Explain the appeal of Harem Anime

[Metalix Knightmare]

Except that it is about girls from 12 to 14 molesting a pre-pubescent kid. That is not ok. When you're just hitting puberty it sure seems like a dream come true. When you're 20 something years old, it is kinda awkward.

And 20 year olds are generally not the target audience for that series. That's like a straight guy griping that a Yaoi series has too many gay dudes in it.

Also, did you even read that series? He winds up in awkward situations, but it never really goes into molesting levels.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

Except that it is about girls from 12 to 14 molesting a pre-pubescent kid. That is not ok. When you're just hitting puberty it sure seems like a dream come true. When you're 20 something years old, it is kinda awkward.

And 20 year olds are generally not the target audience for that series. That's like a straight guy griping that a Yaoi series has too many gay dudes in it.

Also, did you even read that series? He winds up in awkward situations, but it never really goes into molesting levels.

Go back. Go back and real my earlier post where I said it was fine for young teens but gross to me now that I'm in my 20's. So do you think I am aware of the first part there? Maybe?

Notice that I know who fucking wrote it and that he had originally intended for it to be standard shounen fare. Note the dumb in joke about the punctuation on the different adaptations the series has received. Do you honestly think I never read it? How?

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

Except that it is about girls from 12 to 14 molesting a pre-pubescent kid. That is not ok. When you're just hitting puberty it sure seems like a dream come true. When you're 20 something years old, it is kinda awkward.

And 20 year olds are generally not the target audience for that series. That's like a straight guy griping that a Yaoi series has too many gay dudes in it.

Also, did you even read that series? He winds up in awkward situations, but it never really goes into molesting levels.

Go back. Go back and real my earlier post where I said it was fine for young teens but gross to me now that I'm in my 20's. So do you think I am aware of the first part there? Maybe?

Notice that I know who fucking wrote it and that he had originally intended for it to be standard shounen fare. Note the dumb in joke about the punctuation on the different adaptations the series has received. Do you honestly think I never read it? How?

If it's okay for young teens, and young teens are the intended audience, then why the heck are you even griping about it? Go watch something more intended for your age group if this sort of thing embarrasses you!

As for how I could think you've never seen it, because you made the claim that Negi gets molested when that doesn't really happen. Heck, the closest thing to it would be that thing with Chachamaru's whole key winding incident and it was NEGI who was inadvertently doing the molesting there.

Granted, two of the girls DO give me stranger danger vibes, but again, it never really ventures into territory that would draw Chris Hansen's notice.

Harem anime has always had the dubious honor of treating female characters like absolute garbage, but at least in the old days the women were more diverse character-wise and had decent, if not respectable, reasons why they were attracted to the guy, and were rivals actually fighting and competing over suitor, not horny dogs dry-humping the guy's legs or fighting over a chew toy.

What harem series have YOU been seeing? Most of the one's I've seen usually has the male getting thrashed for being/looking like he was being perverted while being a bland as crap individual.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

Except that it is about girls from 12 to 14 molesting a pre-pubescent kid. That is not ok. When you're just hitting puberty it sure seems like a dream come true. When you're 20 something years old, it is kinda awkward.

And 20 year olds are generally not the target audience for that series. That's like a straight guy griping that a Yaoi series has too many gay dudes in it.

Also, did you even read that series? He winds up in awkward situations, but it never really goes into molesting levels.

Go back. Go back and real my earlier post where I said it was fine for young teens but gross to me now that I'm in my 20's. So do you think I am aware of the first part there? Maybe?

Notice that I know who fucking wrote it and that he had originally intended for it to be standard shounen fare. Note the dumb in joke about the punctuation on the different adaptations the series has received. Do you honestly think I never read it? How?

If it's okay for young teens, and young teens are the intended audience, then why the heck are you even griping about it? Go watch something more intended for your age group if this sort of thing embarrasses you!

I read/watched it when I was the intended audience. I am only griping about it from the perspective that it is something that looking back I think comes off as creepy now that I am an adult. I am not saying it is a bad series for young teens. I have repeatedly said otherwise, before you even started replying to me I had already stated that. I do think that any adult who uses the series to get off should probably seek help.

As for how I could think you've never seen it, because you made the claim that Negi gets molested when that doesn't really happen. Heck, the closest thing to it would be that thing with Chachamaru's whole key winding incident and it was NEGI who was inadvertently doing the molesting there.

Granted, two of the girls DO give me stranger danger vibes, but again, it never really ventures into territory that would draw Chris Hansen's notice.

And all the naked bathes with characters who profess to be attracted to him is just A OK? The creepy rich girl? I get it, as a young teen's wet dream it is fine. It is only divorced from that context, once you no longer project yourself onto Negi but instead see him as an ignorant and innocent kid that it all comes off as super awkward and creepy.

 

[Marik2]

Because eye candy and it's nice to see a large cast living together and interacting

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

Sod it, this is going nowhere fast.

 

[TheScorpion]

I can see why most people don't like harems. But for me, they're a fun guilty pleasure depending on what show we're talking. For me, I hate SAO. I really get nothing out of it. I just find it dull as shit.

For me, I like ones that are actually funny or are ridiculous enough that I get some laughs or a bunch of good riffs out of it like Monster Musume, Rosario Vampire, and To Love Ru. Then again, most of the ones that I like tend to lean towards the latter. Though It helps that there's a character that I always like to see like Rachnera, Kotegawa, or Rika Shiguma.

On the flip side, there's also a few that I'm not a fan of like Love Hina, definitely Sword Art Online, and the many bad LN adaptations that I wasted my time with like Absolute Duo, Sky Wizards Academy, and especially fucking Shomin Sample. There's also the ones that I got tired of like Nisekoi and Ranma1/2.

Still wanna check out a few others like Tenchi Muyo and the Monogatari series or even continue something like Rosario Vampire or The World God Only Knows and definitely some more romance anime that have similar tropes at times. But that'll have to wait until I organize my MAL more and finish a few show on my backlog.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I can see why most people don't like harems. But for me, they're a fun guilty pleasure depending on what show we're talking. For me, I hate SAO. I really get nothing out of it. I just find it dull as shit.

For me, I like ones that are actually funny or are ridiculous enough that I get some laughs or a bunch of good riffs out of it like Monster Musume, Rosario Vampire, and To Love Ru. Then again, most of the ones that I like tend to lean towards the latter. Though It helps that there's a character that I always like to see like Rachnera, Kotegawa, or Rika Shiguma.

On the flip side, there's also a few that I'm not a fan of like Love Hina, definitely Sword Art Online, and the many bad LN adaptations that I wasted my time with like Absolute Duo, Sky Wizards Academy, and especially fucking Shomin Sample. There's also the ones that I got tired of like Nisekoi and Ranma1/2.

Still wanna check out a few others like Tenchi Muyo and the Monogatari series or even continue something like Rosario Vampire or The World God Only Knows and definitely some more romance anime that have similar tropes at times. But that'll have to wait until I organize my MAL more and finish a few show on my backlog.

I mostly agree with what you're saying but I wouldn't classify Monogatari as harem since the guy gets a girlfriend in the first episode lol. It just has a lot of female chars with whom he has various kinds of interaction but it's all for fun.


It's actually squarely in the psychological and fantasy corner, and one of my all time favorite series, it definitely has the makings of a harem but it's more in a meta way such that it can make fun of itself for it, it does a lot of anime culture meta jokes in general.

 

[TheScorpion]

I can see why most people don't like harems. But for me, they're a fun guilty pleasure depending on what show we're talking. For me, I hate SAO. I really get nothing out of it. I just find it dull as shit.

For me, I like ones that are actually funny or are ridiculous enough that I get some laughs or a bunch of good riffs out of it like Monster Musume, Rosario Vampire, and To Love Ru. Then again, most of the ones that I like tend to lean towards the latter. Though It helps that there's a character that I always like to see like Rachnera, Kotegawa, or Rika Shiguma.

On the flip side, there's also a few that I'm not a fan of like Love Hina, definitely Sword Art Online, and the many bad LN adaptations that I wasted my time with like Absolute Duo, Sky Wizards Academy, and especially fucking Shomin Sample. There's also the ones that I got tired of like Nisekoi and Ranma1/2.

Still wanna check out a few others like Tenchi Muyo and the Monogatari series or even continue something like Rosario Vampire or The World God Only Knows and definitely some more romance anime that have similar tropes at times. But that'll have to wait until I organize my MAL more and finish a few show on my backlog.

I mostly agree with what you're saying but I wouldn't classify Monogatari as harem since the guy gets a girlfriend in the first episode lol. It just has a lot of female chars with whom he has various kinds of interaction but it's all for fun.


It's actually squarely in the psychological and fantasy corner, and one of my all time favorite series, it definitely has the makings of a harem but it's more in a meta way such that it can make fun of itself for it, it does a lot of anime culture meta jokes in general.

Fair point there. but then again, I kinda low little about the monogatari series aside from people gushing about it which might work my favor not know much about its story and characters i'd say.

 

[crimsonspear4D]

Harem anime has always had the dubious honor of treating female characters like absolute garbage, but at least in the old days the women were more diverse character-wise and had decent, if not respectable, reasons why they were attracted to the guy, and were rivals actually fighting and competing over suitor, not horny dogs dry-humping the guy's legs or fighting over a chew toy.

What harem series have YOU been seeing? Most of the one's I've seen usually has the male getting thrashed for being/looking like he was being perverted while being a bland as crap individual.

Yeah... and that's another thing I liked about old harem anime, the male characters were actually endearing and pitiable in those situations. Having women overreact to a perverted situation (accidental or not) and seeing a guy getting his ass beat, at least made it to where you could have sympathy for him; like, at least you could understand why he's hesitant about having a relationship with any of these women. THAT. RIGHT. THERE made sense to me as to why you'd want to self-insert as the main character: to assert yourself, however you'd want to. Fight back, put them in their place, all that masculine fantasy bullshit.

That being said, women then had at least some amount of dignity and self-respect, and looking back on that it made me appreciate how assertive and cautious they were about their themselves. Not like now, where a guy could be some creepy fuck or an actual serial sex offender and get rewarded for it by having girls gleefully wanting to throw away their humanity so they can be his domesticated wife slave and baby factory.

 

[WindKnight]

Harem anime has always had the dubious honor of treating female characters like absolute garbage, but at least in the old days the women were more diverse character-wise and had decent, if not respectable, reasons why they were attracted to the guy, and were rivals actually fighting and competing over suitor, not horny dogs dry-humping the guy's legs or fighting over a chew toy.

What harem series have YOU been seeing? Most of the one's I've seen usually has the male getting thrashed for being/looking like he was being perverted while being a bland as crap individual.

Yeah... and that's another thing I liked about old harem anime, the male characters were actually endearing and pitiable in those situations. Having women overreact to a perverted situation (accidental or not) and seeing a guy getting his ass beat, at least made it to where you could have sympathy for him; like, at least you could understand why he's hesitant about having a relationship with any of these women. THAT. RIGHT. THERE made sense to me as to why you'd want to self-insert as the main character: to assert yourself, however you'd want to. Fight back, put them in their place, all that masculine fantasy bullshit.

That being said, women then had at least some amount of dignity and self-respect, and looking back on that it made me appreciate how assertive and cautious they were about their themselves. Not like now, where a guy could be some creepy fuck or an actual serial sex offender and get rewarded for it by having girls gleefully wanting to throw away their humanity so they can be his domesticated wife slave and baby factory.

The 'Joke' there is a proper Japanese lady should 'maintain her dignity' by pretending nothing is going on if a guy grabs her breast, her ass or pussy, and not 'embarrass him' by drawing attention to the fact she is being molested and having her body violated, so these characters reacting the way they do is a slapstick exaggeration of how these women are not 'proper japanese ladies'. (keep in mind, they had to introduce Women Only train cars in Japan to deal with train gropers.)

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Harem anime has always had the dubious honor of treating female characters like absolute garbage, but at least in the old days the women were more diverse character-wise and had decent, if not respectable, reasons why they were attracted to the guy, and were rivals actually fighting and competing over suitor, not horny dogs dry-humping the guy's legs or fighting over a chew toy.

What harem series have YOU been seeing? Most of the one's I've seen usually has the male getting thrashed for being/looking like he was being perverted while being a bland as crap individual.

Yeah... and that's another thing I liked about old harem anime, the male characters were actually endearing and pitiable in those situations. Having women overreact to a perverted situation (accidental or not) and seeing a guy getting his ass beat, at least made it to where you could have sympathy for him; like, at least you could understand why he's hesitant about having a relationship with any of these women. THAT. RIGHT. THERE made sense to me as to why you'd want to self-insert as the main character: to assert yourself, however you'd want to. Fight back, put them in their place, all that masculine fantasy bullshit.

That being said, women then had at least some amount of dignity and self-respect, and looking back on that it made me appreciate how assertive and cautious they were about their themselves. Not like now, where a guy could be some creepy fuck or an actual serial sex offender and get rewarded for it by having girls gleefully wanting to throw away their humanity so they can be his domesticated wife slave and baby factory.

Most harem anime protagonists actually still are exactly like that accidental pervert you describe. There's very few if any harem shows where the protagonist goes and intentionally gropes anyone. Never mind being a sex offender. I don't know what shows you're referring to but the biggest ones like Monster Musume, Negima, To Love Ru, SAO, Re:Zero and so on all have very thoughtful, kind and respectful protagonists who are the furthest thing away from a sexual predator and if anything are more like victims of the female char's sexual predation on them in some cases (mainly Monster Musume and To Love Ru Darkness and on).

 

[Asita]

If you understand the appeal of "shipping" and/or RomComs then you actually have a good understanding of Harem anime's appeal. Because really that's what those shows are. Granted their worst is pretty bad, but at their best they're character focused slice of life (usually) stories where one of the biggest questions is "who makes the best couple". This is present in a lot of works[footnote]Is Aang a better match for Katara or is Zuko? Bolin, Mako, or Asami for Korra? Mako or Korra for Asami? Harry or Ron for Hermione? Hermione, Ginny, or Cho for Harry? Jacob or Edward for Bella? Mary or Sherlock for Watson? Jack Sparrow or Will Turner for Elizabeth Swann? Raven or Starfire for Robin? Catwoman, Talia, Andrea, Zatanna, or Wonder Woman for Batman? It goes on and on and on...[/footnote], but it takes center stage in the Harem genre. Where Mass Effect has the question of who - if any - among the crew Shepard ends up with, whether Tenchi ends up with Ayeka, Ryoko, Mihoshi, or Washu is a driving force in Tenchi Muyo and one of the major decisions that the story is leading up to.

For all that we like to turn our noses up at the notion, if we're honest, most of us probably understand how people can be invested in that kind of conflict, and at least a significant subset of that group have likely indulged ourselves in arguing over it. That is what the Harem genre is built upon and what draws its fans in.

 

[crimsonspear4D]

Harem anime has always had the dubious honor of treating female characters like absolute garbage, but at least in the old days the women were more diverse character-wise and had decent, if not respectable, reasons why they were attracted to the guy, and were rivals actually fighting and competing over suitor, not horny dogs dry-humping the guy's legs or fighting over a chew toy.

What harem series have YOU been seeing? Most of the one's I've seen usually has the male getting thrashed for being/looking like he was being perverted while being a bland as crap individual.

Yeah... and that's another thing I liked about old harem anime, the male characters were actually endearing and pitiable in those situations. Having women overreact to a perverted situation (accidental or not) and seeing a guy getting his ass beat, at least made it to where you could have sympathy for him; like, at least you could understand why he's hesitant about having a relationship with any of these women. THAT. RIGHT. THERE made sense to me as to why you'd want to self-insert as the main character: to assert yourself, however you'd want to. Fight back, put them in their place, all that masculine fantasy bullshit.

That being said, women then had at least some amount of dignity and self-respect, and looking back on that it made me appreciate how assertive and cautious they were about their themselves. Not like now, where a guy could be some creepy fuck or an actual serial sex offender and get rewarded for it by having girls gleefully wanting to throw away their humanity so they can be his domesticated wife slave and baby factory.

The 'Joke' there is a proper Japanese lady should 'maintain her dignity' by pretending nothing is going on if a guy grabs her breast, her ass or pussy, and not 'embarrass him' by drawing attention to the fact she is being molested and having her body violated, so these characters reacting the way they do is a slapstick exaggeration of how these women are not 'proper japanese ladies'. (keep in mind, they had to introduce Women Only train cars in Japan to deal with train gropers.)

Well now, that sounds... utterly fucked. I mean, I know that a girl screaming accusations at and curb-stomping a dude was over the top slapstick humor, but to just stand there and take it and be quiet about it to "maintain dignity" and not shame the attackers is something from anime/manga (fuck, even hentai) that I just can't fathom that honestly actually happened, or is still happening, or whatever. The fact that females in anime getting molested is supposed to be humor 3/5s of the time is enough for me to know that they got some messed up standards in that industry alone.

Harem anime has always had the dubious honor of treating female characters like absolute garbage, but at least in the old days the women were more diverse character-wise and had decent, if not respectable, reasons why they were attracted to the guy, and were rivals actually fighting and competing over suitor, not horny dogs dry-humping the guy's legs or fighting over a chew toy.

What harem series have YOU been seeing? Most of the one's I've seen usually has the male getting thrashed for being/looking like he was being perverted while being a bland as crap individual.

Yeah... and that's another thing I liked about old harem anime, the male characters were actually endearing and pitiable in those situations. Having women overreact to a perverted situation (accidental or not) and seeing a guy getting his ass beat, at least made it to where you could have sympathy for him; like, at least you could understand why he's hesitant about having a relationship with any of these women. THAT. RIGHT. THERE made sense to me as to why you'd want to self-insert as the main character: to assert yourself, however you'd want to. Fight back, put them in their place, all that masculine fantasy bullshit.

That being said, women then had at least some amount of dignity and self-respect, and looking back on that it made me appreciate how assertive and cautious they were about their themselves. Not like now, where a guy could be some creepy fuck or an actual serial sex offender and get rewarded for it by having girls gleefully wanting to throw away their humanity so they can be his domesticated wife slave and baby factory.

Most harem anime protagonists actually still are exactly like that accidental pervert you describe. There's very few if any harem shows where the protagonist goes and intentionally gropes anyone. Never mind being a sex offender. I don't know what shows you're referring to but the biggest ones like Monster Musume, Negima, To Love Ru, SAO, Re:Zero and so on all have very thoughtful, kind and respectful protagonists who are the furthest thing away from a sexual predator and if anything are more like victims of the female char's sexual predation on them in some cases (mainly Monster Musume and To Love Ru Darkness and on).

I'll give you Monster Musume and To Love Ru, but SAO, no; I haven't watched all of RE:Z so other than the Subaru himself I can't comment on how that show handled it's romance subplots. I don't mean that ALL current gen harem protaganists are either creeps or rapists, but some like SAO's Kirito or Dungeon girl's Bell or Asterisk war, and other such shonen harem bullshit suffer from other character draws: being douchebags. Not an eloquent description and vague at best, but think of them as people undeserving of a following of women behind them. But that's the harem genre for you.

And while I have seen a few before him, I view Kirito, mostly because he's the one most others try to ape off of, as the poster child for this type of character archetype.

If you understand the appeal of "shipping" and/or RomComs then you actually have a good understanding of Harem anime's appeal. Because really that's what those shows are. Granted their worst is pretty bad, but at their best they're character focused slice of life (usually) stories where one of the biggest questions is "who makes the best couple". This is present in a lot of works[footnote]Is Aang a better match for Katara or is Zuko? Bolin, Mako, or Asami for Korra? Mako or Korra for Asami? Harry or Ron for Hermione? Hermione, Ginny, or Cho for Harry? Jacob or Edward for Bella? Mary or Sherlock for Watson? Jack Sparrow or Will Turner for Elizabeth Swann? Raven or Starfire for Robin? Catwoman, Talia, Andrea, Zatanna, or Wonder Woman for Batman? It goes on and on and on...[/footnote], but it takes center stage in the Harem genre. Where Mass Effect has the question of who - if any - among the crew Shepard ends up with, whether Tenchi ends up with Ayeka, Ryoko, Mihoshi, or Washu is a driving force in Tenchi Muyo and one of the major decisions that the story is leading up to.

For all that we like to turn our noses up at the notion, if we're honest, most of us probably understand how people can be invested in that kind of conflict, and at least a significant subset of that group have likely indulged ourselves in arguing over it. That is what the Harem genre is built upon and what draws its fans in.

I've said this as well, but I'd say this might of been accurate for anime decades ago rather than now. Most harem shows go for that "have thier cake and eat it too", all of the above ending. At best, when a harem anime ends they leave it open so that situation rages on for god knows how long, but for worst they just give a copout ending where all the girls agree to share him or he chooses one girl but is, honestly here, just an unfaithful dick to her.

Say what you want about how western cartoons and shows handle shipping, but at least they have a pay off at the end.

Aang ends up with Katarra, Asami with Korra (THANK GOD), Edward with Bella, Bruce Wayne either ends up or dies alone in most canon stories, I mean, if you even want to count that. Not all may be satisfying, but at least shows (Except Korra and that was one of the reasons why season 1-3 was an annoyance to slog through) don't spend almost the whole season bringing it up, dicking it around in your face, and then just fucks off and say's "Pffft, I don't know, all of them, I guess."

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

Harem anime has always had the dubious honor of treating female characters like absolute garbage, but at least in the old days the women were more diverse character-wise and had decent, if not respectable, reasons why they were attracted to the guy, and were rivals actually fighting and competing over suitor, not horny dogs dry-humping the guy's legs or fighting over a chew toy.

What harem series have YOU been seeing? Most of the one's I've seen usually has the male getting thrashed for being/looking like he was being perverted while being a bland as crap individual.

Yeah... and that's another thing I liked about old harem anime, the male characters were actually endearing and pitiable in those situations. Having women overreact to a perverted situation (accidental or not) and seeing a guy getting his ass beat, at least made it to where you could have sympathy for him; like, at least you could understand why he's hesitant about having a relationship with any of these women. THAT. RIGHT. THERE made sense to me as to why you'd want to self-insert as the main character: to assert yourself, however you'd want to. Fight back, put them in their place, all that masculine fantasy bullshit.

That being said, women then had at least some amount of dignity and self-respect, and looking back on that it made me appreciate how assertive and cautious they were about their themselves. Not like now, where a guy could be some creepy fuck or an actual serial sex offender and get rewarded for it by having girls gleefully wanting to throw away their humanity so they can be his domesticated wife slave and baby factory.

The 'Joke' there is a proper Japanese lady should 'maintain her dignity' by pretending nothing is going on if a guy grabs her breast, her ass or pussy, and not 'embarrass him' by drawing attention to the fact she is being molested and having her body violated, so these characters reacting the way they do is a slapstick exaggeration of how these women are not 'proper japanese ladies'. (keep in mind, they had to introduce Women Only train cars in Japan to deal with train gropers.)

Well now, that sounds... utterly fucked. I mean, I know that a girl screaming accusations at and curb-stomping a dude was over the top slapstick humor, but to just stand there and take it and be quiet about it to "maintain dignity" and not shame the attackers is something from anime/manga (fuck, even hentai) that I just can't fathom that honestly actually happened, or is still happening, or whatever. The fact that females in anime getting molested is supposed to be humor 3/5s of the time is enough for me to know that they got some messed up standards in that industry alone.

Harem anime has always had the dubious honor of treating female characters like absolute garbage, but at least in the old days the women were more diverse character-wise and had decent, if not respectable, reasons why they were attracted to the guy, and were rivals actually fighting and competing over suitor, not horny dogs dry-humping the guy's legs or fighting over a chew toy.

What harem series have YOU been seeing? Most of the one's I've seen usually has the male getting thrashed for being/looking like he was being perverted while being a bland as crap individual.

Yeah... and that's another thing I liked about old harem anime, the male characters were actually endearing and pitiable in those situations. Having women overreact to a perverted situation (accidental or not) and seeing a guy getting his ass beat, at least made it to where you could have sympathy for him; like, at least you could understand why he's hesitant about having a relationship with any of these women. THAT. RIGHT. THERE made sense to me as to why you'd want to self-insert as the main character: to assert yourself, however you'd want to. Fight back, put them in their place, all that masculine fantasy bullshit.

That being said, women then had at least some amount of dignity and self-respect, and looking back on that it made me appreciate how assertive and cautious they were about their themselves. Not like now, where a guy could be some creepy fuck or an actual serial sex offender and get rewarded for it by having girls gleefully wanting to throw away their humanity so they can be his domesticated wife slave and baby factory.

Most harem anime protagonists actually still are exactly like that accidental pervert you describe. There's very few if any harem shows where the protagonist goes and intentionally gropes anyone. Never mind being a sex offender. I don't know what shows you're referring to but the biggest ones like Monster Musume, Negima, To Love Ru, SAO, Re:Zero and so on all have very thoughtful, kind and respectful protagonists who are the furthest thing away from a sexual predator and if anything are more like victims of the female char's sexual predation on them in some cases (mainly Monster Musume and To Love Ru Darkness and on).

I'll give you Monster Musume and To Love Ru, but SAO, no; I haven't watched all of RE:Z so other than the Subaru himself I can't comment on how that show handled it's romance subplots. I don't mean that ALL current gen harem protaganists are either creeps or rapists, but some like SAO's Kirito or Dungeon girl's Bell or Asterisk war, and other such shonen harem bullshit suffer from other character draws: being douchebags. Not an eloquent description and vague at best, but think of them as people undeserving of a following of women behind them. But that's the harem genre for you.

And while I have seen a few before him, I view Kirito, mostly because he's the one most others try to ape off of, as the poster child for this type of character archetype.

If you understand the appeal of "shipping" and/or RomComs then you actually have a good understanding of Harem anime's appeal. Because really that's what those shows are. Granted their worst is pretty bad, but at their best they're character focused slice of life (usually) stories where one of the biggest questions is "who makes the best couple". This is present in a lot of works[footnote]Is Aang a better match for Katara or is Zuko? Bolin, Mako, or Asami for Korra? Mako or Korra for Asami? Harry or Ron for Hermione? Hermione, Ginny, or Cho for Harry? Jacob or Edward for Bella? Mary or Sherlock for Watson? Jack Sparrow or Will Turner for Elizabeth Swann? Raven or Starfire for Robin? Catwoman, Talia, Andrea, Zatanna, or Wonder Woman for Batman? It goes on and on and on...[/footnote], but it takes center stage in the Harem genre. Where Mass Effect has the question of who - if any - among the crew Shepard ends up with, whether Tenchi ends up with Ayeka, Ryoko, Mihoshi, or Washu is a driving force in Tenchi Muyo and one of the major decisions that the story is leading up to.

For all that we like to turn our noses up at the notion, if we're honest, most of us probably understand how people can be invested in that kind of conflict, and at least a significant subset of that group have likely indulged ourselves in arguing over it. That is what the Harem genre is built upon and what draws its fans in.

I've said this as well, but I'd say this might of been accurate for anime decades ago rather than now. Most harem shows go for that "have thier cake and eat it too", all of the above ending. At best, when a harem anime ends they leave it open so that situation rages on for god knows how long, but for worst they just give a copout ending where all the girls agree to share him or he chooses one girl but is, honestly here, just an unfaithful dick to her.

Say what you want about how western cartoons and shows handle shipping, but at least they have a pay off at the end.

Aang ends up with Katarra, Asami with Korra (THANK GOD), Edward with Bella, Bruce Wayne either ends up or dies alone in most canon stories, I mean, if you even want to count that. Not all may be satisfying, but at least shows (Except Korra and that was one of the reasons why season 1-3 was an annoyance to slog through) don't spend almost the whole season bringing it up, dicking it around in your face, and then just fucks off and say's "Pffft, I don't know, all of them, I guess."

Kirito. The Kirito from SAO. You think THAT Kirito is a douchebag?

Are you sure you aren't thinking of Abridged Kirito?


And being undeserving of the women after them? Yeah, your choice of wording is probably showing a lot you weren't intending, but good LORD is it unfortunate.

As for that cake thing, again, what harem anime have you been watching? The closest I've seen that meets that is Nothing really gets resolved and the misadventures continue.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I'll give you Monster Musume and To Love Ru, but SAO, no; I haven't watched all of RE:Z so other than the Subaru himself I can't comment on how that show handled it's romance subplots. I don't mean that ALL current gen harem protaganists are either creeps or rapists, but some like SAO's Kirito or Dungeon girl's Bell or Asterisk war, and other such shonen harem bullshit suffer from other character draws: being douchebags. Not an eloquent description and vague at best, but think of them as people undeserving of a following of women behind them. But that's the harem genre for you.

And while I have seen a few before him, I view Kirito, mostly because he's the one most others try to ape off of, as the poster child for this type of character archetype.

Don't you think equating a cold jerk with things such as "molester", "sexual predator", or "pervert" as being especially egregious, inflammatory and all in all messed up?


And no, Kirito is just detached early on cause he focuses on clearing the game without getting anybody else killed for that matter but that's also kinda besides the point. Hell I don't even really care for SAO personally so that you have me defending it is all kinds of messed up. Not seen Asterisk War but Bell in danmachi is nothing like Kirito either, he is easygoing and happy. People describe him as a "white bunny" for crying out loud, what jerk lends himself to this description. And he is the one being molested in his sleep by Hestia every day and twice on sunday.

I'm sorry but all that you say is factually incorrect and I fail to see how anyone can rationally reach such a conclusion. You sound like you decided on what your conclusion would be and tried to find the slightest inklings of evidence to support it while in the same time ignoring the tons of evidence contradicting it.

 

[Lightspeaker]

Are we seriously still on the "SAO is a harem show" thing? I thought we'd gotten over that on the previous page...

SAO is a fairly well animated and badly-to-decently written (depending on the arc in question) shonen fantasy action series. Given the existence of a core, official couple (Kirito and Asuna) and pretty much literally no conflict over them BEING the core couple (i.e. there's no "which of these girls will he get with?" because its Asuna, full stop, even if the series flirts with matching him up with anyone else) its not a harem series. I could understand this argument if the rest of the girls were more actively competing to take Asuna's place or something but they're not. At its most fundamental level all of this is simply a side-element to make Kirito more 'appealing' as a character for males to project themselves on (a loner badass in black who can do special things nobody else can, is super powerful and all the girls want whilst having by far the most powerful of all of them as his girlfriend? Sure, that's not a fantasy anyone wants, right?).

There are periphery associations to harem series in there, such as a diverse cast of characters all in love with the main character, but it completely lacks the core characteristics of such a series. Because the most basic element of a harem anime is that its not about the main character...its about the members of the harem. And SAO doesn't play itself like that, sure each of the girls in it may get important crucial moments but at the end of the day its still the story of Kirito and/or Asuna in any given arc.

Just because something has elements of something doesn't make it that genre. Star Wars has awkward and funny romantic moments (who can forget the "I love you." "I know."?) but that doesn't make it a romcom. Game of Thrones has people dying unexpectedly with people having no idea who did it but that doesn't make it a murder mystery. Deadpool even lampooned this somewhat by advertising itself as a romcom; but you'd have a seriously difficult time trying to argue this is an accurate description of that blood, violence and action filled masterpiece of self-reflective comedic cinema.

As a side note to the whole "he's a jerk" thing that's been going on: I'd also note that SAO as an anime very much drops the ball on Kirito's hangups about simply being around people in the first arc. He's incredibly antisocial for a lot of that first arc and definitely has some personality issues...but that's because he's actually quite a broken person. I've become something of a big light novel reader over the past two years and in the process I've read at least some of the SAO books and I've dug into the original web-novel material.

Kirito was always a fundamental loner type of person. And him leaving everyone at the start of the series to start making immediate progress kept him in that mindset. But what really, REALLY screwed him up was the death of the entire guild he joined. The series put it in like...one episode and made it seem like he just got over it. However the novels and the web-novel make the impact much heavier. In it Sachi and Kirito are heavily implied to have been in a romantic relationship for a fairly significant period of time (something that is downplayed a bit for the novels and downplayed a lot for the anime). Her death and the death of the entire rest of his guild (including the leader, who committed suicide after laying the blame firmly on Kirito) utterly broke him. The anime, again, does a really bad job of showing timescales but it was a solid six months between Sachi's death and the Christmas Eve resurrection item fight. And well over a year between Sachi's death and Kirito agreeing to work with Asuna. That is a long time to be plagued by demons from the past and it remains as a dark shadow in the background that never truly goes away; albeit part of the reason he seems to be with Asuna in the first place is that firstly she can handle it and secondly she helps him forget those things.

TL,DR: The reason Kirito comes across as a 'douchebag' as has been put above is that he's actually quite traumatised as a person. But the anime (and even the light novels to an extent, compared to the original stuff) make lighter of this than they should. There's plenty of reasons to dislike Kirito (personally I'm not a big fan of the "brilliant at everything" thing, stretched to the limit in the GGO arc and using a sword in a gun fight) but this particular part of his personality is one that I find hard to find fault with.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Sachi was his first girlfriend in the original web novel so yeah it makes sense he'd take her death and that of the guild's hard.


Clearly the people here haven't adequately watched and comprehended the story of the show and how Kirito is basically trying to push people away for their own sake and not because he is a bad person early on in the story. He just does so in a way that makes people hate him instead of explaining it nicely but if you as a viewer also join in then you must have really been itching to hate him no matter what already, to an irrational degree.

You know what, this is why I actually like the games of SAO more than the anime version, they go deeper into these more interesting plots and flesh out the chars instead of making light of them. I legitimately disliked Asuna for one but in the games she has more of a character to her and in Hollow Fragment you even see an AI of Sachi for a bit, it was a small thing but it made for a really good closure.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

Sachi was his first girlfriend in the original web novel so yeah it makes sense he'd take her death and that of the guild's hard.


Clearly the people here haven't adequately watched and comprehended the story of the show and how Kirito is basically trying to push people away for their own sake and not because he is a bad person early on in the story. He just does so in a way that makes people hate him instead of explaining it nicely but if you as a viewer also join in then you must have really been itching to hate him no matter what already, to an irrational degree.

You know what, this is why I actually like the games of SAO more than the anime version, they go deeper into these more interesting plots and flesh out the chars instead of making light of them. I legitimately disliked Asuna for one but in the games she has more of a character to her and in Hollow Fragment you even see an AI of Sachi for a bit, it was a small thing but it made for a really good closure.

Deeper, yes, great. I would argue no. If i want a story of a realtionship built on tension, I would have either Toradora or even Fate/Zero for it. Toradora is a drama that covers the issues with romance better. While more melodramatic, they built the relationship over a long period of time than with SAO (note, I was a LN reader). As for Fate/Zero, we see how Kiritsugu feels about being close to Iri after his past. We see his happiness with Illya and we see how he conflicts between his ideals and his desire to be with family to some extent near the end. The one thing that these two different anime have in common is that the male character are all better than Kirito. His character feels shallow and I don't see much impact of Sachi's death in the show or the LN.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Sachi was his first girlfriend in the original web novel so yeah it makes sense he'd take her death and that of the guild's hard.


Clearly the people here haven't adequately watched and comprehended the story of the show and how Kirito is basically trying to push people away for their own sake and not because he is a bad person early on in the story. He just does so in a way that makes people hate him instead of explaining it nicely but if you as a viewer also join in then you must have really been itching to hate him no matter what already, to an irrational degree.

You know what, this is why I actually like the games of SAO more than the anime version, they go deeper into these more interesting plots and flesh out the chars instead of making light of them. I legitimately disliked Asuna for one but in the games she has more of a character to her and in Hollow Fragment you even see an AI of Sachi for a bit, it was a small thing but it made for a really good closure.

Deeper, yes, great. I would argue no. If i want a story of a realtionship built on tension, I would have either Toradora or even Fate/Zero for it. Toradora is a drama that covers the issues with romance better. While more melodramatic, they built the relationship over a long period of time than with SAO (note, I was a LN reader). As for Fate/Zero, we see how Kiritsugu feels about being close to Iri after his past. We see his happiness with Illya and we see how he conflicts between his ideals and his desire to be with family to some extent near the end. The one thing that these two different anime have in common is that the male character are all better than Kirito. His character feels shallow and I don't see much impact of Sachi's death in the show or the LN.

Yeah, I'm not saying it's the best thing ever or anything, my overall opinion of SAO is that it's average and that it doesn't deserve neither the praise nor the crap it gets, it's not the best thing ever, definitely not toradora levels, it's not the worst thing ever made either.

The games are a lot better than the anime in that respect but still they're not the best either, but they are better enough that it is worth noting. But hey, the Toradora game for psp was actually really great as an epilogue too so what can you do, sometimes a game is good too.

I wish fate/zero was longer, I needed more Iri in my life. She is in Kaleid Liner too but the dynamic of that series is too different so it's not exactly the same, though every episode with her in it was glorious. I wish they made a long VN for Zero too.