Will this help start a new trend? This is the 2nd series recently, about 3 romcom trope-type girls who hit on the mc guy like in normal romcom manga, but then a girl who acts more like a real person comes along and gets a lot closer to stealing him in a single chapter.
The differences I see between the two: Dude in Chanto seems normal, this one seems to be an overthinking everything mess to the point he flunked his tests while going after a certain school, cause he thought a sisters friend loved him, while she probably saw him as a "bonus" little brother and was a bit to affectionate. Dude in Chanto also seems to properly rizzed all the girls/all the girls had reasons to like him - including the new girl. While in this as long as the main 3 girls he seems to rizzed up by his out of nowhere small comments, like the "cause you are cute" to the class mate, the new girl seems like out of nowhere? Like no reason to go after him, and the end of Ch1 seems to show her as a mastermind/manipulator kinda thing.
So like both of those at least based on Ch1 of this seems to have a similar structure if you will, but completely different feel/mood/design?
Anyone notice that the cousin is supposed to be married and is seemingly pining after the mc?
As someone else already told you - it was sisters friend who married. Who probably saw him as a "bonus" brother and was a bit to affectionate, maybe cause she didn't even have a brother of her own, while he interpreted it as her loving him.
Indeed, I am. I love that one to bits.
I also like Chanto quite a lot. A bit fresh compared to most typical harems, where nobody really does anything, MC is a dense brick, or outright fucks the possible relationships cause he to scared to change a thing (like dude in Haganai, where one girl thou by seemingly mistake confessed to loving him and wanting a future with him, and him literally pretending he didn't fucking heard her).
While this one seems odd. Like similar, but completely different? Dude is a walking mental disaster, rizzes girls by mistake cause he throws out some one-liners like "you are cute". The 4th girl is presented not like a honest open book kinda girl who he rizzed, but like some mysterious manipulative mastermind. Thou thats based on Ch1 alone, so we will see.
Because a lot of modern romance manga are descended from the tropes of dating sim visual novels. Kind of the premise of that genre is that there are multiple girls to choose from, each with their own "route" where their personal story is concluded. So based on the player's choices, each character might be completely ignored, end up reaching their proper ending, or end up somewhere inbetween.
Manga, obviously, isn't usually a medium that accommodates for multiple routes like this. (Though, to be fair, I have seen a few manage to create something similar.) So when you apply the VN formula, you end up with a bunch of girls whose stories end up going nowhere, because while the author is trying to mimic that VN structure with the different routes, only one can actually reach its conclusion. The others just have to stop at some point before it to make way.
And that's not to say that you can't have a manga that does multiple love interests well, (I've read several of them!) but when they end up, as you say, "tedious and [with] no resolution," then yeah it's probably this.
Part mangas/animes based on VNs are quite often short and "open" ended like they are only based on the "common route" - as a sorta advertisement to make people go buy and play the source.
Harems based on LNs and LNs themselves being like a "paper" version of VNs are odd.
I only know of two good harem romances. Both IIRC are based on VNs. Amagami SS and Photo Cano. Both are anime and are basically made in a form of VNs. Amagami just splits the story into 6 (3 in the Seiren spin-off? of sorts, that was supposed to have 6 too, but it got shorted/cancelled or something) separate short romances - basically "what ifs" for each of the girls, like a player selected their route in the common route/selection phase. Plus 2 bonus girls in 1 episode - ala bonus girls in VNs who sometimes have secret routes
. Photo Cano goes full on VN style. Half the show is a "common route" where we meet all the girls, then other half is separate "what if" for each of the girls - 1 or 2 episodes for each.
Chanto manga and maybe this one (cause for now it seems weird/different to Chanto one but not in a good way) will be like second best. Cuase the premise of a harem of girls going after MC but not being honest with themselves and then a new open book girl comes along and fucks everything up, possibly actually rizzing MC up with her honesty is a bit of a fresh "blood".
