Welcome to the cursed island of Shina Dark. This island is called home by the dark lord Exoda C. Claw aka Satan. He's as powerful a being as you could ever hope to meet. Feared and hated the world over for the infinite amount of atrocities he's committed. He's.....actually a really nice guy who just wants to chill out around the castle and relax... After a month long nap he awakens to find that the rest of the world has made up another ridiculous rumor and blown it way out of proportion and that has caused his little island to be crowded with a thousand beautiful women meant to be his mistresses/sacrifices. Worse yet is that since they have set foot on his island they are all believed to be cursed and are now shunned by their homelands. What's a couch potato Satan to do with 1000 women who won't / can't leave? Who can say?
As the story progresses, Exoda attempts to do a little nation building in an attempt to get the women on the island interested a little more in their own lives and less depressed. Among the women sent to his island there is a princess from each of the two major empires surrounding his island. Not wanting anything to do with ruling a kingdom himself, he sets up the two princesses as the head of the new country. He then works, primarily, in the background to support the fledgling country through some of the problems it faces both from without and from within.
Shina Dark is a manga written by Bunjuro Nakayama and illustrated by Yukari Higa. It was serialized from 2006 to 2009, starting in Dengeki Teioh for the first ten months of its run and later moving to Dengeki Daioh, where it continued until its conclusion.
This work provides examples of:
- Above the Influence: One thousand young women are dropped on Exoda's door step with every expectation of being
used, abused and exploited as his slaves. Exoda's first response is to send them all home. When it becomes clear that's not an option, he accepts responsibility for their suffering and founds a representative government to secure their rights and freedoms. - Accidental Pervert: Satan is believed to be such a pervert that it is hard for him to not be mistaken for one.
- Especially when a little girl crawls into his bed at the end of the first chapter.
- A-Cup Angst: Noel. Frequently jealous of Galett and Christina.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Noel's hair is jet black. In the music videos, it's PINK!!!
- It's also pink in the color pages of the manga, so the videos could well be accurate.
- All Anime Is Naughty Tentacles: Octovia. You can't have a fantasy ecchi series without at least one tentacle monster.
- Almighty Janitor: Exoda definitely subscribes to Eddie Riggs' philosophy: if a leader does his job right no one knows he's there.
- Amazon Brigade: Considering most of his island's population is women, due to the below-mentioned Malicious Slander, and Galett training many of the women to be guards to better defend their new home from any one who threatens it, Exoda has a fairly large one and it is growing.
- Angry Guard Dog: The dragon guarding the lowest part of the vault is this only when someone not authorized comes in ... or when the contract ends and no one bought the extension or life-time policy.
- Anti Anti Christ
- Batman Gambit: Exoda organizes a monster hunt so Galett and Christina can overcome their differences.
- Battle Butler: Vincent.
- Berserk Button: Don't hit a woman in Clow's presence. Seriously, don't.
- Betty and Veronica: Christina and Galett, respectively
- Big Bad: The entire world believes Satan to be this. Other than being the single most powerful being in the world, he's pretty much the opposite.
- The Caligula: The Queen and First Prince of Estgloria, who are living extravagantly to the detriment of the people.
- Celibate Hero: Despite his unearned world reputation as a pervert, Satan will run away at top speed if some of the girls in his "harem" try to hit on him.
- He seems to be a case of The Mourning After for Cynthia, a woman we only see in a painting.
- Despite being an Ecchi series, the two main girls seem to have no real interest in bedding anyone either after their first attempt to sacrifice themselves to an unwilling Satan. So far.
- Chess Master: Well, a master of Chess anyway. Christina wins every game she plays against Exoda, even when he flipped the board behind her back. We later see her a competent battlefield commander.
- Chick Magnet: Nicely averted. The girls are only attracted to Exoda when they realize that he's a genuinely caring person, not because he's the male lead.
- Cooking Duel: Accomplished via haggling
- Crazy Cultural Comparison: People from the East and the West living in Shina Dark get into little fights over their Culture Clash frequently. (Forks v. chopsticks, etc.)
- Creepy Doll: Seru
- Crouching Moron Hidden Bad Ass: Satan seems like a lazy bum who likes nothing more than relaxing and tries to avoid doing anything that even resembles hard work (running the country he created in what can only be described as his backyard). And he really is like that. But if someone actually forces him into doing something, they will quickly be reminded why the whole world pisses its pants before him.
- Dance Battler: Rosa.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Exoda.
- Defector from Decadence: The Second Prince of Estgloria remembers his father's love for the people, is disgusted at the Queen's excesses, and cares deeply for Christina.
- Defiled Forever: This mentality is the main reason why none of the females that were sent to Shina Dark are able to return to their home countries. Even after Satan declared that those who wished to could go back home, one character, a former singer for a tavern, said that everyone considered her to be a wretched woman who should either be sent to a convent, locked in a tower or left to die in a ditch somewhere.
- Determinator: Deconstructed and reconstructed with Galett. She's a strong and charismatic leader, but her Heroic Willpower is the result of a life where she had the choice of becoming strong or lying down in a gutter to die.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Seriously, he's an Immortal Demon King who could have killed the women and ravished the world if he wanted to. Instead he treats them with kindness and even creates a country for them. You think they would like build a shrine for him or something? Hell no!
- He probably wouldn't want something like that anyway.
- Ecchi: Lots of bath house shots of two main busty female protagonists.
- And the maid. And even the Token Mini-Moe.
- The Empire: The Vansable Empire is conquering the world with extremely advanced technology.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- Satan is a nice guy but he is downright pissed when he finds out he's expected to sleep with Maple, who is under 10 years old. He seems displeased about whats in the book about him as well, given that from the sounds of it, most of it may very well just be pure fiction.
- The Layla sisters maybe merchants looking to make a profit but even they find Queen of Estgloria greed and lack of care for her people disgusting and hopes karma will bite her in the future.
- Expy: Noel is very similar to Mahoro from Mahoromatic. Just substitute the two locks of hair growing out of the sides of Mahoro's head for elf-like ears of about the same length.
- Lampshaded in chapter 20, complete with Shout-Out.
- Finger Poke of Doom: Satan does this to the hero who shows up in chapter 1.
- Furo Scene: Nearly 1/2 of all chapters involve the one or both of the two main girls bathing in the castle's gigantic bathroom. Since it was originally Satan's personal bathroom, he gets caught there a lot.
- Genius Ditz: Christina is terrible at everything she tries — except strategy, where she's unbeatable.
- God Save Us from the Queen!: The Queen of Estgloria, Christina's home country.
- Good Princess, Evil Queen: The plucky and intelligent Christina was the princess of Estgloria before being shipped off to become Satan's concubine. Her Wicked Stepmother is the current Queen, and is The Caligula.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: Both Christina and Galett have crushing self-esteem issues. Galett's are just better hidden behind her Action Girl facade.
- Highly-Visible Ninja: Hajime.
- Hit Points: Matilda has an eyepatch that can see them, but Galett seems aware of her own.
- Intrepid Merchant: The Layla Sisters
- It Makes Sense in Context: "What a glorious Satan day!"
- Jerkass: The so-called hero who comes to fight Exoda in chapter 1.
- Les Yay: Invoked with Christina and Gallett. The preview asks whether they will become slaves to darkness (showing them separately in their Stripperific outfits) or a light in the darkness (showing their hands clasped).
- Malicious Slander: Just how does Satan have this horrible reputation anyway, and why does it keep getting worse every time he goes for a long sleep?
- The scapegoat effect. He's so legendary for being evil, people just pile of different things about him in new stories during his periods of being gone. Since he isn't around to refute them, and by the time new things are added to his "legend" the people who were around during his last reign are dead, the result is a sort of "George Washington and the Cherry Tree" taken to an extreme.
- Meido: Noel
- Mistaken for Servant: When Exoda is in his casual fishing clothes, it is hard to tell he is the "Satan". When one boy came to the island to kill him, Exoda was able to stay quiet and let the boy think Vincent is "Satan" as he ran off.
- Modest Royalty: Discussed by the Layla sisters when Noel and company sell a valuable magical artifact to buy food for the inhabitants of Shina Dark, and then the Queen of Estgloria purchases it when her citizens are starving.
- That's partially because what is a priceless artifact for the rest of the world is just another old piece of junk for Exoda, who acquired more treasures and magical items than he cares to list (including a Humongous Mecha and a sword that was Cursed with Awesome). Heck, the only reason they sold the crown was because it was less troublesome than going trough the trap filled maze and fighting off the dragon that guards the treasure.
- Mundane Made Awesome:
- Noel and the Layla Sisters haggling
- Christina playing chess.
- Mundane Utility: During the Beach Episode, one mage uses an ice spell to make ice for crushed ice treats.
- Noble Demon: Exoda C. Claw. The demon part is debatable, but the nobility isn't.
- Old Retainer: Vincent.
- Parental Abandonment: Princess Galett. This can also be implied for a great many of the girls who were sent to be sacrifices.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Satan is believed to be this, Noel shows the potential to be this, and it is hinted that the butler is in between the two in terms of power scale.
- Plucky Girl: Galett.
- Politically-Active Princess: Christina becomes this to compensate she's not much of an Action Girl like Galett.
- Really 700 Years Old: Satan is a legendary being that sleeps for ages and awakens periodically until a hero puts him down — and he has a butler and maid that hang around with him too.
- Robot Girl: Noel is one, making her even more similar to Mahoro.
- RPG Mechanics 'Verse: Characters occasionally make reference to hit points and the like.
- Schizo Tech: Of the two main nations, the Vansable Empire (Galett's birthplace) seems to have steam-powered technology.
- And then there's the modern respirator that appears when Christina gets sick.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Satan, supposedly. He does sleep for ages and wake when certain astronomical events occur. This may have been more true in ages past.
- Seems like powerful monsters start awakening worldwide whenever he does.
- Shout-Out: Satan's basement is basically a very large shoutout to the Disgaea series.
- Probably unintentional, but...
"The numeric gauge shows its life-force at... 10,000!" - Sink or Swim Mentor: Exoda tries to ensure that Galett and Christina, and by extension the rest of Shina Dark, can rule themselves without him. Of course, he's also pretty lazy.
- Stealth Mentor: ... He also makes a good job of no one (except Vincent) finding out about this.
- Stripperific: Galett and Christina had been sent to Shina Dark under the impression that they would be Exoda's concubines so they had planned their wardrobe accordingly.
- Super-Deformed: Marple is so tiny and cute!
- The Unfavorite:
- Christina thinks that she's this to the people of Shina Dark. She's wrong.
- Both Princesses were this to their home nations. Galett because her father was able to produce a male heir and no longer needed her to take over, and Christina, see Wicked Stepmother for the details.
- Unwanted Harem: Pretty much the premise of the manga. Something of a deconstruction as well. Every member of the harem is there because someone deemed them expendable or unwanted.
- So it's an Unwanted Unwanted Harem?
- Also noteworthy for being an actual harem of old (namely a king/ruler/lord/husband/sheikh and several lovers), and truly unwanted because he isn't annoyed by advances or anything, but just doesn't want to cope with 1000 women as love interests.
- Upper-Class Twit: The First Prince of Estgloria.
- Villains Out Shopping: Exoda enjoys spending his free time out fishing.
- Wicked Stepmother: The Queen of Estgloria, who has Christina's mother assassinated, had Christina poisoned for four years, and sent her off to be Satan's consort.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: There's a moment in chapter 1 where the inhabitants of Shina Dark think they'll be able to go back to their families. Then reality sinks in.
