Tying the Knot with an Amagami Sister - TV Tropes (2025)

Top to bottom, from oldest to youngest: Yae, Yuna, and Asahi.

Tying the Knot with an Amagami Sister (Japanese title: Amagami-san Chi no Enmusubi, literally meaning "Matchmaking of the Amagami Household") is an ongoing supernatural romantic comedy manga series by Naito Marcey, which was originally published as a one-shot in December 2020 before officially starting serialization in Weekly Shonen Magazine in April 2021.

Uryu Kamihate is a stiff, yet studious high school student with one goal in mind — to pass the entrance exams to Kyoto University’s medical school and fulfill his dream in becoming a doctor. After spending most of his life being raised in an orphanage, Uryu is given the invitation to move and live at a local Shinto shrine where he meets three shrine maiden sisters also living there: Yae, Yuna, and Asahi Amagami. The head priest and the Amagami sisters grandfather reveals that he took Uryu into the shrine as a potential heir where it’s expected that the young man will marry one of his precious granddaughters in the future.

A tale of love and miracles unfolds with Uryu later receiving strange prophetic dreams about his destined future and the girl that he will be ending up with.

An anime adaptation was announced on April 21, 2023 with production being handled by Drive. The series was picked up by Crunchyroll and premiered in October 2024 as a two-cour series totaling 24 episodes.

Tying the Knot with an Amagami Sister provides examples of:

• 1000 Origami Cranes: Uryu and the sisters help fold some paper cranes at Uryu's orphanage in Chapter 2.
• Accidental Pervert: Uryu occasionally stumbles upon this due to the sudden unexpectedness and/or his own clumsiness of the situation.
• Alternate Timeline: Shirahi's desire to be Uryu's one true love as opposed to the Amagami sisters causes the Dark God to send them to another world where Uryu never left the Kiseki-en foster home (and thus never met Yae, Yuna, and Asahi) and instead lives there with Shirahi, who is now his girlfriend and working to get into Kyoto University with him so they can open a clinic together in the future. The rest of the arc (spanning Chapters 74-83) revolves around their attempts to return home as well as Uryu coming to terms with the nature of his relationships with the Amagamis and Shirahi. It's also disclosed by Yomiko that the gods are aware of the various branching timelines and can use their power to "tie the knot" between different histories, which is how Uryu and Shirahi ended up in their current situation.
• Blank White Void: In Chapter 82 and 83, Uryu and Shirahi are brought to the "Crossroads of Destiny" linking the two timelines together. It appears as a mostly featureless world, consisting of a grassy field with a single road divided by a torii in the middle of the path — going one way will return them to their original world, while going the other will allow them to remain in the Alternate Timeline. After a heart-to-heart, they choose the former.
• Call-Back: While visiting the Inari Fushimi shrine in Chapter 7, Uryu loses his balance over a height with Yae trying to prevent him from falling. In Chapter 37, something similar happens at the exact same location with Asahi falling over a cliff this time and Yae trying to save her.
• Central Theme: Dreaming of who you want to become and how to get there.
• Continuity Nod: While walking together in Chapter 4, Uryu and Yuna briefly encounter a strange-looking stray kitten. In Chapter 37 while walking together again, the same kitten briefly appears to the two once again.
• Creator Cameo: The mangaka, Marcey Naito, voices the cat in the anime adaptation.
• Dreaming of Things to Come: An important and recurring part of the story is the mysterious and prophetic dreams that Uryu receives as the events of those dreams do become a reality at some point in the narrative.
• Forgotten First Meeting: Uryu and Yae first met as children, back when Yae was part of the Ichijoji family. It was this meeting that convinced Yae to run away from home, leading her to be adopted by the Amagami family. Part of the reason Uryu doesn't immediately make the connection in the present, besides the name change, is that the current Yae Amagami is a very different person from the sheltered and deeply unhappy Ojou Reiko Ichijoji was. And luckily for Uryu, this event is still intact in the Alternate Timeline, so when Yae finally recognizes him there, she's able to convince her sisters Uryu isn't some creepy stalker trespassing on their temple grounds.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: A significant supernatural phenomena that occurs in-story is the time loop that Uryu and Asahi get trapped in during the "The Balance of Wishes" arc. The loop starts from June 28 till July 7 and the arc's main conflict was trying to find a way out of the loop.
• Happily Adopted: In Chapter 51, it turns out that the Amagami sisters were all adopted at a young age and were well taken care of and raised by their adoptive family.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Chapters in the manga are titled "Knots" (i.e 1st Knot, 2nd Knot, etc.), as in the Red String of Fate.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: If a situation seems strange, sometimes a character will compare it to something that would only happen in a manga.
• Magic Realism: For the most part, the story is fairly grounded in reality despite its religious and spiritual influences. However, mysterious and explicitly supernatural phenomena does indeed exist and occur, something that Uryu (who is an atheist) can't deny after beginning to experience the weirdness itself.
• Mental Time Travel: While searching for Yae during "The True Colors of the Night" arc, Uryu suddenly finds himself in the mind and body of his younger self that serves to revisit his encounter with "Reiko Ichijoji" and to remember and be updated of the details about that encounter.
• Miko: The Amagami sisters all live and work at a Shinto shrine as shrine maidens.
• One-Gender School: Subverted with Yuna's high school, which used to be an all-girls school but has recently switched to co-ed, resulting in Uryu being the only boy in her classroom once he transfers there.
• Red String of Fate:
  • Another important aspect of the story is how the lives of Uryu and the Amagami sisters are linked together, particularly since he'll have to marry one of them in order to inherit their family shrine and later has a vague premonition of a future in which this has come to pass. This isn't necessarily the case in every world, as stated by Yomiko when she explains what are known as the "ties of destiny" — two people fated to be together in one course of history may be complete strangers in another. And though the gods can "tie the knot" between different worlds on the behalf of certain parties (such as Shirahi when she pines over Uryu but realizes there's no place in his heart for her due to his feelings for the sisters), to undo these changes means destroying any new bonds formed. Permanently.
  • A platonic version of the trope exists between the sisters themselves, symbolized by the red braided cords worn in their hair that were woven together by their late mother Chiharu. In Chiharu's words, so long as the girls wear those cords, they'll be bound to each other no matter what. When Yae's family blackmails her into returning home despite having previously been disowned, Yuna and Asahi are reminded of this memory and make a promise on the cords to bring their sister back. Then, with the sisters later reunited and admitting they were unwittingly pushing each other away by trying not to burden the others with their problems, they promise to build a stronger bond — Yuna and Asahi even hold up the cords while reaffirming their sisterhood with and faith in Yae.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: In the Alternate Timeline, Uryu and Shirahi retain their memories of the world they came from whereas everyone else doesn't. However, given her knowledge of the situation, Uryu accuses Yomiko of "remembering" who he is and their conversations in the original world, directly referring to Yomiko's awareness of what was going on during the Tanabata festival's "Groundhog Day" Loop. She doesn't give Uryu a concrete answer, only implying that she's affiliated with the gods in some way, if not possibly an actual deity herself.
• Sibling Triangle: Or rather, a Sibling Quadrangle. It becomes rather clear to anyone knowledgeable of what's going on at the shrine that Yae, Yuna, and Asahi are all in love with Uryu. While Uryu does deeply care for them and has Ship Tease with each sister, the most prominent Driving Question of the story is which Amagami he'll end up marrying. As noted by Yoshino, a miko hired to help fill in for Asahi while she's focusing on the upcoming national long-distance relay preliminaries, the sisters remain close and seemingly without any major quarrels despite competing over Uryu, causing Yoshino to ponder where the strength of their relationship comes from before concluding that they're actively trying to preserve the harmony between them — thus keeping some distance between one another.
• Story Arc: The story runs on this with the occasional closely linked mini-arcs and self-contained chapters:
  • The Amagami Shrine Festival Arc (Chapter 6-11): The annual Amagami Shrine Festival is drawing near, but things take a turn for the worse when their financial support is being threatened. In order to boost the number of patrons needed to keep their support, Uryu and the Amagami sisters decide to take things into their own hands.
  • Dreams, The Moon, and More Dreams Arc (Chapter 15-26): Thanks to their annual festival's success, the Amagami shrine is gaining more and more patrons than they can handle. To help alleviate their needs, the sisters turn to their master, Yomiko Tsukigami, for advice. Though getting said advice from her is easier said than done...
  • The Truth of Late Nights Arc (Chapter 33-40): During what was supposed to be a grocery run, Uryu discovers something hidden about Yae that may be tied to his past. With this information, he seeks out answers.
  • Wishes Balanced on the Scale Arc (Chapter 42-49): Asahi's big 10k track race is approaching, but so is the Tanabata festival on the same day. To make matters more complicated, she and Uryu get stuck in a "Groundhog Day" Loop! Between helping out at the shrine and running track, Asahi desires both, but she needs to decide what her heart truly desires.
  • The Maiden's Hide and Seek Arc (Chapter 56-67): Uryu and Yuna's school is hosting a culture festival soon, and of all times for it to happen, they find themselves body-swapped. As they carefully navigate their lives in this new predicament, they learn some hidden truths about each other...
  • Daylight Mirage Arc (Chapter 69-83): Uryu is reunited with an childhood friend from his orphanage, Shirahi Tsuruyama. She becomes jealous when she learns about the Amagami sisters and his decision to inherit their shrine. Seeking to become his one true love, she opts to seek divine aid to change both of their fates...
  • Three Paths Forward Arc (Chapter 93-105): When Yae's father enters her life again, she makes the sudden decision to return to her birth family and leave the Amagami family. Stunned by this development, Uryu, Yuna, and Asahi decide they won't take this lying down.
  • Now and Forever Arc (Chapter 124-146): Asahi's own past returns to haunt the present, and she announces to the Amagami family something completely unexpected. However, things become complicated between Uryu and Asahi when he vehemently objects, leaving him stuck over what to do...
  • Years' End Through The Mirror Arc (Chapters 153-Present): The New Year is approaching, which means Uryu and Shirahi have to dive deep into their studies, and the Amagami shrine have to prepare for the first visits of the year. But something's up with Yuna...
• Wham Episode:
  • Chapter 32: Yae bears the same name as Reiko Ichijoji and is someone that Uryu met in the past.
  • Chapter 40: Yae's real name is Reiko Ichijoji and she was actually adopted by the Amagamis.
  • Chapter 49: Asahi kisses Uryu and confesses her feelings to him.
  • Chapter 51: Like Yae, Yuna and Asahi are actually adopted by the Amagamis and also had different names and families prior to their adoption.
  • Chapter 74: Uryu awakens in an Alternate Timeline where he never left the orphanage or met the Amagami sisters.
  • Chapter 81 & 82: Uryu and Shirahi learn that the price for returning to their world is the complete severing of their bond in the current one, meaning Shirahi is doomed to not end up with Uryu. Uryu also grapples with his feelings for the sisters, confessing to Shirahi that he wants his fate to be entwined with theirs.
  • Chapter 98: Uryu mistakenly believes Yae was brought back home by her father and spends some time reminiscing with her once he finds her. Yae kisses Uryu as thanks for his kindness and concern... only for guards sent by Daijiro to arrive on the scene, with Yae revealing she is being forced to return home and asking Uryu to look after her sisters and the shrine in her absence.
• Wham Shot:
  • Chapter 31: At the end of the chapter, it wasn't Yae that showed up in Uryu's room to tease him, it was a spirit.
  • Chapter 49: The spirit that showed up in Chapter 31 is actually the late Chiharu Amagami.
  • Chapter 73: The Dark God appears to Shirahi and offers to make her dream of being with Uryu come true. She accepts.
  • Chapter 81: After explaining the "ties of destiny" theory and dodging a question about her knowledge of the gods, their methods, and all the other strange circumstances, Yomiko remarks that she's "on the side of the gods" while sporting a sinister look. She's then greeted by the Dark God when leaving the shrine and pulls out a rabbit mask similar in design to their fox mask, remarking that the lives of Uryu and the Amagami sisters hinge on "tying the knot."
  • Chapter 95: The mysterious stranger seen questioning Yae at the art exhibition is revealed to be Daijiro Ichijoji, Yae's birth father.