Shiunji-ke no Kodomotachi
The Shiunji Family Children

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First up, this is from the same author of Rent-A-Girlfriend. A manga (and anime) I had the displeasure of consuming. Had some interesting ideas about the transactional nature of relationships but tossed it all up for a protagonist that was frustratingly self-destructive, refusing to progress the story in any meaningful way. Luckily, this was not a painful read. It can be quite fun actually. The setting of having non-blood related siblings as love interests is quite novel for a mainstream manga. And it brings up an interesting question about how perspective affects our view of others romantically, and a very intriguing (and kinda bold) question ... about the difference between familial and romantic love. It's a bit of a shame that the manga focuses on a hopelessly optimistic 'we're family!' shtick to kinda brush aside these questions but this is a harem rom-com after all, so I'm more expecting fun scenarios and good art. I think the manga delivers this. The characters can be charming, and the situations are your typical, but nice escapist read so I can safely recommend this one for those looking to calm their romcom harem itch.

Rom-coms and harems are heavily reliant on their characters and I am happy to say that the protagonist, Arata is not as much a slap-able simp as the protagonist, Kazuya in Rent-A-Girlfriend. In fact, he seems to be the direct opposite of Kazuya. Arata is take-charge, reliable, mature, and super protective of his siblings/love interests (i cant believe i just wrote that). Seems like Reiji Miyajima took some feedback to heart... for the better. But I think he might have took the wrong lessons. I don't hate the protagonist of Rent-A-Girlfriend because he's a giant simp without a backbone. I hate the guy because he seems to have so little introspection about paying for rental girlfriend services and dedicating so much of himself to a girl that won't return his feelings when it feels like he should have so much more DEPTH as a character. Yet all we get from him is impulsive decisions, lies, and monologue reminders of how great Chizuru is. Arata is less irritating to read and look at for sure, and he can get things done with all his main character plot armor. It's also good that the setting is not as sociologically charged, but he's got the depth of a puddle so far.

It's a problem of focus. Much of the manga revolves around Arata and his siblings' relationships. We see them visiting each other in the house, talk about each other's relationships, and go on 'dates' and what not. The manga puts so much time and attention on the love plots that it doesn't develop its characters enough - and when they do, it seems to all be in service of making the girl fall in love with the guy even harder. It's like the characters' life solely revolves around the romance rather than being people who happen to fall in love. I wish the characters expanded beyond the stereotypes and romantic attractions. Let Arata be somebody with an actual life and not just someone who is a romance obsessed maniac and a brother. Give him some ambition! Give him a life philosophy! If Arata and his siblings are supposed to be the successors to a rich family, maybe you can give them some class conflict, or some struggle about living up to expectations. There's some mention and subplot of the characters going out to search for their real blood family and I so much wished that this had more focus.

The grace of this manga is the character design and illustration. Just like Rent-A-Girlfriend, the art and designs are really nice for the genre. The love interests are for sure stereotypes of your usual Kuudere, Tsundere, etc. types that we've seen in anime/manga time and time again but even I have to admit that despite working within such surface restrictions, these designs hit a nice balance between modern and traditional. It helps that the mangaka seems to have a good sense of contemporary fashion.

I just wished that this was written a little better.

I do have to say upfront, if you come from Rent a girlfriend, this one is imho much better.
The MC at least isn't room temp IQ + Stalker and the girls aren't extremely oblivious.
The plot moves along each chapter and something actually happens on screen.

The girls are incredibly bland though. Like... trope to the max. Kuudere, Tsundere, Ara Aradere, Smartdere and Sportsdere.
And if you think of a specific character now, you know all there is to know of the 5 girls.
At least they have cute designs, are drawn decently well and actually have a meaningful changing wardrobe.

IF you want to read a ... very simple dumbed down Harem with cute Girls it's worth a read.
IF you want good writing, decent characters and a well put together drama it isn't.
It's on a level with Quintuplets, Oreimo and Girlfriend Girlfriend, which puts it above the likes of Rent a girlfriend... but far from Bunny girl senpai, Golden Time or Saekano.

6.5/10


Why do so many harem mangas get such a bad rep? Well, it’s quite simple — the characters suck massive balls. Introducing and developing one or two characters is already a hard enough task, however, harem mangakas decided it was too easy to write two fundamentally sound and engaging characters, so they opt for the much harder challenge; sadly, the world is not some kind of fairytale where an inexperienced writer can accomplish such a feat, this is no exception.

1,2,3,4,5,6,7 characters that have been info dumped onto each panel by the author, only to be forgotten with the mindset of “I ain’t reading all of ... that.” Call it self-awareness because despite the author already dedicating 5 or so panels in explaining the heroines, each chapter that reintroduces the heroines to “develop” them, there’s a summary about their characteristics and background, which I find quite laughable.

The characters themvselfselves are rather bland, which is why I decided to gloss over their summaries. There are your typical cliche archetypes, however, it’s also done in a rather poor manner; the drawback of having seven characters to develop is that no singular one will become greatly engaging or moving, instead, the characters act beyond unrealistic by sharing zero personality traits befitting of the sibling status.

The pot is self-explanatory by being apart of the harem genre, so I’ll quickly gloss over it: There are the usual progressions and developments while also having similar traits in an incest not incest manga of “this is not okay… But Imma do it anyways!”

It is not a matter of if you should read this manga, but when you should drop the manga. Besides for being a perfectly average harem manga, there’s not much that makes you want to smash your head through a wall, but it’s also nothing unexpected.


Reading Rankings (Portnoy inspired + A Huang-Teizan Original)
10 - God’s penmanship
9 - Must-read. Drop everything else.
8 - Instant bookmark
7 - Entertaining
6 - Good to pass time
5 - Why are you reading this?
4 - Bad.
3 - Typical garbage.
2 - My head hurts.
1 - Retirement is a thought.
0 - “Did they even give you a story?!”