Forum - View topicThe "Harem" Plague.
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Hentai_JP
 Posts: 605 Location: Toronto, ON |
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I have to admit that I do like harem genre of the anime. Because, secretly or not, who doesn't want to have a harem of his/her own? Harem genre is therefore simply one of those thing people enjoy watching much like drama, comedy, action etc. Being a popular genre we end up seeing quite a few of these titles coming out from Japan every season. The problem, as I see it, arises when the popularity of the genre meets the greed of the original content creators, whether it is an anime series, manga or a light novel. Numerous times I have witnessed a story begin in a unique, at times mesmerizing way, to ultimately fall victim to the infection. Bakemonogatari, Sword Art Online, MM! and most recently HENNEKO are the prime examples. As the disease sets in and spreads further the creator's majestically crafted universe gets quickly reduced to nothing, demeaning the entire premise and severing the precious connection I have developed for the characters. Reoccurring like a virus, this 'event' is ruining one opus magnum after another. The originality of the work is therefore simply lost, degraded to a standstill of a cheap rom-com that is unwilling to resolve anything.
Now, I have to make a distinction here to prevent any possible confusion. Most of the harms we tend to think of do strike us as such, with the harem theme as the central piece in the first place. Shuffle! is one for example. There are no great beginnings that fumble at some point, nor is there any false advertisement, the series stays true to it's intent throughout and also happens to have definitive satisfactory resolution. To Love Ru Darkness would also be an epitome of such anime. The goal of the series is clear from the get go and it fulfills it beautifully. In fact, TLR does it so well I can say it would be rather unnatural for Haruto to choose any particular girl in the end regardless of whatever my preference is (Kotegawa ftw!). Both of the aforementioned titles are pure. They start in one way and end, or continuously go on in the latter case, true to it's origins. However, when the opposite happens, when the original work gets invaded by harem themes so strong it completely changes the original premise is what I consider unacceptable. And so I have to wonder, why does this happen again and again? Is this trend going to continue? Are we going to see more and more series being pushed out of balance in favor of cheap fan service? Will harem eventually consume all and we would have to deal with a pack of females infinitely infatuated with main character in every, single, title? The world filled with harems so strong they can choke all and every original idea that gets in its way... |
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VORTIA
 SubscriberPosts: 947 |
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I don't think the inclusion of a "harem" necessarily destroys good storytelling. I'd argue that it's creators that cop out on crafting decisive endings to romantic tensions who ruin storytelling.
I find most of your examples rather strange. Bakemonogatari, MM, and Henneko were billed from drop as love comedies. All three are also adaptations of seinen light novels that have yet to be completed (or in MM's case, will likely never be completed). I think it would be unrealistic to expect any sort of romantic resolution to any of those titles stories until the novel series has completed. If when all is said and done we're left with some status-quo/nothing happens ending, then yeah, that's crappy writing, but I don't see any grand trend towards that sort of resolution. As for SAO, yeah, I can see how people might have expected something entirely different judging from how it was billed, but I think that has more to do with false(good?) advertising than any real subversion of the author's premise. Personally, I like series like Henneko, Oreimo and the like far better than fair like ToLoveRu, because I appreciate the added depth to character and story. It feels like you want to keep your "harem" anime a guilty pleasure and separate from your "serious" anime. I guess that's cool, but seeing mixing the two as a "plague" is a bit much. |
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EricJ
 Posts: 876 |
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The Tenchi series didn't necessarily mean to "invent" the harem; it was simply taking what was already a culturally well-known tragic love-triangle story (The Demon of Rashomon Gate), and turning it, well, silly. 
The majority of other harem series we get are either following or trying to follow the leads of their source material, often dating-sim games that DEPEND on the hero (ie. you) trying to decide between several rather determined girls of various cliche'd archetypes all fighting for his time, interest, and commitment, and risking violent jealousy if one found out about the other. The problem's in the machinery, any more than you could wonder how someone could adapt any other type of videogame to anime and not have someone shooting something. And while I appreciate that To-Love-Ru started out as a twenty-year-nostalgia ripoff of UY that forgot why it started out in the first place... Sword Art Online (aka "If you played WoW, you'd get half these references") is a, quote, "harem" series? The HECK?? 
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Hentai_JP
Posts: 605 Location: Toronto, ON |
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@VORTIA
Watching Bakemonogatari ending felt like a betrayal. You see, Araragi starts out with this "help everyone" attitude and throughout the series Senjogahara exerts continuous efforts to help him, and perhaps change him. It seems like its' working, it seems like the crucial character development is happening. All of this lasts until the episode thirteen where Araragi goes on and behaves the very same way he started out in episode one. It was a shock, everything seemed to have happen for no other reason than entertaining the viewers. Status quo was maintained, except now virtually every female character is in love/interested in him... The desire to keep the harem's non resolution state of 'sequel friendly' not only robs us from the proper ending but also tampers over the very heart of the series up to that point - the character development. And that is no different from a datesim adaptation.] In case of MM! and HENNEKO both start unusually strong. If not for the first 3-4 episodes giving off impression of something greater than your typical romcom or even harem I wouldn't complain at all. But can't help but feel the strong beginnings being side tracked into the usual, mindless and unoriginal waters. I am a bit hazy on MM! but in HENNEKO we have two strong love interests yet the author insists on adding another two. The latter once are not developed and pose no real purpose other than the having the infamous harem theme. I suppose I am a fool for expecting anything greater than this. SAO. This is the beautiful case. Aside from the storyline failures the heart of the show was supposed to be Asuna & Kirito relationship. The majority of the series revolves around them and is focused on them. Yet, the director did something criminal. The precious character establishment and the early development got butchered with discontinuous inserts of cheap character archetypes for the sake of establishing the all too familiar harem trend. Instead of making coherent narrative and perhaps incorporating those 'harem' episodes in a more natural fashion we end up with a mess so bad I was unable to feel any connection with the main couple. Adding fuel to the flame are the LN readers. As they claim all the thing I've been missing in the anime are present in the light novel which makes this whole ordeal even worse. The incompetence of the adapting staff delivered the real blow that killed SAO for me. The harem theme won. So in the end, it is the desire to throw the original ideas out of the window in favor of the popular and familiar yet bland and repetitive harem theme is what ruins the grand beginnings. Oh and harem is not my guilty pleasure. There is nothing guilty in enjoying anything in fact. I would freely admit that I greatly enjoyed Queen's Blade, before director got shafted in Rebellion (you can find out more in my anime comments). /shameless plug out. |
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VORTIA
Subscriber Posts: 947 |
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See, Hentai_JP, I think you're missing my point. Bakemonogatari, MM, and Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko couldn't end with any real resolution! If the animation staff want to animate the actual finale to those novels someday, they have to leave the ending open until the light novels finish!
If there's more serious content to SAO than what the adaptation got, then I guess that's a valid complaint, but I don't see that as a very typical or common thing. More than likely, however, the answer can be traced back to one thing and one thing only - what moves character goods I suspect that the decision was made with SAO to focus on the more "harem" aspects of the story because it would ultimately boost sales of figures, charms, wall scrolls, and other additional revenue-making material, whereas additional combat and plot sequences would bring them......probably not a whole lot of anything. Ultimately, making anime is a business, and businesses are going to go with what makes them the most money. |
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Vaisaga
 Posts: 13246 |
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Hold on, why exactly is Bakemonogatari being used as an example? Hitagi wins in the 2nd bloody arc.
Same with SAO. Asuna is the clear winner so you can't complain it leaves that unresolved. In the first place, it puts more focus on the harem aspect? How do you figure? Yeah Kirito's got a number of girls after him, but Lisbeth and Silica only got one episode a piece near the beginning of the show and never factored into the story after that. It was all about Kirito/Asuna. You had Suguha in the 2nd half, but that just makes it a triangle, not a harem. Besides, the 2nd half would just be some bland rescue the princess story if it weren't for Suguha. There's nothing wrong with harem elements and it's hardly a 'plague.' Authors like writing those sorts of stories, and consumers like consuming those sorts of stories. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it ruins the show. It just stands to reason that any good protagonist will have positive qualities that attract the ladies. I do have my own complaints about how harems typically go, and it does make me wish that Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei would just get a damn anime already, but it's hardly as criminal as detractors make it out to be. |
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Kruszer
 Posts: 7995 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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Huh? These two series don't belong anywhere near a discussion of harem shows in my opinion. Wrong genres. 
T |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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^
Bakemonogatari is definitely a Harem show. Five girls are romantically in love with Koyomi, and though he only loves spoiler[Hitagi] that doesn't stop it being a Harem show. Nisemonogatari adds three more girls; his two sisters who both like him waaaay too much, and Shinobu, who doesn't precisely love him but raises too many flags to be ignored. Sword Art Online has four girls being romantically in love with Kirito. Again, just because he only loves one of them back in the romantic sense does not prevent the show from being a Harem. |
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ChibiKangaroo
 Posts: 2941 |
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We talked about this pretty extensively in the SAO thread. A lot of people bristled at the idea that others saw aspects of a harem in the story. However, I think it was pretty obvious that the writer was using harem-esque side plots to build up Kirito as more and more of a fantasy self-insert gary-stu. Certainly, SAO was not a traditional "harem," in the way that we normally see a harem show. However, there is no doubt that the various extremely hot and/or cute girls (sometimes in "girl of the week" format) aside from Asuna who were all blushing and stumbling over themselves to be near Kirito were not just some fluke that happened by accident. None of them except Sughua were ever any real threat to Asuna, which is why I call it "harem-esque." However, I do agree that including all of those side girls did distract from the relationship between Kirito and Asuna. |
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Touma
 Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
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But is it really a desire to throw out the original ideas? I think that it is more likely that the original ideas have run out and the creators use the harem in an attempt to introduce a popular element that might save the show. If the original ideas are still coming and fans are watching the show then I think that there is not any incentive to change the show. I am sure that there are greedy producers who will try anything to make a popular show even more popular, and totally screw it up. But I think that most people will not change something that is working for them. I am sure that some situations are different, but I think that usually the introduction of a harem is the result of a problem with the show, and not the cause of the problem. And I am not saying that you should not be upset about this, whether the harem is cause or effect it is still a situation that you definitely have a right to complain about. I usually hate it when a show turns into something very different from what it started out to be.
It really is a matter of definition, and by my definition it is not a harem unless the guy sees it as a harem and is interested in at least three of the girls. However, I do not know if any other word that would work for those shows that I think are not really harem shows. Saying the "a bunch of girls who are attracted to one guy who is interested in only one of them" genre is a bit cumbersome. So I guess that "harem" will have to do the job. |
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Kruszer
Posts: 7995 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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What prevents them from being harems are the fact that harem is not their main genre. I don't think having elements of that sub-genre constitutes having the whole series classified as a harem series. A harem comedy series is Love Hina or Hanaukyo Maid Team where the harem sub-genre is what's at the series' core and it only exists to shove boobs and panties in your faces and play out tired old jokes. Not that they aren't still enjoyable despite. |
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Vaisaga
Posts: 13246 |
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Harem isn't a genre, it's just an aspect of the plot which is entirely dependant on the number of love interests. The genre remains as romance/comedy.
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Kruszer
Posts: 7995 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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Point still stands; not the main genre of either show. Still I changed it to sub-genre for clarification's sake which is another way of saying what you just did there; a genre with specific aspects. It's just like mecha though, there are so many of them harem might as well be classified as it's own genre. Last edited by Kruszer on Mon Jul 01, 2013 2:42 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Well, your overly-narrow definition just eliminated plenty of legitimate Harem series. A Harem is not about the guy, it's about the girls (unless we're talking about a reverse Harem of course).
Uh, Harem shows are Harem shows no matter what; the existence of other genres does not suddenly make the Harem part disappear or become irrelevant. When I call something a Harem show I am in no way implying that it lacks any other genres, and it is reasonable to expect that readers of such comments would automatically understand this. Same can be said of other genres or sub-genres. A Slice-of-Life Romantic Comedy Drama has four genres, but referring to it as a Comedy or a Slice-of-Life show is not inaccurate. And there's nothing wrong with calling GTA IV an 'open world' game even though it can be also defined by all the many other genres and sub-genres it belongs to. |
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Touma
Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
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They are "legitimate" to you, and certainly to others, but not necessarily to everybody. But it really is a moot point since I have already said that I am using your definition. I do not think that the arguments in this thread depend on the exact definition of "harem." |
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