When you ask somebody on what genre they hate the most the answer is gonna be mostly subjective, some might say that it’s Isekai with its overused concepts and just painstakingly dumb story lines mixed with characters that are as flat as paper and an MC that looks like Kirito all over AGAIN
(I know that most of the character designs are like his but come on! You gotta be more creative than that!) sure some shows might add in a little spice to the mix and some are very successful on it but most of them fall head first because they thought that just because they made the MC absurdly OP It’s gonna be entertaining to watch, some might say that it’s Horror but very few have managed to actually become horror
the others are just nothing but an edge train some even so ridiculous that it becomes comedy, the tremors, and sufferings of the characters themselves become laughable because of how unrealistic and ignorant their decisions are well can you even feel pity for them if they themselves are the ones that put themselves in that kind of situation? Paired with never-ending streams of blood and predictable plot lines most horrors are nothing but a pain to watch but of course, the answer to this question is based entirely on preference it’s all about what you enjoy and if you do enjoy Horror, Isekai and whatever genre out there then that’s good for you and I hold no grudges against you because it is all about personal opinion but there’s this one genre that just makes me laugh on how ridiculously it is and you probably know it by now, it is Harem.
Harem is a staple in the anime industry, there just can’t be one season where there is no Harem because it is a necessity. With new Harem shows every season we were greeted with an absolute dumpster fire and we’re like flies that get attracted to the very abomination that is Harem but before you freak out and lash me out let me explain to you why this genre remains relevant and popular these days, people love it including me so please just let me explain.
First, we need to know what makes it worse.
It’s the fact that Harem needs to have a lot of fan service as that is literally what the genre is all about, the thing is that in order to have good fan service you need to have good characters each with their distinct personalities and character traits that makes them likable and iconic but here’s the problem in order for the audience to have attachment to the character they need to have a back round story they need to have something that makes them relatable, something that makes them feel real and when you lay out a characters’ persona very well then you have yourself an instant success the only problem being that you have to do this for 3 to as many characters that you want to put in your Harem and this is where the problem starts, you have to manage all the persona’s of all the characters as well as their relationship with the MC and you can’t do that without throwing some of your characters out of the window for the time being in order to create space so that you can establish the others, you simply can’t do it all at once you need to sacrifice some of your characters’ screen time in order for the others to have their long awaited development a good example of this is Lala Devil Luke from the To Love Ru series.
If you’ve read the manga then you’ll notice that by the start of the new installment to the series To Love Ru; Darkness, Lala’s presence is just gone like literally, she’ll have some screen time for sure, yes but it is relatively smaller than the season before it this happened so that Momo, Haruna and many more can have their long-awaited character development and for your information, Rito (The MC of this series.) has a harem that spans to up to about 22 women, some that I barely even see and when I say that I mean that I literally forget that they even exist.
Of course in every Harem anime, there’s that one that you call “Best girl” a character that most of the audience adores but whether you like it or not you simply can’t put your focus on her because if you do then why not just make it a simple Rom-Com instead? You need to divert your attention as well as the viewers to provide good character development in a way that can satisfy your expanding harem.
You see very few writers can manage to jumble up a bunch of characters and make every single one of them well developed that’s why most of the good shows focus on such a small cast so that the story can be much more precise and on point with how the characters react to the events that happen in the show making it easier to make room for development.
But what really makes it hard for Harem shows to advance in a much more considerable and thrilling pace is the fact that the cast itself is the reason of its mediocracy due to the fact that the story itself is just an infinite expansion of how your characters see the world itself, therefore, the characters are the main life of the story itself and a show having one too many of them there’s a very high chance that it will lose focus in the development of its cast and just resort to tasteless fan service instead of establishing the persona of the said cast and building up a good storyline.
Harem is bad because of Fan service, tasteless, redundant, Fan service. The never-ending Boob jiggle. Endless panty shots. MC entering the room at the wrong time. Very unlikely coincidences (The entire cast “coincidentally” goes to the same beach for summer vacation). Tsundere’s,
Dandere’s,
Deredere’s,
and literally every single type of Dere out there(Not all of the above mentioned characters are from harems, it’s just there to give you an idea to their personalities). Fan service is the reason for everything, for every situation, for every circumstance.
But with all of this then why is Harem still a popular genre up to this day? Well, it’s because of the very thing that makes it such a bad genre, it’s fan service. You know it’s much like Eromanga Sensei
it is such a dumpster fire but people are drawn to it like flies. There’s that certain magic into it that just makes it so fun to watch and that in itself is fan service. Watching women or in some cases, men fawn over 1 person is something that many people find interesting and very entertaining to watch maybe because it’s one of their desire or maybe just because they like watching cute girls be in love desperately but the reason is very subjective and it tends to vary.
Watching Harem tends to be very enjoyable not just because of the show itself but because of the anime community talking about it. Every time a Harem show comes up there’s always that heated discussion on who is “Best girl” which I must say is one of the most fun parts of watching a harem show. As for every person they have different likes and dislikes every one is different so they tend to have varying decisions on which character should win the harem and it is such a joy on seeing your girl be on the top of the weekly “Best girl” charts,
it’s so much fun to her winning every popularity poll and solidifying her position as “Best girl” and when your girl isn’t really popular at all I’m sure that you’ll eventually find people that are rooting for her and whatever happens even when she is at the bottom of the chart you will still root for her this is where the subject of the “Waifu wars” comes into place a bunch of people fighting over who is the most deserving to win the Harem it is one of the best and also one of the saddest part of riding along with a Harem show. That feeling when you see your girl riding high and conquering all odds and even the odds are with her, her relationship with the MC is downright OK and most of the community supports her there is no way that she’ll lose right? RIGHT? Well, the land of Harem is a land of uncertainty just when you thought that everything is going well that author is still the one who makes every decision something where you can’t really do much AND YES I’M LOOKING AT YOU NEGI HARUBA WHY THE FUCK DID YOU CHOSE YOTSUBA AS THE WINNER YOU LITTLE SHIT!
All in all one of the many reasons as to why Harem is still so popular as well as enjoyable is not just because of the genre itself but also because of the experience it provides, that feeling of involvement with everyone else in the roller coaster ride towards the grand question of “Who is gonna win?”.
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