Having a harem of beautiful girls who are all dedicated to you? For high school student Asunaro Kohinata, this used to be nothing more than a delusion, but one day he finds a strange bottle and decides to open it, unsealing the demon Zepfur. Out of gratitude, Zepfur decides to fulfill his desires for a harem.
...However, Zepfur achieves this by subjecting the girls of Asunaro's dreams to intense mental torture, killing them brutally over and over again. She then forces the girls to play a twisted game to win Asunaro's heart, with the winner then going out with him, while the losers will all be sent to Hell.
And thus a cruel romance game with the highest possible stakes begins, with Asunaro none the wiser...
Harem Royale - When The Game Ends - (Ren'ai Harem Game Shuuryou no aga kuru Koro ni) is a manga written by Ryukishi07 (who's best known for the When They Cry franchise) and illustrated by Yukari Higa. It was serialized in Shonen Sirius from 2016 to 2019 and compiled into four volumes.
Now has a character page that needs love.
Harem Royale - When The Game Ends - provides examples of:
- 13 Is Unlucky: The Harem Game has 13 rules.
- Born Lucky: Zepfur states this is one of the rewards for winning the game. Along with being allowed to live and marry Kohinata will be granted immense luck to have all of their dreams come true.
- Chivalrous Pervert: Asunaro has been fantasizing about having a school harem for years, admiring and ogling the heroines from a distance, and is more than thrilled to have his dream come true. However, he is also genuinely kind to them, wants to continue to be friends with them all, and genuinely has no clue his harem is being coerced into it.
- Cliché Storm: Invoked. The game deliberately invokes this, with the girls required to do various things with Asunaro (eating lunch together, going on a vacation together etc.) that are found in more typical harem manga.
- Cutting the Knot: The quickest way to win the game is technically for one girl to kill off all the competition, so only she can be the winner. Serika points this out, then uses this to prove that the others can trust her (since if she wanted to kill them, she would have done so without telling them).
- Deal with the Devil: Asunaro has a mostly unwitting version of this with Zepfur: he's aware that there Zepfur is arranging a harem for him, but he has no idea that said harem is being coerced into it, or that the losers will go to Hell.
- Death Game: Essentially what Lovey-Dovey Harem Game is, as all the girls Asunaro don’t choose will be sent straight to Hell.
- Deconstruction: Of the harem genre; the girls are forced to participate at risk of losing their lives, the girls who aren’t chosen to be the lead’s girlfriend go to Hell, and the various harem cliches are enforced all for a demon’s amusement.
- First-Episode Twist: There are arguably two of these:
- The first is that Zepfur is evil and forcing the girls to act as Asunaro's harem.
- The second is that there are five harem members, not four, revealed when the fifth one wins the second game and steals a heart from the other four.
- Genre Mashup: The story starts out looking like it might be a supernatural romantic comedy, but then the game starts and it gains horror and psychological elements. It still retains the romantic comedy elements, though.
- Genre Savvy: Asunaro, being a connoisseur of harem media, recognizes all of the tropes the girls must invoke during the competition, such as accidental groping, eating lunch on the roof together, or a Beach Episode. Similarly, the girls are aware of such tropes themselves and plan on how to deliberately plan events so as not to lose a heart.
- Guile Hero: Serika isn't able to fight Zepfur head-on, so she has to use her wits to make all of the girls cooperate so they can all survive.
- Harem Genre: A much darker take on the trope, in which the members of the harem are being coerced into it by a literal demon.
- Kick the Dog: During the final game, Serika snaps and berates Asunaro for being so boring and generic and declaring that she could never like a guy like him and it made her sick to pretend she did. Following her lead to ensure that Asunaro doesn't view any of them as a potential winner, the other girls all follow suit, venting out all of their frustrations with Azunaro even from before the game started. Asunaro, who had no clue the girls really felt like that, is utterly gutted and the girls quickly lose their hearts.
- Out-Gambitted: Ren comes up with a plan to meet Asunaro while avoiding the other girls, but Serika sees through it and corners her. Not only that, but she later arranges a loss for Ren and convinces her to work with the others.
- Sex Equals Love: Invoked by Zepfur; the final game she plans, and the one that will determine which girl Azunaro has chosen as the winner, involves Azunaro and one of the girls having sex at school. She declares several times during this announcement that sex is the ultimate act of love and the best kind of ending to a harem genre.
- Shout-Out: There are several towards Ryukishi07's earlier works.
- Serika's name references Rika and the island of Rokutojima references Rokkenjima.
- When Asunaro fantasizes about summer uniforms, visions of Rena, Shmion, Satoko and Rika appear.
- Spell My Name With An S: The demon's name has been translated as "Zepfur" and as "Zepafur".
- Support Your Parents:
- Liru wants to become mangaka in order to help her parents, brothers and sister with money and move them into a proper house instead of their cramped one-bedroom apartment.
- Serika wanted to go to the university, so her mom and dad would stop cursing each other over money.
- Take a Third Option: When it comes time for Asunaro to choose a girl, they all follow Serika's lead and convince him to choose Zefur, pointing out that she's been by his side, giving her all, and cheering him on from the very beginning, so clearly she's been in love with him the whole time. This results in her being dragged into the game as well, giving the others a better chance to save themselves.
- To Win Without Fighting: The main idea of Serika. In order to truly win Lovey-Dovey Harem Game, it's better just to ignore it entirely so there would be no risk of anyone dying as the result. Unfortunately for her, Zepfur catches on.
- There Can Be Only One: In Lovey-Dovey Harem Game only one girl can marry Asunaro and win. Others await Fate Worse than Death by being sent straight into Hell. At least, that's how it was supposed to go.
- Verbal Tic:
- Liru has "nyoro/nyorori".
- Heather has "desu".
- Xanatos Speed Chess: When Zepfur learned about the harem group's plan to ignore the games, she decided to change the rules so they had no choice but to participate.
