Verdict: Ayakashi Triangle is Kentaro Yabuki’s (To Love Ru, Black Cat) supernatural ecchi romcom. Ninja exorcist Matsuri is cursed into a girl by the cat spirit Shirogane, who wants to keep him away from his childhood friend Suzu. It’s a gender-swap curse played for comedy, fanservice and “TS yuri” romance, and Matsuri thinks of himself as a boy for almost the whole run. It isn’t written as a trans coming-out story. Some Western critics read it that way, but that’s their reading, not the author’s intent. The official English translation keeps the gender lines faithful and adds no inclusive language. The only real hit is that the official digital editions dropped chapters 74–75, which contain sexual content. The Japanese volumes and Seven Seas’ uncut English volumes are complete.

Woke Score: 10/100. The story scores zero. Five points are for the chapters left out of the official English digital release, and five are for the track record of the English volume publisher, Seven Seas.

Woke Score graphic

This is the standing page for the Ayakashi Triangle manga: Weekly Shōnen Jump from 15 Jun 2020 to 18 Apr 2022, then Shōnen Jump+ from 25 Apr 2022 to 25 Sep 2023. It ran 144 chapters, collected in 16 Jump Comics volumes (the last on 4 Dec 2023). In English it came out chapter by chapter on VIZ’s Shonen Jump website and MANGA Plus, then in print as Seven Seas Ghost Ship volumes 1–16 (Nov 2022 to 2025). The 2023 TV anime is covered briefly below and doesn’t have its own page. New evidence gets merged here; the URL stays fixed.

How the score breaks down

Scored against our How we score rules:

• Story, gender framing and creator intent: 0.
  • The curse: Matsuri’s transformation is a curse from the cat ayakashi Shirogane. Matsuri spends most of the series trying to get his male body back and still uses the masculine ore.
  • The Japanese genre label: Japanese Wikipedia files the series under TSF (gender-swap fiction), oiroke (fanservice), harem and battle. When it launched, “TS百合” (TS yuri) trended on Japanese Twitter (animeanime.jp, 15 Jun 2020).
  • Yabuki’s own account: at his Jump Festa 2023 stage (Animate Times, 21 Dec 2022), Yabuki said:
    • he wanted to show the hardships and awkward gaps of a gender reversal but couldn’t go deep into them;
    • he designed female Matsuri as the opposite of the muscular male Matsuri;
    • her silver hair shows Shirogane’s spell.
  • No representation goal: there’s no talk of representation, identity or LGBT messaging in anything Yabuki or his editor has said.
  • The ending: Shirogane offers to undo the curse, but Matsuri chooses to stay a girl, at least until graduation. The reasons he gives are the social life he’s built and not being ready for intimacy with Suzu yet. It’s an open, romcom-style ending, not an identity reveal.
  • The pilot: the 2019 one-shot Reo x Leo already had the same romance-beyond-gender theme.
• Official English digital omission of chapters 74–75: +5.
  • What happened: VIZ’s Shonen Jump service and MANGA Plus both skipped chapters 74 and 75. VIZ told readers “Chapter 74 will not be published on Shonen Jump” and gave no reason (ANN, 3 Jan 2022).
  • What’s in them: Lucy searches Matsuri’s house, accidentally gropes Rochka (a centuries-old ayakashi who looks like a child), and bathes naked with female Matsuri.
  • Why only +5:
    • It’s censorship of sexual content at the edition level, not injected ideology.
    • Shueisha’s own Japanese Jump+ digital is reported to lack the same two chapters, so this wasn’t only a Western localisation choice.
    • The Japanese magazine, the Japanese volumes and the Seven Seas volumes all carry them.
• Track-record rule (rule B), Seven Seas: +5. Seven Seas publishes the English volumes. It has a documented record: the Mushoku Tensei and Classroom of the Elite soft edits (2021) and its admitted “respectful and inclusive” gender rewrite of I Think I Turned My Childhood Friend Into a Girl (2022). That rewrite was a gender-swap comedy just like this one; see our Seven Seas page. We apply the low end because we found no documented change in its Ayakashi Triangle volumes. They’re marketed as uncut and reuse VIZ’s translation by Satsuki Yamashita, with new lettering by Carl Vanstiphout.
  • MANGA Plus and VIZ: we don’t apply rule B to them separately, because their own incident in this title (the skipped chapters) is already scored above, and we don’t count the same thing twice.
• Translation: 0.
  • Pronouns: VIZ’s English uses he/him for Matsuri. She/her appears only when characters who don’t know about the curse speak, which matches the Japanese. There’s no they/them, no “enby” and no pronoun discussion that isn’t in the original.
  • Small losses: readers flagged a few nuance losses. One is orekko, a tomboy who uses the masculine “ore”, rendered as plain “tomboy”. Another is chōkyō (調教, taming or training, with a sexual undertone) rendered as “training”. These are quality slips that slightly soften the text, not an agenda.
• Women and rule E: neutral, not scored. Suzu, Lucy and Rochka are standard anime-style heroines, strong or sexy or both. There’s no Western girlboss writing and no men-as-idiots framing.
• Consultancy (rule A): none found. No sensitivity or diversity reader is credited on the Japanese, VIZ or Seven Seas editions.
• Remake rule (rule C): doesn’t apply. Later editions didn’t change the content. The Seven Seas volumes follow the Japanese volumes.
• Rule D (green flag): not applied.
  • Praise, not an attack: ScreenRant (Steven Blackburn, 25 Jun 2023) called the anime “a powerful trans story” and praised Suzu as a “healthy depiction of pansexuality”. That’s progressive praise.
  • A mixed review, not an attack: Anime Feminist’s episode 1 review (Chiaki Hirai, 10 Jan 2023) complained about pacing and the anime’s extra fanservice, but said the writer was “on board for the horny”. That doesn’t amount to an attack.

Total: 0 + 5 + 5 + 0 = 10.

Confirmed findings

• Chapter 74 skip: ANN (3 Jan 2022) reported that VIZ and MANGA Plus would not publish chapter 74, and VIZ confirmed it with no reason given. Chapter 75 was also skipped. ANN’s 23 Mar 2022 report on Seven Seas’ licence noted the earlier skip. Bounding Into Comics (11 Apr 2022) and ScreenRant (5 Jan 2022) described the content: Lucy’s accidental groping of Rochka and a nude bath scene with female Matsuri.
• Jump Comics volumes: chapter 74 is in Japanese volume 9. The tankōbon is uncut.
• Move to Jump+: the series left the weekly magazine after the 18 Apr 2022 issue and continued on Jump+ from 25 Apr 2022. Yabuki’s information account announced colour pages for every chapter and a schedule of three weeks on, one week off (Famitsu, 18 Apr 2022).
• The editor’s brief: Yabuki said his editor told him at the start “don’t overdo it” (やりすぎないでください) (Animate Times, 21 Dec 2022). That was a standard Jump-magazine caution. There’s no sign of an ideological note.
• English publishing: VIZ ran the simulpub on the Shonen Jump website but not in the app, which is consistent with app-store limits on sexual content. Seven Seas licensed the print edition for its Ghost Ship mature imprint (announced 23 Mar 2022) and uses VIZ’s Satsuki Yamashita translation.
• The 2023 anime (Connect, licensed by Crunchyroll):
  • Its broadcasts and streams cover nudity with Shirogane cut-outs, and the Japanese Blu-rays remove them.
  • Production delays pushed back part of the run, which resumed in July 2023.
  • This is normal TV-versus-disc censorship and doesn’t count against the manga.

Checked and not confirmed (or ruled out)

Talking point	Finding
Matsuri is written as a trans character	Not supported. It’s a curse, Matsuri identifies as male for most of the run, and Yabuki describes it as a gender-reversal comedy. The trans reading comes from Western press (ScreenRant), not from the author.
VIZ made Matsuri “they/them” or added pronoun talk	Ruled out. The pronouns follow the Japanese.
Jump moved it to Jump+ because editors wanted less fanservice	Unconfirmed. No official reason was given. Fans and Famitsu commenters guessed at low rankings or at more room for ecchi (“Darkness-isation”). Jump+ gave it colour pages every chapter, and readers generally describe the Jump+ run as no tamer than the magazine run.
Seven Seas toned down its volumes	Not found. They’re marketed as uncut, the translation is VIZ’s, and we found no documented edits. That’s reported, not checked page by page.
Chapters 74–75 were removed from the story everywhere	Ruled out. They’re in the Japanese magazine and volume 9, and reported to be in Seven Seas’ volume 9.
Western feminist or trans-activist campaign against it	Not found. Coverage ranged from praise (ScreenRant) to a mixed episode review (Anime Feminist).

Cleanest version and regional notes

• Best: the Japanese Jump Comics volumes (16 volumes, Shueisha). They’re uncut and include chapters 74–75.
• Best in English: the Seven Seas Ghost Ship volumes 1–16. They’re marketed as uncut, reuse VIZ’s faithful translation and reportedly include chapters 74–75 in volume 9.
• Avoid for completeness: the VIZ Shonen Jump and MANGA Plus digital runs, which skip chapters 74–75. Shueisha’s Japanese Jump+ digital is reported to lack them too.
• Anime: watch the Japanese Blu-ray release if you want it uncensored. TV and streaming versions cover nudity with cut-outs.

DEI Detector scorecard

Signal	Present?
Representation added to story or cast	Not found (0)
Creator statement on representation goals	Not found (gender-swap comedy, per Yabuki)
DEI / sensitivity consultancy credited	Not found
Publisher DEI or censorship track record	Seven Seas (+5)
Sexual content censorship (official English digital)	Chapters 74–75 skipped (+5)
Injected inclusive language in translation	Not found
Magazine vs volume changes	Volumes intact; digital skips only
Girlboss writing (rule E)	Not found (neutral)
Progressive press attack (rule D)	Not found (praise and a mixed review only)

Open to update

This page will be revisited if:

• Shueisha, VIZ or Yabuki gives a reason for the chapter 74–75 skip or for the move to Jump+.
• A page-by-page comparison shows edits in the Seven Seas volumes, including volume 9.
• Yabuki or his editors say anything about the curse as a trans or identity story.

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Sources: Anime News Network, “Viz Media, Manga Plus Service Will Not Publish Ayakashi Triangle Manga’s 74th Chapter” (3 Jan 2022) and “Seven Seas Licenses Ayakashi Triangle” (23 Mar 2022); Bounding Into Comics on the Seven Seas licence and the skipped chapters (11 Apr 2022); ScreenRant on the chapter 74 skip (5 Jan 2022) and Steven Blackburn’s anime piece (25 Jun 2023); Famitsu on the move to Shōnen Jump+ (18 Apr 2022); Animate Times, Jump Festa 2023 Ayakashi Triangle stage report (21 Dec 2022); animeanime.jp on the “TS百合” launch reaction (15 Jun 2020); Anime Feminist episode 1 review (Chiaki Hirai, 10 Jan 2023); Japanese and English Wikipedia for publication dates and volume data; AniList and Seven Seas/BookWalker listings for the English staff credits; NamiComi and the fan wiki on the Jump+ digital omission; TV Tropes and reader translation comparisons for the ending and translation notes; J-List and animedeeply on the anime’s broadcast versus Blu-ray censorship. Anything marked “confirmed” is tied to publisher statements, trade press or the volumes themselves, and anything else is labelled as reported or unconfirmed.