Harem Genre
This genre of anime that often focuses on a high school aged male with at least two, often more girls, that are interested in him. Other forms of “harem,” exists such as “reverse harem.” My first issue with the genre is I find it silly. The idea that multiple girls are interested in one guy and he is often ignorant that any of these girls are interested in him I find hard to swallow. He’s often just kind in their presence and that’s why they want him.
To prolong the my pain, the girls seem incapable of expressing themselves towards him. The primary trait of the male is “niceness.” There’s nothing wrong with being nice, but I doubt that’s all it takes for several girls to fall for you. Furthermore, the male in question is as dull and average as possible. This is done intentionally to get male viewers to image themselves in the males position. In contrast the female characters are only there for male desires.
Some of the male characters are just perverts, and while I agree that it can sometimes be funny and become tiresome at some point. Another annoying quality of the harem genre is how LONG it takes for the passive male and silent female to finally tell each other how they feel. The genre is often pandering, the writing is often weak and all the characters tend to be thinly constructed. The harem genre is not suppose to entertain primarily, but be a fantasy for young men. As a consequence the audience is going to be niche, and I not apart of it.
Did you just put a monogatari picture in your ‘I don’t like harem’ post???
I actually just was looking for general images of harem, not specific anime. Google seems to think it’s harem tho.
Oh, okay. That’s alright then
LOL.
I definitely agree. Harem shows are just bad more often than not.
I’ve been an anime fan since the 80s, and I remember perusing my late 90s anime catalog, reading the descriptions of DVDs/VHS I could order, and how about 1/3 of them were the same plot of a guy surrounded by supernatural women [demons/goddesses/alients, etc]. The word “harem anime” didn’t exist back then, but I was annoyed by how persistent and cliched this plot line was already.
The only harem anime that was truly any good was Ah My Goddess. Tench Muyo was funny at first, but looking back, it has not aged well. Nobody remembers the hundreds of copycats that both series spawned, even back then. The only “reverse harem” any good is Ouran Host Club. The only thing worse is when harem anime is combined with–ugh–moe.
I found Tenchi Muyo to be funny at first as well but it got to be repetitive so I lost interest.
Same. Harem genres are just pointlessly stupid. The guy who was a nobody in middle school, suddenly gains all the attention and becomes the male heartthrob for no apparent reason. It’s just stupid
I couldn’t agree more.
There are some harem shows that I found funny, but most of them frustrate me. It especially sucks when the series ends with the lead failing to commit to any of the girls. Anime were potential couples take a long time to confess irk me too. That’s a fault of romance shows in general though, be they harem or simple love triangles.
Yeah, dragging out the romance is annoying but I guess it’s literally the only thing those series have going for them. I hear that the better harem/romance anime only feature romance as a small part of the series.
Yes to all of this! The real tragedy about this is that back in the day there weren’t as many harems, so it was easier to overlook some of the annoying qualities that they have. Unfortunately, we’ve been blessed with way too much and all of them follow the same recipe, so it gets old and tired.