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It's rare that I read a manga that actually genuinely makes me angry, but this is one of them. It's basically a bait and switch. It starts off is a very basic romance, with a childhood friend whose loved the MC forever, the most popular girl in school suddenly liking the MC, and a love triangle between the two girls and the MC. The MC tries to decide who he likes, while both girls get hurt at his indecisiveness. Basically, every romance ever written. However, it throws something new at you. The childhood friend falls into a deep sleep, and noone can wake her. On ... top of that, her spirit starts to haunt him. Awesome catch right? Bait set.

If you were interested in a ghost love story where a boy tries to put together the pieces of the mystery and find a way to save his child-hood friend while steadily becoming closer to her in the process, you'll get some of that... as long as you replace "getting closer with childhood friend" with "getting closer to the other girl while he continually alienates his childhood friend." Although, even that's okay as a story, then about 15 chapters in, the switch comes.

The entire ghost arc gets wrapped like the manga was suddenly cancelled and the author had to finish it in two issues. It was finished hastily and without any care for any of the characters, sleeping beauty metaphors, or really anything this manga bothered to do. It was jarring how quickly the whole story just got tossed away. It was as if the author got bored of their own story half way through and decide to just flip it into something else. And that something else happened to be just a very very generic love triangle story, complete with challenging little sisters, the formation of a new club, and everything else that makes these kind of stories uber cliched. So what you end up with is a very generic high school romance story with the atypical love triangle and the 'will they/ won't they' unclear confessions that could be resolved in two pages if anyone was just honest for once.

The ending... oh god... the ending is atrocious. If you want to know what the ending is like without spoilers... I have one word for you. Sapranos. Yeah. It's like that.

I've never seen a manga that seemed to actually hold contempt for its readers, but if one existed, I'd imagine it'd be like this. If you came for the supernatural, don't even bother. NONE of the lore gets explored, the story gets a brief and incomplete toss away explanation, and the sleeping beauty angle is never explored. Even the parts where the friend is a ghost spend more time focusing on the love triangle and his steadily growing closer relationship with the new girl. If you came for the romance, it came off more annoying than romantic, since every romantic scene is followed by ghost childhood friend crying and being in physical pain (because of some kind of curse nonsense that is NEVER explained). They even throw in a 3rd girl into the romance 3 chapters before the finale... who does that?

This was a well of untapped potential. Unless you are happy to guzzle down anything with a romance tag, you'll almost certainly walk away from this manga disappointed.

Countrouble follows the story of a boy who gets a visit from a cupid like angel Sasara, who then proceeds to serve as matchmaker between him and the girl of his dreams. She then proceeds to wreck havoc with his life, often casting love spells that all are dependent on the number 10 for some reason.

I can't say this manga is unique in anyway, but it wasn't the worst thing I've ever read. It's a fairly "by number" (no pun intended) harem/romance anime. It sits more on the romance side than the harem side, as he is fairly singularly focused on one girl, and ... most of the other girls interested in him don't really develop.

I felt as I read this manga that the author never really had a plan for it. He wanted to do a love cupid thing, started it, and then kind of just threw stuff around whenever he felt like it. In the end, you end up with a plot that can really only be described as scatterbrained.

It's coherent and easy to follow, but there seemed to be no plan. This becomes apparent the farther the author gets into it. He'll introduce side characters only to have them just disappear. A good half of them never develop properly. His childhood friend, which makes the major source of conflict in the first half of the manga, seemingly just disappears when it becomes plot convenient, as does her angel, who was working in opposition of the MC's cupid.

The entire story has this flow. Nothing gets foreshadowed. The author decides suddenly he wants one character to have a sister, that sister just happens to show up and be used for the duration of that chapter. There is never any sign of development building over multiple chapters. Sometimes, he'll even backpedal relationships, forgetting events that already happened.

From a humor perspective, the manga is self aware, making fun of it's own genre and breaking the 4th wall from time to time. However, the story never really became much better for it. By chapter 20, I was ready for the whole thing to be over. The characters themselves seemed to even realize this, one character stating that the only reason she was still there was because otherwise the manga would be over. Sorry, if even the author realizes he's out of story and just stretching it, making a joke about it doesn't negate the fact that that's what you're doing.

On the plus side, the manga is well drawn and amusing and is a nice light read. If you're looking for a light romance, with some comedy, and very light harem, this would be a good one for you. It's kind of like the junk food of the manga world. It's not going to win awards, but it'll keep you entertained and satisfied.

I got an impression by the time I was done with the first chapter of this manga. I remember rolling my eyes and thinking "this author thinks he's way smarter than he actually is." While this was an idol thought, I didn't expect this theme to end up permeating the entire series... but it does.

In essence, this manga is about a human boy who ends up working alongside a shinagami who is required to fulfill the "last request" of anyone who died unexpectedly(putting them at risk of turning into a bad spirit), in order to help them die peacefully. The shinagami turns out to ... be his sister, who everyone thinks he might have murdered along with their parents, albeit with absolutely no evidence.

Chapter 00 reflects a far lighter version of what this manga could have been which might have been something like ghost whisperer, filled with highs, lows, and the feels. But by chapter 01, we end up with a fairly gory murder mystery that isn't afraid to throw in betrayal, sociopaths, and serial killers just for the heck of it.

For the most part, I did enjoy the manga. It gave me certain Sherlock Holmes vibes from time to time as the male protagonist tries to outwit and outsmart others. It certainly fits a sherlock holmes homage way better than Aria the Scarlett Ammo. The sis-con aspects of are quite nice, and while the harem aspects never develop very much, they're subtle and present enough to satisfy. The art was good, and the story plowed forward at a strong pace that never felt awkward.

Most of the characters were not fully developed, however, this is expected in an manga that gets cancelled prematurely. It is a bit sad though, as I'd like to have seen more adventures with each of the shinigami as the MC continues to build their trust and their affection for him.

The biggest setback, however, was that the writer of this manga seemed to have his head up his own butt when he wrote this, and was quite in love with the scent of his own farts. At times, the story came off as downright pompous. I'm particularly reminded of an early scene where he talks to the head of the shinigami. Supposedly, it shows him "outwitting" her by showing her the logical fallacy of her argument.... but to me it came off more like a 7 year old getting his parent to slip up and say something, and then demanding they hold to that. "But you said I could not not not not go outside, that means I can go out side!"

All of this would be fairly forgivable... if the story then didn't precede to end in the manner it did. Rushing to an end would be an immense understatement with this manga. You can almost see the author just about finished with chapter 17 when the publisher calls him and says, you know what, finish it with 18, we're done.

So what does the author do? <spoiler tag>

He turns it into a "who done it" mystery. It'd be a really cool idea.... if he had actually provided us with enough information to solve it.... but this manga has been out for years and the conclusion seems to be, no one freaking knows.

Then again, I should have expected this after I finished that first chapter. This was a guy amazed at his own brilliance. I'm not surprised he decides to smugly hold the conclusion to the manga, because to him, it's just soooo obvious. No... it's not obvious. You ended your manga prematurely, and you didn't provide enough clues for people to do anything more than make shots in the dark.

I didn't hate the manga, but that ending made me angry. If you know it's coming, you may be able to get some enjoyment from this manga, just be aware you'll never find out what happens.

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.