite in the form of a new pair of fundoshi ("advanced fundoshi" at that). Matsuri is tempted but refuses, emphasizing his need to get stronger regardless of such personal costs. Then he shows off his new girly underwear to Reo, which brings a tear to her eye. Turns out Matoi put Reo up to it to test his willpower, and she's impressed.
• Lesser of Two Evils: The Exorcist Ninja Association once assigned Matsuri to collect a sample of Suzu's haku that basically required him to kiss her belly button while she's sleeping. Despite how embarrassed the idea leaves him, Reo convinces Matsuri he's better off doing it, or else it'll just be passed onto another exorcist ninja (like Soga).
• A Lesson Learned Too Well: When Matsuri considered staying a girl just to be sure he'll remain friends with Lu and Yayo, Suzu got him to admit he still considered himself a guy. Later, once Suzu and Matsuri confess love for each other, Matsuri is so insistent his "real" self is a guy, he refuses to date anyone until he's male again. Suzu then realizes she may have shot herself in the foot in the long run.
  Suzu: Shoot, did I ruin my chances?
• Lingerie Scene:
  • Matsuri is frequently shown hanging around his house shirtless, only wearing a sports bra on top.
  • One scene deals with Matsuri changing for gym class, which shows him, Suzu, and Lu in only their underwear.
• Literal Metaphor: In Japanese, the native words for "sex" and "gender" are the same, so a person's gender identity is often described as the sex/gender of their "heart/spirit/soul". For Matsuri this idea is applied very literally; him still identifying as male despite his transformation is shown by his actual spirit retaining his original form when part of it enters Lu's mind (which she sees that way even though she'd only known Matsuri to be a girl).
• Loss of Inhibitions:
  • When Matsuri hesitates to try on girls' clothes during a shopping trip, Reo has him smell some incense for "the courage to take a new step forward". Matsuri then wears every ridiculous getup Reo picks out for him with maniacally enthusiasm, and switches his underwear with lingerie without noticing. He snaps out of it when he sees the latter, after stepping out in front of his friends, and is predictably embarrassed.
  • The Gogyosen plan to inject a deadly curse into Suzu by making male Matsuri, their omokage puppet, have sex with her. To this end, they use the corrupted Lippy to send the couple into a pocket dimension that strips away all inhibition. It ultimately doesn't work... because Suzu wasn't satisfied with only one Matsuri.
• Lost in Translation:
  • In the Japanese version, Matsuri introduced himself to Yayo (still) using the very masculine pronoun ore, which caused Yayo to call him an "orekko". In the English version, nothing about his speech is specifically masculine, but Yayo still calls him a tomboy without seeing "her" do anything boyish.
  • Lu's dialogue in Japanese is mostly in katakana to indicate Creepy Monotone, switching to hiragana in more expressive moments. In English, her dialogue is written in the same fonts as everyone else's.
  • The first time Une was mentioned, by Rochka as "U-chan" in chapter 36, the translator couldn't tell if Rochka was speaking to herself or someone off-screen, so the line became a vaguer mention of "my friend". Strangely, the Seven Seas volume release didn't fix this.
  • Matoi repeatedly talks about moving in with Matsuri to take command of his "chōkyō (調教)", which the English version translates as "training". This loses some of the sinister subtext, as the original term specifically describes the training of an animal. The Spanish version uses "domarte (taming)", which has the opposite problem of making it sound like she's just training to alter his behavior, not make him stronger.
  • After incapacitating the Hiderigami, Matsuri brags of his power increase from losing his fundoshi with "I'm not a girl just for show!" Part of the joke in Japanese was that he was calling himself female using very masculine language (specifically, substituting the negating suffix "-nai" with the rougher equivalent "-nē", and adding "ze" to the end of the sentence).
  • A subtle joke in the Japanese version has Suzu confess love to Matsuri with her mouth full, with the kanji showing the proper pronunciation, but the the furigana indicating her muffled pronunciation (e.g. Matsuri becomes "Mafuri"). The English version just shows the former.
  • When Suzu gropes Matsuri with her omokage, Matsuri mentally exclaims "yaru na", a phrase with a Double Meaning of "stop that!", but also "impressive!", ambiguously suggesting Matsuri liked being touched like that. The Spanish ("No, Suzu!") and English ("She's really good at this!") versions much more directly state one or the other.
  • Reo's test on the two Matsuris shows they have identical "konpakku", which means both kon and haku together. The English version has her saying they have identical "spiritual energy", a translation specifically used for kon, making it seem like Reo gave up without even trying to look at their haku/life energy.
  • When Shadow Mei realizes the Gogyosen want to transfer their curse from boy Matsuri to Suzu through sex in chapter 127, her monologue in English states "That's why they needed a male Matsuri!" Using an indefinite article specifically implies the carrier being male was a requirement. However, Japanese doesn't use articles, so the original phrase is vaguer, more like "[That is] the purpose of (the) male Matsuri."
• Lotus-Eater Machine: While being possessed, Suzu's mind is trapped in a dream prison made of desserts. She keeps eating without paying attention to any outside voice until Matsuri gravely talks to her.
• Loud Gulp: Matsuri gulps audibly when Garaku takes Shirogane away from their lunch with Suzu, leaving Matsuri alone with Suzu in her room.
• Love Confessor:
  • Soga tells Matsuri that he loves Suzu before his attempt to (partially) let her know the same, reasoning Matsuri should know because they're so close. Matsuri doesn't think it's any of his business, though he's lying when he says he has no problem with it at all.
  • After Matsuri's Love Epiphany for Suzu, he quickly lets Soga know. Soga immediately tells Matsuri he's a more appropriate suitor, can't believe he's second-guessing that she feels the same, and encourages Matsuri to pursue a relationship regardless of how his body currently is.
• Love Epiphany:
  • When Suzu hugs Matsuri after his fight with Sosuke, which temporarily turned him male again, he's shocked at how much he wants to kiss her. He then realizes living close to her as a girl changed his perception of her from an idol to a person he's fallen in love with.
    It wasn't like this before. I've never felt that way about her. It was more like she was someone who was really special. [...] But after I became a girl, we spent time together and grew closer. That allowed me to see her in a more familiar way. I can see her as Suzu, as a girl.
  • Suzu knew from the story's beginning she was infatuated with Matsuri, but at the end of the tenth volume realizes she's not just attracted to either male or female form, but specifically loves Matsuri as a girl as much as a boy.
• Love Triangle: Matsuri and Suzu are both interested in each other. Soga is knowingly in love with Suzu, though he can't say it to her face, but also physically attracted to Matsuri in a way he can't come to grips with.
• Loving Details: Suzu eats so often in front of Matsuri, he's memorized how long each type of food takes, and sees deviation as a sign of distress.
  Matsuri: It took her 3 minutes and a half to eat a single donut! Usually, that type'd only take her 50 seconds.
  Shirogane: The fact that you know such details creeps me out.
• Lucky Charms Title: The series logo◊ renders the Japanese text in a bizarre, incredibly angular font that draws parts of the first character (あ) and the dakuten as equilateral triangles. More subtly, the English subtitle is written in all-caps with all the As drawn in a way that emphasizes their triangular shape.
• Ludicrous Precision: Suzu asks Reo how long she's known Matsuri, and she instantly answers down to the exact number of seconds.
• MacGuffin: The god-sealing scroll becomes something Shirogane seeks to restore his power for the first two volumes, and Matsuri must keep from him, least he become unable to stop him from eating Suzu.
• Magitek: Exorcist ninja use equipment and have devices that seem to be based on the same powers as their ninjutsu. Reo even says her computer-linked training robot was powered by a "jutsu".
• Magical Floating Shawl: One of Matsuri's ninja tools is the "Sash of the Wind God", which is essentially a fancy paraglider controlled by his wind.
• Magnetic Medium: An ayakashi medium's high level of Life Energy attracts ayakashi, but also gives them the ability to see them. Most people who can see the spirits are not ayakashi mediums, and thus lack their level of "magnetism", but their ability may still be exploited by tricksters looking to antagonize them or even very-violent spirits who want their victims to know why they'll die.
• Making Love in All the Wrong Places:
  • As Shirogane's shrine was getting fewer visitors, it became quite the Makeout Point, made worse by interlopers not being able to see the resident "god" spying their rendezvous. His Gender Bender spell was meant purely to punish them, but the entire village was flooded to make a damn while he was out training.
  • When Shirogane sees Suzu attempting to kiss Matsuri, he uses being at a different shrine as an excuse to cut them off.
    Don't make out at a shrine!
• Malfunction Malady: Shirogane getting a cold causes the curse he put on Matsuri to partially reverse for a moment. It's not explained if he could have reversed it partially on purpose or only because of the cold.
• Man, I Feel Like a Woman:
  • Two mornings after being turned female, Matsuri fondles his new breasts while looking amazed at his new body in the mirror. Suzu walks in on him and is disgusted afterward. Matsuri feels no shame, and asks if she wouldn't do the same thing if she suddenly became male. Her hesitant denial is unconvincing.
  • Matsuri has a Shower Scene in the third chapter where it's implied he's exploring his genitals before being interrupted by a knock on the window.
    I see... so that's what's going on down there.
  • A much later chapter has Matsuri pulling his bra up and squeezing his breasts in front of a mirror. He was already quite used to his body, but after Shadow Mei's breasts engulfed Matsuri's face, he wanted to keep himself from being distracted by her "terrifying pressure" again. Unlike the previous incidents, Matsuri is obviously aroused and a lot more embarrassed when inevitably interrupted.
• Marshmallow Dream: One chapter has Matsuri tasked with getting a Life Energy sample from Suzu while she's sleeping. In the process, Suzu's dream about eating marshmallows causes her to bite and nibble on Matsuri's breast.
• Marshmallow Hell:
  • Suzu once hugged Matsuri, forgetting she was holding Shirogane, squishing him between their chests. After several pages of them embracing (where he was barely visible), Shirogane angrily bursts himself out from between them.
  • After narrowly avoiding being sucked into a wind vortex, Matsuri lands chest-first on Shirogane, and is initially too injured to get up. This leads to one panel where Shirogane's round head looks as if it replaced one of Matsuri's breasts.
• Martial Arts for Mundane Purposes: The Ninokuru clan have a soba noodle restaurant as a public front and make their deliveries via high-speed Roof Hopping.
• Masturbation Means Sexual Frustration:
  • In chapter 7, Suzu curls up on her bed while thinking if kissing Matsuri could make him male again. The next page shows her asleep, but her hand between her legs, the fingers pointed at her crotch, and the closeup of her eyes suggests she may have fallen asleep touching herself.
  • Chapter 90 is far less ambiguous. Kanade shows Matsuri a Pensieve Flashback of Suzu's life to explain why she's a separate personality... but she unintentionally starts with Suzu's shower the previous day. Suzu is seen sitting with her hands down at her crotch while moaning Matsuri's name.
• Meditating Under a Waterfall:
  • Matsuri stands under a waterfall to concentrate and manipulate spiritual energy. As a boy, he'd strip down to his fundoshi, but as a girl wears a robe—which isn't really hiding anything when it gets wet. At one point, he gets overexcited at Suzu hugging him, and basically uses the waterfall as a cold shower.
  • Suzu once joins Matsuri's training, but is overwhelmed by the cold water even in (bikini-form) protective gear. When she notices the clothes clinging to Matsuri's body, she realizes she can use her life energy to warm herself up, which also wakes small, dormant spirits in the river. Shirogane points out the irony of withstanding ascetic training with sexual lust.
    Shirogane: That girl... she's trying to overcome waterfall training with worldly desires.
• Milholland Relationship Moment: Since Yayo and Lu became friends with Matsuri believing him to be a girl, he worries they'd hate him if they discover he used to be male. Shortly after Yayo becomes able to see the supernatural, Matsuri admits the truth, and she's very sympathetic. (Lu, on the other hand, just think he and Suzu are delusional.)
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body:
  • Shirogane insists his gender-swap spell only affects the body, not the spirit, but Reo theorizes that Matsuri's body itself could be making his spirit more like a girl's. What effect, if any, actually seems to be quite minor, but from then on Suzu becomes concerned Matsuri will become "a girl in heart and soul" that's only attracted to guys and not to her.
  • Suzu temporarily absorbing ayakashi to use their powers affects her personality. Absorbing Shirogane made her a Cat Girl who fought more aggressively, licked herself, ran on all fours, carried objects in her mouth, and shows way more physical affection to Matsuri.
    Matsuri: What's gotten into you?! Stop licking meee!
    Kanade: She's in heat...
• Mirrors Reflect Everything: Parodied; Lu knows the "standard" tactic against an enemy with a Deadly Gaze is to reflect its powers back at it with a giant mirror. It just smashes the mirror to pieces without even looking at it with its main eyes.
• Mistaken Declaration of Love: A non-verbal variant occurs after Matsuri reiterates to Suzu he won't date her yet. He abruptly grabs her to take an attack meant for her, but Suzu thinks he's hugging her after a sudden change of heart.
• Mistaken for an Imposter: When Suzu travels back in time and encounters as still-male Matsuri, she immediately tackles and tries to kiss him. Matsuri assumes she's an ayakashi in disguise, as this was months before they confessed they loved each other—after which, Suzu showed how sexually aggressive she could be—and he'd seen the Suzu from his time dressed differently a few minute earlier.
  Matsuri: Suzu would never touch me like that!
• Mistaken for Romance:
  • Played with; Soga's misspoken Declaration of Protection to Suzu, and him soon coming to Matsuri's defense in battle, make her think Soga is in love with Matsuri. Soga actually is physically attracted to Matsuri's female form, but he doesn't want to pursue a romantic relationship with him.
    Soga (thinking): Just say it, Soga Ninokuru! "From now on, I'll stand alongside Kazamaki to protect you!
    Soga (talking): I'll protect Kazamaki! [...] Because Kazamaki is a colleague! That's it, bye! (Soga vanishes)
    Suzu (thinking): What was that?! Did Ninokuru just declare that he's my rival?
  • Upon Suzu meeting Reo, she affectionately embraces Matsuri while saying he was "her first", making Suzu think she's Matsuri's New Old Flame, and imagines they could have even had sex together. In truth, Matsuri was instead the first to trust Reo's craftsmanship enough to use her equipment herself. Then Reo's next appearance shows she really is infatuated with Matsuri, though he hasn't noticed, and Reo herself doesn't think she has much of a chance of dating him.
  • Lu and Yayo also see Soga as a potential boyfriend for Matsuri after Soga scares away two boys that were bothering Matsuri. They frustrate Suzu with how on-board they are.
  • Upon learning Reo and Soga are Childhood Friends, Yayo and Lu see a Childhood Friend Romance between both as an inevitable threat to Soga and Matsuri hooking up. Hilariously, this gets Matsuri worried, because he believes Yayo's claim that a "girl" like him can't be friends with Soga when he has a girlfriend.
  • Ponosuke sees Ibuki fixating on Matsuri and concludes she's Hot for Student. She was actually interested because she's Matsuri's mother in disguise
• Modesty Towel: While in Tanumaro's illusion, Matsuri sees Suzu wearing a towel in the bath, which conceals her crotch, and partially covers her breasts and butt. Matsuri himself just gets a hand cloth draped over his groin, which the illusion of Suzu quickly takes off.
• Mood Whiplash: In the first chapter, Seigen panics when Matsuri casually mentions that Suzu went off alone with an ayakashi named Shirogane, and explains that the pudgy white cat is actually the King of Ayakashi... cut to Shirogane moaning in ecstasy as Suzu rubs his belly.
• Morphic Resonance: When Matsuri is turned into a cat, his fur is long, silver, and spiky just like his hair as a human.
• Motifs: Yin and yang. The kon and haku energies correspond to yang and yin, respectively. Matsuri was originally male, has white hair, and manipulates kon for ninjutsu. Suzu is wholly female, has black hair, and manipulates haku. One of the color pages even has the two curled together head-to-foot, visually evoking a taijitu.
• Mourning an Object: Matsuri stops wearing fundoshi as part of his training, making him realize the comfort they'd brought him. After he finalized his decision, Matsuri bids fundoshi a tearful farewell, gazing at a sky it appears in.
  Farewell, my fundoshi. Until the day we're reunited...
• Mundane Utility: Suzu uses her Self-Duplication power to wash her back. She herself acknowledges that it's not very impressive, but still useful.
• Murderous Thighs: Done by accident when Matsuri gets Punched Across the Room and collides with Suzu, causing a Twisted-Knee Collapse over Matsuri's head. Suzu instinctively pulls her legs together trying to cover herself, but just squeezes Matsuri's head and makes it harder for him to get out.
• Musical Theme Naming: Suzu's name means "bell", while her brother Ritta's name is spelt with the kanji for "rhythm", which is also used in the word for "melody". The cafe their parents operate is called "Melody Bell" (in English).
• Mutually Unequal Relation: Soga constantly calls Matsuri his "rival", and though he doesn't mean that in an antagonistic way, he still thinks they're competing against each other to become stronger. Matsuri doesn't contest this, but also doesn't act like they're in any kind of competition, acting very deferential and atypically candid to Soga. He's even sometimes so adoring as to repeatedly be mistaken as Soga's girlfriend.
• My Eyes Are Up Here:
  • During a jog for P.E., two male students brazenly stare at Matsuri's bouncing breasts. He's inwardly disgusted at them, and prepares to tell them off. Yayo and Lu ward them off first, and they run off apologizing.
  • Another occasion involved a body part besides breasts and had a third person doing the call out: Suzu trips and pulls Matsuri's fundoshi down, giving her a closeup view of his crotch as he again changes from male to female. Shirogane furiously points out that she keeps staring even as both yelp in surprise.
    Shirogane: What are you talking to?!
    Suzu: N-no! I had water in my eyes, so I couldn't see anything!
    Matsuri: (thinking) She saw it both ways...
• Mythology Gag:
  • The cover of chapter 37 has Matsuri wearing the same winter jacket and leggings plus a similar scarf to the ones Fuuka wore in the oneshot.
  • Matsuri's equivalent in the oneshot was named "Reo (獅雄)". The Ayakashi Triangle character Reo and her father Shishimaru's names reference this in opposite ways: the former has the same pronunciation, but is spelled with different kanji (恋緒). The latter begins with the same kanji, but pronounces it differently.
  • The narrated second-to-last line of the manga is "Inochi no Kaze wa Ruten Suru (The winds of life are constantly blowing)", which includes the title of the anime's theme tune "Neppu wa Ruten Suru (Hot Winds are Constantly Blowing)" with an Alternate Character Reading of "熱風 (hot wind)".

N-P

• Naughty Under the Table: A New Years' omake, which was adapted into an audio short, has Suzu playing footsies with Matsuri while they share a kotatsu. However, Matsuri's aroused moaning and fidgeting imply Suzu reached further up, even if she appears too far to reach Matsuri's crotch. Suzu coyly praises how nice kotatsu are in the winter until she wakes Shirogane, who was sleeping under it, and he bites her leg.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Matsuri's group spook some men away from the abandoned building where Shadow Mei lives to give her some peace and quiet before she resorts to more violent methods... but their stunt simply attracts more people to the supposed haunted house before it's ultimately demolished, leaving Shadow Mei even more bitter toward Matsuri and humanity in general as she has to relocate.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • Shirogane explains to Suzu that she is an ayakashi medium before attacking her, showing to her that Matsuri had good reason to drive ayakashi from her. Shirogane pretty quickly catches on, gets angry at the idea of just being a "stepping stone" to their relationship, and decides he wants to keep them from getting closer romantically even if he can't eat Suzu.
  • Sosuke draining Matsuri's haku not only fails to kill him, but actually gives Matsuri a few hours in his original form to spend with Suzu. That said, Sosuke shortly thereafter takes aways Shirogane's power, and thus Matsuri's way to return to being male any longer, so it ended up being a minor condolence.
• Night Parade of One Hundred Demons: A very benign form of hyakki-yakō is shown while Kachofugetsu run laps for gym glass. Matsuri muses on if Yayo and Lu could see the supernatural, and has an Imagine Spot of many different types of ayakashi running alongside them.
• Ninja Log: Parodied; Suzu kicks Matsuri, who switches places with a log the moment after taking the hit. She questions the point, and Matsuri replies that he didn't want her to hurt her leg kicking a log.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Matsuri and other characters are exorcist ninja. They have the outfits and fighting abilities associated with ninja, but specialize in sealing, purifying, and banishing dangerous spirits.
• Nipple and Dimed: Downplayed; female nipples are only fully drawn in the collected volumes, but even the serialized version often shows their outlines with some light shading for the areola.
• No Communities Were Harmed: Omiko is loosely modeled after Odawara.
• No Guy Wants to Be Chased: Zig-zagged; Matsuri reciprocates romantic feelings for Suzu, who has strong sexual desires but is waiting for Matsuri to make the first move. Reo comes onto Matsuri much harder, which he just finds embarrassing and doesn't understand. However, Matsuri's mother figures he's actually an inversion: a submissive who likes it when Suzu takes charge, so Reo's best bet is to be aggressive to Matsuri as possible.
• No Help Is Coming: Despite the global importance of events in Omiko City, Matoi explains the Exorcist Ninja Association can't send any help because they're busy with increased jinyo activity in Tokyo.
• No Ontological Inertia: Shirogane's spell that turned Matsuri female is a complicated example: On one hand, it works without any involvement of Shirogane himself; if he dies or is severely weakened, that simply prevents him from removing it. On the other hand, the transformation must be constantly maintained by the mark on Matsuri's stomach. Draining a person's haku is usually fatal, but in his female form, Matsuri would simply lose what's being used the by mark, temporarily incapacitating him and restoring his male form until the mark replaces it again.
• No Periods, Period: The series has one implied reference to menstruation, but it's very oblique for how raunchy the series is overall. Matsuri has his face looking up Suzu's skirt after colliding with her, and Suzu is embarrassed that it happened on that specific day. The audience gets a very explicit view of her underwear, but a speech bubble covers a very small part of her crotch which might have shown the indent of a tampon.
  Suzu: Don't look today!
  Shirogane: On another day he can?!
• Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: Reo tricks Soga into testing her Supernatural Fear Inducer by suggesting he couldn't handle being scared of Matsuri.
  Soga: Don't be ridiculous! He's my rival. I'm not going to be thrown off by some sticker!
  Reo: Yay! (thinking) He's so easy.
• Nobody Here but Us Statues: Shirogane once hides from Matsuri by shapeshifting into a jizo statue. It works, even though the statue clearly looks like him and is in the middle of a high school hallway.
• Non-Indicative Name: Confusingly, spiritual energy (kon) is entirely absent from spirits like ayakashi; they only contain life energy (haku).
• Non-Uniform Uniform: The dress code at Hokusai High School always has a white dress shirt, black skirt/slacks, and a tie, but there are several variants for outerwear: Matsuri, Yayo, and Soga wear black jackets. Suzu (after the first three chapters) wears a black cardigan, while Lu wears a tan one. Matsuri also replaces the tie with his ninja suit choker, and undoes enough shirt buttons to show it and some cleavage.
  Once the story reaches summer, the students switch to short-sleeved shirts and mostly lose the outerwear, but find other ways to distinguish their outfits: Matsuri leaves his shirt untucked, Yayo continues wearing the previous shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, Lu keeps her sweater tied around her waist, and Reo wears a sweater vest.
• Not a Date: In chapter 9, Suzu invites Soga to lunch at her parent's cafe, which Ponosuke guesses is a date. She was actually inviting both of them, along with Matsuri and Shirogane, to ask for advice in helping the latter pair get along. Shirogane and Matsuri don't come, and Suzu's parents can't see Ponosuke, so they assume she's dating Soga and are too busy to hear otherwise. Outside, Matsuri and Shirogane spy on them, knowing the meeting wasn't meant as a date, but suspect it could turn into one.
• Not Even Bothering with an Excuse: Shadow Mei constantly spies on everyone and isn't reluctant or evasive about learning things that way.
  Mei: I heard Suzu fused with Shirogane and became a cat during summer break.
  Matsuri: And who told you that?
  Mei: I listened in on your conversations using black origami♥
  Matsuri: Why are you like this?
• Not Hyperbole:
  • Matsuri precedes his fight against Sosuke with the line "I'll open up a windhole in your stomach." After Matsuri fires a wind ninjutsu into the giant mouth Sosuke uses to absorb haku, tearing him up from the inside, Matsuri points out he managed exactly what he promise.
  • After boy Matsuri says it feels like Suzu's gotten a lot closer to his female counterpart, the perspective changes to show Suzu is physically at arm's length from boy Matsuri and almost shoulder-to-shoulder with girl Matsuri.
• Not in Front of the Kid: Une waxes nostalgic about being created in a Red Light District two centuries ago, then decides to Change the Uncomfortable Subject when Rochka asks what that is.
  Une: You need not know!
  Rochka: But I wanna know! I wanna know! Tell me, U-chan! What's a red light dis—
• Not Me This Time: After multiple corrupted ayakashi attempt to kill Suzu, Matoi wrongly points to Shadow Mei as the most likely culprit because it seems like something she would be capable of. When Matsuri counters that Mei needs Suzu alive, she says Mei's behavior is too erratic to predict. (In Matoi's defense, Shadow Mei had attempted to kill Matsuri by setting an ayakashi on a rampage that almost killed Suzu as well.)
• Not What It Looks Like: Ritta walks in on his sister laying in bed with Matsuri, whose shirt is open. Ritta runs out and apologizes for bothering them while Suzu insists it's not what he thinks. Suzu was actually trying to use her powers to change Matsuri back into a boy, albeit in a way that's a lot like sex.
• Now, Let Me Carry You: After a long time honing her powers as an ayakashi medium, Suzu manages to save Matsuri from Garaku when his powers are sealed away.
  Suzu: Matsuri saved me so many times before. Now it's my turn to protect Matsuri.
• Now That's Using Your Teeth!: With Matsuri's right arm disabled, he uses his left to throw his scabbard, holding the end of an attached rope with his teeth to swing it around Sosuke.
• Offhand Backhand: As Matsuri finishes making out with Suzu to exorcise a spirit from her, he briefly continues the kiss while expelling the spirit out through his hand in the direction opposite to where he was facing.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Muga accuses Matsuri of distracting his son, leading him down a "path of impurity". Matsuri, having failed to notice Soga's infatuation, insists "there's nothing impure" about their relationship, eliciting an audible sting of guilt in Soga.
• Old Friend, New Gender: A non-transgender variant. The Kanade family hadn't seen Matsuri in years by the time he was made female, and so believe he was a prepubescent girl they mistook for a boy.
• Once per Episode: Most chapters features a panel with a prominent view of Shirogane's testicles.
• Orifice Evacuation:
  • An indirect example occurs in chapter 11 when Matsuri expels an ayakashi possessing Lu. Rather than coming directly out of her mouth, it comes out of the pinwheel Suzu placed in her mouth, almost like it were a straw.
  • After Une's Pocket Dimension collapses, the one object left inside is mentioned to have come out of her face when she sneezed. (Though since Une has a two-dimensional "face" on a mirror, there might not have technically been an orifice involved.)
• Origins Episode: In chapter 29, going through a convoluted Zany Scheme to speed the development of Suzu's power makes Shirogane question what he's doing in his life, thinking back to how he got to his current state from being treated as a god.
• Orwellian Retcon: The collected volumes slightly redraw things or change dialogue to match later chapters, and not just in terms of artstyle:
  • Some panels from the first two chapters add Matsuri's ninja suit choker, keeping with how he wears it even while bathing and sleeping from chapter 3 onward.
  • Matsuri's casual outfit in chapter 1 is slightly redrawn to match how it would look when it was next seen in chapter 14.
  • Suzu's hair at the end of chapter 1 and throughout chapter 2 is redrawn to match the fuller, rounder style she has from chapter 3 onward.
  • In the magazine version of chapter 33, Reo says she doesn't care whether Matsuri is a boy or girl because "What's important is the CPU. The inside is what counts." The volume changes "CPU" to "OS" (operating system), presumably because software makes more sense than hardware as a metaphor.
  • The swimsuit Suzu wears while going after the Hiderigami in chapters 47 through 49 is redrawn to turn the circular symbol from solid to a lower Cleavage Window.
  • Matsuri's line in chapter 84 that he would "check things out by looking and feeling" his female body was rewritten to sound less like he was talking about masturbation. Considering the volumes are usually even more graphically sexual, it's quite a bizarre alteration.
  • Dialogue for chapters 112 and 113, when Reo fights Donpa, is changed to make the Crimson Gourd's power, which sucks in people who answer to the holder saying their name, more consistent. Originally, Reo ended the chapter responding to Donpa saying her name, which is resolved anticlimactically next by Donpa either forgetting or refusing to use his gourd (even though Reo wanted to be Captured on Purpose). In the volume version, Donpa simply never states her name.
• Ouija Board: Kachofugetsu play a game where they put their fingers on a coin, asking Shiromatsu use it to answer their questions. Matsuri lets Suzu know he'll move the coin, as "Shiromatsu" looks like his male side. Shirogane (who's "actually" Shiromatsu) uses telekinesis to interfere once Yayo asks about Soga and Matsuri, as he wants Suzu to worry Soga is a romantic rival. Matsuri notices him but Suzu doesn't, and turns it into a game of tug-of-war over the coin. The game is mostly based on Kokuri-san (there's an open window Shirogane stands in, Lu does the chant but with "Shiromatsu/Shiroma-sama" replacing "Kokuri-san", and there's a drawing of a UFO instead of a tori), but the English version makes the comparison to a Ouija board.
  Suzu: Isn't this a Ouija board?
  Lu: Shiromatu's thoughts in space reside in this ten-yen coin...
  Suzu: So it is a Ouija board.
• Out-of-Character Moment: While fighting a possessed Lu, Matsuri is too distracted by her accidentally flashing him while Going Commando to use any of his wind jutsu, even as he and Suzu are nearly killed. Several times before that Matsuri was capable of ignoring completely naked girls (including Lu herself) and using his wind powers in an emergency.
• Outdoor Bath Peeping: Shadow Mei is first encountered by the protagonists when Soga and Matsuri run into her bathing in a forest. It's implied this wasn't an accident, but a trap to send Soga reeling and lower Matsuri's guard.
• Overly Stereotypical Disguise: Matsuri disguises himself in chapter 9 as a (different) girl, affecting an obnoxiously cute act where he talks loudly, giggles, and proclaims his enthusiasm with a heart in his speech bubble. Suzu saw through it instantly, and her mother at least found him incredibly conspicuous.
• Page-Turn Surprise: Several inane things are comedically overplayed by having them appear on the first panel of a pair of pages.
  • As Matsuri explains to Suzu that she's the only friend he's ever had, Suzu suddenly gets quiet. Matsuri continues that he shouldn't bother being friends with Lu or Yayo even if he's around them. Suddenly, the page ends with a dramatic closeup of his shocked reaction, and the first panel of the next page is Suzu shaking her head. She changes his mind.
  • As Matsuri refuses to let Soga exorcise Shirogane, one page ends on Soga threatening to use force. The next starts with Soga getting flustered from looking straight up at Matsuri's skit.
  • As Matsuri dismisses the need to befriend Yayo and Lu, the page ends on Matsuri turning in shock. The first panel of the next page is Suzu shaking her head with a very pouty face, which makes Matsuri reconsider.
  • The first page of chapter 105 ends with Shadow Mei handing him a bell she implies he's meant to give to Suzu. On the next page, Matsuri's been turned into a cat in a puff of smoke.
• Painting the Medium: An ayakashi's speech bubble having a thick border indicates their speech is inaudible to most humans. Ayakashi in humanly-visible forms have regular speech bubbles.
• Paper Talisman: After Matsuri captures Shirogane, he wraps his body in a ball of paper talismans and throws an extra one on his face. In a later incident, Matsuri also puts two more talismans over Shirogane's mouth to keep him quiet, but Shirogane manages to tear through them all when Matsuri isn't looking.
• Partial Transformation:
  • Reo's attempt to neutralize Matsuri's curse with aromatherapy only manages to remove his breasts, leaving him still female otherwise. They're still impressed that the first attempt would work so well, until the mark rebounds a few hours later and makes Matsuri's breasts larger than ever for the rest of the day.
    Matsuri: So heavy...
  • When Shirogane gets a cold, Matsuri momentarily regains his penis, but nothing else changes.
    Matsuri: It looks like... I have both?!
• Pictorial Letter Substitution: The logo◊ for the series renders the Japanese text in a bizarre, incredibly angular font that draws the "あ (a)" kana and the dakuten as equilateral triangles. The English translation of the same logo is written in all-caps with all the As drawn to emphasize their triangular shape, sometimes filling them in with red. The English release eventually uses a slight variation of the latter where the A in "TRIANGLE" is replaced with a triangle (or perhaps the Greek letter delta).
• Pilot: The manga is loosely based on a (very short) oneshot titled Reo × Leo. It shared the premise of a romcom between a girl and girl-turned-boy, and their appearances are similar to Suzu and Matsuri. However, it featured Supernatural Martial Arts instead of ayakashi (Matsuri's equivalent was transformed by a Pressure Point) while the main duo had completely different names and personalities.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: Yayo and Lu don't think a girl like Matsuri should talk casually to Soga if he started dating someone else. Matsuri immediately believes them, and goes to pour his heart out to Soga about how important talking to him has been.
  Even if you get a girlfriend, I want us to stay friends, so we can talk about anything with each other!
• Please Put Some Clothes On:
  • After Matsuri and Suzu get sucked into a mirror world while the latter is bathing, Matsuri gives Suzu his now-inert Invisibility Cloak to cover herself until she finds some clothes.
  • On a mission with Soga, Matsuri gets most of his ninja suit stripped down to the underlayer, which is thin enough to expose his nipples and has an opening that shows his underpants. He continues on regardless, until Soga gains enough composure to cover Matsuri up with his voluminous scarf for the rest of the mission. An extra comic posted on Twitter shows Soga fondly noting it's still warm and then slamming his head on the wall.
• Plot-Based Voice Cancellation: Garaku relays an Unspoken Plan to Shadow Mei where his words are rendered as only ellipses, followed by a panel of her agreeing it's a good idea.
• Poor Communication Kills: For years Suzu resented the distrustful attitude Matsuri developed toward ayakashi, because Matsuri never told her that some ayakashi would inevitably begin targeting her specifically. Matsuri didn't think there was any good way to explain "your body makes monsters want to eat you", but Suzu still chews him out.
• Pose of Supplication: Garaku bows his head down to the floor after Matsuri defeats him, insisting his attempt to take the god-sealing scroll was just a way to test their powers.
• Post-Modern Magik:
  • The Exorcist Ninja Association sends out information to exorcist ninja via a smartphone app, giving warnings of elevated chance of dangerous ayakashi much like a severe weather alert.
  • Ayakashi are empowered by human belief and worship. While modern science and technology have weakened most by reducing superstition, Garaku gets over this by becoming famous under his human guise. Thanks the scope of audience mass media reaches, the power this grants him is enormous.
• Potty Dance: When Matsuri accidentally goes into the boy's bathroom, his hand is on his groin and his legs are pushed together, showing he was in too much of a hurry to pay attention.
• P.O.V. Cam:
  • While both are at a cafe, we see Soga's viewpoint as he drinks coffee and watches Suzu happily eat a parfait, his hand shaking at the sight of her.
  • As Reo crawls over Matsuri's body to get his scent, we see her through Matsuri's POV, looking down with his breasts taking up the bottom of the panel.
• Power Misidentification: After Matsuri punches Sosuke, the arm he used is paralyzed, and Sosuke claims he can eat haku on contact. In response, Matsuri binds Sosuke arms before going in for a sword thrust, only to learn the hard way that Sosuke's power has considerable range.
  Sosuke: You're too gullible for your own good, Matsuri Kazamaki. I lied about being able to devour the haku of those I touch. It's done in a different way. Jinyo are the ayakashi that are most similar to humans. So you shouldn't trust me so easily.
• Pretending to Be One's Own Relative: Matsuri and Suzu first met Haya when she's impersonating her brother Soga by capturing the real thing, stealing his exorcist ninja suit, and saying he'd been turned into a girl by an ayakashi (even threatening Ponosuke into playing along). It's even presented to the audience in a way that makes it seem true. All of it was just a way to get Matsuri to tell Haya what being changed from a boy to a girl was like.
• Production Throwback:
  • The belly dancer outfits Suzu and Matsuri wear in Ritta's dream are very similar to the ones most of the female cast of To Love Ru Darkness wore in the artbook Harem Gold.
  • Shadow Mei's flurry of kicks against Matsuri in chapter 103 is framed identically to a scene of To Love Ru where Yami-in-Mikan's body does the same to the Principal.
  • Matsuri's time spent as a cat ends with him being picked up and given a bath by Soga, the same that happened to Haruna by Rito in To Love Ru Darkness. Both have the girl-turned-cat drawn as a naked human being unintentionally groped, though Haruna was human-sized and Matsuri cat-sized.
• Pronoun Trouble:
  • In the Japanese version, characters keep to gender-neutral language (which is the default) with Matsuri unless they're specifically emphasizing Matsuri's male self identity or female body (or simply believe Matsuri was always a girl). Matsuri retains his very masculine speech, but no one believes anything like a spontaneous magic sex change is possible, so they just accept that "she" is a tomboy.
  • The English version of the manga mostly uses "he/him" (because Matsuri still identifies as male), reserving "she/her" only for speakers who believe or are pretending Matsuri was always a girl. This gets more complicated when Suzu talks with two ayakashi unaware of Matsuri's original sex; their conversation is carefully constructed so neither refers to him by a pronoun. Once the series changed magazines, the English localization switched to new translators that largely avoided referring to female Matsuri by any pronoun at all for a few volumes before switching back to "he/him".
• Pseudo-Romantic Friendship: Even though Soga doesn't want to act on his attraction to Matsuri and Matsuri shows no signs of reciprocating, the manga frequently emphasizes the idea of them as a couple. Several characters want them to hook up, they tend to get in suggestive situations together, and Matsuri grows to adore Soga in a very enthusiastic manner. In particular, the possibility of Soga getting a girlfriend causes Matsuri to beg for them to stay friends regardless, which is framed like a Love Confession (Matsuri uses Soga's given name for the first time, says how much he means to him, and is blushing on the verge of tears by the end).
• Public Domain Artifact: The Crimson Gourd from Journey to the West appears when Donpa is corrupted, portrayed as an object that somehow ended up in the hands of a kappa clan who sealed it away. As in the original story, it sucks people inside when they respond to the holder saying their name, dissolving them into liquor if they're in for long enough.
• Public Exposure: When Haya is tasked with drawing someone, she wants to move on from Ponosuke and have Matsuri model in just panties and a hand bra. Matsuri declines, but only after posing while completely undressed. So Haya ignores Ponosuke's offer to nude model and puts Matsuri in her school uniform.
  Matsuri: Why do I have to be nude!?
  Haya: Doesn't it make the thing feel more legit?
• Purple Is the New Black: Matsuri's ninja outfit is most likely black, but color pages show it as dark purple with lavender lining.

Q-S

• Quest for Sex: Suzu's initial overarching goal is to make Matsuri male again, both because he wants to change back, but also because Suzu thinks it's necessary to start dating and having sex with him (though she's also considered dating him even if he stayed female). Eventually she starts seeing her duty as ayakashi medium as important even separate from Matsuri's entirely, but her sexual goals become even more explicit.
• Race-Name Basis: Matsuri expresses his disgust at Sosuke's misdeeds by only addressing him as "jinyo" (or "it").
• Rebel Relaxation: Matsuri's leans against a school window as he worries Suzu will end up with Garaku.
• Recap Episode: Episode 7 of the anime has Shirogane going over the previous episode as a Lemony Narrator whose descriptions blatantly favor himself. There's no Framing Device and the animation is completely recycled, as the episode was produced to fill airtime when the regular episodes were delayed.
• Recursive Canon: Kanade's flashback in chapter 91 has Matsuri and Suzu reading a manga featuring Reo Hinomori, Matsuri's counterpart from the pilot.
• Reincarnation-Identifying Trait: An odd metaphorical example. Garaku describes someone he knew as "surrounded by flowers, birds, the wind, and the moon—all the beauties of nature". Said phenomena are collectively known as "Kachofugetsu", exactly the name of Suzu's group of friends. It's one reason Garaku knows Suzu's ayakashi half was passed down from the women he knew back then.
• Reincarnation Romance:
  • Played with and invoked; Garaku became Suzu's mentor because he fell in love with her past life, Mei, and hopes to see her again by awakening Suzu's power. Despite neither showing romantic interest in the other, Matsuri is convinced they're bound to hook up because that's what always happens in manga.
  • In the final chapter, Kanade suggests that the ayakashi medium started reincarnating in the first place to stay beside her beloved. The original medium was Iyo from Yabuki's first work, Yamato Gensouki, and her bodyguard Shion may or may not be Matsuri's original incarnation given his resemblance to Matsuri's female form.
• Reinventing the Telephone: Matsuri's arm bangle transmits sounds back and forth from a breadbox-sized device with a tuning fork receiver. Humorously, it's first shown in combination with a regular cellphone for a three-way call between Suzu, Seigen, and Matsuri.
• Relationship Sabotage:
  • The idea of Suzu and Matsuri hooking up as a consequence of defeating Shirogane enrages the ayakashi so much, he spends his last moments before being potentially sealed turning Matsuri female in hopes that she would no longer be attracted to him.
  • Later on, Shirogane and Garaku start antagonizing Suzu's relationship with Matsuri for different reasons. They're not trying to keep them apart in the long run, but they figure they can activate Suzu's ayakashi powers by frustrating her desires. For instance, they encourage her suspicions that Soga is her romantic rival.
  • After her attempts to take over Suzu's body and kill Matsuri are thwarted, Shadow Mei decides to attend their school. While she claims that she wants a chance at an ordinary life, her main goal to is to mess up their relationship, believing Suzu will become easier to possess if her feelings toward Matsuri are disrupted.
• Relatively Flimsy Excuse:
  • Garaku claims Rochka is his niece to explain her living in his studio in human form.
  • After Shadow Mei starts attending Suzu's high school, her ayakashi powers cause normal humans to believe they're cousins.
• Relax-o-Vision: Matsuri ends up exposed to Rochka when partially made male again. The following panel shows the cresting of a bowhead whale.
  Meanwhile, in the Arctic Ocean...
• Rescue Arc: The manga's first solid Story Arc involved rescuing Suzu from Sosuke, a humanoid ayakashi that wanted to eat her. It's a rather no-frills example, as Matsuri manages to reach the Arc Villain within a chapter of the kidnapping.
• Reveal Shot:
  • Reo falls in front of Suzu's crotch, then starts smelling it. The next page starts with a zoom in on Reo grabbing a body part that looks like the folds of a woman's bare genitals. The panel below zooms out to show Reo was holding Suzu's leg, which had her knee bent to the point her thigh and calf were touching.
  • After Matsuri tackles Soga to the ground to talk to him, the panels only show their faces and upper bodies up close. Once Matsuri is finished talking, the view zooms out to show Matsuri landed his crotch directly in front of Soga's face, which Matsuri didn't previously notice.
  • After Kanade hands Matsuri some love powder to use on Shadow Mei, the next page begins with a zoom in of it being poured. The following panel shows Matsuri is dumping it out, as he refuses to use it.
• Revision: When Garaku flashed back to Suzu's previous life Mei, he said her Past-Life Memories had all the ayakashi medium incarnations dying before the age of sixteen. However, it's later on show Mei is missing her earliest incarnation(s) memories, as the very first first ayakashi medium lived to adulthood. In fact, she decided to reincarnate in hopes of finding another love like her husband.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Matsuri initially catches Shirogane spying on Suzu, and rightly assumes he was up to no good. However, Matsuri had been treating practically every ayakashi around Suzu this way, and had no idea Shirogane was hiding his true power.
• Right Through His Pants: In a very strange invocation, Suzu and Matsuri's G-Rated Sex has Matsuri's upper half only covered by his bra, but Suzu remains fully-clothed (though the audience gets a Panty Shot). It's one of several things that peg Suzu as having a dominant "male" role between the two.
• A Rotten Time to Revert:
  • After Suzu decides to become the substitute King of Ayakashi and vows to make Matsuri's temporarily-restored manhood stick in the future, she slips on a rock while approaching him under the waterfall where he was meditating, accidentally pulling off his fundoshi and putting her face right in front of his crotch just as the Gender Bender kicks back in.
  Matsuri: She saw it both ways...
  • When Shirogane and Matsuri both get colds, Rochka undresses the latter to wipe his body off. Right at that moment, Shirogane's cold partially reverses Matsuri's transformation, bringing just his penis back.
• Rule of Symbolism: After trying to suppress his romantic feelings for Matsuri, Soga is only able to prove their ability to his father by literally having Matsuri cling to him to provide a speed boost. In the process, Soga is amazed that, far from feeling dragged down by Matsuri's weight, he feels lighter carrying him around. It's a clear sign that whatever kind of feelings he has for Matsuri, Soga shouldn't see them as weighing him down, but lifting him up.
• Running Gag: Several times when Suzu and Matsuri realize they're in a suggestive situation, they give a soft sigh of surprise in unison a moment before reacting in a much more extreme way.
• Samaritan Relationship Starter: Suzu and Matsuri met as children when he was being chased by an ayakashi, which she instantly called off him. Matsuri wasn't only grateful for her help, but very impressed by her command over the ayakashi, so much that he practically worships her. Ironically, Matsuri doesn't seem to remember this event.
• Same Clothes, Different Year: A flashback in chapter 4 shows a young Suzu wearing a hoodie as she does in the present, except it's black instead of white.
• Scenery Censor: The inky-black black, ephemeral ikon possessing Lu in chapter 11 just barely covers her and Yayo's crotches and nipples. Suzu takes notice, and seems to find it more embarrassing to look at than plain nudity.
  Suzu: Convenient coverage in just the right spots...
• Science Destroys Magic: Zig-zagged; humans used to believe ayakashi responsible even for natural phenomena, which ended up creating more of them. As science gave the average person a better material understanding of nature, they've come to disbelieve the supernatural, even when they encounter it, so fewer ayakashi are being created. However, not only have the older ayakashi remained, there are new types (such as ikon) that are only now being created by modern society.
• Second Law of Gender-Bending:
  • Matsuri barely minded living as a girl in the first place, and it directly led to him repairing his friendship with Suzu, improving his social life, and realizing he was in love with Suzu. Far from causing him to like being a girl, the last point intensified his Gender Bender Angst, as now Matsuri thinks he's missing out stuck as Suzu's "girl friend"—regardless of Suzu's attraction, as Matsuri insists he can only date her "as himself".
  • At one point, Reo and Suzu wonder if Matsuri might eventually identify as female, and discuss how that would affect their feelings for him. Reo is completely undisturbed, as she never cared about Matsuri's gender. Suzu initially agrees, even if she clearly finds Matsuri more attractive as a guy. But seeing Matsuri dressed up in a very feminine way—and Soga awestruck at the sight of him—makes Suzu think she has to stop Matsuri from becoming a girl "in spirit" as well as body.
  • As Haya pretends to be a Soga turned into a girl, Matsuri brings up how it could at least help him get over his fear of girls, as Matsuri himself wasn't very familiar before. This convinces Haya that Soga could best accomplish the same by dating Matsuri.
• Secretly Gay Activity:
  • Suzu has occasionally used being "girl friends" as an excuse to get physically close to Matsuri in ways she wouldn't if he was still male, like sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on the school bus or inviting him to her bedroom alone.
    Matsuri: Aren't we sitting too close?
    Suzu: It's normal. It's not weird for girl friends to sit like this.
  • Reo, meanwhile, has taken any excuse to get much more affectionate to Matsuri since he became a girl. She's smelled his whole body when analyzing the spell that changed his sex, groped his breast while applying suntain oil, and stripped him topless to apply ointment to his injuries. In this case, Reo isn't trying to hide that she's into girls (she even flirts with Suzu after explaining this to her), Matsuri just seems to be blind to or willfully ignorant of it.
  • When Matsuri temporarily thinks he always was a girl and loses his memories, things work out differently. Reo's absurd closeness sends Matsuri running off screaming. Conversely, Suzu's attempt to seduce Matsuri by asking for a massage ends up with Suzu collapsing in ecstasy while Matsuri walks off completely clueless.
• Seductive Mummy: A Halloween illustration has Matsuri dressed in a revealing mummy outfit, reusing a Halloween outfit Momo wore for one cover of To Love Ru Darkness.
• See the Invisible: When looking for an ayakashi too weak for even him to see, Matsuri scatters the ashes of burnt paper talismans and looks for what they collide with in midair.
• Self-Serving Memory: Before seeing Suzu casually surround herself with ayakashi, Matsuri was deathly afraid of them. Judging by his reaction when his grandfather pointed it out, Matsuri had completely forgotten this.
• Series Fauxnale:
  • The Jinyo arc was likely written as a potential end for the series. It leads to Matsuri restored to male form and realizing he's in love with Suzu, resolving a good part of the manga's major conflict... but for the important details that Matsuri goes back to being female after a few hours, and Shirogane no longer has the power to change him back. Shirogane even interrupts Suzu and Matsuri's hug to declare "You're still a far cry from a happy ending!"
  • The end of the tenth volume, right before the series changed magazine, is a two-chapter story where Suzu is given the chance to reverse Matsuri's gender transformation by altering history so it never happened in the first place. Suzu ends up deciding against it because, even if they still want Matsuri to be a boy again, the positive changes from him having been a girl aren't something they want to lose.
• Sex Comedy: Quite a lot of the sexual content is (also) a device for raunchy comedy.
• Sexy Coat Flashing: While throwing Matsuri a two-person birthday party, Suzu wears her usual hoodie, but makes it increasingly obvious there's no shorts underneath. After making a move on Matsuri, Suzu is slightly relieved it didn't get to the point of her disrobing. A peak out the bottom and background image imply she wasn't even wearing regular underwear beneath.
  I did think wrapping a ribbon around my body was a bit too much.
• Sexy Soaked Shirt:
  • Matsuri once takes Suzu with him as he's waterfall training to cool himself off after being overexcited by a hug. This effort hits a snag when Suzu takes her sweater off and gets in the water, with Matsuri even noting to himself he can see her bra through her shirt.
  • This gets turned around when Suzu joins Matsuri in another session. While Suzu wears a bikini, Matsuri wears a robe that clings so tight when wet, the mark on his abdomen becomes visible and Suzu gets a good, long look at Matsuri's nipples.
• Shadow Discretion Shot:
  • Parodied when Rochka sees Matsuri's crotch during a brief moment where he'd become a hermaphrodite. Her body is covered by a phallic shadow, but the comically improbable size and positioning indicate it's the shadow of something else, like Matsuri's entire body.
  • When male Matsuri splits off, he ends up on top of Suzu and naked. Looking closely, there's a shadowed part of his body visible between his legs. Either it's his foot, visible thanks to heavy Barbie Doll Anatomy, or else his actual penis.
• Shape Dies, Shifter Survives: Sosuke seemingly kills Matsuri by draining all his Life Energy, but at the last second Matsuri reveals he has survived and even been reverted to male form. Shirogane then explains Sosuke only ate the energy sustaining the transformation, temporarily reversing it.
• Shapeshifter Guilt Trip:
  • A more benign example; Shirogane shapeshifts into Matsuri's male form to beg Suzu for more dumplings. She fully knows it's an illusion, but finds it too frustrating to endure.
    Shiromatsu: Please, Suzu? I need... your dango...
    Suzu (thinking): (trembling) Don't whisper in my ear!
  • A corrupted baku attacks Suzu in her dreams with a copy of Matsuri, playing on her fears that Matsuri would see her as a dangerous ayakashi. This backfires horribly because while Suzu doesn't want to fight a copy of Matsuri, she'd gladly do sexual things to it without restraint.
• Shapeshifting Excludes Clothing: Being transformed into a cat leaves Matsuri standing atop all the clothes he was wearing. When Soga performs a purifying ritual on what he believes is a regular stray cat, he's shocked that it results in a completely naked Matsuri resting in his arms.
• Shared Universe: Ayakashi Triangle is evidently set in the same world as To Love Ru, or at least has its own version of several characters. Run and Kyouko have appeared on various in-universe media, and Seigen appears to be a fan of the former. Matsuri's favorite manga, Switch Onmyoji, was written by Rito Yuki's father Saiba, and Lu is a devout reader of his as well. Ren's classmate shows up at an art museum, and talks Matsur's ear off about Garaku's career.
• Short-Distance Phone Call: One scene has Suzu and Shirogane seemingly alone in Suzu's room when she gets a text message. We then see Matsuri sent the text while hiding in the same room under an Invisibility Cloak. They were making Suzu appear unguarded, to bait out someone trying to attack her, and texting this way keeps him hidden.
• Shout-Out:
  • The title of chapter 7 is The Melancholy of the Ayakashi Medium.
  • The day after Suzu and Matsuri disappear from school in the middle of the day, Lu jokes about them getting kidnapped by Chronos, the criminal syndicate in Black Cat.
  • Matsuri's grandfather mentions he is a fan of idols while watching a stream. The idol depicted is clearly Run from To Love Ru with her posters and merchandise occasionally popping up over the course of the series.
  • In a flashback to Matsuri playing with Tanumaro, they're reading an issue of Shonen Jump with Kochikame on the cover.
  • Lu performs the Vulcan salute from Star Trek on the cover of chapter 26 and while trying to talk to Shiromatsu.
  • Lu writes her notes about extraterrestrials down on a notebook labelled "L-File".
  • Shirogane, taking Matsuri's male form, introduces himself to Lu as "Shiromatsu", which she says sounds like one of the Matsuno brothers from Osomatsu-kun.
  • Shirogane's Feline Thunder Clap involves generating Static Electricity with a pencil board just like Kagechiyo from Ninja Hattori. Shirogane even calls it a technique passed down by "generations of cats".
  • Reo's "disc-type" machine to modify exorcist ninja battlesuits is modeled after the Famicom Disk System disc-rewriting kiosks.
    Kentaro Yabuki: Anyone who understood the reference with the transfer machine Reo brought out is probably the same generation as me.
  • Matsuri's Bond One-Liner to the Hiderigami is "Date ni ‘onna' yattenē ze!!" (officially translated "I'm not a girl just for show!"), a parody of Yusuke's "On the Next Episode of..." Catch-Phrase in Yuyu Hakusho "Date ni anoyo wa mitenē ze!" ("I didn't see the afterlife for nothing!").
  • After seeing Suzu's paper servants lift her through the air by the feet, Yayo shouts out "Iron Man!?"
  • As Shirogane is annoyed over Suzu's swooning over Matsuri, he's trying to read the first volume of Me & Roboco.
  • One of Reo's machines is a set of four tentacles mounted on her back like Doctor Octopus (though hers pretty blatantly look like sex toys). She even puts her goggles on while using them to heighten the resemblance.
  • In Chapter 71, Lu thinks human evolution was influenced by the Monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
  • When Lu talks about her family, her friends compare her to "that rich guy in Kochikame" (presumably meaning Nakagawa and/or Akimoto, who like Lu are from wealthy part-Japanese families).
  • In the anime's recap, Shirogane boasts that his Gender Swap Awakened is too strong to be reversed by something like soaking in hot water.
• Sick Episode:
  • After getting buried in snow fighting Rochka, Shirogane spends a chapter bedridden with a cold that affects Matsuri similarly thanks to Shirogane's jutsu linking them together.
  • A later chapter has Suzu calling in sick from school when overstressed from trying to deal with Shadow Mei. Matsuri stands by her side after class and starts to wonder if he should stop holding their relationship off until his transformation is reversed.
• Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer: To conceal the First-Episode Twist, initially advertising and the first volume cover show Matsuri only in his male form, even though he spends the vast majority of the series female (his original form occasionally showing up in flashbacks or mental images). The table of contents for Weekly Shonen Jump even used a closeup of male Matsuri's face for almost half a year, and only changed it along with all the others at the start of the next publishing year.
• Show Within a Show: Matsuri's favorite manga, Switch Onmyoji, written by To Love Ru character Rito Yuki's father Saiba, is this. Lu reads it devoutly, too.
• Shower of Awkward: When the split off female Matsuri visits the Ninokuru household, Muga and Haya try to hook her up with Soga by sending Matsuri into a bath Soga is already occupying. Soga briefly hides underwater, but Matsuri asks to bathe together because she wants to talk. Soga tries to keep focus as Matsuri explains she doesn't belong in the original Matsuri's home. Then Matsuri asks if she and Soga should marry, and he angrily ejects her from the bath.
• "Shut Up" Kiss:
  • When Matsuri says he can't date Suzu when he's still male, Suzu jets forward trying to kiss him, which Matsuri reflexively dodges as if it was an attack.
  • After Matsuri decides to stay a girl for the rest of high school, which Suzu assumes means they can't date, Matsuri kisses her on the spot to show otherwise.
• Speech-Bubble Censoring: One Shower Scene has Suzu covering her breasts with her hands, but her genitals are only obscured by her speech bubble. This of course doesn't prevent Matsuri from seeing anything while in the room, as he stares straight down.
• Skewed Priorities: Matsuri has a very stringent view that couples save themselves for marriage, even for a simple kiss. When Yayo talks about a Show Within a Show where a man-turned-dogman can only change back with a True Love's Kiss, Matsuri says they should still get married first. If being a dog prevents that, Matsuri says he'll just have to hold in his feelings and live as a dog for the rest of his life.
• Skinship Grope: Invoked when an ayakashi puts Matsuri under an illusion to blackmail Suzu over releasing it. Since his grandfather had joked about Suzu washing Matsuri off in the bath, he imagines her doing just that, thoroughly feeling him up in the process.
• Skirts and Ladders: Matsuri's dramatic posing while Sky Surfing above Soga ends up providing Soga with a very clear view up Matsuri's skirt, both because of the altitude and wind he was creating. After Soga runs off, Shirogane has to explain to Matsuri why.
• Sickening "Crunch!": After Sosuke shoves a small ayakashi in his mouth, the Written Sound Effects make it clear that it was not Swallowed Whole.
• Spit Take: Matsuri spits out his drink when Seigen calls Suzu his "idol". Much later, he does this again (right in Shirogane's face) when Suzu and Mei appear nude because of a See-Thru Specs iyo the latter covertly possessed him with.
• Spooky Photographs: In chapter 10, Lu takes a picture that an ayakashi shows up in. Unfortunately, the specific type is an ikon, whose image alone causes Lu to be possessed.
• Slipknot Ponytail: Several times Matsuri's Compressed Hair drops down when the elastic tying it up is destroyed, though this is less noticeable than how his clothes are damaged.
• Slippery Skid: Ponosuke spilling a box full of azuki beans instantly causes Soga and Matsuri to trip and fall on each other, to the former's consternation.
  Soga: An exorcist ninja cannot fall for this obvious gag!
• Slut-Shaming: Shirogane sees Suzu as promiscuous for meekly implying she'd like to have sex with Matsuri, calling her a slut for it... and also because she has a great technique for petting small animals like him.
• Snakes Are Sinister: Discussed when Matsuri runs into a snake ayakashi, which is stated to be especially dangerous because of real snakes' reputation with humans.
  Seigen: Since long ago, snake spirits have been among the hardest to handle. That is how deep fear of their form lingers in human hearts.
• Something Else Also Rises: When boy Matsuri says he wants Suzu to kiss him, she has an Out-of-Clothes Experience where her uterus is shining a bright light that only partially obscures her crotch.
• Squirrels in My Pants: Suzu "massages" Matsuri's body with ten miniature omokage that jump onto him and crawl under his clothes. Matsuri gets an Out-of-Clothes Experience showing them underneath, and several of the miniature Suzu are obscuring his private parts.
• Stab the Salad: After Matsuri seriously injures the Hiderigami, Suzu seems to jump in to finish it off with a swarm of origami. However, the origami instead bundle up around the ayakashi's wound before Suzu channels her healing powers through it.
• Staircase Tumble: Yayo spends chapter 6 possessed by an ayakashi that periodically makes her trip. After a few Suggestive Collisions, it ultimately causes her to tumble headfirst down a flight of steps, but Matsuri is able to catch her before absorbing the impact with a Two-Point Landing.
• Stealth Insult: Garaku witnesses Suzu saving Matsuri's life and compliments her by saying she's "like a heroine-saving hero", implicitly insulting Matsuri's strength and masculinity. It's less obvious in the English version, where he just calls Suzu "the heroine saving her hero".
• Stealth Sequel:
  • Sort of. Initial advertising made no mention that Ayakashi Triangle is a serialization of the Reo × Leo oneshot, which was only explicitly confirmed in the author's comments for the second chapter. Partly this was to conceal the First-Episode Twist, but also because the oneshot had been very heavily retooled and was quite obscure to begin with.
  • The last few arcs also reveal that it's connected to Yamato Gensouki, Yabuki's very first manga. Iyo was the first ayakashi medium, and her reincarnation was her fleeting wish to stay with Shion, whether in that life or the next. The immortal successors to their enemies try to take a grunt over Iyo out on Suzu.
• Strangely Arousing: While an ayakashi wraps Suzu in silk strands (which turns out to just be a tailor taking her measurements), she tells Matsuri to stand by instead of antagonizing her. Matsuri reluctantly complies, but is uncomfortably aroused by the way the threads undress and suggestively squeeze Suzu, earning a Dope Slap from Shirogane.
  Shirogane: What kind of kinky stuff is this?! Stop it already!
• Stringing the Hopeless Suitor Along: One chapter suggests Matsuri is unintentionally stringing along Soga. He hasn't consciously noticed Soga's attraction, much less reciprocated, but reacts negatively when Soga (temporarily, thanks to magic) manages to keep his focus around Matsuri. Matsuri even takes it as a challenge to deliberately get a rise out of him.
• Storming the Castle:
  • Matsuri, Soga, Shirogane, and Ponosuke go after a kidnapped Suzu by following her to Sosuke's base, an abandoned hotel. Matsuri uses his flight-capable gear to go straight into Sosuke's room, Shirogane sneaks in after, and Soga and Ponosuke stay behind to fight Sosuke's army of iyo.
  • Much later, the same four plus Suzu and Reo attempt to raid the same base, now used by Shadow Mei, but they never end up in the building. Suzu and Reo get so sidetracked fighting over Matsuri, their enemy comes out to confront them.
• Sue Donym: While taking Matsuri's (male) form, Shirogane goes by a portmanteau of their names, "Shiromatsu".
• Sufficiently Advanced Bamboo Technology: Exorcist ninja gear maintains an old-fashion Japanese aesthetic even for highly-advanced Magitek. Reo's training robot has a camera eye and computer uplink, but it's made largely of wood and its interior is full of gears and chains. Even her tablet computer appears to use wood in place of plastic.
• Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: Exorcist ninja Magitek is based on reverse-engineering ayakashi's magical items. Reo specifies her Invisibility Cloak is a recreation of a tengu's. This is used to explain how Suzu's ayakashi-made costume has abilities nearly-identical to Matsuri's.
• Suggestive Collision:
  • Chapter 6 starts with Yayo tripping into Matsuri's legs, and she accidentally grabs Matsuri's butt and looks up his skirt while trying to brace herself. Yayo has a history of groping other girls, and has recently grabbed Matsuri's breast, so she has a hard time convincing Matsuri it was an accident.
  • In chapter 11, Suzu tries to cover Matsuri's eyes so he won't see other girls while they're all naked in the bath. She ends practically on top of Matsuri, with her hands grasping his hair and bare breasts pressed into his back. When Yayo laughs at how close they are, Matsuri hurries out of the water and Suzu assures him it was just an accident.
  • Suzu's attempt to control her stuffed animal with haku causes it to wildly flail around, landing her and Matsuri on her bed, with Suzu's hand on his hip and knee in his crotch. For incidental reasons, a very suggestive scene follows.
  • After both slip on a bunch of azuki beans, Matsuri ends up with his breasts in Soga's face while straddling his crotch. Suzu was so shocked to see them, the omokage she was watching them through vanishes.
• Super Cell Reception: After Lippy seals Suzu and boy Matsuri into a Pocket Dimension, girl Matsuri is still able to text message Suzu.
• Supernatural Fear Inducer: Reo's Spooky Sticker will make whoever it's stuck to afraid of the person whose name is written on it. She made it to chase off guys harassing Matsuri, and talks Soga into testing it.
• Supernatural Repellant: One of the various incenses Reo's clan makes repels ayakashi with its smell. It sends Ponosuke flying off as he spray vomits, but simply causes a nurikabe to sneeze.
• Supernaturally Delicious and Nutritious: Ayakashi mediums are people born with an extremely large amount of physical Life Energy. This makes benign ayakashi more receptive to them, but also makes malevolent ones want to devour them to gain power.
• Superpowerful Genetics: The ability to see Ayakashi is determined by a mixture of environment and genetics. In other words, certain families have an advantage, but with the right circumstances, anyone theoretically could gain the ability to see them.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • In chapter 9, Matsuri tries to disguise himself in front of Suzu and Soga by donning a black wig and affecting a very conspicuous personality. Everyone in the room instantly recognizes him.
  • Matsuri is at one point kicked hard in the groin by a possessed Lucy, which sounds like it would lead to a joke about it not working because he's a girl now. While probably less effective than if he were still male, it is visibly shown as seriously painful.
• Surrender Backfire: Garaku starts to back off from taking the god-sealing scroll when Soga informs him he could incur the wrath of the Exorcist Ninja Association, but Soga tries to strike him down anyway. Garaku comes out ahead because he was able to rapidly counter with a trap (he turns out to have been messing around without trying to hurt anyone, so the surrender itself probably wasn't a feint).
• Swapped Roles: Suzu often tries to reign in Matsuri accidentally showing off his female body, including warning him to watch his skirt while going up the stairs, all the while concealing her own sexual attraction to him. But when the weather turns incredibly hot, Suzu is so exhausted she collapses on the steps and lifts her skirt up in an attempt to cool herself off. Matsuri, of all people, is uncomfortably aroused and warns Suzu that she needs to act more proper.
• Sweet and Sour Grapes: Early in the second volume, Suzu and Matsuri admit it would be nice if they could tell Yayo and Lu about their whole lives, but accept it won't work when the latter cannot see the supernatural. In the sixth and seven volume, Yayo does gain just such an ability, is put fully into the loop, and even learns and accepts that Matsuri used to be male.
• Symbol Motif Clothing: The symbol of the Kazamaki clan is a ninja star overlapping a pin wheel, and either it or its parts are seen variously on their clothing (for instance Matsuri has a ninja star both under the neck of his exorcist outfit and on the collar he starts wearing as a girl).
• Synchronization: Certain things that happen to Shirogane affect Matsuri because of the spell the former cast on the latter. When Shirogane gets a cold, Matsuri can feel the spell mark burning, eventually collapses in a sweat, and momentarily has his transformation slightly reversed. One of Reo's attempts to remove the spell instead nearly caused Shirogane to nearly vanish.

T-Z

• Taking the Fight Outside: After Shadow Mei creates an enormous omokage, Matoi hits her with a tornado to send her opponent out of town and into the mountains to avoid civilian casualties.
• Tastes Like Purple: Reo describes Suzu as having a "sweet, lusty scent", whereas Matsuri's is "sporty".
  Suzu: (smelling herself) Lusty?
• The Teaser: A print example; many chapters have an illustration with a title on the second page, making the first page a separate scene without any credits. The main exception is color pages, which have to go first because they're printed on a different type of paper than the rest.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Matsuri and Shirogane hate and bicker with each other even after they begin living together, but gradually learn to work together for the occasional Enemy Mine.
• Terra Deforming: Garaku had to paint a sacred tree from memory because the entire area was logged bare in the Meiji era. New trees were planted afterward, but it comes off less as nature returning than people throwing a coat of paint over destructive development.
  Garaku: At that time, lumber was the main source of building materials and fuel. All the woodlands in Japan were laid bare. All the greenery you see here was planted after that time.
• Testes Test: A few hours after Reo's attempt to cure Matsuri removes his breasts, Matsuri puts a hand each on his chest and up his skirt to confirm nothing else has changed.
• Theme Naming: Suzu, Yayo, Matsuri, and Lu have last names beginning with kanji for natural phenomena (flowers, birds, wind, and the moon, respectively). They stick them together to name their group "Kachofugetsu (花鳥風月)", a phrase for the artistic beauty of nature.
• There Is Only One Bed: When Matsuri sleeps over at Suzu's house in her room, Suzu tells her mother not to get Matsuri a futon because she wants them to share her bed.
  Suzu: We're fine on the bed!
  Matsuri: (shocked) Huh? The bed!?
• Thanks for the Mammary:
  • Rochka freezing the ground under Suzu causes her to fall over and brace herself by accidentally grabbing Matsuri's breasts. For Matsuri, the most embarrassing part was the high-pitched squeak he made in response.
  • Soga pulling Matsuri away from Suzu and Reo's groping results in Soga's hand firmly on Matsuri's breast (which was bare thanks to Reo). Matsuri is more alarmed than the previous time, but tries to keep calm and regains his composure shortly after. Soga, on the other hand, passes out on the spot.
• That Was Not a Dream: Yayo gains the ability to see ayakashi and wonders if an ensuing fight Matsuri and Suzu have with one is just a dream. Matsuri considers pretending it really was one, but Suzu shoots him down, realizing that would just cause more problems.
• Third Law of Gender-Bending: Matsuri identifies as male regardless of his transformation, feels no obligation to act feminine, and generally can't fit in with girls even when he tries. However, he's living under a female identity, which has lead him to adopt some behavior associated with girls:
  • His school uniform includes a short skirt, and despite his initial complaints, he never tries to wear anything else, or even hurries to change out of it after school. It is by far the outfit Matsuri's shown in the most, even though the only other change to his wardrobe was adding a sports bra, as much of the manga takes place during or close to school hours. He even tends to forget to change into his ninja suit for battle, despite being able to do so instantly.
  • When Shirogane sees Matsuri serving breakfast in an apron, he concludes his spell is making Matsuri more feminine, which he remarks upon as a terrible fate. Matsuri defensively insists he was already doing these kinds of chores for his grandfather, though he doesn't mention if he wore the apron before.
  • Lecherous boys tend to effect a fairly prudish response from Matsuri. More than once, he's spoken in anger condemningly about "boys", literally forgetting his own gender for a moment. Eventually, when a (male) opponent ambushes an undressed Matsuri, his first instinct is that he's being peeped on rather than attacked and momentarily goes into Pervert Revenge Mode.
    Matsuri: (thinking, as two guys stare at his chest) It's so obvious where you're looking. Do they think we can't tell? Guys are so stupid! Wait, I'm a guy too.
  • At one point, Matsuri is in a rush to distract Suzu with an errand, and randomly blurts out he needs girls' clothes. Though still uncomfortable in anything more than the aforementioned school uniform, Reo's inhibition-loosing incense lets Matsuri enthusiastically fly through a Costume-Test Montage, even as Reo picks out increasingly impractical outfits. Ironically, Matsuri asking in the first place makes Reo and Suzu wonder if his female body is making him act more feminine.
  • After a few months, Matoi convinces Matsuri to switch from fundoshi to girls' underwear as part of his training. Which conveniently aligns with Matoi's fondness for having a cute daughter.
• Thoroughly Mistaken Identity: Rochka immediately assumes Seigen is her grandfather because of their strong resemblance despite Matsuri's repeated protests. Matsuri eventually gives up convincing her of the truth because believing they share a grandfather makes Rochka marginally less hostile to him.
• Through His Stomach:
  • Suzu tries to befriend Shirogane by making good food for him. Shirogane greatly enjoys it because of bits of her Life Energy leaking into the food, which helps get him at least somewhat attached to her.
  • Subverted for laughs the morning after Matsuri starts hosting Shirogane and offers him breakfast. Shirogane starts to wonder if Matsuri is more than the brat he'd assumed… until he sees the "breakfast" is just a rotten pile of food waste.
• Tickle Torture: When Shirogane takes over Reo's training robot, it grabs him and sprouts tendrils ending in cotton balls that tickle him all over.
  Reo: Why did the Ultimate Tickle Device get activated?!
  Suzu: Why even have that function?
• The Time Traveller's Dilemma: The final storyline of the Weekly Shonen Jump run has Suzu sent back in time to the day Matsuri became a girl, giving her a chance to stop it from happening. She ends up refusing when she realizes Matsuri's transformation had been key to his growth as a person and most of the relationship he'd since formed. (Considering it led to Shirogane's Heel–Face Turn and directly saved Matsuri's life once, the consequences of changing the past could have been far worse than Suzu realized.)
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Matsuri has a rough-going personality as an ayakashi exorcist, has no qualms getting into fights if he's dragged into them and is a former boy who hasn't adapted to being a girl. He contrasts with Suzu, the level-headed, kindhearted, and decidedly feminine ayakashi medium with little to no experience in how to handle herself in a fight. Crossing over with Masculine–Feminine Gay Couple, they have mutual romantic interests that don't stop down after Matsuri is turned female.
• Too Hot for TV:
  • Viz Media only make the official translation of the manga available on their website, not on the Shonen Jump app, because of its sexual content. Manga Plus, however, has it on both its website and app.
  • The broadcast anime covers anything even slightly raunchy with cutouts of Shirogane's head or body.
• Too Important to Walk: Suzu gets carried around in a litter while visiting an ayakashi village. However, the ayakashi doing the lifting are only a couple feet tall, making the ride very slow and awkward—she has to fold her legs up to even fit on the thing.
  Suzu: I appreciate it, but I think I want to get down now.
• Too Long; Didn't Dub: Much like in Naruto, the English version leaves the term "jutsu" ("technique", in this context often referring to magic spells) untranslated.
• Training the Gift of Magic: Ayakashi mediums are the only humans who can manipulate haku, but they still need to train their ability to do so, preferably with guidance from ayakashi (who always control haku). Manipulating kon is an ability possibly any human can develop, but the only ones we've seen doing so are also of the few with an inherent ability to see the supernatural.
• Trans Equals Gay: Matsuri's still-male gender identity is often treated as equivalent to his continued attraction to Suzu. Suzu treats her worries that Matsuri is falling for Soga as a sign he's becoming more feminine. When Matsuri considers staying a girl, being aroused by Suzu convinces him he's "really a guy". When hypnosis makes Matsuri think he was a girl, he shows no attraction to Suzu and almost immediately falls for Soga—both of which he casually brushes off after his memories return.
• Trans Relationship Troubles: At one point, Suzu and Reo wonder if Matsuri might start self-identifying as female, and bring up how that would affect their feelings for him. Reo never cared whether Matsuri was a boy or girl to begin with, so it's no problem for her. Suzu tells herself she'd still love Matsuri, and only wants to make him male again because she promised she would. However, her fantasizing shows Suzu finds Matsuri much more attractive as a man, and quickly comes to believe a fully-female Matsuri would get together with Soga instead of her.
• Transformation Trinket: Standard exorcist ninja gear includes some small item called an "outfitting tool" that lets them instantly change into their battle suits, weapons included. Matsuri's is a choker, which he wears everywhere he goes, even while bathing. Soga's is a badge on his shirt shaped like a lightning bolt. Reo's is a bracelet with a button on the palm side. An ayakashi makes a necklace with the same function for Suzu to put on her ayakashi medium gear.
• Trap Is the Only Option:
  • After taking Suzu, Sosuke leaves a trail toward his headquarters, as he wants Matsuri's group to follow and be killed before he eats Suzu. Shirogane is immediately suspicious, but Matsuri decides their only option is to charge in anyway.
  • When the Gogyosen send Matsuri on a mission after a corrupted ayakashi, she can't find their unwilling agent, male Matsuri, and all the other ninja were called away on a training mission. He concludes it's a trap the Gogyosen set, but figure Suzu is safer coming with her than left unguarded.
• Troubled Fetal Position: During the Beach Episode, Soga is too shy to hang with the scantily-clad girls that make up the rest of their party, and so goes off to sit on a rock with his arms folded over his knees.
• Twice Shy:
  • Suzu and Matsuri have a mutual attraction to each other that each is reluctant to act on for various reasons. Matsuri thinks much more highly of Suzu than himself, and so hides his feelings under the assumption they would burden her. Suzu is only slow forgiving Matsuri for his overprotective history and is uncomfortable (though not completely unwilling) to pursue a relationship while Matsuri is female, though she is actively trying to grow close to Matsuri regardless. This doesn't make them shy away from talking to each other normally, however, with Matsuri saying Suzu is like family. Matsuri realizes he loves Suzu by the third volume, but doesn't say it aloud, and seems less comfortable acting on his feeling when he's living as a girl.
  • In a subversion, Yayo thinks Soga and Matsuri are in love but just too shy to act on it. While this is mostly accurate on Soga's side, Matsuri isn't attracted to him and only acts evasive because he's worried Suzu will get the wrong idea.
• Two-Person Love Triangle:
  • Invoked; Matsuri believes that, because his "real" self is a guy, dating Suzu while he's still female would mean he's cuckolding himself.
  • Exactly that happens for real when Matsuri is split into his male and female selves, each having all his memories and personality. Neither one of them is willing to give up Suzu.
• Two Scenes, One Dialogue: After Grandpa Kazamaki (seemingly) explains Shirogane is a fierce ruler of other ayakashi, we cut to Shirogane (still in his small form) trying to explain the same to Suzu as she rubs his belly.
• Undead Tax Exemption: Thanks to his work as an exorcist, Matsuri's grandfather has the connections to send Matsuri to school under a false female identity, and even make sure he and Suzu will be in the same class.
• Unishment: Reo is disappointed she doesn't get trapped inside the Crimson Gourd, where she'd eventually melt. If she managed to escape before her suit completely failed, she'd "just" get thrown naked into her friends.
• Unmoving Plaid: The cast all wear yukata with patterns, mostly floral, for a summer festival. The patterns are mostly continuous over folds and different pieces of clothing, even one panel that shows the inside of Matsuri's sleeve.
• The Unreveal: Shirogane asks Kanade the true nature of the ayakashi medium, she agrees, and the scene skips over her explanation. All Shirogane mentions afterward is that, if she's telling the truth, a fully-realized ayakashi medium really could restore his lost power.
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal:
  • When Ritta first sees Matsuri as a girl, he's shocked that a friend of Suzu's he assumed a boy was actually a girl who grew up to have such a voluptuous figure. However, the audience knows he is mistaken, and that Matsuri actually was male back then.
  • Played with; although Matsuri doesn't hide that he's a boy from Rochka, she still ends up assuming he's always been a girl. This makes her very shocked when she sees his crotch while he'd partially become male again. However, Rochka still believes Matsuri is a girl and offers to freeze off what she treats like some kind of growth. (She's especially confused because it seems her upbringing left her ignorant of human male anatomy.)
    Rochka: I don't have anything like that!
• Unsound Effect: In the English version, Mei teleporting from shadow is once given the sound effect "voom", and the Extreme Close-Up of her breasts in the next panel "va-voom". This is slightly different from the Japanese version, where the joke was both using the same sound effect, "zu-zu-zu (rumbling)".
• Unusual Chapter Numbers: Chapter 88.5 is a special promotion for the anime that was released in Weekly Shonen Jump several volumes after the series had moved to Jump+. It is set between chapters 88 and 89, the chapters right before and after the magazine change.
• Vanity Is Feminine: Hinted at when Soga manages to avoid being embarrassed to look at Matsuri for once. Instead of being happy Soga is as confident as he used to be, Matsuri is disappointed, though he's not sure why. Apparently, he unconsciously wants the attention his senpai pays him for being a sexy girl.
  Matsuri: Wait, what? This kinda makes me feel like I lost.
• Victoria's Secret Compartment: Matsuri keeps the god-sealing scroll tucked between his cleavage while sleeping. He's not trying to conceal it (it's actually very conspicuously suggestive), just make it harder to steal without waking him up. When he wants to actually hide it, he keeps the scroll under the back of his sports bra, claiming it's an heirloom when someone notices it anyway as he's changing.
• Visible Invisibility: Ayakashi and related things Invisible to Normals are usually fully visible to the audience, as most of the main cast can see them. Otherwise, they're fully invisible. The anime makes them transparent around normal people. Notably, this meant it took some time to reveal most people cannot see the exorcist ninja in their battle suits and the gender swap mark on Matsuri's abdomen. Humourly, the Hot Springs Episode has an ayakashi visible to obscure Yayo and Lu's nudity from the front, but not from the back.
• Visual Innuendo:
  • As Suzu gives Shirogane a belly rub, he thinks of the spiritual energy she's giving off, which is visualized as fluid flowing past her fingertips. However, in the same panel, Shirogane calls her a pervert for her "technique", calling attention to it also looking like a closeup of a masturbating woman's genitals.
  • Matsuri sleeps with the god-sealing scroll tucked between his cleavage, which is pretty absurdly phallic-looking.
  • During Lu's dream during her exorcism in chapter 11, Matsuri's (male) apparition holds out the tip of his pinwheel, which she suggestively puts her mouth around.
  • Suzu spends one scene bathing, wondering if an invisible Matsuri is staring at her body while keeping guard. Suzu definitely likes the idea, and as she starts describing how the idea makes her feel, the next panel is a dripping showerhead.
  • Matsuri putting his hands up Suzu's shirt sleeve is used as a very over-the-top penetration metaphor. His arms are even trembling as he slowly puts them in.
• Visual Pun: After Garaku sides with Shadow Mei, The Glasses Come Off shortly before he explains himself with the phrase "love is blind".
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Suzu trying to grab someone with her flying origami, then aborting at the last second, causes them to hit her in the stomach so hard she spits up a thick stream of vomit as she's knocked back.
• Waking Non Sequitur: After Suzu regains consciousness from her inner ayakashi power taking over, she bolts up and shouts "Oh! My tiramisu!", which assures Matsuri she's back to normal.
• Wall of Blather: After Soga accidentally grabs Matsuri's breast, the following shocked Reaction Shot has over a dozen different lines of text imposed over it, all expressing embarrassment and sexual confusion.
• Wall Pin of Love:
  • Parodied; Soga tries to charge a Nurikabe and is Too Fast to Stop when Matsuri steps in the way, accidentally braking on the wall with his arm next to Matsuri's head. The romantic implications briefly disturb them, and cause Ponosuke to blush and go starry-eyed at the "nurikabedon".
  • Played straight with the separate male Matsuri when he pins Suzu against a wall under the influence of the Gogyosen to seduce her. They're interrupted by female Matsuri before anything comes out of it.
• Wardrobe Flaw of Characterization: When Matsuri dresses up as a Yuki Onna along with Rochka, he does a far worse job than her putting on his kimono (his sash is tied in a messy ribbon in front with a lot of slack; he also left the decorative cord and cloth Rochka included), showing months of living as girl hasn't given him a neat or feminine fashion sense. A couple chapters earlier, Suzu even insisted she dress Matsuri herself for a summer festival because he wouldn't be careful enough.
• Wardrobe Malfunction: While playing in a creek, Ponosuke shows off his ability to pluck fish from the water. Then he grabs a fish lodged in Matsuri's cleavage, exposing one of his bare breasts to Soga, sending the latter falling into the water with shock.
• Waterfall Puke: Ponosuke laughs at some ayakashi-repellent incense until smelling it himself, whereupon he flees while vomit sprays out of his mouth. The vomit is even drawn as full of his favorite food, beans.
• Wax On, Wax Off: Matoi's training for Matsuri involves strengthening his spirit, and thus body and ninjutsu, by creating emotional adversity. Thus, she decides he should take advantage of his transformation to get away with wearing girly underwear specifically because it would make him uncomfortable.
• Webcomic Time: The series begins in April (the start of the Japanese school year) and the last in-series date implied is the beginning of October (when they change to winter uniforms). The series' real-life publication lasted a little more than three years.
• Weirdness Censor: In the modern day, regular humans tend to quickly forget even visible ayakashi and the effects of their actions. Sosuke made quite a stir when he showed up at Hokusai High School as a student, but by the next day no one but Suzu and Matsuri remembered him. (Ironically, people in the past tended to do the opposite.)
  Seigen: It's difficult for people who don't believe in ayakashi to remember one that disappeared. That's how vague of an existence ayakashi have in the modern world.
• What Is This Feeling?: Parodied when Shadow Mei is confused when a Love Potion makes her infatuated with Matsuri, but jumps to entirely the wrong conclusion.
  Shadow Mei: This must be hatred. I'm boiling with rage. I'm sure of it!
• What Measure Is a Humanoid?: The idea of romance between humans and ayakashi has only come up when involving ones that look human:
  • Garaku looks like a human, fell in love with Mei, and Matsuri views him as a romantic rival over Suzu.
  • Shirogane is normally a cat, but when he shapeshifted into Matsuri's male form, Lu ends up falling in love with "Shiromatsu".
• When You Snatch the Pebble: To prove he had not lost his focus, Soga is tasked with making his father Muga spill the sake from his filled-to-the-brim cup. After failing for hours on end, Matsuri is allowed to join in. Though initially faring no better, even when they both attack together, they succeed when Matsuri uses his wind ninjutsu to make Soga fast enough. This convinces Muga that Matsuri isn't a distraction, and that the two make a fine Battle Couple.
• Which Me?:
  • Suzu usually speaks of her alternate personality Kanade as another person or "the younger me". Kanade speaks of Suzu in much more confusing terms that blur the line between treating Suzu as herself or a different person. Most strangely, she'll sometimes use descriptive terms (like "Childhood Heart") that are spelled in kanji, but given the furigana that indicate she's actually saying "watashi (I)".
  • The opposite-sex halves of Matsuri are usually simply called "Girl Matsuri" and "Boy Matsuri" by other characters. Each Matsuri tends to call the other "(the) boy/girl/other me"—or "fake" when they're more antagonistic.
• "Which Restroom?" Dilemma: When in female form, Matsuri never (intentionally) uses male gendered spaces, but makes a point early in the series to spend as little time as possible in any place girls are exposed to each other and avoids looking at anyone while there. Seigen even trolls Matsuri by suggesting that, if he stayed a girl long enough, Suzu would start washing Matsuri's body in the bath herself. Later on though, the series simply avoids the issue, begging the question what Matsuri will do after the end, when they decide to stay a girl for the rest of high school.
• Wingding Eyes: After Matsuri defends Suzu from an attack in her bathroom, his pupils look like nipples as he stares in shock at her bare chest.
• Within Arm's Reach: Parodied when Matsuri tries to get past Masurao, but ends up knocked down with his head stuck between Suzu's thighs. Matsuri is able to grab Shirogane and throws him to distract the cat-loving Masurao while getting himself out from under Suzu.
• Word Salad Title: "Ayakashi" are the spirits the series features prominently, but the meaning of "triangle" is far less obvious. The title of the first chapter ("Matsuri, Suzu and the Ayakashi") suggests it refers to Matsuri, Suzu, and how the ayakashi affect the relationship between them. Others theorize it refers to Matsuri, Suzu, and Shirogane. The author states he wishes to write about "various types of relationship triangles that go beyond just romance" (possibly in response to guesses that the title refers to a Love Triangle), implying a fairly broad meaning.
• Wrecked Weapon:
  • Matsuri's surprise attack on Shirogane simply breaks his sword on the cat's hide without doing any damage at all. Matsuri replaces it within two chapters, and it's eventually shown they're literally bought off-the-shelf.
  • Matsuri breaks another sword when jinyo Mei blocks his attack with it. Later, they deliberately destroy Matsuri's pinwheel so he couldn't use it to exorcise Mei from Suzu's body.
• Wrong Bathroom Incident: After a being turned into a girl right before starting high school, Matsuri enters the men's restroom more than once by mistake. This leads him to get lectured by the English teacher Masurao Sujimori and seen as weird by most of the other students.
• Wrong-Name Outburst: In a twist on the idea of accidentally calling your teacher "mom", Matsuri starts calling his actual mother "mom" when she was disguised as his teacher.
• Years Too Early: When Matsuri confronts Shirogane's true form in the anime, the ayakashi dismisses his efforts to protect Suzu as "400 years too early", having previously proclaimed to be that old.
• You Can Leave Your Hat On: As Matsuri hides under an Invisibility Cloak while guarding Suzu, Suzu starts undressing in front of him. Suzu claims it's just to sell the idea she's alone, but it's quite obvious she's exploiting the situation to seduce a very uncomfortable Matsuri.
• You Can Talk?: Yayo is shocked to hear Shirogane talking, affirming to him they have gained the ability to see ayakashi.
• You Must Be Cold: After Rochka accidentally destroys her clothes, she ends up falling asleep in Matsuri's lap, and he takes off his shirt to cover her up. Later, Shirogane and Suzu come in and assume it was a Sexy Shirt Switch.
• You Wouldn't Shoot Me: After being captured, Shirogane is sure Matsuri won't exorcise him, lest he lose his only way of becoming male again. Matsuri is ready to do it anyway, both to protect Suzu and humanity in general. However, Suzu refuses to let him sacrifice himself as such, so Matsuri takes a third option: keep Shirogane as a "pet" until he can be sure he won't harm anyone again.
• Youkai: Ayakashi are this in all but name, with several being well-known youkai like the kappa. They manifest from humanity's superstitions, but are Invisible to Normals.
• Your Mind Makes It Real: It is said that if you "truly die" in a dream (i.e. are killed by a Dream Walking ayakashi), your heart/spirit will be destroyed, and you'll never wake up.
• Zig Zag Paper Tassel: A giant butterfly net Matsuri uses to catch wayward ayakashi has a shide tied around the shaft below the net.

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