Apr
22
How I learned to stop worrying and love the Harem
April 22, 2007 |
This is one of those articles where I can’t think up an interesting topic and I’m writing purely to keep up with my self-imposed schedule, so excuse me if it seems uninspired.
I recently watched Amaenaidayo, a rather generic fanservice anime with a mind-numbing plot and cliched characters and, shoot me, I actually thoroughly enjoyed it. It wasn’t special, it wasn’t brilliant or intellectually stimulating and most other critics would happily can it, but I found it incredibly fun and entertaining. I laughed at the jokes, I found myself caring about and liking the characters and, hell, I even dug the tsundere romance. And, yet, this is the type of anime that, just a few years ago, I’d have rather killed myself than watch. I think I’m starting to get more tolerant of harem anime as I see more of them, and come to understand the formulae they follow, their tendencies, their strengths and weaknesses. I mean, harem anime get canned by many a critic for various reasons, usually for not being intellectually inspiring or breaking long-set molds and while such criticisms are probably fair, they’re not really intending to be that way in any case. It’s mindless entertainment and as long as it can deliver on that, and actually be entertaining, then I can’t complain about it at all.
That’s not to say I’ve suddenly become a defender of harem anime. Shuffle! remains one of the most mediocre, inane stories I’ve come across, even now with my increased tolerance (a second viewing and the horrible recap series showed me this). Da Capo (both series) is a total waste of time and the new fanservice romp, Nagasarete Airantou… well, as I’ve said before, I’d drop that if I dropped series. But, fanservice series like Amaenaidayo and Girls Bravo and even Tsuyokiss at times are enjoyable and manage to succeed in their lowly intentions: ie, to make their audience (me) laugh. Hell, there are even some serious harem series that are appreciable. Canvas 2 would have been an enthralling drama had it not completely stalled in the middle. People may even point to prominent visual novels like Air, Higurashi and one of my personal favourites, Kanon and call those examples of good harem drama series (though I wouldn’t call any of those harem series myself). Type Moon adaptations Lunar Legend Tsukihime and Fate/Stay Night also have a few harem elements, but the focus of both are anything but the standard harem-isms. And while we’re on the topic of -isms, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya has (unfairly) been labelled a harem by some, and most people reading this are probably well aware of my opinion of that series.
But this discussion isn’t about harem-ish anime, it’s about genuine harem: the type with a gaggle of girls surrounding a single male lead who has less personality than a plank of wood, with inane fanservice, an up-in-the-air romance that’s generally unconvincing, dreary attempts at comedy and a plot that makes your head hurt (excuse the pans, but that’s more often than not the case). But, I don’t lie when I say I have been genuinely enjoying a few genuine anime of late, far more so when I was completely intolerant of them in my younger days. Such increasing tolerance of what is, in all honestly, low-brow entertainment is rather odd (or at least that was the impression I was under), since I always thought that people got harder to please the longer they had been watching anime for.
So, since I’m too lazy to write stuff myself, I’ll treat this post as a discussion starter and throw the question to the readers: have you found yourself becoming more tolerant of anime’s basement dwelling genre (or any other genre or anime cliche for that matter) as you’ve become more and more versed with the medium, or are you one of those who could watch harem all day as a noob, but would rather gouge out your eyes than watch another one these days?
Comments
4 Comments so far
Strangelove?
>_> moving on…
I have to say, I agree with you partially. I mean, I can really like a show that I would review badly. Like, to me, reviewing is more than just what I personally enjoy, but more of an assessing of an anime’s strengths, weaknesses, and appeals. There’s some opinion from it, but I can derive entertainment very easily from almost anything. In all honesty, I’ll admit - sometimes I watch beyblade before going to school. It’s a great show to watch when you’re half awake and eating cereal with freeze dried fruit that hasn’t fully been absorbed with water - to me. I’m sure others will disagree. Is it a good show? Hell no. But it’s good to let one’s hair down every once in awhile an indulge in a, for a lack of better term, “guilty pleasure.” And yeah, some harem anime fall into that category - vandread. Laughably bad, but somehow endearing.
I’ve never been a big fan of harem anime, even though my good friend whom I got into anime with absolutely loved(s) the stuff. It just never really clicked with me, even when it was something new.
If anything, I’ve become even more disinterested in harem anime the more familiar I’ve become with anime, as I realize just how little inspiration goes into the genre. Saying something never intended to be more than mindless entertainment isn’t going to make me look at it any different. I’m more interested in what something actually is than in what it is trying to be.
Despite this, I have my own guilty pleasures in the world of anime. I have quite a fondness for Yu Yu Hakusho, enough to buy all the R1 DVDs, even though it’s little more than a shounen action series. I also get way more enjoyment out of reading Negima! manga than I should be getting from something of that quality.
Hmm…. I was never really a big fan of harem.
My first exposure of it was probably from Love Hina manga, which I thought was absolutely hilarious. But I didn’t started watching some harem anime until later on, and there was a period of time when I watched a few at once, like Maburaho, Shuffle, Magikano, which I thought were all aboslutely disastrous. Complete waste of my time. They were all filled with silly jokes, with very little plot, and in general I am a person that needs character development in order to be entertained, which they barely provided any.
I ended up watching Love Hina anime and was literally skipping episodes. It was a major disappointment for me cause one I read the manga and found it entertaining, and two many people said the anime was just as good, but it wasn’t.
To sum up, I was never a big fan of harem, and still am not. I read your entry and thought about picking up Amaenaide yo, so I anidb-ed it and read the description of the first season, was going to download it, but then saw that there was a second season, and the description went like this:
“In this sequel, a girl named Kazuki joins up with the 6 girls and Ikkou. With Kazuki around, Ikkou will find himself in more embarrassing situations with these nuns-in-training.”
And all of a sudden my interest in this series just went into the dumpster.
I think the biggest problem I have with harem is the lack of conclusion, or rather, the lack of development leading to a good conclusion. Most harem’s ending comes abruptly and without a good setup, and it’s hard for me to find enjoyment in shows like that.
On the other hand, I have been entertained immensely by Hayate no Gotoku, and that’s probably because the character interactions there are quite interesting. I think if more harems focused less on the silly side and more on the characters’ side, I would start watching more of them.
I find it interesting that I thoroughly enjoyed the beginner’s pack of harem/idiot boy meets girl anime (Love Hina, Chobits, Tenchi) before I abandonned the genre has a pile of garbage. The reason I found this interesting is because I did the exact same thing to the mech genre and the shounen action genre. After a few shows here and there, nothing seemed to be new and shiny any more.
The crap to gold ratio for anime is pretty bad (especially with the harem genre since such shows are cheap and easy to produce.) After watching one piece of mediocrity after another, I became jaded to practically all anime and seriously considered quitting the medium.
Ultimately, Elfen Lied and “policy changes” changed my mind. I became super-selective and killed my completionist attitude for anime (Currently, I drop about half the anime I watch… although 2007 is going strong.)
I give hyped shows five episodes to entertain me, and new shows one. Sure, at first, half of my brain went batshit crazy at the new policy, but I was able to derive more entertainment per show and, thus, watched more anime as a result.
However, a part of me wanted to see the good old mindless harem, mecha and shounen action anime I started out with.
This is why when shows I love shows like Zero no Tsukaima and Code Geass. They might not have unforgettable stories, but they are sure as hell entertaining to watch. After watching several shows here and there, I realized that I really have no innate hatred for any genre (save guro). I just got caught up in the trap of “quality” and somehow lost sight of “fun.”