I posted this here because I just need to vent and the anime chats get you harassed by dudes. But I’ve watched so many potentially good animes that I had to stop just because of their “5 sexy girls fawning over the MC” schtick. It ruins the whole show for me and I know the storylines could 1000% proceed without a sidekick/companion falling in love with the MC or the female characters wearing bikinis or having their clothes “accidentally fall off” (Looking at you Fire Force and My Hero Academia. 🙄) I don’t know if anyone else agrees, but I needed to vent.
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I agree with you 100%, (most of reincarnation story lines 😓)
Hard agree man.
When something doesn’t have it, it’s so much fucking better.
I may be the minority, but…
I love it all, I can’t enough of it lol.
Yep. They’re annoying and tend to follow the same trope, where the guy is oblivious to all the girls fawning over him. It really makes the women less of characters and more of objects to shape the male protagonist’s story. Because let’s be honest, most of the women in harem anime don’t get treated with 3-dimensional personalities. They don’t have strong personal agency, they don’t have unpleasant or ugly moments, they don’t have legitimate jealousy or wants beyond things that compliment the male protagonist. It becomes less of a story about a compelling character and more of a human-shaped appeal to a male fantasy.
And of course the guy is often oblivious and innocent to the advances, because if he starts acknowledging what’s happening and starts seeing these women as people, he’d have to face the reality that he’s complacent in leading these women on who have (usually) conveyed an interest in being in a monogamous relationship with him. And by not taking responsibility and communicating his desires like a normal adult would, and not stopping this competition for his romantic affection, we would instead have an anime about an immature asshole using women for his personal gain. It’s not so attractive-sounding for a male protagonist then.
It only bothers me if the harem characters aren’t interesting on their own.
If they were the focus of the story, would it still be worth watching? Do they display their own unique personality in the show, rather than it simply being implied?
I don’t mind harem animes in theory but I mind most of them because the main character is always some loser scrawny awkward 14 year old boy. Not that a harem is any way realistic but it’s literally so ridiculous I won’t watch the anime. I’m so tired of the whiny little dweeb mc’s who get all the hot chicks by being weak and annoying. It’s also pedophilic why are they always in middle/high school in these?
I don’t mind harem animes in theory but I mind most of them because the main character is always some loser scrawny awkward 14 year old boy. Not that a harem is any way realistic but it’s literally so ridiculous I won’t watch the anime. I’m so tired of the whiny little dweeb mc’s who get all the hot chicks by being weak and annoying. It’s also pedophilic why are they always in middle/high school in these?
I will never forgive the creator of Fire Force for ruining an otherwise great story with some of the most obnoxious fanservice I’ve ever seen. I literally had to skip those scenes when I was rewatching the anime, and it turns people off to the point of dropping the it whenever I recommend it to them. It goes hard on the fanservice pretty early on, so new watchers get the impression that the whole show is like that and drop it before it gets to some really good arcs.
I just hate any shitty trope tbh but yeah thats one of the worst. If i see harem i literally just watch something else.
I agree totally.
It’s exhausting at best and at worst some of it is downright paedophilic. I want to be able to enjoy anime more but it’s hard to take an anime seriously when it does this to the characters.
I don’t have an issue if the fans want fan service stuff but it should be a category of anime and not shoehorned into serious storylines.
AoT is one of my favourite animes partly because I don’t feel embarrassed to recommend it to people who aren’t usual anime watchers.
Growing up watching anime and being deep in the anime community for most of my life I can say that anime can attract a lot of sexist, racist, homophobic, socially inept, self-loathing dudes who are borderline pedos. Of course not all dudes but there’s a high number of them in our community.
Sexualized female characters who look like children or preteens are very prominent in anime. Misogyny and racism are catastrophic in Japan as their record on women’s rights and racial discrimination laws are one of the worst, if not the worst, among developed countries. Many Western Japanophiles resonate with these traditional and nationalistic sentiments.
What I’m saying is that receiving severe backlash from pointing out clearly problematic aspects of anime unfortunately comes with the territory and I wish it wasn’t that way.
Reverse harem is equally annoying. Just pick one and move on. Or at least have multiple couples if you really need to add characters.
Ugh. Yes. I hate it so much. I’ve had to turn off several of them and stop watching. It’s even worse when it’s the ones where the girls just all agree to share him because that is super easy to do! No jealousy, no mention of how hard polyamory can actually be, none of the women are in a relationship with each other, just him and they all take turns perfectly. -rolls eyes- Double points for when all 5+ of them take turns in one night (if you catch my drift).
Yeah I don’t even try with Shonen anymore. We have had some good series lately though. Watch Apothecary Diaries, Frieren, and Delicious in Dungeon.
There’s hardly any good anime adaptations, but I suggest checking out Korean Villainess series if you’d like some isekai with a strong female lead. My favorites so far are “Miss Not So Sidekick”, “The Villainess Lives Twice”, and “Villainess the Invincible.” Each of them is quite different so one of them should suit your taste. Besides having a female lead character, none of them are overpowered.
The otome isekai subreddit is also quite helpful and welcoming.
This is why I watc/read josei and seinen instead of shoujo and shounen.Â
Yea we need more reverse harem hehehe I’m tired of seeing anything else.
What do you think of the harem anime girls x butlers? I find the girls their nicely fleshed out, or the world god only knows, seems a good harem like anime though not so harem.
I came to the conclusion that the harem trope is mostly a self insert thing and it’s what sells, unfortunately. I’ve been watching anime and reading manga/hwa/hua for a very, very long time (older than some ppl’s ages here even) and the target demographic used to be people who were very socially awkward and considered “losers” before anime and its related offshoots went mainstream. You can see how the MCs in harems and reverse harems are styled as either below normal, very ordinary, sometimes socially awkward characters themselves. Or at least start off that way. I’ve always wondered why and what the point of harem was as it’s a trope that I hate the most and want to avoid if it’s possible and that was the conclusion I came to. It’s what sells because there’s a large audience for it. People want to be “that guy” or “that girl” in the end. They want to be popular and desired.
But then again, this is just my personal opinion and observations. Everyone has preferences and anime can be the medium in which it reflects and explores the desires and fantasies of those who are watching it. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
But.. eh. It’s kinda fun finding people who hate harem as much as I do. That used to be much rarer back in the day lol.