Forum - View topic'Her': Is the harem genre now mainstream?
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Madzack
Posts: 36 |
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So, there's 'Her', a Hollywood movie starring Joaquin Phoenix about a loser who falls for an OS. It's getting a lot of acclaim and praises for the story and the themes it's exploring. But really, how many otaku here feel like "Pfft, been there, done that, bought the pillows?"
Magical girlfriends aren't new in Hollywood, so do the story of loser surrounded by women. 'Her' is unique in a sense that it shares almost the same theme as any other harem anime out there, starting from Video Girl Ai to Chobits and so on. The notable difference is that where most harem deal with adolescence, 'Her' deals with people in their late 30's. Has Her finally made the harem genre mainstream? And finally, do you think this might be a hit in Japan? |
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Sohma_Curse
 Posts: 512 Location: New York |
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First off, I don't think 'harem' is the genre term you're looking for.
Second, I think the reason a film such as 'Her' has garnered so much attention compared to previous films of a similar nature is that the times we live in now are the closest we've ever been to actually creating artificial girlfriends. You also have to remember that something like human sexuality is VERY different in American and Japanese cultures. That being said, I don't think the film represents anything that hasn't already been presented to the mainstream. Has this sort of thing been done in anime before? Sure. But I don't think there's any parallel to be drawn between the two. It's just that now humanity's interest in such things is more piqued than it's ever been before (and, to be honest, humanity as a whole is pretty desensitized to these sorts of things, not just anime otaku). |
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Bango
 Posts: 1122 |
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I didn't know about this movie. It reminds me of one I saw when I was younger where a dude spilled wine on his computer keyboard and it gained sentience and fell obsessively in love with him or his girlfriend or something like that.
While Her doesn't seem like a harem at all (it's not a harem if there's only or 2 candidates. That's called a romance) I wouldn't say it's breaking new ground either. It's a logical progression of existing interests. Hollywood has done the magical girlfriend thing before so I don't think it's taking cues from anime specifically. I do get amused when people freak out at how new and awesome an idea is when we've been seeing them for decades. A friend of mine's brother was working on a novel where is big attention catcher was going to be people who could pull magic weapons out of their partners bodies. He actively avoids anime (I'd even say he even hates it) so it was pretty funny to see him raving at how awesome this very old and very anime idea was. Japan is going through the same thing with zombie apocalypse novels right now, apparently. The west is on it's 3rd zombie craze and they're just now catching on. |
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Vaisaga
 Posts: 13246 |
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Harem is not a genre, it's an element of a plot that involves more than 2 love interests. The term has been overly generalized and misused by people who don't like such shows.
The genre most 'harem' titles fall under is actually "romantic comedy," which Hollywood produces by the hundreds. |
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Spastic Minnow
 Bargain HunterExempt from Grammar Rules  Posts: 4640 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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From what I know about the film... I do have the pillow... everyone with a plain white pillow does. AFAIK "She" has no body at any point in the movie, not a virtual one, not a robot one.
And the situation is treated somewhat seriously. So, those distinctions do make it somewhat unique. And as for computer generated girlfriends (being separate from robot girlfriends), John Hughes got in pretty damn early on the trend (Weird Science-1985). Japan, anime and manga may have run with it a bit more than the West, but it isn't nearly a proprietary idea of anime. |
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marie-antoinette
 Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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Yeah, it definitely isn't a new idea, though having Samantha be only a voice is an interesting twist. But it sounds like the movie has an exceptional execution of the idea, which is why it's getting so much buzz.
I don't think it has a single connection to anime though, beside the fact that the story exists in that medium as well. |
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