Kaede Kikui longs to be normal. Self-conscious of her boss's inappropriate favoritism, she's in the middle of job hunting when she encounters a handsome executive named Rai Shinozaki. But based on his fox ears and tail, he's anything but normal! Within minutes of meeting Kaede, Rai informs her that she's “leaking spiritual energy like a busted pipe,” accuses her of being an exhibitionist, and…offers her a position at his company?!

The bizarre offer is way too good to be true—and indeed, Kaede soon learns that Rai runs Ayakashi Career and Moving Services, a business devoted to helping supernatural beings find work and community in the human realm. In her new role interacting with a variety of ayakashi, Kaede will have to find her own version of normal!

Ayakashi Moving Service has story by Makino Maebaru and illustrations by poporucha. English translation is done by JCT. Published by Cross Infinite World (September 30, 2025).

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

One of my favorite things about the Cross Infinite World publishing model is that they bring over works without an official commercial release in Japan. Ayakashi Moving Service is one of them – a reworked version of the author's early self-published draft. According to the afterword, Makino Maebaru also rewrote it in a different way for a Japanese publisher, so this is a chance for her to revisit. Maybe I'm just a sucker for varying authorial visions of a story and characters (I do keep playing every single one of Ebi-hime's Yuel and Tavi visual novels), but it's a concept I enjoy both as a reader and a writer.

It of course helps that the book itself is good all on its own. The story follows Kaede, a young woman who one day finds herself with the ability to see ayakashi among the general population. She quickly becomes involved with Shinozaki, a fox spirit, who seems to have a vested interest in her well-being for no discernable reason. As the plot unfolds, it becomes evident that his reason for wanting to be with her dates back centuries, to a lifetime lived in the Sengoku Era. True love, reincarnation, and questions of what's best for humans (to say nothing of what “normal” is) fill out the narrative in a way that's perhaps not wholly innovative, but very satisfying nonetheless. It's almost impossible not to want things to work out in a way that will make most characters happy.

Part of what works here is the bittersweetness that underlies the main plot. Some of that is the idea of ayakashi trying to cope with and exist in a changing world that no longer feels like it has space for them, but the relationships between humans and supernatural beings is the main idea. Ayakashi like the nekomata Yoru mourn the passing of the people they loved, Shinozaki desperately searches for a reincarnated soul, and others struggle with the knowledge that they can't simply exist without always monitoring their actions, like the iso-onna (siren/mermaid ayakashi). It never feels like a happy ending is a guarantee, even though it becomes increasingly imperative that there is one for at least Shinozaki and Kaede.

While Maebaru isn't great at differentiating characters' narrative voices, the writing and translation are very readable, and this book goes down quite easily. If Kaede doesn't always seem as young as she's meant to be, that's easily explained by the whole reincarnation angle, and some of the descriptions are genuinely beautiful. Maebara's love for the setting comes through clearly, and my only real complaint is that Yoru's story feels shortchanged. It's a good, easy read, complete in one volume, and if you like ayakashi romances, I'd suggest checking it out.