Reviews for The Shiunji Family Children

It may seem unfair to review a, what seems to be, future long running harem series which tends to be a slow genre in general. But fuck it, no one has written a review yet. The story is about Arata, who is a bitchless loser but at the same time handsome tough guy. He lives in a house of 5 sisters (and a younger brother) who are all popular and conventionally attractive. Arata thinks the same, but of course doesn't try anything with them because he thinks they're related to him by blood. Turns out they're not, which is lame. Seriously all sense of drama isshot down by the end of chapter 1 as they learn that they're not actually siblings.

None of them really care, it's glossed over insanely quickly. Aren't these characters supposed to have been a family who've been living together for years?

Anyway, afterwards they don't really treat eachother as family in the first place. Hell, by the end of the first volume it's pretty damn clear that all the girls wanna hop on Arata's dick and never saw him as a brother in the first place. Can we think about this for a second. Imagine growing up in a house full of people you regard as family but as soon as they find out you're not related to them they treat you like a love interest instead? Again I get it, they're pretty girls but it's pretty fucked up to think just how little their previous relationship mattered.

The girls themselves so far have nothing much to stand out beyond their token bishoujo stereotype. There's a shy one, a sexy one, a tsundere one, yada yada you've seen them before. There's also a girl who isn't related to the Shiunji's and therefore it's obvious that Arata will never get with her so who cares.

All of them have the exact same establishment though, they wanna fuck Arata. That is all, so far none of them have expressed exactly why or how Arata seems so attractive to them that they wanted to fuck him even when they thought he was related to them but realistically it's gonna be some dumb spiel about how he's "kind" and "reliable" or some other basic bullcrap.

So far it's...Strange. It's supposed to be for people with an incest fetish but the family members don't treat eachother like family nor are they actually related. (although from the little hints so far there might be future plot twist where it turns they ARE related but idk why the dad would lie about that???)

It's not really great, nor does it appeal much to people like me who like the incest trope. The usual normie audience will likely not pick this up because of the supposed incest. So who is this for?

So far it's average, I would not be surprised if it gets axed after 3 volumes.

6.5/10 Why do so many harem mangas get such a bad rep? Well, it’s quite simple — the characters suck massive balls. Introducing and developing one or two characters is already a hard enough task, however, harem mangakas decided it was too easy to write two fundamentally sound and engaging characters, so they opt for the much harder challenge; sadly, the world is not some kind of fairytale where an inexperienced writer can accomplish such a feat, this is no exception. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 characters that have been info dumped onto each panel by the author, only to be forgotten with the mindset of “I ain’t reading all ofthat.” Call it self-awareness because despite the author already dedicating 5 or so panels in explaining the heroines, each chapter that reintroduces the heroines to “develop” them, there’s a summary about their characteristics and background, which I find quite laughable.

The characters themvselfselves are rather bland, which is why I decided to gloss over their summaries. There are your typical cliche archetypes, however, it’s also done in a rather poor manner; the drawback of having seven characters to develop is that no singular one will become greatly engaging or moving, instead, the characters act beyond unrealistic by sharing zero personality traits befitting of the sibling status.

The pot is self-explanatory by being apart of the harem genre, so I’ll quickly gloss over it: There are the usual progressions and developments while also having similar traits in an incest not incest manga of “this is not okay… But Imma do it anyways!”

It is not a matter of if you should read this manga, but when you should drop the manga. Besides for being a perfectly average harem manga, there’s not much that makes you want to smash your head through a wall, but it’s also nothing unexpected.

Reading Rankings (Portnoy inspired + A Huang-Teizan Original)

10 - God’s penmanship

9 - Must-read. Drop everything else.

8 - Instant bookmark

7 - Entertaining

6 - Good to pass time

5 - Why are you reading this?

4 - Bad.

3 - Typical garbage.

2 - My head hurts.

1 - Retirement is a thought.

0 - “Did they even give you a story?!”

I do have to say upfront, if you come from Rent a girlfriend, this one is imho much better. The MC at least isn't room temp IQ + Stalker and the girls aren't extremely oblivious. The plot moves along each chapter and something actually happens on screen. The girls are incredibly bland though. Like... trope to the max. Kuudere, Tsundere, Ara Aradere, Smartdere and Sportsdere. And if you think of a specific character now, you know all there is to know of the 5 girls. At least they have cute designs, are drawn decently well and actually have a meaningful changing wardrobe. IF you want to read avery simple dumbed down Harem with cute Girls it's worth a read.

IF you want good writing, decent characters and a well put together drama it isn't.

It's on a level with Quintuplets, Oreimo and Girlfriend Girlfriend, which puts it above the likes of Rent a girlfriend... but far from Bunny girl senpai, Golden Time or Saekano.

First up, this is from the same author of Rent-A-Girlfriend. A manga (and anime) I had the displeasure of consuming. Had some interesting ideas about the transactional nature of relationships but tossed it all up for a protagonist that was frustratingly self-destructive, refusing to progress the story in any meaningful way. Luckily, this was not a painful read. It can be quite fun actually. The setting of having non-blood related siblings as love interests is quite novel for a mainstream manga. And it brings up an interesting question about how perspective affects our view of others romantically, and a very intriguing (and kinda bold) questionabout the difference between familial and romantic love. It's a bit of a shame that the manga focuses on a hopelessly optimistic 'we're family!' shtick to kinda brush aside these questions but this is a harem rom-com after all, so I'm more expecting fun scenarios and good art. I think the manga delivers this. The characters can be charming, and the situations are your typical, but nice escapist read so I can safely recommend this one for those looking to calm their romcom harem itch.

Rom-coms and harems are heavily reliant on their characters and I am happy to say that the protagonist, Arata is not as much a slap-able simp as the protagonist, Kazuya in Rent-A-Girlfriend. In fact, he seems to be the direct opposite of Kazuya. Arata is take-charge, reliable, mature, and super protective of his siblings/love interests (i cant believe i just wrote that). Seems like Reiji Miyajima took some feedback to heart... for the better. But I think he might have took the wrong lessons. I don't hate the protagonist of Rent-A-Girlfriend because he's a giant simp without a backbone. I hate the guy because he seems to have so little introspection about paying for rental girlfriend services and dedicating so much of himself to a girl that won't return his feelings when it feels like he should have so much more DEPTH as a character. Yet all we get from him is impulsive decisions, lies, and monologue reminders of how great Chizuru is. Arata is less irritating to read and look at for sure, and he can get things done with all his main character plot armor. It's also good that the setting is not as sociologically charged, but he's got the depth of a puddle so far.

It's a problem of focus. Much of the manga revolves around Arata and his siblings' relationships. We see them visiting each other in the house, talk about each other's relationships, and go on 'dates' and what not. The manga puts so much time and attention on the love plots that it doesn't develop its characters enough - and when they do, it seems to all be in service of making the girl fall in love with the guy even harder. It's like the characters' life solely revolves around the romance rather than being people who happen to fall in love. I wish the characters expanded beyond the stereotypes and romantic attractions. Let Arata be somebody with an actual life and not just someone who is a romance obsessed maniac and a brother. Give him some ambition! Give him a life philosophy! If Arata and his siblings are supposed to be the successors to a rich family, maybe you can give them some class conflict, or some struggle about living up to expectations. There's some mention and subplot of the characters going out to search for their real blood family and I so much wished that this had more focus.

The grace of this manga is the character design and illustration. Just like Rent-A-Girlfriend, the art and designs are really nice for the genre. The love interests are for sure stereotypes of your usual Kuudere, Tsundere, etc. types that we've seen in anime/manga time and time again but even I have to admit that despite working within such surface restrictions, these designs hit a nice balance between modern and traditional. It helps that the mangaka seems to have a good sense of contemporary fashion.

I just wished that this was written a little better.

Parents: "You are not actually related by blood." ​Every sister in manga/anime ever: "I want my brother's cock NOW!" Also putting the incest stuff aside, (Because it's fiction so it honestly doesn't bother me as much as some) this Author really just sucks at writing honestly. I actually gave this a shot despite how trash rent a girlfriend was. And of course it is still pretty trash. The writing just sucks. I read rent-a-girlfriend and it was one of, if not actually, my most hated manga of all time. I say read but I did drop it roughly 120 or so chapters in so I didn't finish it.Despite this for some reason being curious about the Author's new work I decided to give this one a read and I set the bar extremely low. It still disappointed me. This Author seriously is the most adept at making MC's completely unlikable. Once again it's just a constant loop of the MC looking at all the women characters, (in this case his sister's he grew up with) and popping boners and a bunch of thought narration about how sexy they are then him shaking his head and going "no no no don't think liked that get your head out of the gutter dude." and this repeats again and again and again.

So yeah. Terrible writing. unlikable characters with no real personality aside from they want their brother's cock and the MC lowkey thirsts after his sister's but won't outright admit it. And that's pretty much all there is to it. Development is just as poor as it was in Rent-A-Girlfriend. I will only say this. The MC might not be AS unlikable as the one from Rent-A-Girlfriend at least. But that's the most positive thing I can say.

I tried to read through it to the most recent chapter but it's garbage. The first chapter alone should turn your head away, it has nothing good for it to keep you going other than to see which girl will win, it's a weird harem because every single one of these characters were OMG (F***king obvious spoiler ahead!!) thought to be siblings but not anymore so everything is no fair game!! So basically all the sisters who are by the way drop dead gorgeous and has eVeRyThiNg going for them and trust me when I say this every f***ing minor of minorest character will remindyou of this every F***KING CHAPTER. No one cares, the author wants you and me and everyone else to care but they're characters you've seen in every single other anime. You got tomboy athletic girl who has every single girl fanning over her but not many dudes because apparently men in this world don't like tomboys like ew, a girl that has boyish tendencies GOSH NO THANK YOU, you have boring as f*** girl who's super smart!, then you have shy girl with a brother complex, a woman who sleeps around a lot, and a tsundere who abuses the hell out of MC just for breathing her air.... sounds familiar to you right? You've seen this in many other god awful or decent harems, you've seen the girls trashing the MC and making him feel absolute garbage for no reason, you've seen the girls fawn over the MC just for f***ing being a decent human being, the MC is useless half of the time and the girls do most of the hard work but somehow the MC atleast tries so he gets most of the credit lmao, the MC gets into situations where he sees the girls nude and maybe even cop a feel on accident, and every other thing you can think of... you don't need to see this again, I'm saving you time and move on to another manga on your list to read.

By the way it's made from the same dude who made Rent a Girlfriend, that's already good enough reason to stay away, that only manga that dude cooked with was AKH49 and that's barely good so there you go one recommendation to read instead of this crap. If Rent a Girlfriend and this garbage ass manga are part of your legacy then stop, it's over, just keep drawing because that's one thing you're good at but let someone else take the lead because you CAN'T F***KING tell a story at all without stretching things too long and making it overly complicated for no reason.

Sorry if this sounds more like an angry rant than a review, but I atleast want to save one person from reading this sh**.