Are there any ecchi/harem rom-com series without a butt-monkey protagonist?

[GabeZhul]

This question just kind of popped into my head today as I was browsing MAL for something lighthearted and easy to digest to watch to take my mind off the heat. The thing is, I have seen a number of harem comedies in my time. It is not exactly one of my favorite genres, but I can stomach it from time to time. What I found peculiar though is one particular element of the trope-stew that makes up the harem-anime genre: the butt-monkey protagonist that gets abused/beaten/harassed by the girls whether he deserves it or not and it is played for laughs (because the ages old female-on-male-violence double-standard, I suppose).

Anyways, I was wondering if there are series out there, whether true harem or just love comedy that doesn't have an abused male lead. Can any of you recall one? Because I sure as hell cannot (though again, it might have something to do with the heat making my brain work with lowered clock-speed...)

 

[Queen Michael]

Does it have to be anime? Because if it's manga, I can think of a few. (Though I think they've all been animated.)

First, there's Negima, which if I remeber correctly isn't as fond of making the protagonist a butt monkey--possibly because he's ten. It gets way less haremy later, though.

The ecchi series I Don't Like You At All, Big Brother!! has the protagonist undergo some misfortune, true, but only in the way that eveyr protagonist has to face a modicum of trials and tribulations. In short, it's not like when Naru keeps pummeling Keitaru. (Which indeed is irritating after a while.)

 

[Asita]

Do we want to count Ouran High School Host Club?

And would Daily Life With Monster Girl count as avoiding that trend? Because while the protagonist does frequently suffer injury, it's overwhelmingly due to accident or him being noble (read: Ever hear the phrase 'take a bullet'? He's taken a sword.), and the main cast is pretty much invariably horrified by those injuries regardless.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I just checked all my manga and anime, and I've got nothing. The only thing that might fulfill it is 'Daily Life with Monster Girls', although as Asita said, he does still get beat up.

Omari Himari might work too. I don't recall any of the girls actually trying to hurt him beyond when he first meets two of them, and the others are actually villains for a while.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Does Katawa Shoujo count? The protagonist is still a wimp but he doesn't seem to be as abused/ridiculed as others.

 

[Redryhno]

Depends on what you're looking for honestly and what you mean by having the crap beat out of him for funnies.

Ranma has him beating the shit out of others about twice as much as he himself gets the shit beat out of him. And I will never not stop recommending it being a must read/watch any chance I get, so I'm a bit biased.

Rosario/Vampire has the protag having the crap beat out of him, but it's less about funnies and more showing exactly how outclassed he is as a human.

Absolute Duo has the guy basically going and looking for ways to get the shit beat out of him because that's about the only thing he's useful for in that universe.

Haganai I can't fully count as it's a really nice deconstruction of sorts for the harem genre, but even it only has the protag get beaten like twice and if I remember right it's played more for drama than anything else. The funnies are the stuff like one of the girl's butler not liking guys staring at her because she has a seriously screwed up understanding of how sex and pregnancy works.

Highschool DxD is more like a reason to put boobs on-screen most of the time, but gets better later and I think is worth watching if you just want to turn off your brain, protag only gets the crap beaten out of him for story reasons.

So yeah, there's harems that don't do that. Quite a lot of them actually. But I enjoy them because they're fun and stupid, so there's that too.

 

[Tony2077]

Ai Yori Aoshi the protagonist isn't treated like other harem protagonist's

 

[Asita]

Rosario/Vampire has the protag having the crap beat out of him, but it's less about funnies and more showing exactly how outclassed he is as a human.

Rosario also undergoes a bit of a genre-shift from Rom-Com to Action midway through, however, so that makes it questionably applicable to the stated criteria.

 

[Marik2]

Others have taken some of my suggestions so that leaves Sekirei.

The girls like the guy and the manga is about to finish.

Still waiting for a season 3.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

It's Ecchi, not hentai, but I really appreciate the protagonist of Maken-Ki. He's every bit as much of a perv as the average audience member is, proactive about it, and yet also basically a decent guy with some heroic traits. He'd be a cliche if it had come out in the 90's, but these days it's actually refreshing, because your average ecchi protagonist seems to be a complete loser who just randomly falls into embarrassing situations. He still gets beaten up by the girls occasionally, but unlike all of those other poor schlubs, he actually deserves it

Edit: Oh, wow, I misread the title as ecchi/hentai instead of ecchi/harem. It's both ecchi and (sort of, it's not the full Tenchi setup) harem.

 

[Victim of Progress]

Does anyone remember that show called 'Kanon'. I if recall correctly, the protagonist was pretty cool for a harem anime. But my Memories of it are rather faint. Can someone confirm/deny this?