Ren'ai Bōkun

Summary

A Kiss Note is a powerful notebook that makes anyone who has their name written together will instantly fall in love if they kiss each other regardless of any circumstances. This magical and very familiar item belongs to an angel named Guri whose job as cupid is to create couples. However, she accidentally writes down Aino Seiji, a regular high school student, and unless he kisses someone, Guri will die. She convinces Seiji to go kiss his crush, Hiyama Akane, the school's popular girl who turns out has even stronger feelings for him, bordering on obsessive and psychotic. Eventually Akane and Seiji come together but not before Guri decides that she likes Seiji as well. What seems awesome to most guys becomes hell for Seiji who just wants a normal relationship with girls.

Characters

Seiji Aino (藍野 青司, Seiji Aino)

Voiced by: Kensho Ono The main protagonist of the series. He encountered Guri when she appeared at his front door, cosplaying as a shinigami She then told him that his name was written in the Kiss Note and if he didn't kiss someone within the next 24 hours, she would die and he would remain a virgin life. He eventually revels his crush for Akane, only to find out her yandere tendencies. Seiji is a more-or-less level headed individual, trying to please all the women around him without hurting them. He, like all the others except for Guri, are minor angels as Guri made them all into a relationship together. As a result, they are all effectively immortal (But they still feel pain) and if Guri fails to do her job all the people connected to her this way will cease to exist altogether.

Guri (グリ)

Voiced by: Yoshino Aoyama An Angel/Cupid. The literal child of God and the former Lord of Hell, Mavuro. Due to this, Guri has the natural tendency to "fall" easier than most angels. She often treats her duty as a Cupid like a joke, forming almost exclusively gay couples due to her love for male romance. However also due to this she goes over her quota for couples to be formed per month. Despite being a Cupid, she doesn't understand the concept of Love. In fact, the reason she is a cupid is that her father wanted her to try to understand what love is, as that is one requirement for becoming God (God must love everyone). Eventually, she starts to recognize certain emotions when she is with Seiji, finally discovering she is in love.

Akane Hiyama (檜山 茜, Hiyama Akane)

Voiced by: Manami Numakura The Class Idol of Seiji's school. Seiji initially had a crush on her prior to the start of the series, but failed to act on such emotions out of the belief that she is out of his league. Upon discovering this, Guri decides to use her as Seiji's lover so that she will not die due to the effects of the Kiss Note. However, Akane approaches him which startles Seiji causing him to reveal his kiss to Guri. This causes Akane to fly into a psychotic rage, as she had noticed his "loving stares" and eventually developed feelings for him as well. She begins to accuse him of cheating with her and then stabs Guri in the head, then revealing her immortality. Eventually Guri gets the two to kiss, calming Akane down briefly before aggravating her again by revealing that she added her own name as well. While she does often attack Seiji, she does truly love him. Akane has a habit of pulling endless number of knives hidden in her clothes to fight. She gets extremely violent (sometimes by unconscious reflex) should anyone try and steal Seiji from her, especially Guri and Shikimi.

Yuzu Kichougasaki (黄蝶ヶ崎袖, Kichougasaki Yuzu)

Voiced by: Yūki Nagano Younger half-sister of Akane, sharing the same father. She is in love with Akane, both as a sister and as a woman, although she later also develops some feelings for Seiji. Immensely protective of her sister, Yuzu often stalks Akane wherever she goes (which Akane is fully aware of and pays no mind to). She becomes good friends with Guri and Seiji, despite an initial rocky start. Yuzu is also added into their harem, when Guri adds her name in the Kiss Note to Akane and Seiji's anger. Yuzu possesses the ability to conjure a powerful (yet unexplained) defensive barrier that can defend her from everything between Akane's knives to an oncoming truck. Due to her barrier ability, Yuzu found it difficult to make friends in her youth as her peers feared her for it. Guri becomes fast friends with her, however, after complimenting her ability as cool and later sharing her love for male romance with Yuzu.

Shikimi Shiramine (白峰 樒, Shiramine Shikimi)

Voiced by: Yumi Hara The sadistic, hollow, and manipulative cousin of both Akane and Yuzu. Shikimi decides to enter Seiji's school in disguise upon discovering his relationship with Akane and Yuzu. She requests that Guri add her to his harem for the sole reason of gaining the immortality/divine protection due to being partnered to Guri. However, Guri rejects the request because she could tell there was no actual love in her for Seiji. Shikimi's favorite hobby is "afflicting people", as it's what brings her joy more than anything else. A running gag in the series is that Shikimi often angers Akane with her attempts to seduce or kiss Seiji.

Aqua Aino (藍野あくあ, Aino Aqua)

Voiced by: Rie Takahashi Seiji's tomboyish younger sister. During their childhood together, Aqua was originally far more girly than her present age. She began to change herself however when Seiji began spending less and less time with her in order to get his attention back. Despite this, Seiji failed to notice her to the point where it developed into animosity against Seiji, much to his confusion. Upon discovering Seiji's newfound harem, her discontent grows further (as she would rather have him to herself). Aqua tends to injure Seiji whenever she is irritated with how ignorant Seiji is about her emotions.

Korari (コラリ)

Voiced by: Nobuyuki Hiyama Guri's boss, a higher level angel who monitors the activities of Cupids under his jurisdiction. Unlike other angels, Korari usually does not take a physical form on Earth, and often uses the Aino family's pet cat Blue as a vessel since his introduction. Korari states that he has absolutely no understanding of the Human concept of Love, and has a tendency to refer to humans as lower level beings compared to himself. Korari has a habit of being very vain about his appearance, especially when he uses his true form. A running gag in the series is that despite Korari's assertion that his form is beautiful, most people find him scary instead and are unable to look directly at him. The only exception is Aqua when she sees his true form for the first time, calling it beautiful to the shock of Seiji and the joy of Korari.

Kamisama (神様)

Voiced by: Houchu Ohtsuka The current God, also Gris' father. Despite being the highest authority in Heaven, he often slacks off and uses his special television set to view events on earth freely. Has a habit of doting on his daughter and spying on her via his TV.

Maou (魔王)

Voiced by: Takehito Koyasu The current lord of Hell. Originally, Hell was ruled by Mavuro (Guri's mother), his predecessor until she left after conceiving Guri. He has an inferiority complex, and considers himself unfit to rule Hell. Despite his pleas that Mavuro remain as the Devil Lord, he fails to convince her before she disappears. This causes him to turn to Guri as a potential successor since she is Mavuro's daughter and seek to drag her down to Hell by any means to accomplish this.

Tsurutarō Kataoka (鶴岡太郎, Kataoka Tsurutarō)

Voiced by: Yasuaki Takumi Yuzu's personal attendant and chauffeur assigned to her by her mother, Ameisha. Despite the fact that he is supposed to report on Yuzu's actions to her mother, he often is forced into helping Yuzu stalk Akane. Tsurutaro tends to be very paranoid and prone to panicking over failing to do his job lest he face cruel punishment from Yuzu's mother.

Stolas (ストラス, Sutorasu)

Voiced by: Kenyuu Horiuchi Known by the public in Seiji's hometown as "Stolas the Demon". A sociopathic anthropomorphic penguin with violent tendencies, Stolas bears a disturbing obsession with Seiji's younger sister Aqua. He attacked the two as children but was locked in a cage until he broke out years later to chase down Aqua once more. Stolas doesn't necessarily speak per-se, it's just implied that based off Stolas' eyes what he may be saying.

Anime

An anime adaptation has been announced and is due to premiere spring 2017. The anime is being directed by Atsushi Nigorikawa at studio EMT Squared with scripts written by Natsuko Takahashi and monaca is composing the music, The series will premiere on TV Tokyo, BS Japan and other channels. Crunchyroll will stream the series.