What makes harems fucking fantastic?

What makes harems fucking fantastic?

the girls

Self-insertion fantasy.

You, the audience!

The MC in some harems make it fantastic.

being a delusional loser without a grasp on reality

this

I suppose pretending that all those hot girls want your bland dick is fun if you're delusional enough.

When the MC is good.

Lots of cute girls without moe/yurishit

Is this from an OVA? I don't remember this in the series.

Listen up you faggots.

Monogatari is NOT a harem. Arararagi walked Hitagi home gently.
Sword Art Online is NOT a harem. Kirito is dating Asuna and had sex with her. TWO YEARS WORTH OF GLOP.
Mahouka is NOT a harem. Onii-sama is asexual, and can only have feelings for Miyuki.
Nisekoi is NOT a harem. Ichijou is in love with Onodera, and as the title suggest, his love for Chitoge is FAKE.
Toradora is NOT a harem. Taiga fucking won.
Yahari is NOT a harem. 8man has been shown to have no romantic interest in any of them, just sexual attraction.
Danmachi is NOT a harem. Bell is clearly shown to only have interest in Ais.
Index is NOT a harem. Touma punches every girl he meets. That's not love.
Log Horizon is NOT a harem. Shirou is not a pedo, and the only other valid contender is Akatsuki.
Cross Ange is NOT a harem. Ange is straight and has no feelings for Hilda. Plus She and Tusk had SEX.
Absolute Duo is NOT a harem. Why do you think it's called Absolute DUO and not Absolute HAREM?
The World God Only Knows is NOT a harem. Keima confessed his love to Chihiro!
Dog Days is NOT a harem. Cinque and Millhiore declared their love for each other. Rebecca has no chance.
OreShura is NOT a harem. Eita is dating Silver. They even kissed in front of everyone.
Love Hina is NOT a harem. Keitaro and Naru got married and they love each other very much.
Saekano is NOT a harem. It's about how to raise _A_ boring girlfriend.
Rakudai is NOT a harem. Ikki proposes to Stella in vol 3!

I repeat: Rakudai is NOT A HAREM.

You know what's a harem? Asterisk. Asterisk is a shitty generic battle harem, unlike Rakudai, which is sophisticated and has a well though out romance.

its pretty much an ideal situation to be in as a male

Nothing, harem shit is for pathetic losers living vicariously through MC who usually looks like a generic asian guy to cater to majority of mooninites who all look the same. Really its just a genre for cucks.

yes

Wish fufilment.

but ichijou just decides that he doesn't care for onoderaa

What sells more Harem or Yuri?

That's an old copypasta of an ironic joke we had, he is making fun of people with low powerlevel because every one of those series is a harem.

Rakudai isn't though

That precise moment when the best girl wins.

nisekoi was shit and i've been hurt enough to read harem manga
so fuck you
>every fucking harem manga; mc wanted to confess; hurr durr i can't hear your or mind repeating that or shennanigan's happen.

>Monogatari
>SAO
>Mahouka
>Nisekoi
>Yahari
>Danmachi
>Index
>Log Horizon
>Absolute Duo
>World God only Knows
>DD
>Love Hina
>Saekano
>Rakudai

Harem

>Toradora
>Ange

Not Harem

That isn't bad in and of itself, but considering how long Nisekoi went on for it started to get fucking stupid.

Toradora was a harem near the end.

I miss non-battle harems anime.

Not that battle harem are bad, but I also enjoyed the shows about the guy living with the guy having erotic missunderstandings without plot or monsters distracting from what is really important, bath antics.

>Toradora was a harem near the end.
I can accept that statement as valid.

>NOT a harem. Ichijou is in love with Onodera, and as the title suggest, his love for Chitoge is FAKE
i'm mad as fuck when hurr durr i cried because the girl i in love since middle school is confessed on me yet i just want to fuck around with the other person

this shit should just end with 60 chapters
the only filler chapter is just tried to show sweet shit interaction between raku and the other girl

Those are the majority, though. I just don't understand why every harem MC has to be a generic useless piece of shit in those things, if you were going to self insert as some average looking motherfucker wouldn't you want him to actually be competent?

>Trinity Seven

Never have I seen an already mary sue protagonist become so mary sue

>Those are the majority

Well, overall you are probably right since "traditional harems" were always a thing, but in the last years we got more battle harems than traditional harems.

Ruri best girl.

The worst part is all of these battle harems are so cookie cutter and fucking identical that if you changed the names to another light novel of the same genre I would genuinely not catch on.

Actually I think this happened. It seems someone wrote a "Web novel" by literally copy pasting a light novel changing the names, the hair color of the girls (keeping the rest of the description intact) and the name of the magic system.

Of course, it didn't take long until someone realized, but about two weeks, it was a pretty sucessful web novel.

It just baffles me. I mean I'm not saying I could do better but you'd think people writing this stuff would want to do something other than copy the previous light novel they read. Especially since these are all power fantasies. The sky is the limit.

Okay, this is what same face looks like.

To be fair, they are just identycal at the beginning, then each one develops its own path. They are forced to do this because being serialized or not depends on how well sells the first volumes, so it relies in cheap formulas. Then from there onwards they can afford to do their own thing.

Problem is, we never really those parts since the anime only covers the first volumes, that are the ones that are identical.

I agree. Harems are fun when its just a bunch of girls undercutting and trying to get the MC's attention.
Battle harems are just shitty mary sue plots with a bunch of girls who happen to like the MC.

>that image
I've seen nearly every single one of those. What the fuck am I doing with my life?

isn't that when you try to stick your dick into your own ass

>ywn be gently femdommed by Ruri

>I've seen nearly every single one of those.
>What the fuck am I doing with my life?

If serves for something, I'm even worse, I not only saw almost every single one of those I also made that chart.

obvious bait is obvious.


no one likes harems

In what bizarro world?
99% of harems are fucking shit either from the get go or over time.
The MCs are pussies most of the time when they're not OP self inserts, and the main girl is an unlikable inhuman tsundere who in the real world would be in a mental home or prison not winning over girls who actually like the main character and/or make it clear from the get go.
Not to mention they all drag on way too long because of the aforementioned tsunderes or some other bullshit.
Just make a fucking School Battle Harem where the male characters act like they're from Animal house and if that fails just kill the genre.

Memes aside
I don't actually get why Rakudai is even considered a harem series. Not saying this because "the MC gets a girlfriend", the MC outright doesn't have a harem. What makes it different to any other general fanservice-heavy series?

Is there any reason why no one here seems to consider SZS a harem? Even if there was a nutty plot to it all the MC does knock up all of them in the manga ending even.

harem fans don't watch ZSZ

>What makes it different to any other general fanservice-heavy series?
the couple actually kisses

in the context of people calling it a harem I mean

focus on 2 main characters
other main girls have more interest in other boys later on

Machine doll is not a harem btw
You tricked me into watching it

Which is fine and all, but it's not a harem series (despite people saying otherwise)

I enjoy harem greatly, but I hate how MC always picks the wrong one

it is

it starts like how most of battle harem starts
it has harem elements in there
Anyway, Japan doesn't use the word "genre", they use "tag", bigger tag = bigger element, bigger affection, etc.

Fuck you

Only Yaya liked the dude

Rakudai is straight romance with only one girl liking him and his brocon sister which doesn't count

People who call it harem haven't watched it

>harems
>fantastic

I fail to see how this is a harem.

Ghost loli became a sister, underground girl got friendzoned, uppity tsundere princess is obsessed with blue knight, and cosplayer is useless

the fact that every girl wants to fuck him isn't enough?

Watch Seitokai no Ichizon and you will understand what's the best about harem.

This user has so many amazing delusions.

>Mahouka is NOT a harem. Onii-sama is asexual, and can only have feelings for Miyuki.

Half of the Girls on the Earth wants his D, and because his feelings are blocked he cannot love anyone.

>Nisekoi is NOT a harem. Ichijou is in love with Onodera, and as the title suggest, his love for Chitoge is FAKE.

Have you read manga until the end? Raku ends with Chitoge, with Onodera stating she lost.

>Yahari is NOT a harem. 8man has been shown to have no romantic interest in any of them, just sexual attraction.

Hachiman has some feelings to all of the girls in the show, but because he is awkard and doesn't like people, he will not show anything to them. Just to his Tennis friend, who looks like girl.

>Log Horizon is NOT a harem. Shirou is not a pedo, and the only other valid contender is Akatsuki.

Log Horizon is not Harem, every person has one "loved one" so get over it.

>Dog Days is NOT a harem. Cinque and Millhiore declared their love for each other. Rebecca has no chance.

And with this one you made yourself dumber. Every girl in Dog Days wants his dick, and because they are still very young he doesn't have any feelings to any of them. Harem ending confirmed!

>Index is NOT a harem. Touma punches every girl he meets. That's not love.

Touma is gay!

There is more than one girl who directly interacts with the MC, that apparently makes it a harem

>"it's not a harem because I like it!"
this sums up why the majority of people who watch anime are retarded

ジャンル is japanese genre and I've seen it used quite a bit.

Shitposts aside, this guy is partially right. A harem is only a harem if the protagonist has roughly equal chances of ending up in a romantic relationship with any of the female characters. If he doesn't even express romantic interest or potential romantic interest isn't presented to the viewer, then it's just a series with a majority of female cast members.

the main character attracts the attention of a million girls through out the series, regardless of whether or not they give up later.

Harem, romance, comedy, ecchi, they are 4 different genres that most people confuse and mix all the time.

Let's begin saying that any type of series is composed of multiple elements, these elements can be categorized and divided by genre, each genre have multiple ways of being done and expressed, they can consume a bit or small part of the series, but the genre exist to just give you a general idea of what content you can expect.

The fantasy genre can be making reference of a fantasy setting, or fantasy elements on a modern day world, etc, let's also say that multiple genres can work and be present at the same time and they are Not mutually exclusive.

The reason why regular people have troubles identifying harem series as such, is because they have a wrong definition of the harem genre, they think that a series is considered harem when multiple girls fall in love with the mc when that's not the case, when you look at the structure of the series the girls fall in love with the mc because they are part of a harem setting, the falling in love is a consequence of mixing the romance genre with the harem genre, the falling in love is not what defines the genre.

The harem genre consist of having a male protagonist (who can be genderbend, tuned into something else for plot reasons) interacting with multiple heroines, this structure will keep trowing heroines in the way of the mc or it will keep putting the same set of heroines in the way of the mc, no romance is needed to define the genre, but as I said before, multiple genres work at the same time and this harem genre have good synergy with genres like romance, comedy and ecchi.

The only people who legitimate complain about the harem genre for being like it is are the yuri fans because they don't want the male lead and want only the heroines, the rest of the people who complain about harem series are actually complaining about other genres:
continued in the next post....

so then, since Kirito doesn't like anyone other than Asuna (and until further notice it will remain that way), that means that all the girls lusting after his dick are just girls lusting after his dick?
holy shit

continued...

no romantic progression? mc being dence? misunderstandings? jealousy between pretenders? complain about the romance genre because it is the one in charge of handling that, go watch regular romance series like nijiro days and isshuukan friends to find male leads doing exactly the same thing.
The mc groping the girls? finding girls nude in the bath? undressing girls by accident? horny characters being plot devices for perversion? complain about the ecchi genre, go watch keijo, ikkitousen, etc, and you will find the same.

You can have harem series where the mc isn't romantically loved, you can have a harems where only one heroine romantically love the mc, you can have a harem where only 2 heroines love the mc , you can have a harem where multiple heroines love the mc, or you can have a harem where the whole cast love the mc, the harem genre is called harem because from the point of view of an outsider the mc is constantly helping new heroines, or he finds himself being involved with the same ones giving the illusion of him "having a harem" of girls, most of the variations of the harem genre are found in VNs but they rarely get animated.

A lot of fans can instantly identify harem series but they have troubles explaining the type of variations when a lover is decided or when there is no romance, the thought process of them is "it follows the same patterns of all the harem series I watched so it is a harem with variations", and they are not too far off, because as long as a portion of the series is about the mc dealing with multiple heroines individually or in conjunction the harem genre is in place, the rest of the story, cast, development, etc is up to the writer to craft the work he wants and add all the genres he likes (fantasy, action, ecchi, genderbend, sci-fi, romance, horror, slice of life, comedy, etc etc).

>Just make a fucking School Battle Harem where the male characters act like they're from Animal house and if that fails just kill the genre
First off, Japan would never like the kind of vulgar comedy style that Animal House uses, they're far too herbivore now. Second, how the fuck do you intend to kill the genre just because this idea would fail. Third, it should be a Battle Harem where the male characters act like they're from the Blues Brothers, the superior John Belushi comedy.

those are what Jap consider classic harem:

天地無用![10]
ラブひな[10]
To LOVEる -とらぶる-[11]
セキレイ (漫画)[11]
エルフェンリート[12]
杏花天[13]
ごくせん（原作）[2]
花ざかりの君たちへ[2]
ちりとてちん[2]

>its a harem because the guy interacts with more than one girl even if they don't love him

Looks like I have a harem too then

>Monogatari is NOT a harem. Arararagi walked Hitagi home gently.
Who cares? He still flirts and gets incredibly touchy with almost every other girl in the series, plus hes pretty prepared to live forever with Shinobu. On top that, it's pretty easy to tell that he still has feelings for Hanekawa.

>Third, it should be a Battle Harem where the male characters act like they're from the Blues Brothers, the superior John Belushi comedy.
Even if you were right, which you are not, Animal House would be a perfect fit in this stale Battle Harem sub-genre. All the fucking characters in these series are either bland as fuck, or are 'oh woe is me, weight of world on shoulders, my pain is greater than yours' bullshit.
Would it kill Japan to use the WORLD WIDE web and look up how actual high school and college students act if they want to make good characters and not giant styrofoam cutouts?

it's not a harem if the girls interact with another guys more than you

Damn my mom talks with my dad and my sister talks with other guys

There goes my harem

Your shit taste.

>You're shit taste
ftfy friend.

Monogatari is a really weird subversion of harem. Araragi does get frisky with the other girls, but he has proven himself to be committed to Hitagi (at least until she dies of old age).

Araragi is the viewpoint character but Nisioisin goes out of his way to establish that Araragi is not a blank self-insertable stock character and has his own thoughts, feelings, and relationships with the people around him. Araragi has strict policies against getting too close to anyone who isn't Hitagi or Shinobu because of his (albeit twisted) sense of morals.

>weird subversion
>"strict" policies
there are tons of harems with this "weird subversion"

That wasn't even my main point. Araragi is almost immediately established as committed to Hitagi. Most harems where the protagonist has policies like Araragi's is where they a policy to not get involved in a relationship AT ALL, leading to MISUNDERSTANDINGS and EHHHHH.

I'm sure there's other harem series where the protagonist is quickly put into a "serious" relationship, but I don't know of any that play it as straight and carefully as Monogatari.

I'd also say that Monogatari's openness about sexuality and comparing sexual attraction vs romantic attraction is a big contributor to setting it apart from other harem series.

It sounds like Kyon is technically the MC of a harem show.
>Undercharacterized (we don't even know his real name, much less what he does when he isn't interacting with or thinking about his clubmates)
>Plot railroads girls towards him
>Plot is entirely about his interactions with those girls

haruhi is a harem series, this was never in doubt, what? also the mc doesn't need to be undercharacterized, his personality can go from a beta, to a pervert, to a gary stu, to a more complex character depending of good is the author

Haruhi is more of a high school drama than a harem anime. The cast is fairly balanced and the story revolves around Haruhi rather than Kyon.

your lack of taste

>Araragi is almost immediately established as committed to Hitagi.
You seem to be ignoring that he has a serious relationship with the vampire in his shadow which she points out herself will outlast Hitagi.

And the little red haired girl, and the two blonde sisters, and the dumb white haired bitch, even the rival guy was tsundere for MC

yes and it was shit, reminded me again to avoid OVAs of tv series I liked

Which is also a subversive aspect, because it introduces a dynamic of futility where no matter what decisions Araragi makes he will outlive everyone else and ultimately end up with Shinobu.

But as long as he stays human he'll grow into an adult alongside Hitagi and live a fairly normal life. So in the short term (the scope of the series), his romantic relationship with Hitagi is devoted. You also have to take into account that Araragi's relationship with Shinobu is so fucked up that it can't really be compared to normal interpersonal relationships. They're inseparable, two sides of the same coin.

all the girls are deeply involved with kyon and their interaction consume most of the time, the other males are there as circumstantial plot devices with little screen time, the main girl having privileges is a given, kyon meeting haruhi and all the girls leading to experiencing a lot of weird situations is a variation of old harems with "a girl falls from the sky and change the life of the mc and the girls involved", the show follows a generic harem structure all the way

Looks like if endless eight made people forget that haruhi s1 was a generic harem comedy with some fantasy and episodes out of order as it's gimmick...

Well, "Harem" genre its what it is. Lot of the harems have a single winner but that doesn't make them less "harem".

Because "Harem" is a genre or an element inside other genre, it doesn't identify with the traditional meaning of the word harem. It doesn't need to have a proper harem end either to be a harem just being harem during most part of the series is enough to qualify as harem.

The same way we call "comedy" to lot of things that doesn't really fit the traditional concept of "comedy".

We of course can disagree with the term, and call it whatever we want, if you don't like "harem" you can call it "romcom with lot of girls liking the same guy" but "harem" is the widespread term to call that kind of show, and we have to deal with it.

SZS IS a harem, but doesn't have harem end.

The series are harem, that can't be denied, but at the end he ends marriying and divorcing all the girls in an eternal cycle, so...the ending its basically the oposite to a harem end, because he is never with all at the same time.

Although, there are lot of harems that doesn't have an harem end, so its fine.

By your logic only Code Geass is a harem because everyone has feelings for Lelouch yet no one won, meaning everyone won

I think a better example would be Chuunibyou. The main lead hangs out in a club with a bunch of girls, but only Rikka and S2's Satone actually have any romantic interest in him. Shinka doesn't want to be with him (to the frustration of many an user here who isn't into it), Deko clearly prefers Rikka and Shinka to him, and Kumin just wants a clubroom to sleep in.

the type of relationship between the characters is irrelevant when you tag series with genres, don't confuse romance with harem, as long as the mc have to deal with a bunch of autistic girls like in chuunibyou the series will be considered a harem

It's pretty much harem and shitposting from beginning to end. Anyone that doesn't think it was a harem is mentally handicapped.

Ai Yori Aoshi plays it far stricter than Monogatari.

Kaoru is essentially married to Aoi and they are beyond deeply in love from volume one on. And Ai Yori Aoshi was one of the closest succesors and clones of Love Hina despite taking the relationship and drama far more seriously.

And besides that, I'd argue against Araragi taking the relationship that seriously as you describe it at all. He doesn't even date or do anything romantic with Senjougahara until the end of the 2nd book (before that they're basically just study partners with her calling them boyfriend/girlfriend), and they don't get "serious" until the end of Karen Bee. And before, during, and after that he's fucking around with, flirting, and repressing himself (badly) from lustin aftre the other 9 or 10 girls in his harem. And all that's ignoring his far deeper relationship with Bat.

Allow me to end this entire thread and its arguments:

A harem is any manga/series with one primary male character surrounded by a bunch of women who have SOME kind of interest in him. Even if that interest is NEGATIVE (which is never really is anyway). Doesn't matter if he's in a committed relationship, doesn't matter if he doesn't like any of the girls and is a fag, nothing matters.

One guy surrounded by lots of girls = harem.

That's how it's always been, that's how it'll always be. The only people who try to argue otherwise are (a) people in denial who don't want a property they like to be classified as a "harem" because of the implied negative overtones or (b) people who are trying to be pretentious and argue the term is far more complicated then it really is.

The End.

It's a simple and accurate description for 1 type of harem series, the type where he is actively surrounded by girls, but there are also harems where the mc interact with the girls individually, harems where the interaction with the girls is sporadic because the plot is more important, etc, I explained it in detail because if you don't do then people keep having misconceptions and say "IS is harem because all the girls are around him, but monogatari is not because mc is with one girl at the time!, and log horizon is not because he only spend some time with the girls and the adventure plot is more important!", as long as it is clear that "a male lead interacting with multiple heroines, regardless of relationship, type, time, space, as long as he dedicate a portion of the series to interact with those heroines, it is a harem series" I'm fine with it .

It's not about being pretentious, it's about making a clear description for the amount of new people I see everyday hoping they will have a decent enough argument to understand the medium, one of the genres I like the most like it is harem, to help them be less angry and discriminative, so they can be smarter than previous generations, because this medium is all about being entertained and have fun.

>it's just a series with a majority of female cast members.
Except that IS a harem when the female cast revolves around a male character, regardless of how the romance plays out. It isn't isn't dictated by the relationship dynamics in the series, but by the cast structure and gender ratio. A harem exists for the audience, not the MC, so the important thing is a variety of girls for you to choose from an a male to self insert as.