Do you prefer male or female anime characters?
| I’ve noticed that most recent anime male watchers (post around 2005) do not really care about the male characters in anime. There are almost no discussions about who is the best character - only about “best girl” - as if it is automatically assumed that your favorite character must be a girl. There are also plenty of “fights” over whose “waifu” is the best. On the other hand, a male character has to be exceptional (like Saitama from OPM or Okabe from Steins;Gate) in order to get any positive recognition. Most are either ignored and deemed average and inconsequential or outright hated. Is this because they are regarded as love rivals for the affection of fans’ favorite “waifus”? At first I thought it was a phenomenon that only occurs in harem shows where naturally the focus is on developing the female characters. Over time, however, it spread out towards regular gender-balanced shows such as Fate/Zero or Fate/Stay Night and now I see it even in shounen shows which are traditionally dominated by guys (e.g. Boku no Hero Academia, Shokugeki no Souma). It’s also true that the number of strong, competent, confident and assertive male characters has decreased recently and they have been gradually replaced by spineless doormats. Maybe the two issues are related and that’s why male characters are perceived more negatively. In any case, I wanted to check whether this was really the case or just the impression that I got. Please, be honest and do not go for the politically correct answer unless you really feel that way. |
| Given that most of my favourites are males, no that is not the case. In terms of storyline, males are more preferable as outside best girl status, there are in fact rare good female leads(rare in a sense that mostly leads are male). |
| I think the "best girl" and the "waifu" crap is beyond my comprehension. I don't find anything fun or interesting about arguing over which 2d animated girl made by a sweaty 30 year old on Paint Tool Sai looks cuter or acts more like a "true" tsundere. In fact, I find the male characters to be more relatable figuring that there's just some gender references that only males will get. Whoops forgot to say. In the end, so long as there's a decent character on board, I'm ok with it. |
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| Wait, you don't watch anime to fap at 2D girls? What's wrong with you??!! Joking aside, I personally think there are far more male characters who are amazing than females - rarely do a female actually surprise me or intrigue me, but plenty of males, even in newer shows, have been capable of doing that. The whole waifu wars and "best girl" debate is just a bunch of weebs feeling like their fictional waifu is better than those other scrubs. And then there are some who are just trolling around with it. |
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| Look at my forum set and make your conclusions. I don't pay much heed to a character's gender so long as they are well written, interesting and have depth. |
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| These days I tend to watch slow, laid back animes which tend to not have exceptional characters, which means that I care about the interactions more than the character development. Then again, before that I watched harems (which usually have weak main character male and tons of females) and also shonen which usually have bad-ass cast overall. So it quite varies on what you're watching. Do mind that there's quite a lot of fanservice-y anime that don't have strong male leads. So yeah, If the character's interesting I'll take interest in him or her. But when I pick a harem anime to watch, I obviously pick it to find best girl. That's one of the main reasons for watching harems in the first place. Perhaps it's not that males don't care about other male characters generally. Maybe, just maybe, regular anime viewers have seen plenty of similiar shows that make them cast their eyes away from male characters to female. Or maybe it's those darn youngsters with their darn uncontrollable hormones, lol. |
Maxer00Aug 23, 2016 5:35 AM
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| Male characters mostly made the advancement of a story than most female characters do. Female characters are just there to spice things up a bit and popular for having different attitude per character. Male characters = main ingredient Female characters = other ingredients |
| "This (anime) industry is weird" - Chitose Karasuma, Gi(a)rlish Number I hope someday someone in an anime would say, "The (anime) viewers are weird." |
| Pretty much yeah, and I don't really see what's supposedly so weird about that. If a character is exceptionally written or similar, then I'll like them a lot regardless of gender. But female characters I can still like even without that level of writing if they're attractive enough simply because I'm straight. Obviously that's never going to happen for a male character since I'm not attracted to males. For the same reason I'm pretty sure most girls have more favorite male characters than female ones. That has nothing to do with sexism or anything along those lines, that's just human nature. The only real reason you might argue that characters of the same gender as yourself are more interesting (as a straight person that is) is if relatability is super important to you (which it definitely is not to me) Sooo yeah I currently have about 220 characters in my extended favorites, and I think about 200 of them are girls. I don't see what's wrong with that though |
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| False as you can see in my favorites, but it obviously depends on the genre. For example, Shounen/Seinen = better male characters, Shoujo/Josei = better female characters. There might be exceptions but I find them very rare. |
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| I got over my moeblob 'cute girls doing cute things' obsession when I was seventeen or so. Having been a few years since then, I find most female characters very generic/predictable or lackluster. Six of my ten top favorite characters are male but I wouldn't go so far as to say I specifically prefer male characters. At the end of the day what makes a character appealing to me is whether or not I can relate to them, or if I respect the ideology they hold that aligns with their actions. The gender is pretty irrelevant. |
| Honestly, since most MCs are males, it's easier for me to have a favorite that's a male since side-characters are rarely strong enough to leave a gigantic impact, and I haven't seen a femal character do the same, even if there are still plenty of females in anime I really like. It just comes down to the personality, and given that almost all my favorites are MCs, it's safe to say that the MC is usually the best character in the story (and is more often than not a guy). Hopefully, I'll be lucky enough to find at least 1 female I'd really wanna add to the list. |
| Being wrong is just an occupational hazard. Follow me on twitter. I have an anitube channel so feel free to check it out and subscribe if you like what you see. |
| WHAT? i thought i was the only guy on this site NOT looking at all at the male characters, cause im always seeing people say shit like: "why are all the male characters pussies?" "why don't they ever choose best girl?" "these male characters are alwasy secretly op and its annoying" "this guy is a complete asshole" *this is a self insert type male character* and im sitting here like...... "uh..... im not even looking at them"...... and i can't self insert a character im not even paying attention to lol |
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EcchiLordMamster said: That's basically the checklist for "how to insult harems" tho, not other genres :>WHAT? i thought i was the only guy on this site NOT looking at all at the male characters, cause im always seeing people say shit like: "why are all the male characters pussies?" "why don't they ever choose best girl?" "these male characters are alwasy secretly op and its annoying" "this guy is a complete asshole" *this is a self insert type male character* and im sitting here like...... "uh..... im not even looking at them"...... and i can't self insert a character im not even paying attention to lol |
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| The female is always best at a supporting capacity not that I have anything against female being the mc but In most cases the male excels at portraying it than any female. |
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| in my favorite characters i have 3 male and 3 female characters so i dont care , just give me a likable characters |
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| I pretty much only care about male characters -o-. No matter how hard I try, I can never bring myself to like female characters. They're all super trope-y. They're either tsundere, yandere, dandere, deredere, kuudere, any other dere, or they think they're the best things in the world. And their high pitched anime voices don't help. I mean, I've seen a bunch of anime and I pretty much don't have a favorite female character at all. And the one I like above all the others I've seen... I only like her a little. |
  WORK IN PROGRESS ~The frog leapt forth to my lilypad memory.~ I was indoctrinated by an inamorata rabbit, Adenomata affronted. It was the verecund, dismissed creatures That I jubilated in most. This rabbit I would nurture, At the aiguille of esse, The anneal of noblesse. ❤️ Birdie ❤️ |
Snappynator said: EcchiLordMamster said: That's basically the checklist for "how to insult harems" tho, not other genres :>WHAT? i thought i was the only guy on this site NOT looking at all at the male characters, cause im always seeing people say shit like: "why are all the male characters pussies?" "why don't they ever choose best girl?" "these male characters are alwasy secretly op and its annoying" "this guy is a complete asshole" *this is a self insert type male character* and im sitting here like...... "uh..... im not even looking at them"...... and i can't self insert a character im not even paying attention to lol lol you right you right, but regardless im not looking at the male characters.... MAL favorites would definitely so thought that male characters are preferred, i mean, the highest rated female isn't till like #11 |
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| Not sure what you mean. Most if the characters on my fave list are male. Besides, who actually takes these "waifu wars" seriously? |
EcchiLordMamster said: You're not looking at it correctly. The reason most of the most favorited characters are male are because guys tend to like the same characters when it comes to males to a much larger extent than females where the votes are much more evenly distributed. If anything that only supports the OPs thought process. And since something like 60% of MAL users are male (iirc), it doesn't work the other way around to quite the same extent for female viewers in order to counterbalance the scoresSnappynator said: That's basically the checklist for "how to insult harems" tho, not other genres :> lol you right you right, but regardless im not looking at the male characters.... MAL favorites would definitely so thought that male characters are preferred, i mean, the highest rated female isn't till like #11 That, and also it's the main characters of shows that tend to be the most popular ones out of their respective shows (obviously, since they get the most screen time), and most of the most popular anime do in fact have male protagonists. So the top favorites ranking is not really indicative of what this thread is about |
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| In a sense, you can't really be surprised because, a majority of straight males are going to pay attention to female characters. Just as many females pay more attention to male characters. It's most likely do to the whole imagination aspect and complete fiction base. These fictional characters aren't realistic(or rather many aren't) and don't have the flaws normal people do or at least they aren't painted in the same light as they are in reality. You get to know characters in animes(and in books as well) better than you do every day people and their character is definite and more appealing for that reason. A good example to compare would be in twilight Edward vs whoever the fuck. Back when that came out, girls were #teamedward or vice versa. There were shirts and everything. A majority of guys didn't care though. This is no different. Same song, different dance. I personally have no preference. A good character is a good character and sometimes even if the characters suck, the story pulls me through *cough* aquarion logos *cough*. I hope this answered the question. |
 ~I didn't choose Hell~ ~Hell chose Me ~ |
EcchiLordMamster said: WHAT? i thought i was the only guy on this site NOT looking at all at the male characters, cause im always seeing people say shit like: "why are all the male characters pussies?" "why don't they ever choose best girl?" "these male characters are alwasy secretly op and its annoying" "this guy is a complete asshole" *this is a self insert type male character* and im sitting here like...... "uh..... im not even looking at them"...... and i can't self insert a character im not even paying attention to lol Those kinds of questions only serve to reinforce my point that male characters are overall much more negatively received. When people discuss female characters they discuss who is the best. When they discuss male characters it is mostly about how they suck, whether because they cannot choose a girl, or they are too OP and bland, or too much of a pussy. And trust me...you are not the only one - I don't count posts like above as "caring" it's more like "loving to hate" such characters and gathering online with like-minded individuals to express frustrations. HaXXspetten said: You're not looking at it correctly. The reason most of the most favorited characters are male are because guys tend to like the same characters when it comes to males to a much larger extent than females where the votes are much more evenly distributed. If anything that only supports the OPs thought process. And since something like 60% of MAL users are male (iirc), it doesn't work the other way around to quite the same extent for female viewers in order to counterbalance the scores That, and also it's the main characters of shows that tend to be the most popular ones out of their respective shows (obviously, since they get the most screen time), and most of the most popular anime do in fact have male protagonists. So the top favorites ranking is not really indicative of what this thread is about Pretty much this, but also there is the fact that most of the top characters are from really long and popular shounen shows - and naturally a lot of people have seen those and their most popular characters are going to be really popular overall due to the show's popularity. There are not really many female equivalents to Naruto, Ichigo etc. - I assume if there were, they would be just as popular if not more. Also, some of those in the top 10 are pretty exceptional - Lelouch, Light, L, they are pretty unique, interesting and well-developed, so of course they would be well-received. However, I did mention in my OP that male characters who are exceptional are well-liked. However, they are more the exception rather than the rule. Finally, a lot of the top 10 are from older shows (pre-2005) when the whole anime landscape and the fandom's opinions were pretty different, particularly in relation to favorite characters. In those days people mostly followed shows like Naruto and Gundam and discussed (mostly male) characters' heroic exploits rather than "best girl" etc. Thus, I do not believe the top10 character list really counteracts my overall impression. |
| I can care less if the character is male or female, as long as they are a good character then that works for me. I find that I am mostly split down the middle when it comes to liking male and female characters. I can find just as many male characters that I think are great as I do with female characters. Luckily I don't watch harem as my main genre otherwise I'd probably loathe male MC's altogether lol. |
| Nah. My guy friends seem to like them fine or think they are really cool. My boyfriend especially likes Shizuo and Sebastian. A lot. XD Male characters mostly made the advancement of a story than most female characters do. Female characters are just there to spice things up a bit and popular for having different attitude per character. Male characters = main ingredient Female characters = other ingredients :/ That's pretty sexist. And inaccurate. |
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| When it comes to characters what most people care about is personality traits and what role they have in the story, however if you find anime characters physically attractive like you are with real people you're going to find having a good-looking design as a big bonus that the gender of characters which you aren't attracted to are lacking. |
| @Darklord_bg look at my profile and dare to say that again |
| Since most men are heterosexual, female characters - especially if they're cute/pretty/sexy - capture the attention more easily. But I think it also has something to do with how anime doesn't focus that much on male characters. Many of these shows which have great female characters have bland male lead - and no other male presence. The harem genre is obviously guilty of that, but even non-harem anime like Freezing suffer from it. Notice how in comic book circles, there's a lot of discussion about the male characters - Superman, Batman, Spiderman. If anime producers gave us more developed and interesting male leads, we'll talk about them. |
| WEAPONS - My blog, for reviews of music, anime, books, and other things |
| I like more female characters than male characters but I like the male characters more than most of the female characters, with exceptions of course |
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| They don't?? Then where does all the "GAR" come from? =___= IDK man, I worship Gilgamesh like the one true king be is. And I also hate Onii-sama with real passion. So you'd be wrong if you say male views doesn't care about any male character... |
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| Sadly I have to admit theres little to no good male characters, they are almost non existent. Its very sad, becuz indeed most male characters are doormats, just like you said I can honestly count on my fingers how much good male characters exist, but if I happen to find some, theres a big chance that it'll become one of my fav series, becuz its just far more enjoyable that way |
Risara said: I don't really know what you've been reading but there are a lot of discussions about the shows you've mentioned (Fate, BnHA, and SnS) that aren't all about waifus. The discussion between harem shows are mostly about the female characters, I agree. And that's because most of the main characters of harem shows literally have no personality. The male protagonist is just a plot device to make a "story". My point was that EVEN in shows like that which are far from harems there is a lot of discussions about waifus. It's as if that is the main topic of discussion in anime nowadays. Of course there are other things being discussed, I would hope. |
AltoRoark said: Besides, who actually takes these "waifu wars" seriously? Bleach shippers do. http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1544557 |
Z-Dante said: They don't?? Then where does all the "GAR" come from? =___= Where indeed...the last time I heard the term "GAR" being used was when Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann was airing. That was in 2007. Good times! Most anime watchers nowadays probably don't even know what it means. Robiiii said: I can honestly count on my fingers how much good male characters exist, but if I happen to find some, theres a big chance that it'll become one of my fav series, becuz its just far more enjoyable that way I know, right? It's really enjoyable to see characters like Kazuma from Kaze no Stigma and Okabe from Steins;Gate subvert expectations by not being pushovers. It's pretty sad that they are so rare that it becomes immediately notable. |
 Indeed. People don't care about male characters at all. Although I must agree female characters tend to be better done in anime most of the time. Or are more likeable, at least for me. Most recent protagonists are pain to look at. |
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| It's not because they talk a lot more about them, that they necessarily prefer them over male characters All that "best girll talk" is (most of the times) about shippings and which character they want to see end up with the male main character but still in in a lot of thoses shows where they talk a lot about best girls, for example Oregairu, Shokugeki no Souma, the male leads still have the most favorites (ofc in other examples like re:zero, the females are more liked, it just depends on the show and characters, not on the sex) |
ChampAug 23, 2016 7:56 AM
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Darklord_bg said: Z-Dante said: They don't?? Then where does all the "GAR" come from? =___= Where indeed...the last time I heard the term "GAR" being used was when Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann was airing. That was in 2007. Good times! Most anime watchers nowadays probably don't even know what it means. Robiiii said: I can honestly count on my fingers how much good male characters exist, but if I happen to find some, theres a big chance that it'll become one of my fav series, becuz its just far more enjoyable that way I know, right? It's really enjoyable to see characters like Kazuma from Kaze no Stigma and Okabe from Steins;Gate subvert expectations by not being pushovers. It's pretty sad that they are so rare that it becomes immediately notable. Well I also think that the problem relies on the fact that theres a ton of awesome female characters. Even if they're plain in terms of personality, their looks can be more than satisfying. What im trying to say tho is that in a ton of series theres just a lot of girls, and very few males, sometimes even 1 male, while theres 4-6 or even more females around him, so males also lack in quantity (ofc there are exceptions) |
| I rather search for male role model than searching imagination ideal girl ... |
"The Slave is the have-not, the oppressed one with nothing to spare. But because the Slave is in that despairing situation, having nothing, it can kill the Emperor !" |
HaXXspetten said: EcchiLordMamster said: You're not looking at it correctly. The reason most of the most favorited characters are male are because guys tend to like the same characters when it comes to males to a much larger extent than females where the votes are much more evenly distributed. If anything that only supports the OPs thought process. And since something like 60% of MAL users are male (iirc), it doesn't work the other way around to quite the same extent for female viewers in order to counterbalance the scoreslol you right you right, but regardless im not looking at the male characters.... MAL favorites would definitely so thought that male characters are preferred, i mean, the highest rated female isn't till like #11 That, and also it's the main characters of shows that tend to be the most popular ones out of their respective shows (obviously, since they get the most screen time), and most of the most popular anime do in fact have male protagonists. So the top favorites ranking is not really indicative of what this thread is about Wow never even considered that, but it definitely makes a ton of sense @Darklord_bg Yea I see now |
EcchiGodMamsterAug 23, 2016 8:56 AM
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| Well, there's not a whole lot OF male charatcers. Plus Japan keeps making them pretty generic so otaku can self insert easier. Hell, I'd love to see more awesome guys like Ikki from Chivalry of a Faild Knight, or Nagisa from Assassination Classroom. |
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| Male characters are less unique in general, or way too fucking edgy and yet depending on the day my top 10 may be equally represented by both genders. I even like some transgender ones even though I'm straight just because of the fact they're more interesting. If I try to make a top 25-30 though, I might have an issue with the male side. And it has nothing to do with waifus. "Waifus". Well, those use to be crappy as well, actually. |
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| Probably because there's a lot more typical and generic male MCs compared to females. I have around the same number of favorite female and male characters. |
| Where the whole "waifu wars" occur, it seems to be the case that this is usually always for harem-type anime - and in the majority of harem anime, the male MC can be replaced with any of the other myriad of clones that fulfill the male MC role. It doesn't really make much sense for people to argue over who's the best because they're all copies of each other. Not that the females tend to be much better by comparison, but I find it to be exacerbate for MC-kuns. Not to mention that 'waifu wars' are self-contained to the cast of characters from the same anime, and there's normally only one MC-kun, so there isn't anyone else to be argued over anyway. But this also explains why when there is a harem MC who's a little different, he's immediately noticed and revered. Look at Subaru from ReZero and Kazuma from KonoSuba - regardless of whether you like those characters or not, they are somewhat different from the usual Protag-kun that normally plagues those sort of anime. It might seem like a character has to be ridiculously spectacular in order to stand out - see Sakamoto - but where harems are concerned, even a little difference becomes pronounced simply because of how ingrained the dense male lead is to those anime. As for the rest of anime - I simply disagree. When I think of male characters I liked, I can immediately think of several - Shu from Nisekoi, Meliodas from Nanatsu no Taizai, Zack from Plastic Memories to name but 3. Shu and Zack were only side characters but they still managed to stand out for me in each of their respective series, and in a general sense I enjoy characters who have a laid-back approach to things, which Meliodas personifies. I could go further here, but it would do little except provide a handful of examples pertinent to myself alone. As for how likely it is for a male character to be favoured over their female counterparts, it would boil down to two things - the type of anime you watch, and your own preferences towards certain traits. I love comedy, and it's oft the case that minor side characters get relegated to being the comic relief. This is why characters like Shu stood out for me because I thought he was pretty damn funny. But someone who enjoys watching harem series is quite obviously going to have their focus be on the females - or vice versa in the case of reverse-harems. As far as regular / non-harem series go, I disagree with the notion that male characters aren't cared about. |
 It's an entirely different kind of flying, altogether! It's an entirely different kind of flying. |
| As long as the character is cool, I don't really care if it's a girl or guy. |
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| Generally best girl convos follow a scenario where a majority of the cast is female. But as for the females are the only ones who get the spotlight I would say that's largely exaggerated. One case in point the top 100 characters on this site, assuming I counted right about 65 of the top 100 most favored characters are male. That's a fairly significant 2/3rds majority although there are certainly a fair amount of females that got a lot of attention. Let's also take your examples, Fate/Stay was an eroge so it's understandable that there would be a strong focus on female characters. Boku no Hero and Shokugeki no Souma are a bit more split but in Souma's case they certainly showcase more female characters compared to male since the primary contact Souma has outside of the food wars is with female characters (Megumi, Alice, Ikumi, Erina). But personally as long as I like a character I don't tend to prefer one gender over the other. Just an obligatory jab though, Saitama "exceptional character", that's a bit much. |
GamerDLMAug 23, 2016 3:06 PM
| I have a preference for girls so I tend to go for best girls more frequently. But yeah, who is your best non-girl in Non Non Biyori, Lucky Star, Aria, Kanon. Non Non Biyori has 2 male chars. Ones father and ones not so talkative brother. One playing a minor role and the other a tiny role. Oh and some figurants. Lucky Star features some figurants and 2 fathers. Aria features a bunch of 1 episode males and 2 supporting males. Why bother talking about best guy if there's only 3 to choose from compared to 6-8 recurring females. Kanon has 2 guys, MC and sidekick, also not quite a lot to choose from. Girls though? 6+. With Little Busters! the cast has 4 major roles with male characters and 6(+) for female. I put 1 guy and 2 girls into my favs from LB! Fate/Stay Night has a bunch of guys and girls. I have one of each in my favs. It's not that male characters are bad, it's just that in the ones that I watch, it's not really worth picking a fav. Uchuu Kyoudai for example. There are quite some male characters and they're all pretty well done. But one gets like 80% of all the focus while the others get the remaining (10+) 15/20% of the remaining focus. The other 5% goes to some girls/women I guess. Which such an overwhelming amount of focus to one person you get a lot more out of that person so it wouldn't make a lot of sense to pick a fav out of them. Other series I watched that mostly feature females so it makes no sense to pick a fav guy. Mikakunin, Yuru Yuri, A-channel, Girlfriend, bamboo blade, flying witch... etc etc... But I usually just give the best girl title to an interesting character that I deem best regardless of their actual gender. But hey seriously, would you really pick a best guy in S;G? There are only like 4 to choose from and they're not even anywhere near equal in role/screentime. So it makes a lot less sense to say well X is so awesome compared to Y, Z and Z'. And since there are like 5 girls that have an relationship with our male MC, it makes a lot more sense to compare those five girls to one another. This goes for a lot more anime. There's a lot more harem situated anime where a lot of girls are sort of in an equal position compared to reversed harem type where there's a lot of guys that can be properly compared to eachother. In short, lots of girls being compareable, not so many guys being compareable. |
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