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Context Manga / ShinigamiSamaTo4NinNoKanojo

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2%% Do NOT link to manga scan sites. That's illegal.
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4[[quoteright:271:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/21mclet_6780.png]]
5
6Minaguchi Kaoru is nothing special. Bad at sports, poor grades, not in any clubs, and certainly not popular. He has no friends and isn't even interested in any of the girls he knows. He's also bullied due to the fact that he loves shoujo manga. Unlike the harem daydreams of his peers, he dreams of finding his true love. Unfortunately, a {{shinigami}} comes to kill him, simply because he's a failure. But when he gasps out his intention of becoming a success with his final breaths, she takes it back! As long as he follows through on his intentions, he won't be harvested.
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8To convince the shinigami that his plans are genuine, he declares that he will confess to the girl he likes, the very next day. Expecting failure with confessing to random girls in his school, he sends out love letters to four different girls. [[GoneHorriblyRight To his surprise, they all agree to be his girlfriend.]] Now, this shoujo-manga-loving guy has ended up in a kind of harem story, quadruple-timing four girls.
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10Then the shinigami introduces herself as Airi, and sets a time of 3 months, during which she'll watch Kaoru (and his girlfriends) very closely in order to confirm that he can pull this off. If he fails, then his head will be hers.
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12''Shinigami-sama to 4-nin no Kanojo''[[note]]The Grim Reaper and the 4 girlfriends[[/note]] is a manga by Suyama Shinya, the author of ''[[GakkouNoSensei Gakkou no Sensei]]'' and ''[[AkumaJiten Akuma Jiten]]'', with [=CHuN=] (of ''[[MaouSamaNoYuushaToubatsuki Maou-sama no Yuusha Toubatsuki]]'' fame) in charge of art. The manga was serialized from 2013 to 2015 in ''Gangan Joker'', being CutShort at 18 chapters and compiled into three volumes.
13----
14!!This series provides examples of:
15* AccidentalPervert: Downplayed.
16* AllLoveIsUnrequited: [[spoiler:All of the girls fall more and more in love with Kaoru, but in all honesty, he's more worried about saving his ass than on romance.]]
17* AllTheOtherReindeer: Kaoru has no friends. The concept is so foreign to him, the idea of a phone being used to contact people besides his family was very shocking for him. He is also bullied by every boy due to his open love of shojo manga. But it is more limited to them calling him fag and such.
18* BattleOfWits: Between Airi (who wants to kill Kaoru and positions the girlfriends in places that would give his cheating away) and Kaoru (who wants to fulfill the conditions set by Airi for his release and strives to keep his cheating in secret).
19* BecomingTheMask: [[spoiler:Yui agreed to go out with Kaoru in order to not be killed by Rion, Airi's sister, but ended up genuinely falling for him.]]
20* BeneathTheMask: All the girls have 2 faces: their public image (always a positive one) and the intimate one (far more sinister).
21* ButtMonkey: Kaoru goes straight to this but barely avoids it due to his incredible ability to improvise.
22* ChasteHero: Kaoru actively avoids becoming too physical with the girls, as he feels their feelings are wasted on him.
23** [[spoiler:Turns out to be the reason Risa started dating him. She wanted to mold him to her tastes]]
24* CluelessChickMagnet: Kaoru did get 4 girls to like him enough to date him without even personally knowing them.
25* TheCorrupter: [[spoiler:A far less sinister version. Risa started dating Karou to "corrupt" his purity. So that he would fit her sexual tastes.]]
26* CovertPervert: Risa's intimate face. She has no knowledge about relationships, and the first reference manual we see consulting is a porn magazine.
27** Aoi is one too. When she and Kaoru got wet, she offered her uniform. When he rejected, she dejectedly said she thinks he would look good in it.
28* ClassRepresentative: Risa Umikai's public face. She fulfills the place to a T. A perfectly cool, distant student that serves without calling attention to herself and stays at the top of her class.
29* CutShort: Due to its cancelling, though it does have an ending, the story ends with a lot of plot threads unexplained and zero resolution.
30* DefrostingIceQueen: Kaoru has this effect upon Risa and Emiry. Whether this is ''positive'' or not is left as an exercise for the reader.
31* DisproportionateRetribution: The punishment for "speaking to and destroying" a relationship is to have your vocal cords crushed. The punishment for destroying four is said to be far worst [[spoiler: though Airi manages to get out of it offscreen.]]
32* DullEyesOfUnhappiness: It is used quite a bit, both for laughs and for drama.
33* EvenTheGirlsWantHer: Aoi's outgoing, cheerful and all-around optimistic personality earns her popularity with guys and girls, though this is her public personality.
34* ExpressiveHair: In the ImagineSpot, Emiry's idiot hair is spinning when Kaoru is lying about why he was with her in the subway.
35** Aoi is a much more scarier example. When she goes Yandere her hair grows longer and wilder.
36* {{Expy}}: Risa resembles [[Manga/SeitokaiYakuindomo Shino]] quite a bit, as well as having a [[CovertPervert similar personality]], the only real difference is Risa has giant boobs, which would probably kill [[ACupAngst Shino]].
37** Kaoru and Airi are like [[Manga/TheWorldGodOnlyKnows Keima and Elsea]]. Keima and Kaoru are otaku outcasts that use their otaku knowledge to successfully keep a harem or their lives are gone. Airi and Elsea call their main character nii-sama and are shinigami that changed their lives.
38* ForgottenFirstMeeting: At first Kaoru wonders if this happened between him and Airi.
39** [[spoiler:This is later confirmed by Airi, who tells Kaoru that they met as children. However, humans lose their memory of meeting a reaper 3 days after the reaper leaves, including Kaoru.]]
40** [[spoiler:Also hinted in chapter 6, that this occurred between Karou and Aoi.]]
41* FromBadToWorse: [[spoiler:Airi's sister turns up to put the screws on Kaoru, by saying she'll reap one of the girls if he doesn't kiss the one she picked.]]
42* GenreSavvy: Kaoru, due to reading a lot of manga, is really good at making excuses towards the girls that raises their affection towards him. He's also suspicious of why a girl of Risa's status would say yes to someone like him.
43** Airi is as well, she and Kaoru usually converse in tropes.
44* GuileHero: Kaoru has shown himself to be pretty good at getting out of situations, using lies and his knowledge of {{Shoujo}} manga.
45* HaremSeeker: [[InvertedTrope Inverted]]. Kaoru wants to find true love, unlike his male classmates.
46* HeroicSelfDeprecation: Kaoru does quite a bit, mostly calling himself on his cheating, but also his lack of friends.
47* IKnowMortalKombat: Kaoru's knowledge of Shoujo manga makes him oddly good at keeping a harem.
48* IdiotHair: Emiry has one.
49* IdolSinger: Yui Kobayakawa's public face.
50* IndyPloy: Almost all of Kaoru's plans are pretty much "try to do damage control with what I can use at the moment". [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] because he has absolutely '''no''' experience dating girls.
51* ItAmusedMe: Airi cannot directly intervene in Kaoru's daily life, so she resorts to indirect manipulation in order to put him at risk of failure with his girlfriends. What she really wants is to reap Kaoru, but her real motivation is to amuse herself seeing how Kaoru gets his ass out of the troubles she sets up.
52* LaserGuidedAmnesia: [[spoiler: Anyone who meets a reaper will lose all memory of them 3 days after the reaper leaves.]]
53* LazyBum: Airi was stated by her sister to sit around and read manga and anime.
54* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: Airi jokes that Kaoru is like a harem protagonist; which he is.
55* LonersAreFreaks: Kaoru is seen as such due to his deep shyness and cloudy mind (which would prove to be serious weaknesses in the days to come).
56* LoveTriangle: Type 3: The 4 girls like Kaoru for their own reasons.
57** Becomes a Type 7 when the 4 girls accept his confession and start dating him (everything in the first chapter, no less!).
58* LuminescentBlush: All the girls have this when Kaoru uses his shoujo knowledge.
59* ManipulativeBastard: Airi fully expects Kaoru to fail and loves to exploit his 4 girlfriends' character traits in order to put him in dangerous situations.
60* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Since getting 4 girlfriends, a good chunk of Kaoru's thoughts are this. It's used to show that he clearly understands what he's become and how it contradicts his own ideals of love and romance.
61* {{NEET}}: Kaoru became one for about a chapter, planning to let 3 months pass by without having a chance to meet the girls. He quickly gave up when he realized the girls could come to his house and he would have no way to stop them.
62* NewTransferStudent: Subverted, Airi enjoys playing around too much to transfer. Kaoru even asks if she was.
63** [[spoiler: Played straight in the last chapter, where she transfers into his class.]]
64* NiceGuy: Kaoru is actually a nice guy. He originally used dating as a last shot. He was surprised as hell when not only did one girl accept, but all FOUR did. You can tell he feels really sorry for the girls, and makes an effort to at least be a good fake boyfriend to each of the girls.
65* NoRomanticResolution: [[spoiler: The series ends without Kaoru actually picking one of the girls that likes him.]]
66* NotAMorningPerson: Airi.
67* ObliviousGuiltSlinging: The girls do this to Kaoru a lot when they show how much they like or trust him.
68* OffOnATechnicality: Kaoru avoided certain death by stating he wants to become a success on his dying breath. Airi immediately stops and saves him because were she to reap a successful person (or one with that goal) she'd be punished with a severe pay cut.
69** Same for being a NEET, if Kaoru gives the appearance of being successful, Airi can't kill him.
70* OffscreenTeleportation: [[spoiler: Aoi does this in chapter 7, it was [[NightmareFuel a pure, raw scare]].]]
71* OhCrap: Happens a lot to Kaoru due to Airi. But a great face is [[http://www.mangahere.com/manga/shinigami_sama_to_4_nin_no_kanojo/c007/48.html this]]
72* {{Ojou}}: Emiry Oogawara's public face.
73** This helps explain her {{Tsundere}} tendencies: Seeing that she has easy access to money, people have treated her as a wallet in the past. One of the direct strikes Kaoru unintentionally shoots at her heart is paying for the net café himself in their first date and explaining that a gentleman cannot allow his date to pay.
74* {{Otaku}}: Both Kaoru and Airi.
75* PassionateSportsgirl: Aoi Sawatari's public face.
76* PatientChildhoodLoveInterest: [[spoiler:It is hinted that Aoi is one. It doesn't mix well with Yandere.]]
77* ThePerfectionist: Risa shows signs of this during her date.
78* {{Sadist}}: Yui's intimate face. Her first romantic encounter with Kaoru involved her biting Kaoru's ear intentionally and getting off on it. Kaoru admitting she was biting so hard, he was scared she was going to rip it off.
79** And it happens again in the infirmary.
80* SchoolIdol: Yui and Aoi. Yui because she's actually an IdolSinger and Aoi because she's [[TheAce the best of the school's swimming team]].
81* ShoutOut: A hilarious one to ''Manga/DeathNote'' in ch. 8.
82** You can't help but laugh when Airi gains Anime/{{Sailor Moon}}'s silhouette as she leaps from the window. Sailor for love and justice my arse.
83** Chapter 9 had Airi going to watch a Madoka movie and somehow Homura is wearing Darth Vader's helmet.
84*** This chapter takes some not-so-kind jabs at [[Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica Madoka Magica]]. Especially hilarious is the scene of Homura with Madoka's panties on her head.
85* StunnedSilence: Kaoru's reaction to finding out why Risa started dating him.
86* SugarAndIcePersonality: Risa Umikai's public face, befitting of a ClassRepresentative.
87** Her personality switch is romantic and perverted actions.
88* ThereAreNoTherapists: The cast could certainly use professional help (with the exception of [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg Ai]][[{{Shinigami}} ri]]).
89* {{Tsundere}}: Emiry's intimate face, and she heavily leans on the "tsun" side, what with her punches to the arm and her detached, offensive demeanor.
90* UnwantedHarem: For Kaoru. One of the few cases where it's actually and completely ''his'' fault.
91* {{Yandere}}: Aoi's intimate face. Her introduction on ch. 7 instantly reaches ParanoiaFuel heights.
92* YouAreWhatYouHate: A comedic version. Kaoru hates harems and he gets one.

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