Renai Boukun

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tl;dr: A manga that is good at being a generic harem comedy but not very good when it tries to veer out of that into anything more serious, which it does far too much.

This is a manga that in a lot of senses is pretty generic. A kind but otherwise incredibly plain protagonist basically ends up getting forced into a situation where a tsundere, yandere, and airhead are in love with him. It does go a bit farther than most similar manga though in that it actually establishes there being an actual romantic relationship between the protagonist and all the heroines, which I think does ... make it unique enough to stand out. Still, a lot of the time it sticks pretty close to the standard type of stories for the genre and the characters are pretty flat and cliche.

What it does do well is use all of those well for some really good comedy that is all around amusing and makes the heroines seem pretty likable too. However, it veers from that quite often in trying to be more serious and have more depth. To be honest, I wish it didn't though and just stuck to being pretty generic comedy, because while that was good, essentially everything it tried that was more serious and more unique fell flat. The core premise of the manga is completely ridiculous. The characters involved are also completely ridiculous. There are a ridiculous number of plot holes and instances where characters actions simply do not make much sense based on their established motivations. And if it was just comedy, that would be fine, as the purpose is to be funny and things like that don't really matter much.

However, the manga gets really serious quite often with a heavy focus on drama, but these stories are pretty much universally pretty bad. In such moments despite the aforementioned issues the world and characters actually need to be taken seriously and both the world and characters simply don't hold up. Characters are likable when it's just random comedy, they can get really annoying when the plot actually matters. This is especially true of the protagonist who is pretty much lame from beginning to end which can be really grating when he's supposed to be doing things that actually matter. These portions also often bring up things that just don't fit well in a harem manga and are kind of off putting to have to focus on or think about, often making me question what the manga was trying to do. Because of this, it's hard to really get into the manga during these portions, and they just feel kind of boring.

There's a good amount of parts that try adding depth to the story and characters by focusing on character and relationship development, but they simply don't feel like they're that well written and are hard to really get into. The only character that felt that they were getting a good character arc in that it felt properly fleshed out and easy to get invested in while also making them more likable, feels like they got shafted pretty hard in the ending in that their character arc never reaches its conclusion and they're just sort of left out. The pacing also felt pretty bad, in that having so many serious parts prevents there from being enough comedy, but there isn't really any sort of overarching story, so the serious moments aren't really progressing towards anything, and thus the manga feels dreadfully slow at times.

The ending is actually a true harem ending in detail, which is how I usually prefer such manga to end, but the build up to it in general wasn't very good due to the previously mentioned issues, and the buildup to it right at the end was especially weak, in that it was an attempt at trying to show the protagonist growing and not being lame anymore that just felt like it further emphasized how lame he is, and also highlighted how the character I liked who didn't get a complete character arc not getting one, and thus it wasn't all that satisfying. The art was okay, with some good designs and decent quality, but it rarely felt all that eye catching.

Have you ever lain awake at night unable to sleep because a certain question now plagues your thoughts? A question so ludicrous that you know there could never be a definitive solution. So now you are left with no choice but to go another sleepless night without answers. Was the question “What if Light Yagami was a lazy, irresponsible, cosplaying fujoshi with the power to force people into relationships instead of killing them?” If this incredibly specific question has been keeping you up at night then you can now rest easy. Renai Boukun also known as Love Tyrant is here to bring ... salvation to your weary soul.

Story – 8

I’m not going to lie, this story is absurd. Add every cliché you can about your typical harem, dial its character archetypes to 11, add supernatural powers and casual conversations with God and the devil and boom you have a …plot? Love Tyrant doesn’t take itself too seriously, which is good because the last thing you need to do is bog down the readers with something like that. It starts off slow but the story continuously improves, never drags on and ends EXTREMELY well. It’s so much better than your typical harem manga. It also has so much random nonsense whether it’s an obsessive demon penguin, a demonically created isekai, or an athletic competition between heaven and hell. It’s genuinely difficult to guess what’s coming up next yet somehow still makes sense in the context of the story.

*light spoilers ahead*

One day our protagonist Seiji Aino is told by a grim reaper wielding a kiss note that he has to kiss someone or he will die. He doesn’t believe her…at first, possibly because she’s kind of lying. Actually, she will be the one who dies he’ll just remain a virgin forever. So all he has to do is choose the guy he likes most and she’ll make them a couple for eternity. Why a guy? Because that’s Guri’s hobby as a cupid. Not doing it for you Seiji. Fine pick a girl than, your crush that has a violently possessive dark side? Why not? Also, Guri thought it would be fun to experience love for herself so she wrote all three of you into a relationship.

So begins a love triangle between a cupid, a yandere and a wishy washy protagonist.

Art – 7

The backgrounds are sometimes a little bland and there are a couple of wonky transitions when it goes into slapstick style, however overall the art is good. There are plenty of visual gags that you have to take a 2nd glace to confirm what you just saw and some really impressive artwork regarding some very inhuman characters. Of course none of that matters as long as the girls are cute, which they certainly are.

Characters – 9

Seiji Aino

Your typical, bland, normal, not very athletic or good looking, wishy washy, go with the flow, is somewhat kind so all the girls fall in love with him protagonist. Did I miss anything? You’ve seen this type a million times and as long as harem manga keep getting made protagonists will either be clones of Yuki Rito or Kirito. To be fair to Seiji we probably need a little grounding in this adventure and he plays the straight man well, giving voice to all of us screaming “what?!?!” Thankfully he does progress through the story albeit slowly.

Guri

Angel or demon, cupid or shikigami, or maybe just a cosplaying fujoshi with a little too much power. Guri is the one responsible for most of the stories hijinks either directly or as a result of someone trying to mess with her. She’s lazy, but motivated by the desire to understand love and to read BL. She can be surprising insightful into others even as she causes absolute mayhem. She’s fun to have around but that fun should come with a warning label.

Akane Hiyama

A nice, talented, smart, athletic and kind girl, Akane is someone everyone in the school admires. She also carries around dozens of knives to kill off potential rivals or Seiji himself, the damn cheater. She’s a yandere, an absolutely 110% yandere who is obsessed with Seiji and absolutely furious that Guri has essentially forced herself into their relationship. A girl like this would definitely be terrifying in real life but in a harem comedy she’s ….. yep still terrifying.

Yuzu Kichougasaki

How can you get more forbidden then a BL crazy cupid in Japan? Incest.
Yuzu is Akane’s half-sister and has a massive crush on her older sister Akane. Which makes it half-forbidden I guess? She’s kind of a tsundere and becomes fast friends with Guri who disposes of Akane’s admirers by putting them together. Of course that means getting into close contact with Guri so I’ll leave what happens to your imagination.

Shikimi Shiramine

Akane and Yuzu’s cousin Shikimi is a rather interesting character (I think there maybe something wrong with this family). She’s a sadistic torturer that loves stealing things that other people treasure, whether that’s jewellery or people. Maybe because she’s never really had something she can call her own? She's introduced as an antagonist and by the end of the manga ….. still is? Despite the fact she has quite literally stabbed Seiji in the back, seeing how she comes to understand herself and change was one of the most fascinating parts of this manga.

Enjoyment – 8

Coming off the anime which the author felt was a s*** adaptation (I didn’t notice much difference to be honest.) To find the 2nd half of the story through the manga, I don’t know what I was expecting. It’s a wild ride from start to finish and one I highly recommend to anyone bored with the usual harem manga that’s constantly being turned out.

Overall - 8

Where Love Tyrant really shines is the character development. They have a lot of the typical archetypes, just dialled up until the meter was broken. What’s really impressive though is how you can see how the entire main cast and even many of the secondary characters develop through the series. These are not your typical paper cut outs. They’re cut outs with heart and you genuinely feel happy to watch them grow. Also EVERYONE gets a happy ending. Not just the MC and the harem, also the many antagonists and even many of the side characters do and it really leaves you with a good feeling at the end.

Of course there’s a serious amount of absurd randomness that will leave you scratching your head at times so be warned. If you want an absolutely ridiculous and surprising good harem manga look no further than Love Tyrant.

Story - 1: Read/watch To Love Ru, The World God Only Knows, Zero no Tsukishima, or any other harem in fact because this ain't it chief. It had a good premise in the beginning with the first few chapters but just ends up making me want to buy clown clothes for reading it from start to end cause I expected a good ending.... There's so so so so so many questions up at the end and again there's so so so so many retcons in this story as well. It's garbage, it's pure garbage, it doesn't know how to introduce characters well or handle their ... existing ones either, it doesn't know what the story is heading towards to, it has all the cliches every harem has but handles them poorly, and what is that ending? That ending got me rating this manga to a 3 to a complete 1 and I wish I can rate it 0 because there's no sense in that ending at all, especially when you take everything that happened into consideration.

Art - 6: This is the only best thing the manga has going for it and it's fair, so get f***ed.

Character - 1: You've seen each and every character in this manga before in other series, the Yandere, the Tsundere, the free spirited (which I'll get more into in a bit), the brother complex younger sister, and sadistic girl... They're all in their most basic and the only one I actually liked was Akane (the Yandere) because she had a chance to be a really good character but she just ended up being wasted. Now I must talk about Guri (the free spirited), she started out as a good character and she could've been something special for the series to keep you coming back but almost nothing she does is funny, "Hahaha me make reference towards something that's popular, am I funny yet?" and guess what, she went from being an average joe from being the most important person in the world lmao. Why do you do this, this is a terrible fanfiction and should be treated as such. Seiji is the man in the middle of all these girls and he's god awful, he's useless, gets beaten up by nearly everyone, has not one time done anything to advance the story, and his only character development happens towards the ending and it wasn't even good. So yeah, a 1, good job.

Enjoyment - 1: None, none what so ever.

Overall - 1: No, I refuse to rate this anything above a 1. If you like this manga then good for you but I'm only warning others who are tired of reading the same shit over and over again. It's the same harem you've seen before but lazier lmao. Congratulations, you've done it! And a good Fuck You to the author, praying you the best of luck in never making a manga ever again.