Shinigami-sama to 4-nin no Kanojo
Grim Reaper and Four Girlfriends

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"Life arises from death. In order for the wheat to bud, the seed must first die."

This is my first time writing a review for a manga, so I apologize in advance if I sound like I'm giving this manga too much praise. I don't read manga often, I usually just stick to watching anime, so I can't compare this to anything manga-wise.
Of course, whenever it finishes, I'll rewrite this review.

Story: 9
Ahhh, The Grim Reaper and the Four Girlfriends. I'm not generally a fan of harems, mainly because I'm sick and tired of cliche'd ecchi moments mixed in with an impossibly dense ... main character.
Thankfully, this series is different. It sets down an intriguing twist to the harem genre, one that actually makes you think. At least, for me it does.
I won't give you a summary of the story, since you can read the synopsis for that.
I love this manga. I really, really do. The story is actually very enticing. It's also very well written. It's unpredictable, in it's own way. The main character is forced into this harem, with the threat of the end to his own life. Later on, after a couple hilarious situations he's caught in, the story suddenly twists into something even darker that actually causes me to wonder. The story is simple, but what makes it great is what happens between the characters. Which I'll explain in the character section.

Art: 9
I don't really know what to say about the art, but I find it to be great. The drawings are fantastic. (Of course, after reading Nurarihyon no Mago my expectations for manga art has been through the roof lately... I should probably fix that.)

Character: 8
The story consists of mainly 7 different characters. I'm just going to talk about one of them... for now. For the others, one was just introduced so I can't really say anything about her yet. The Four Girlfriends are all different types of girls you'd see in the harem genre throughout different series; The Yandere, the Sadist, the Genius and the NEET. Well, I'm not sure if "genius" is the right word...
The main character, Kaoru, is someone who I'd love to talk about. He's a smart kid, and I feel bad for him. All his life, he's wanted a beautiful and pure relationship with a girl. One that grows slowly overtime and becomes something... more, but not inappropriately. This is mainly due to his addiction to Shoujo manga, he's found his ideal type of relationship. Though, because he's a loner, after being forced to date someone, he puts four love letters into four random girls lockers, expecting them to mostly decline. (Since he doesn't talk with anyone. At all. So they basically don't know him.) Of course, to his demise, they all accept his love letters.
Thus, his hopes and dreams of a pure relationship are completely crushed. Why? Because of a selfish grim reaper who kills him, and then decides she'll let him live if he can "make something out of himself". And this dramatic change in his life really shows in the way he thinks.
I remember in one chapter, he points this out when he's with the Shinigami;
He notices his heart beats faster when he's with her, that he may be blushing, too. But then he realizes that this is mainly because any boy could feel this way from an interaction with a pretty girl. Then he also points out he should hate her, and that he does. He should. She's basically ruined his life, and she continues to make it worse by messing around with him.
I don't know where I'm going with this. The latest two chapters have caught me off guard and were fantastic. I could rant on about this all day. (Which is what it's turning into, so I'll stop here.)

TLDR; He's a great main character who's smart and knows how to deal with his situation carefully. He isn't dense, and he genuinely wants a sincere relationship with someone. He actually hates the person who ruined his dream, and for a good reason, too.

Enjoyment: 10
I love this manga. It's hilarious, and it has an extremely interesting twist on the harem genre. The story is actually very well written, and I have a feeling it's going to blossom into something brilliant. Especially at the rate it's going. It is serious, too, it's just some situations he's in are funny. Very funny.
The only downside is how slow the chapters come out.

I feel as though I went a little off track there in the middle. It's late. I need sleep.
Either way, I full recommend this manga to anyone who loves harems with a twist, a dark and serious twist. It's great. Seriously. Read this manga.

I really enjoyed this Manga. At it's surface, it's "just another harem story", and for the most part, I tend to agree. So if you don't like harem stories, you probably won't like this one any more than the rest.

The story follows Kaoru, a borderline social outcast who becomes the target of a grim reaper, who demands he either get a girlfriend or lose his soul. Having only 24 hours to do so, and fearing failure, he asks 4 girls, who all say yes. Then, because harem animes be harem animes, the grim reaper demands he must remain in a relationship with all 4 ... for 3 months or else they will all dump him and he will be killed. A little contrived, I know (at least two of the girls make it abundantly clear they don't want anyone to know he's dating them, so he could have dumped them and made his life a little easier), but either way, I'll bite.

What makes this story different is that the main character starts out by dating all of these girls, and has to keep his relationships separate, even as they continually run into each other. This differs from the standard formula of every girl holding a one sided crush on the clueless and indecisive guy. As a result, it's more like "The World God Only Knows" than "Shuffle", as a character whose not usually a playboy is forced to act like one.

The female characters are surprisingly unique. Yes, they all fall into certain molds. Ones a closet pervert, ones a Kuudere/Tsundere, ones a Yandere, and the final one is a sadist (You'll never guess which is which until they get behind closed doors). It helps each personality pop, and also allows him to play on the girl personalities to help him keep his secret. This felt like an interesting mix of characters, and never felt cliched, even while playing with the cliches.

The genuinely loved this manga, but the main reason i didn't give it a hire score is because it got axed and rushed an ending with only 19 chapters. Half the girls really were under developed, the ending isn't satisfying, and I would have loved for this story to go on another 20 more chapters. There were so many things that could have been done with it.

However, if my biggest complaint about the manga is that there wasn't more of it, I'd say that makes a manga pretty worth reading.

SLIGHT SPOILER REVIEW; THIS WAS AMAZING AND I RECOMMEND it to any fan of comedy, harem, romance, and maybe even ecchi.
This manga was great. I expected a douchey mc and cardboard characters but this had something going. The MC had a familiar feeling but was definitely unique. This had some tropes for everyone! Tsun/Kuudere, Deredere, Yandere, Sadist, Closet perv., perfectionist; but they were all done well. The art is... fine. It's not something great, but it's not something noticeably bad. The story is original and hysterical. Originally, I was going to lower the enjoyment from 10 to 7 but changed my mind due to one ... thing. I was going to lower it because of the horrible feeling of worry whenever the four girls met or saw something I just froze and was like "FUC*FUC*FUC*FUC*FUC*FUC*FUC*FUC*FUC*" but after that I got such a feeling or relief and it was a wonderful trip.

The series is about a No-lifer boy who meets 1 of the grim reapers. A middle schooler looking girl (because Japan), who intends to take his soul since he's a no lifer there will be no one missing him. Even though he has parents and since no depraved backstory was shown I'm gonna presume they are decent parents. So to convince the grim reaper to not take his life he tells her that he is going to be a lifer as he intended to confess to a girl. The Grim Reaper backs off but says she'll give him 1 day to change his life around.

So ... the male lead confesses to the girl of his supposed dreams and to his surprise she says yes. All Four of them. In his hasty attempt to save his own skin he left a love letter to 4 girls but all of them have said yes. Now he needs to keep there relationship a secret and he can't break up with one of them as undoubtedly rumors would spread reaching the girls he is currently dating.
Now he needs to keep this up for 3 months (The time limit the Grim Reaper has set) but what is 1 guy who hasn't had a single friend much less a girlfriend supposed to do.

The series is surprisingly fine despite the relative serious tone and demeanor. The idea is that he could die at any time but there is a lot of great meme material to be had here. Mostly because anytime more than 1 girl shows up he pisses his pants and needs to deal with this situation. Which was very funny to see. The comedy was actually one of the stronger points in the series. It wasn't excessive but there was still quite a lot of it without it feeling the author had no way of dealing with serious issues so he just threw a bunch of jokes (which usually works for some reason). The manga felt well paced in that regard.

All the characters were incredibly wacky in there own fun regard. One's Horny, one's sadistic, one's a tsundere, the other is a yandere. They all have these ridiculous stereotypes while also being funny. The yandere especially was both terrifying and adorable. Which i guess fulfills the category Yandere. The male lead was also quite enjoyable to watch. Mostly to see how to get out of these insane situations. Part of the fun was the fact that he was a big shoujo lover yet become a harem character. He became the thing he swore to destroy. His self depreciation jokes and personality were spot-on and I liked that part about it.

Another thing the series did well was the actual romance part about. It did step forward in the romantic element. Don't get me wrong he is a scumbag (though with understandable reasons) but at least the author actually took that step.

Its quite sad this series was axed. The ending is really bad. Overly rushed as it were. It took a lot of the right steps and it looked it was gonna become something special. Yet it just kinda ends and feels bland. I didn't like how they resolved everything. Mostly because they don't explain jack-shit. Though the first twist was good.

TLDR: Steps in the right direction but the quick axe leaves a lot to be desired. 6/10

my first ever review and since this is a short manga ill just keep the review short too

this is basically a romcom harem manga with all the main heroine character tropes you'd expect it to have, the build-up/development of the relationships between the mc and the heroines are pretty good (especially for chapter 17 regarding the mc and one of the heroines)

the characters themselves are pretty basic and the main thing that keeps them going are the scenarios/circumstances that they're put through

now keeping in mind that this is a short harem manga about the mc struggling to keep his relationships with each of the heroines ... intact, the build-up is nowhere near as good/reactive as some other short romance mangas like [Jumyou wo Kaitotte Moratta. Ichinen ni Tsuki, Ichimanen de./I sold my life for ten thousand yen per year.] or [Onanie Master Kurosawa] so don't expect that you're gonna get as strong of an emotional reaction on some of the scenes and developments considering that they can be pretty cliche.

as for the art it is good enough to portray each of the character's emotions and 'assets' and bring out some sort of emotional reaction (from me atleast) on moments/scenes that do need them
just be aware that it is a much more simplified version of the manga's cover art just like most other mangas

the moments that make you laugh are more-often caused by an 'oh the mc's screwed now' rather than a skit or an insert joke inbetween the dialogues.

man i just wish this manga was much longer considering that this is a harem manga where the scenarios shine pretty well and relies on interesting complications, i feel like the kind of abrupt built-up conclusion could be fixed if the manga was longer in general