I kind of liked it, unlike a normal harem manga, he's actually in a clear relationship from the start and to top it off he's 4timing four girls at the same school and trying to keep it up with each of them without letting the others know that he's dating other people. However, this mc doesn't even want to 4time, he actually hates harems and is into the shoujo-esque 1on1 style with all that includes. There's also some supernatural elements. The most supernatural thing of all however is how he can manage to not get exposed when he's dating 4 girls at the same time out in the open and they even meet each other now and then. I found it somewhat hard to immerse myself because it felt so impossible, but if I really, really, really REALLY stretch the word "plausible", it's acceptable. I wish it was a bit easier to believe, like the girls not meeting now and then or that they went to different schools, but it's fine as it is I guess, even though I keep getting that nagging feeling of "no way that's possible even in fantasy" feeling.
It's unusual and quite amusing. The romance is somewhat deeper than usual in a harem manga because it can barely be qualified as a harem. He spends time with each of them alone and because they don't know about the others, each relationship develops like it would in a "normal" love story, only that he shifts between girls.
What screwed this up was probably mainly the rushed ending and forced plot.
All of a sudden everyone gets to know that he fourtimed and are extremely disappointed, leaving in rage, then there's some weird super rushed story where the shinigami girl said she loves him and loved him since before and whatever(along with some forced stuff that makes the mc say that he likes her or something like that), then there seems to be a setup for their "pure" love story while the other girls just fade out(kind of), although we get to see them one last time where they still seem to love him and want to be his girlfriends, although we can never know, the ending left way too many open possibilities and destroyed it all... I kinda feel like it's an obligation to go for a harem ending in a manga like this, I really liked around 3 of the girls, so it's a real killjoy that it ended in a way that seems like they're no longer going to be lovers... At least give us an ending where we know for sure that they end up together later on. We don't even get to know if they all made up properly, even if the ending seems to imply that they're going to forgive him and can't be mad at him. I actually feel quite bad for the girls who got deceived and perhaps never got to get into a real relationship with him as a harem, they were all kind/good girls... Imagine dating a girl but she had dated 3 or 4 other guys at the same time without you knowing, it'd be unacceptable no matter the reason, the only way to make it a bit better and more acceptable is if the cheater took responsibility for all of them and they properly came to an understanding where everyone wins(probably what would have happened if it wasn't so rushed at the end, but it would've been possible to add that in as a "this happened later" summary for some peace of mind)... In real life it could never end in a good way, but since it's fantasy it's possible.
So... yeah... It's worth reading, but the ending sucks so keep that in mind. It was enjoyable enough even then, but instead of being worth an 8, it'd go down to a 6-7...
Not really related to the review, but I found the words really amusing that one of the girls had written down on those little things they write words on to quickly review them when they have time... I mean, seriously... Was that really what the author wrote? If so, either the author has no fcking idea about what words would be good to review, they're also just in middle school... Oh, and either the translator or the author wrote both words down because they were too complicated/unusual. The words were superannuated(the word was incorrectly written as superannulated, pretty much means obsolete/something that is retired or ineffective due to age) and antediluvian(In the manga misspelled as antidiluvian, something that happened before the flood in the bible or extremely old/old-fashioned/antique)...
I can assure you that if you learn words like that, no one will understand you 😛 It's just some of those words that are pretty much never, ever used. Even if you do learn those words, it would be around university-level in a language-focused class. The author thought it was suitable for a japanese person to learn in middle school? Just shows how bad the author must be at english 😀 Probably wanted her to seem smart so he searched for "hard/unusual" words that he didn't understand himself and just put them in as is without understanding how embarrassing it is for him to anyone knowledgeable in english because it just shows how he has no clue yet added something like that, haha. Well, not knowing it is not bad in itself and that happens a lot when you learn a new language, you say stuff that sounds really weird to inhabitants and use words that just aren't used. It's just that it was done in an official manga that can't be changed and will be showed to everyone, not just a few people. It's better to take safe bets in such situations. Well, I wonder why this was so memorable for me 😛
