Explain the appeal of Harem Anime

[happyninja42]

TL,DR: The reason Kirito comes across as a 'douchebag' as has been put above is that he's actually quite traumatised as a person. But the anime (and even the light novels to an extent, compared to the original stuff) make lighter of this than they should. There's plenty of reasons to dislike Kirito (personally I'm not a big fan of the "brilliant at everything" thing, stretched to the limit in the GGO arc and using a sword in a gun fight) but this particular part of his personality is one that I find hard to find fault with.

I never got the "he's an asshole" vibe from the anime. Seemed pretty clear that he was gunshy of being around people due to personal hangups and fear of people dying around him, and him blaming himself for it.

And I wouldn't say he's "brilliant at everything", just anything that involves a sword. Though I personally think he's got "admin" level access in some ways to the various games built off the Seed. I'm curious what else he does that you think he's brilliant at in the anime?

 

[crimsonspear4D]

Kirito. The Kirito from SAO. You think THAT Kirito is a douchebag?

Are you sure you aren't thinking of Abridged Kirito?


And being undeserving of the women after them? Yeah, your choice of wording is probably showing a lot you weren't intending, but good LORD is it unfortunate.

As for that cake thing, again, what harem anime have you been watching? The closest I've seen that meets that is Nothing really gets resolved and the misadventures continue.

The only thing that separates abridged!SAO from the real thing (other than it's superior writing, humor, characters, etc.) is that it removes the veneer of Kirito's imposed self-flagellation and hyper-competency building him as some badass anti-hero and make what he actually is: just a moody dick. His actions in the show go against all logic and reason and whatever tragedies and hardships he encounters just seem to exist to build up his "growth". The abridged ver. exaggerates a lot, obviously, but not only does it do FAR BETTER with the SAME material, it pretty much does it while still following the main beats of the show.

Uck, dude at this point in my life I can't even remember what crap anime I've seen, let alone the harem ones. What I do remember is the sum total feel of an ocean liner's worth of disappointment, boredom, and oddly anger congealed together over a period of time. I tend not to remember, therefore not revisit, anime shows that either bored or irritated me even if I still watched them out of... I guess completionist's sake.

I'll give you Monster Musume and To Love Ru, but SAO, no; I haven't watched all of RE:Z so other than the Subaru himself I can't comment on how that show handled it's romance subplots. I don't mean that ALL current gen harem protaganists are either creeps or rapists, but some like SAO's Kirito or Dungeon girl's Bell or Asterisk war, and other such shonen harem bullshit suffer from other character draws: being douchebags. Not an eloquent description and vague at best, but think of them as people undeserving of a following of women behind them. But that's the harem genre for you.

And while I have seen a few before him, I view Kirito, mostly because he's the one most others try to ape off of, as the poster child for this type of character archetype.

Don't you think equating a cold jerk with things such as "molester", "sexual predator", or "pervert" as being especially egregious, inflammatory and all in all messed up?


And no, Kirito is just detached early on cause he focuses on clearing the game without getting anybody else killed for that matter but that's also kinda besides the point. Hell I don't even really care for SAO personally so that you have me defending it is all kinds of messed up. Not seen Asterisk War but Bell in danmachi is nothing like Kirito either, he is easygoing and happy. People describe him as a "white bunny" for crying out loud, what jerk lends himself to this description. And he is the one being molested in his sleep by Hestia every day and twice on sunday.

I'm sorry but all that you say is factually incorrect and I fail to see how anyone can rationally reach such a conclusion. You sound like you decided on what your conclusion would be and tried to find the slightest inklings of evidence to support it while in the same time ignoring the tons of evidence contradicting it.

I wasn't "equating" Kirito, or any of those character I listed as being on par with molesters or sexual predators I said characters like him have their own category, that of being smug, angsty, jerks or clueless, whiny, preachy little snots, but all of them ending being shallow and boring by them essentially being clones of one another. And its worse that these are features, not bugs, so that the viewer insert themselves as the character. My main argument was that they are, for whatever reason you or anybody, not at all likeable characters and yet because reasons they have gaggles of girls showing romantic/sexual interest in them alone.

And I kind of view Bell as kind of jerk. I mean, no one is that thick they can't notice someone that's sprung for them that hard and just not notice, the near-miss confessions and tsundere attitudes get irritating after the first several times. But y'know, that's the genre's writing for you; stretching what could take a few, maybe even one, episode and turning into an entire season.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I wasn't "equating" Kirito, or any of those character I listed as being on par with molesters or sexual predators I said characters like him have their own category, that of being smug, angsty, jerks or clueless, whiny, preachy little snots, but all of them ending being shallow and boring by them essentially being clones of one another. And its worse that these are features, not bugs, so that the viewer insert themselves as the character. My main argument was that they are, for whatever reason you or anybody, not at all likeable characters and yet because reasons they have gaggles of girls showing romantic/sexual interest in them alone.

And I kind of view Bell as kind of jerk. I mean, no one is that thick they can't notice someone that's sprung for them that hard and just not notice, the near-miss confessions and tsundere attitudes get irritating after the first several times. But y'know, that's the genre's writing for you; stretching what could take a few, maybe even one, episode and turning into an entire season.

You said:
" Not like now, where a guy could be some creepy fuck or an actual serial sex offender and get rewarded for it by having girls gleefully wanting to throw away their humanity so they can be his domesticated wife slave and baby factory."

If that is not an unfair description of literally every protagonist that comes to mind, I don' know what else you can call it.


If you wish to say that, based on your criteria, you determine the characters undeserving of attention, well, love is irrational and affection happens outside of logic. In the real world you have women staying with men who beat them and stuff, if not worse, clearly there is precedent in reality for affection that defies logic. To come out and describe it as being removed from plausibility just because it goes against your notions of right and wrong or of how the world should be is the height of folly. You don't get to decide such things. Nobody does. What you have to do is respect the wishes of the characters and try to see it from their eyes and be happy for them as they chase their dreams, no matter weather their dreams might be someone else's nightmare.


Bell is legitimately not a jerk, if you think, based on your common sense, that he should realize something he doesn't, that is a show of him being dense. I can't fathom how you can see malice in that. If anything it is an element of comedy, the especially blockheaded protagonist is a thing too. Still, there's no actual malice there so the likening to the edgy brooding archetype attempted here falls flat.

You expecting normal-life common sense from anime and deciding that its lack means characters are jerks (and not that anime is not like real life) is an act of such sheer bias in you, wanting to fault-find for its own sake, that whatever you say is tainted by it. Someone just taking in the story as a normal audience member trying to enjoy themselves won't take issue with any of this stuff.

 

[Lightspeaker]

I'm curious what else he does that you think he's brilliant at in the anime?

Its perhaps the wrong way for me to put it that way in the first place because its not quite the sentiment I was going for, however: he is consistently and repeatedly the key person who overcomes issues. No specific big incident but many others that add up. Situations where, frankly, there was no need to have him 'take the glory' and be the 'saviour'. Which is disappointing because it robs other characters of interesting things.

As a couple of examples:
- When he was poisoned and Asuna came to his rescue. His ability to fight off the poison and throw it off was somewhat silly. As was the fact he was the one who killed the guy who was trying to murder him. As I understand from what I've read originally it was Asuna who killed him, which would have been a far more interesting scenario. But it was changed to make Kirito, once again, the saviour.
- Searching for the ore to forge his second sword with Lisbeth. There was absolutely no reason why SHE couldn't have been the one to make the deduction as to how to get the ore. But nope, had to be Kirito. Who also worked out how to get them out of the hole. The whole episode was something of a missed opportunity for Lisbeth.

There's more but I'm not going to write an essay here. Its not any particular big thing, its just something I found to be a little exhausting. He's the main character, sure, but giving other characters the opportunity to shine lets the whole cast be built up to be more interesting. Its part of why I like the Mother's Rosario arc so much; because not only is Asuna pretty much the single best character in the show, it was an entire arc specifically about her and her relationship with Yuuki and concluded with Asuna getting some big changes and thus a welcome break from Kirito's constant character development of awesomeness.

And I kind of view Bell as kind of jerk. I mean, no one is that thick they can't notice someone that's sprung for them that hard and just not notice, the near-miss confessions and tsundere attitudes get irritating after the first several times.

You are misunderstanding Bell Cranel's character. Again, the books do far more with this. But I'll make this very short to try to avoid spoilers:
Bell has grown up in a very psychologically weird state. He was raised by his Grandfather alone, with basically no women or girls in his life before moving to the city. This has left him as extremely inexperienced and thus incredibly shy around them. But he was ALSO raised to be incredibly womanising in outlook by said Grandfather. Hence the result you describe.