Day 26: Favorite harem anime
Jun. 13th, 2011 03:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sara_tanaquilI really think I chose the wrong version of this meme. Maybe when I'm done, I'll look up the questions in some of the less fanboy-obsessed versions and answer a few of those.
Favorite harem anime
I find the harem anime genre boring/irritating as a whole. The ones with a boy surrounded by girls are mostly male wish-fulfillment, and the rather smaller number that focus on a girl surrounded by boys often annoy me because I get sick of everyone falling for the main character. (This was a flaw in Fushigi Yuugi.) So I had to do a little googling to find out what anime make the harem list.
Here's one, at least, that I remember liking although I saw it umpteen years ago and haven't rewatched it since:
Ai Yori Aoshi. It's definitely male wish fulfillment, because the heroine is a super-traditional yamato nadeshiko, but I remember it being a really sweet romance, with the harem element played for comedy on the side. (I also remember being completely baffled about why one female character was obsessed with feeling up another female character's chest. I wasn't familiar with the concept of fan service at the time, and obviously I was not in the population being served.)
The site I consulted rated anime as either having harem as their central plot element, or harem as a secondary theme (most of the female-centered ones fall into the latter category). Since it fell into the secondary theme camp AND I've already used it once, the natural runner-up would be Ouran Host Club.
(I didn't mean for both of those to come out as seated portrait images...)
The same site also identified Fruits Basket as a secondary harem anime. (?) Based on this picture, maybe they have a point:
Fruits Basket certainly deserves a shout-out somewhere in this meme.
Favorite harem anime
I find the harem anime genre boring/irritating as a whole. The ones with a boy surrounded by girls are mostly male wish-fulfillment, and the rather smaller number that focus on a girl surrounded by boys often annoy me because I get sick of everyone falling for the main character. (This was a flaw in Fushigi Yuugi.) So I had to do a little googling to find out what anime make the harem list.
Here's one, at least, that I remember liking although I saw it umpteen years ago and haven't rewatched it since:
Ai Yori Aoshi. It's definitely male wish fulfillment, because the heroine is a super-traditional yamato nadeshiko, but I remember it being a really sweet romance, with the harem element played for comedy on the side. (I also remember being completely baffled about why one female character was obsessed with feeling up another female character's chest. I wasn't familiar with the concept of fan service at the time, and obviously I was not in the population being served.)
The site I consulted rated anime as either having harem as their central plot element, or harem as a secondary theme (most of the female-centered ones fall into the latter category). Since it fell into the secondary theme camp AND I've already used it once, the natural runner-up would be Ouran Host Club.
(I didn't mean for both of those to come out as seated portrait images...)
The same site also identified Fruits Basket as a secondary harem anime. (?) Based on this picture, maybe they have a point:
Fruits Basket certainly deserves a shout-out somewhere in this meme.
