| I'm not big on harem. If it's good, then I'm okay with it. |
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| I mean, I feel like the MC has to earn the respect and admiration of the women in the harem you know? I hate when it gets handed down to him and the girl waifus fight over a guy with the personality of wet toast. That's kinda why I like reverse harem's cus they definitely emphasize on the characters more. |
| youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0 73 6f 6d 65 74 68 69 6e 67 73 20 6f 64 64 20 61 62 6f 75 74 20 6d 79 20 70 72 6f 66 69 6c 65 0d 0a |
NotReachy said: Do you hate it or love it, and why. Personally i dont quite like harem but DanMachi is exception because Hestia and Lili❤. Also Grisaia xd (you should watch them if you havent)  Dude can't you see all those artifacts left by the video compression, just torrent or use other streaming sites, I promise that you will enjoy anime more. Also I hate harems cause most mc's are to afraid to fuck. |
| 한 번만 살지만 제대로 하면 한 번이면 충분해요 |
Peaceful_Critic said: @inim Why does it need to simultaneously happen? The MC in The World God Only Knows, does develop several relationships with tons of girls. Also, wdym by relations? Most classically considered harem shows like Rosario have the girls pretty much friend-zoned, they don't get to have an actual relationship with the girls for most of the show if at all. Unlike what wiki says it isn't a poly relationship as at the end of it, the person is expected to only choose one and isn't officially with any of them in the vast majority of harems. Neither Clannad, Kanon, Air or Little Busters have the harem tag here on MAL even though they're all gal-game adaptations with an omnibus girl of the week sort of formula. Do they qualify as harem in your opinion? |
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Peaceful_Critic said: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/harem however defines "harem" as "a group of women associated with one man". Now we could argue what constitutes a group. In my reading, a group is different from a "sequence of" by the concurrency of membership.Why does it need to simultaneously happen? Feel free to use your definition, I just can't share it. You are free to assign any semantic to words and tags, I'd argue though that yours isn't the common one. And there is no "why" in definitions, they are by their nature premises and not derived from anything. |
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| DanMachi is horrible. It only exists as mental masturbation for people who want to self insert into Bell and have 2 girls fawning over them. |
Peaceful_Critic said: the first season of Clannad is a harem show. Strongly disagree with you on that one. Luckily the administrators of MAL know the difference. (even though they got it wrong in regards to TWOK) Too bad they haven't figured out what the Slice of Life genre entails and won't stop slapping that tag on almost everything. |
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| Hare-kon is the only acceptable harem but I read only the first 20 chapters so Idk lol |
| It's only good if it ends up being a true harem ending. |
Peaceful_Critic said: Wikipedia's definition also includes the concurrency factor (emphasis by me). inim said: I don't know, I think mine is pretty common.https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/harem however defines "harem" as "a group of women associated with one man". Now we could argue what constitutes a group. In my reading, a group is different from a "sequence of" by the concurrency of membership. Harem (ハーレムもの, hāremumono, "harem works") is a subgenre of Japanese light novels, manga, anime, and video games focused on polygynous/polyandrous relationships, where a protagonist is surrounded by three or more love interests or sexual partners. Historically, harem as used and practiced in the Middle East (both islamic and pre-islamic cultures), China, Japan, India and South-East Asia included marriage. I.e. the male was married to each member, clearly hinting at a parallel and continuous group. I feel that this etymology of the word can't be as generously ignored as you do. |
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| Harem is mostly bad, I rarely watch it. |
Maneki-Mew said: So, you wanna do a "harem"? Don't chicken out mid way. Go the full way lol. It becomes interesting, when it becomes more about actual polyamory and not these old harem cliches. If that's what the audience wanted, then the market would provide. But they'd rather the status quo remain in place for eternity than a demeaning harem-end or a pairing which entails many girls having their precious hearts broken. |
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Peaceful_Critic said: (a) Says who (except you)? and (b) no, it isn't.Harems in anime is defined differently then harems IRL. |
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epidemia78 said: TWOK is not exactly a harem anime. It follows an omnibus structure similar to the gal-games that Keima plays. Instead of having to start over from the beginning after completing a route, the girls forget the 'conquest'. Only in the final season does the harem hijinks truly begin and then it becomes a clusterfuck because there's too many girls and not enough episodes. Omnibus harems are still considered harems. Yosuga no Sora is the most structurally pure Omnibus harem I've ever seen, breaking up each girl's route into 3 or 4 episodes before resetting at the save point and going back down another route, while still being a pure harem without any of the narrative restructuring TWGOK does. Nobody in their right mind would argue that it's "not really a harem." It's not even a discussion that's been had yet, unlike with series like Monogatari and TWGOK. The difference between the two/reason as to why people can safely say nonsense like "TWGOK isn't really a harem" is that YnS is a series that has its main audience and discussion found within our exceptionally territorial niche subfandom. TWGOK is not like that. It is up there with Shokugeki and Monogatari in the great triumvirate of "I don't usually like shows like this, but..." series people bring up all the time in that typically obnoxious and often somewhat condescending way. It takes the omnibus harem format and flips it on its head to turn it into a battle shounen progression, with the MC "conquering" (lovely word choice on the series' part) a female character before dropping her and moving on to the next in the same way that a battle shounen protag defeats a villain before going and getting ready to power up and fight the next. That makes it accessible. It is everything that people on forums like this say they want. It's about the MC, the harem is a side element and is part of his narrative progression that follows something that's really accessible by mainstream anime fan standards. It isn't what a lot of us want representing the harem genre because of that, and these outsiders/non-fans often try to elevate it as an example of what a harem *should* be like. They're condescending assholes about it, and honestly, the series kind of carries itself with that obnoxious swagger as well from my interpretation of it. Probably the only reason why we can be dismissive of TWGOK's status for nonsensical reasons and largely leave its legacy in turmoil, whereas YnS is an underrated/unfairly disparaged gem of the harem genre. What I'm saying with all of this is that I get it. Believe me, I do. But TWGOK is a harem still, and a damn successful one at that. We don't have to like what it represents, but trying to deny its proper status as a harem on something as fragile as "well it's an omnibus" is not going to work. And frankly, it shouldn't, because then we'd have to deny series that actually represent the genre in a way that's preferable to a lot of sensibilities for a bullshit reason like that. It was still a harem since the very beginning. Nobody liked what Christian Laettner represented, but he was still a goddamn basketball player, and a successful one at that. He didn't just start being an actual basketball player when he went pro and these issues people had with what he represented became less pronounced. TWGOK is just the Christian Laettner of harem series. Or rather, Monogatari fits the metaphor a lot better, but that's a whole different can of worms. |
ManabanApr 26, 2020 5:47 PM
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Maneki-Mew said: Well, relationship is a very generic term, and I think it fits. In historic harems, you had an almost military order of primary, secondary, etc. wives. You could also throw in a few concubines and sex slaves. Obviously not all relations, women, and power-differences are necessarily equal in a harem. What matters is just that three or more women (who are aware of each other, else it's "just" cheating) are in an simultaneous amorous and/or sexual relation to a single male.Peaceful_Critic said: So harems are about poly relationships? I guess I've never seen a harem anime then if we are defining harems the same way as we do IRL. Tho it never was really about that. A harem refers mainly to a powerful man, who "owns" a lot of women, who are sexually and in every other form, available for him. That's nothing you could compare to a poly relationship. |
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Maneki-Mew said: Tho it never was really about that. A harem refers mainly to a powerful man, who "owns" a lot of women, who are sexually and in every other form, available for him. That's nothing you could compare to a poly relationship. Pretty sure most people just define it with the three-or-more romantic interests rule that someone else brought up earlier. It's simple and easy to follow, and it'll capture most of the audience for these things without needing to be overly specific to where its restrictive to the content. No form of committal in any way is necessary, and most series don't even see any type of commitment being made. At all. I've never seen ownership or how much it uses historic precedent be even considered as a defining factor, and this whole conversation regarding owning a lot of females just seems weird enough for me to want to back out and re-read just to make sure I'm actually understanding this right. |
ManabanApr 26, 2020 5:55 PM
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| as long as haram doesn't impede on the other stuff and isn't the main genre ion care |
| Harem is just a boring and pointless aspect in anime. My only focus is just the story, the symbolisms and subtexts. |
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Manaban said: Omnibus harems are still considered harems. Yosuga no Sora is the most structurally pure Omnibus harem I've ever seen, breaking up each girl's route into 3 or 4 episodes before resetting at the save point and going back down another route, while still being a pure harem without any of the narrative restructuring TWGOK does. Nobody in their right mind would argue that it's "not really a harem." It's not even a discussion that's been had yet, unlike with series like Monogatari and TWGOK. The difference between the two/reason as to why people can safely say nonsense like "TWGOK isn't really a harem" is that YnS is a series that has its main audience and discussion found within our exceptionally territorial niche subfandom. TWGOK is not like that. It is up there with Shokugeki and Monogatari in the great triumvirate of "I don't usually like shows like this, but..." series people bring up all the time in that typically obnoxious and often somewhat condescending way. It takes the omnibus harem format and flips it on its head to turn it into a battle shounen progression, with the MC "conquering" (lovely word choice on the series' part) a female character before dropping her and moving on to the next in the same way that a battle shounen protag defeats a villain before going and getting ready to power up and fight the next. That makes it accessible. It is everything that people on forums like this say they want. It's about the MC, the harem is a side element and is part of his narrative progression that follows something that's really accessible by mainstream anime fan standards. It isn't what a lot of us want representing the harem genre because of that, and these outsiders/non-fans often try to elevate it as an example of what a harem *should* be like. They're condescending assholes about it, and honestly, the series kind of carries itself with that obnoxious swagger as well from my interpretation of it. Probably the only reason why we can be dismissive of TWGOK's status for nonsensical reasons and largely leave its legacy in turmoil, whereas YnS is an underrated/unfairly disparaged gem of the harem genre. What I'm saying with all of this is that I get it. Believe me, I do. But TWGOK is a harem still, and a damn successful one at that. We don't have to like what it represents, but trying to deny its proper status as a harem on something as fragile as "well it's an omnibus" is not going to work. And frankly, it shouldn't, because then we'd have to deny series that actually represent the genre in a way that's preferable to a lot of sensibilities for a bullshit reason like that. It was still a harem since the very beginning. Nobody liked what Christian Laettner represented, but he was still a goddamn basketball player, and a successful one at that. He didn't just start being an actual basketball player when he went pro and these issues people had with what he represented became less pronounced. TWGOK is just the Christian Laettner of harem series. Or rather, Monogatari fits the metaphor a lot better, but that's a whole different can of worms. Gonna have to agree to disagree. Like I said the last time we discussed this, most people recognize there is a difference that sets TWOK, Monogatari and Clannad apart from stuff that is indisputably part of the genre like Nisekoi, Haganai and Oreshura. There's a huge difference. The former is usually based on a VN and very likely to consist of highly dramatic short stories about the MC, (the "player character") helping each girl, one by one, to overcome a problem. The latter is usually based on a manga and is more focused on zany humor with very little drama. |
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| I absolutely love harem. It's perhaps my favorite genre. Idk man, every single harem I've watched was good, I realized how much I love it some time ago, but yeah, there's just something about it... Like for me, sometime I just wanna watch some cliche harem y'know |
epidemia78 said: Gonna have to agree to disagree. Like I said the last time we discussed this, most people recognize there is a difference that sets TWOK, Monogatari and Clannad apart from stuff that is indisputably part of the genre like Nisekoi, Haganai and Oreshura. There's a huge difference. The former is usually based on a VN and very likely to consist of highly dramatic short stories about the MC, (the "player character") helping each girl, one by one, to overcome a problem. The latter is usually based on a manga and is more focused on zany humor with very little drama. Agreeing to disagree implies that I'm willing cede a degree of respect to the stance you're taking. Stances that draw petty lines to be exclusionary towards works that don't fit into the most standard structure is being reductive towards how creators can approach my favorite type of anime/manga. Which is to say, no, I don't respect your stance here. No agree to disagree. And we don't disagree that people recognize that there's a difference. It's why we call that type of structure a different name. But its status as a harem isn't coming into question whenever people call something an omnibus harem - it's why its called a fucking "omnibus harem" instead of just, idk, a VN-style adaptation or a plain omnibus or something that doesn't immediately identify it as a harem. Tempting as it may be, trying to present omnibus harems as non-harems to be exclusionary towards a work non-fans tend to be obnoxious about is no bueno. |
ManabanApr 26, 2020 6:56 PM
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| I mean it's not my fucking favorite genre as I just said, I just enjoy it |
| Harem is my guilty pleasure anime. Its just pure dumb fun nothing more. Harem as a genre is not to take it seriously because of its cliches and premise. |
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Manaban said: Agreeing to disagree implies that I'm willing cede a degree of respect to the stance you're taking. Stances that draw petty lines to be exclusionary towards works that don't fit into the most standard structure is being reductive towards how creators can approach my favorite type of anime/manga. Which is to say, no, I don't respect your stance here. No agree to disagree. And we don't disagree that people recognize that there's a difference. It's why we call that type of structure a different name. But its status as a harem isn't coming into question whenever people call something an omnibus harem - it's why its called a fucking "omnibus harem" instead of just, idk, a VN-style adaptation or a plain omnibus or something that doesn't immediately identify it as a harem. Tempting as it may be, trying to present omnibus harems as non-harems to be exclusionary towards a work non-fans tend to be obnoxious about is no bueno. Ok, ok we will simply just disagree then. Maybe I am being unfair. I don't want the harem tag attached to two of my favorites, Clannad and Little Busters. If that happened, I feel like it would be a no-win situation. The reputation of those shows would be tarnished and the reputation of the harem genre would still be in the gutter. Yeah, no doubt about it...I am definitely being unfair... On that note it's interesting that Yosuga no Sora has the harem tag while Clannad does not. |
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epidemia78 said: Manaban said: Agreeing to disagree implies that I'm willing cede a degree of respect to the stance you're taking. Stances that draw petty lines to be exclusionary towards works that don't fit into the most standard structure is being reductive towards how creators can approach my favorite type of anime/manga. Which is to say, no, I don't respect your stance here. No agree to disagree. And we don't disagree that people recognize that there's a difference. It's why we call that type of structure a different name. But its status as a harem isn't coming into question whenever people call something an omnibus harem - it's why its called a fucking "omnibus harem" instead of just, idk, a VN-style adaptation or a plain omnibus or something that doesn't immediately identify it as a harem. Tempting as it may be, trying to present omnibus harems as non-harems to be exclusionary towards a work non-fans tend to be obnoxious about is no bueno. Ok, ok we will simply just disagree then. Maybe I am being unfair. I don't want the harem tag attached to two of my favorites, Clannad and Little Busters. If that happened, I feel like it would be a no-win situation. The reputation of those shows would be tarnished and the reputation of the harem genre would still be in the gutter. Yeah, no doubt about it...I am definitely being unfair... On that note it's interesting that Yosuga no Sora has the harem tag while Clannad does not. Tarnished by stupid people who will downvote something based purely on its MAL tag, i.e. nobody worth caring about. |
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| Harem is an amazing thing that was created by human |
| :3 |
RealTheAbsurdist said: I like the [b]idea[/i] of a harem (since I am a filthy weeb just like the rest of you)...but I hate the execution of most harem anime. Realistically speaking, a bunch of girls won't fall for a guy just because he's "nice." Everyone is "nice." Many girls are either attracted to guys who are confident, cool, charismatic...or "bad boys", which they mistake as being charismatic. If neither works, then girls fall for guys whom they have chemistry with, common interests, good conversations. Harem anime do the complete opposite: the guy is not charismatic, is not a "bad boy," he shares no common interests or proper conversations with the girls. But he is polite, just like 90% of the people in the world, which is somehow enough to get these girls to fall for him...how? Not to mention, how in harem anime, the girls are rarely, if ever, shown talking to and/or being friends with other guys. At this point, I'm just waiting for a harem anime where a girl falls for the guy because he opened the fucking door for her. At least with Highschool DxD, I can kinda can see why the girls are in love with Issei: he gets close to them to a point where they reveal their personnel issues. His goofy perverted, but honest personality makes him endearing. Mirai said: My problem is the harem mc are always so damn boring like how tf does the whole world fall for them. I know that most of the time they're supposed to be self inserts but I still don't like it. But I guess they're ok. I prefer reverse harems though. And I'm still waiting for a mixed gender harem oh yeah I don't think self-inserts work in an anime; because you, the viewer, are not controlling the protagonist's actions. If you think hard enough about it, there is no such thing as an anime with a self-insert protagonist; because their actions, reactions, and personality, are independent. Peaceful_Critic said: Almost every harem I've watched has been a 6/10, so, on average, they are fine for me. Most harems have hit and miss in characters. The World God Only Knows pretty much has a good MC and some decent side characters, but the minor characters that show up for one or two episodes aren't really interesting. Tsukiyo, Chihiro and Shiori are all pretty decent in my eyes. The rest, however, I couldn't really care about though the show did enough for them to be 5/10s. This seems to be generally, a running theme in any large cast shows such as Harems. Balancing all those characters and making them interesting is just going to be considerably harder than smaller cast shows. I would say, as a side note, that the MC in harem shows are usually the better characters in harems based on my experience. Kae from Kiss Him Not Me was by far the highlight of the show and outshone every other character, Raku was one of the better characters in his show, Haruhi from Ouran was one of the more fun characters to watch, Tohru is in my top 10, Fuutarou was the 2nd best character, Masamune was the main draw in his show, and Tomoya was also pretty cool. Weirdly enough it's usually the love interests who are lacking for me, assuming the show itself isn't bad in which each of the characters sucks. That's not to say there are good harems that I've enjoyed that didn't have the MCs as the strong point, just that usually for me, the MC is the good character contrary to popular belief. I think The World God Only Knows is definitely one of the better harems: the MC has a very clearly defined personality, the girls around him, all of whom their personnel insecurities are explored and developed. It's interesting how you say the MCs in harems tend to be better than the other characters, because in my opinion, it's usually the complete opposite; the harem MC tends to be nearly bland, while the other characters have quirks that define them. of course self-inserts are a thing. Most bland harem-isekai or just normal harem MCs are self inserts. In these shows almost all of the MC's actions are predictable ( he will help people in need, he will always do righteous things etc.) so it doesnt matter that you cannot control the protagonists action. Self-inserting just happens, its a phenomenon. Like its something that people just Do. People watch anime and live vicariously through characters to experience things they can never do in real lie. In theory, you are RIGHT that one cannot Self insert into the anime literally and control the whole show like a video game but no one takes self-inserts to have that definition so you're just tackling a non-issue. I think @Peaceful_Critic is being generous by saying most harem are 6/10's. But yeah it depends on the series, most are formulated to pander to the average otaku virgin. |
| Sometimes I love it. Sometimes I don't. Depends on the anime and how good things are carried out. NOTE : I would never mind a Yuri harem but there's no such anime. |
Agent_Redacted said: Got you covered.Sometimes I love it. Sometimes I don't. Depends on the anime and how good things are carried out. NOTE : I would never mind a Yuri harem but there's no such anime. https://myanimelist.net/anime/28883/Hidan_no_Aria_AA |
 Kickstarter for Rokujouma is fully funded. Good work everyone. Lets wait for the result of our hard work together. |
RealTheAbsurdist said: But even though the MC in harems are said to be "nice"...that's it. Everyone is nice. They're not kind people. Nice is following what I call "social protocol": doing what is common sense. Kindness is going beyond that social protocol. Kindness is giving money to a homeless person, spending hours tutoring someone without expecting anything, not even payment. Man, I would love to see more harem MCs that fit that description. It is so much more gratifying to self insert as a genuine hero than some bland nobody. |
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| boring boring boring! i can't even like reverse harem. maybe i'm wrong, maybe some aren't boring, but i just can't get into most anime that have it. |
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