You wouldn’t eat your friends, would you?
Creative Staff
Story: HaccaWorks*
Art: nanao
Translation/Adaptation: Jocelyn Allen
What They Say
When Tougo invites Akiyoshi and Yue over for dinner as a thank-you, all that’s on the menu is food and fun. But when Tougo’s father catches sight of Yue, he is startled and blurts out the name “Yoshiki.” What exactly is the connection between this Yoshiki–to whom it seems Tougo owes his life–and Yue? And what kind of relationship existed between Yoshiki and Tougo’s mother?! The secret behind the Meal is at long last revealed…
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Ayakashi has been playing with the secrets behind the town and the relationship between the ayakashi and the people living there. We learned the town was a reserve of humans for the ayakashi to comfortably feed off of. We learned that Yue has the spirit of his shrine maidens brother inside of him. As if these revelations weren’t troubling enough, a force has entered the town with the goal of dismantling the shrine.
The story has finally hit a point where it’s ready to answer some questions, but the strange dreamlike quality to the story remains. The supernatural edge keeps everything just cloudy enough that the lingering unease hasn’t lifted. If anything it’s grown stronger as certain facts are cemented. We’re just starting to learn what the after effects of a meal do to an ayakashi, or at least to one of their number. Yet I find myself even more confused as to what exactly Yue is to the shrine, and why they protect him so much. It certainly can’t just be because Shin lives inside him.
As for the other two boys, they have started to ask questions of their own. Tsubaki learns that his family has always been the target of the ayakashi, a family full of prized meals. We don’t really know why that’s the case, and the glimpses we get of Tsubaki’s mother in flashback just raise more questions about what she was and her state of mind. (Tsubaki’s doesn’t call her mother, but Akane.) Akiyoshi finally confronts his father with all that he has learned on his own, but his father is still insistent on using Akashi to handle the problem. The strange confrontational man seems to delight in luring Akiyoshi into betraying Yue and doing favors against them, but Akiyoshi doesn’t entirely trust Akashi like his father does.
There are still plenty of unanswered questions. Why did the ayakashi take in Yue to begin with? Who was the frail boy to them? A larger question would be why Yue can’t seem to remember his past. The other ayakashi don’t seem to have any problems recalling the past, but maybe it has to do with how he’s being turned into one of them.
This volume closes out with two shorter, more lighthearted stories involving the other ayakashi of the shrine and town. There’s also some sketches and cover proofs and a preview of the next volume along with a short glossary.
In Summary
This volume of Ayakashi answers a lot of questions readers and the characters have been asking. Tsubaki discovers what the connection between his long-lost mother and the mysteriously missing Yoshiki is. Akiyoshi learns what his father was hiding from him, and about how his father plans on dealing with the ayakashi of the fox shrine. Yue finally learns the connection he has to the others and learns that he may have already had his first meal and the terrible consequences of having done so. The question that remains is what Yue is planning on doing about his meal, and if the strange friendship between the three boys can last much longer.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: B
Packaging Grade: B +
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: September 20th, 2016
MSRP: $9.99
