Kimi no Koto ga Daidaidaidaidaisuki na 100-nin no KanojoThe 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You Edit What would you like to edit? SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links   4d261g

As someone whos been reading this series for the better part of two years, it's genuinely great...in that it's also one of the stupidest things ever written, and I mean this in the best way possible. Very few things are off the table as far as humor goes. Some of the hardest I've ever laughed at anything came while reading some of the just random weekly chapters of this manga. It's clear that it's something of both a love letter to and ironic "deconstruction" (if you want to call it that) of the harem genre in how it takes everything to its most extreme that ... it loops around and becomes remarkably subversive.

While the initial premise is "Guy builds a harem of 100 of the most archetypal love interests imaginable", it quickly devolves into its own share of antics. Moreover, despite most of its characters ostensibly coming off as a bit one-note, they're utilized to great effect. Many chapters involve exploring each character's typical archetype in surprisingly novel ways and situations. Many a chapter involve different of the harem hanging out with one another as friends completely separate from the group for a while, something fairly rare to the harem genre where it's not uncommon for several characters to practically orbit around a male lead. It's genuinely the strangest thing to say that one of the most over-the-top harem series out there routinely has chapters that somehow the Bechdel test. It ends up deriving a lot of its humor (and occasionally heartwarming and tender moments) from just putting two, three, four of its cast together for an escapade and seeing how they respond to a situation or person, often removed from the male lead entirely. Chapter 83 in particular is some of the hardest I've laughed at a manga in a very long time just due to the way it uses so many of its cast to build up and play around an ever-increasingly ridiculous gag. There's also a variety of gags ranging from the specific character gags between two of the cast, to the most off the wall uses of the manga medium I've seen in a comedy in quite some time.

The duo behind the manga also put a remarkable amount of care into the cast; despite how big it gets, they try to never let any of its characters go too long without a moment in the spotlight, and in a way that seldom feels forced. While some of the more longstanding cast tend to be the most versatile and thus get more screentime (the series has multiple "straight woman"/tsukkomi of the harem for example who tend to react snappily to the oddities that occur), it's remarkably balanced without feeling like there's attempts to really make you pick a "best girl" based on preferences. It's not really even the purpose of the series either.

Of course it also just relishes in being completely *extra*. It's completely unhinged, and will just go wherever it feels like any given week. The premise of any given chapter can be whatever the writer feels like, and nothing is off limits, ranging from zombies to apocalyptic events to tearing the very manga itself up. While the situations and chapter premises can at times feel like "lolsorandom", the way the cast dynamics are intertwined into each chapter gives it something an anchor to keep it from simply feeling like the humor is from wacky scenarios alone.

It is, however, a series you absolutely will have to roll with things to enjoy. Even with the intentionally chaste and comically over-prepared protagonist, there's a lot of questionable relationship dynamics here played for laughs. Beyond that, the humor that regularly shatters the fourth wall can be seen as a bit overly indulgent to some audiences. And given the size of the cast, some characters' shticks can get old or annoying or feel one-note at times.

My score is purely off my enjoyment of the series. It's not going to be for everybody, but for the people who like comedy built around absurdism with plenty of scenes involving its characters playing off each other in a wide array of situations ranging from the mundane to the extreme, it's bloody hilarious.

It's just your average fan service/comedic manga.

I could end the review here, but I'll dwell about why I was so disappointed after reading it.

When I first stumbled upon "Kimi no Koto ga Daidaidaidaidaisuki na 100-nin no Kanojo", I saw pages about the 3rd "main" girlfriend and was really surprised. Those pages not only described her unique traits, but also made clear how the MC helped her notice that those traits made her the beautiful girl she is, even while being "the odd one" when compared to others. And so I imagined that the manga would develop around meeting all those different girls with their own ... distinct features, that would not only blindly fall in love with the MC; but also learn with him how to love themselves. Something I believed that would also be in a more relaxed world, with comedic moments between the characters, a few dramatic ones, but nothing that would be extremely complex due to the theme of having a 100 girlfriends just not being suited to be explored further than minor arcs.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. Just in a few chapters after that girl, things have escalated to the absurd level way too quickly, and it just is the path that the manga chose to follow. The girls introduced are textbook stereotypes, and only expose a little character complexity at random moments, just to have a minor arc and end up with everyone loving everyone. The fan service was also gradually more frequent, serving no development purpose to any of them, just to please the reader (or the author). And about the moment that I talked about earlier? When they do occur, they're extremely superficial and take no more than a few pages, being there with the sole purpose of introducing one more girl in the harem. Certain things about their relationship that could hold some importance are ridiculed by others that are way more extreme and happen frequently throughout the story progression, taking out the little importance it could hold and making it as something shallow, that has no real impact at how things are going, not even worth to be ed as a hardship.

Things become out of hand easily, and this makes everything "normal" in our world seem silly compared to the "normal" of their world. It breaks the similarity in a way that makes it impossible for me to empathize with the characters in our world standards, as it creates an insane distance between anything that could be compared to their everyday life. Which is okay to be done when you have no intention to connect to our world, but to make the reader involved in their world. The problem not only with this manga, but with all in this genre is this switch between "wanting to be more realistic" when it comes to characters feelings, and pulling a sci-fi moment like "earth is going to be destroyed!".

While the characters are mostly flat, they are well established in their own boundaries and what they like to do, and the variety produces interesting interactions between themselves, a charming feature about this specific theme, that if didn't went off the rails every single time, would be incredibly attractive, as the concept has a lot of potential. While the potential is not wasted, it is used to create comedy in the clash of opposite personalities, as opposed to being a development tool, something that was used in early chapters, when there weren't so many characters and nothing out of reality hadn't happened yet.

The art is excepcional. While the story has its ups and downs, this is beautiful. The character design, their expressions, the impact, even how the s are placed, make this manga irable. It plays a really important part, being a comedy-focused manga over anything else, and it does an excellent job in conveying the expectation to the reader.

This could be easily described as your average fan service, over-the-top comedic manga. But it is more diverse when it's making jokes, just like the fourth wall breaks with comments about the readers and the own author, also referencing other titles such as Doraemon (a bit overused), Chainsaw Man, One Piece, and various others, which does makes them smarter than "just the average". And I did have some fun while reading it, but nothing that would be greater than those forced moments and absurdities that made no sense. So it is just more of a comedy than a romcom, just isn't that obvious about it since the beginning, focusing a little more on what I thought that would be the main idea of the series. As a result, it played me into believing that this manga would be different from what it is, which led me to a frustrating experience.

(repost since this is more general for the manga)

While The 100 Girlfriends is often praised for being a parody of the harem genre, I personally found it to be an incredibly overrated series that leans far too heavily on the very tropes it’s supposedly satirizing. The premise alone—a guy is fated to fall in love with 100 girls or they'll die—is absurd, and while that could’ve led to some clever meta-humor or commentary on the genre, the execution falls flat. It ends up feeling more like a flashy gimmick designed to get attention rather than a meaningful twist on romcom or harem conventions.

The tone of ... the show reeks of that “hyper-kawaii" weeb-bait aesthetic that reminds me of anime culture/fans in the 2017-COVID era: loud, overly sugary, and trying way too hard to be cute or quirky without much substance. It’s the kind of show to made to flood youtube feeds of "cute compilations" of anime, as well as get people to be like "___ best girl" "___ supremacy" and cringeworthy things like that.

While I get that the show is meant to be self-aware, that self-awareness doesn't necessarily excuse the lazy writing or recycled tropes. For example, one of the most braindead scenes happens in episode 2 alone: Karane (The first introduced love interest along with Hakari, and the show's poster tsundere) is blindfolded during a school test of courage, and a cat accidentally brushes against her inner thigh. She instantly assumes the protagonist, Rentarou, touched her and beats the hell out of him. It's not funny AT ALL. it’s a textbook misunderstanding trope used for cheap laughs and fanservice, and from that scene alone, I could tell the show would be hardcapped at a 6 at best.

Speaking of Karane: she's often hailed as a fan-favorite, but I just do not like her her. That might partially be due to my general dislike for tsundere characters, especially those who rely on violent slapstick and possess little emotional depth early on. I will it, her backstory involving her tsundere family was genuinely funny and at least tried to add some character depth, and she can be cute at times when the show pretty much devolves into post-irony.

I also really disliked Hakari. She's the "flirty airhead" archetype, constantly trying to act seductive but with zero depth behind her behavior. Her one-note obsession with being lewd comes off as annoying rather than endearing, especially since Rentarou is too terrified or spineless to respond to any of the girls’ advances. (I fucking HATE hate these type of characters. Just wait until I get to you Rito.) It turns into a frustrating loop: the girls keep throwing themselves at him, Rentarou freaks out or shuts down, rinse and repeat. It’s hard to enjoy scenes that are meant to be romantic or sexy when the guy looks like he’s one sneeze away from having a panic attack.

Which brings me to another big issue: the dynamic between Rentarou and the girls. They’re constantly trying to get lewd with him, pushing him into sexually charged situations, while he’s too scared or flustered to do anything. This makes their interactions feel forced, repetitive, and weirdly one-sided. It’s hard to buy into any actual romantic development when everything is just lewd gags with zero intimacy or sincerity.

When it comes to the humor in general, I feel like the self-awareness just gets to a point of it trying too hard, and it honestly makes me start to see things from the perspective of my friend, who hates anime. It's just such awkward and "weeb 100" humor to me.

That being said, I won’t claim that the series is abysmal, It is decent by harem standards, and there were definitely moments that genuinely got a laugh out of me. I also appreciate how the protagonist Rentarou actually tries to be emotionally honest and open with the girls, which is refreshing for the genre. But beyond that, I couldn’t find much to hold onto. It felt like another cashgrab romcom with a "parody" label slapped on as a defense mechanism.