What are your honest thoughts on harem stories?

[K_Jira]

I don't dislike harem, or reverse harem to take it to account, when they don't take themselves seriously. As an enjoyer of OP protagonists and revenge/face-slapping dramas, I don't hate wish-fulfillment stories. I don't like it though, when it's only for the sake of fanservice and the harem is just to attract more people, making the love interests cardboard cutouts.

My favorite harem is:

The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You​

(I copy-pasted this. Didn't mean to make it look like an announcement lol.)

Aijou Rentarou is definitely the best harem protagonist for me and the only harem protagonist (that I know of) who love his harem as much as his harem love him. If Komi Can't Communicate is a harem story, Tadano Hitohito will be my first pick, but it's not. So, Tadano is in a special, honorable list.

I digress. Either way, I don't hate harem.

 

[ForestDweller]

So many harems have too much of a generic sets of girls. And a generic mc as well.

Talking about manga here. I don't really read harems in this site.

And the artwork is usually terrible too. It just defeats the purpose of a harem manga.

I feel some harem authors don't actually want to write harem and they're just following the trend. Same with isekaishit. I sense no passion whatsoever, as if they just write to fill a checklist.

 

[Alfir]

Comedy. For me, it is definitely comedy, especially the satirical kind.

"A harem? You? Am I envious? No... It's funny, though..." -side character

Edit: Like "The Eminence in Shadow", the comedy bit always cracks me up.

 

[AnonUnlimited]

I feel like there is only one stick and it can't go into every hole at once.

 

[ShrimpShady]

I came of age in the days when harems were almost exclusively like Nisekoi, so I have grown to despise them

Mostly because those types of harems tend to be cheap, meandering slop.

Even the more modern polyamorous setups I see a lot in fantasy manga/novels that are more like actual harems don't really interest me. The wish-fulfillment aspect doesn't really appeal to me either ?‍

 

[RepresentingWrath]

I came of age in the days when harems were almost exclusively like Nisekoi, so I have grown to despise them

Mostly because those types of harems tend to be cheap, meandering slop.

Even the more modern polyamorous setups I see a lot in fantasy manga/novels that are more like actual harems don't really interest me. The wish-fulfillment aspect doesn't really appeal to me either ?‍

No calling out baiters in this thread same way you tried to call out me in GL thread?

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Maybe they're just looking for the Master Baiter?

 

[ShrimpShady]

No calling out baiters in this thread same way you tried to call out me in GL thread?

OP isn't baiting though?

 

[lydiawinehouse]

Been wondering, how do you guys actually feel about the whole harem genre?

Some love it, some think it’s trash, some say it's only good when it's done right (whatever that means).

I recently published a yuri harem novel, full-on lesbian, no dudes in sight, mostly because I felt like that kind of story is seriously missing out there.
Curious to hear where people stand. Do you read harem for the fantasy, the drama, the comedy, the wish-fulfillment? Or do you avoid it completely?

Let’s talk.

I am being honest, Harem is good when the writer balances it with the flow of the story, the main character does not prioritize too much one the harem that is the kind of Harem story that I prefer and I enjoyed. Answering your other question, yes I do read types of genre including Harem, fantasy, comedy and especially horror that I tried to make a harem kinda like story but the main was a girl, BUT I never read Yuri, I felt weird. Maybe Your will be the first story I will ever read in Yuri Genre.

I only read harem when there is a legitimate reason for one.

Religious, Political, Circumstancial, I am poly to begin with somethig like that.
Gimme a good reason why there should be a harem in the first place.

But person saves me, I fall in love and forget anything else and don't mind sharing we are now a happy big family. Because, why not?

No. Nope, not for me.

yes, I agree with you. I like it when every characters gives and deliver something in the movie, rather than being a supportive character especially if the character only know how to get recused.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

OP isn't baiting though?

Other people do.

 

[ShrimpShady]

Other people do.

Idk thread seems pretty ordinary to me

Except the both of us polluting it with unrelated replies

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Idk thread seems pretty ordinary to me

Except the both of us polluting it with unrelated replies

Oooh, I see, I see.

 

[JayMark]

MOOOOOOOOOOO!

Real men have harems.

And they aren't ashamed of it.

Nor will they pretend to be.

And the cows are happier that way too.

Milk and cheese for all.

Just ask them.

Moo.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

MOOOOOOOOOOO!

Real men have harems.

And they aren't ashamed of it.

Nor will they pretend to be.

And the cows are happier that way too.

Milk and cheese for all.

Just ask them.

Moo.

Real men are also often full of bull... :D

 

[Hoshino]

As someone who has watched almost every harem anime, its a good genre. True harems(like 100 Girlfriends, or Arifureta) are peak, and Fake harems(like Nisekoi, or the Quintessential Quintuplets ) make me depressed, and feel empty.

 

[ElenaV]

Why go harem when you can go polycule?
Maybe I am that person, who hates harem but accepts polycule. As someone mentioned in the thread above, for me harem is toxic and unhealthy. Polycule involves sharing.

 

[Lysander_Works]

I tend to avoid them. Rarely I will go for it if there is comedy gold inside of it, but even then its higher barrier of entry for me.
Reasons: They tend to focus more on the harem element than on story or character development element. Sometimes it's done well, but it's rare.

 

[laccoff_mawning]

I strongly dislike the harem genre. I feel like a lot of stories that do go down the harem route would just be better without it, and there are several obvious ways to go about doing this.

While neither of these are novels, Monthy Girls' Nozaki Kun and Nagatoro are both great examples of how you can add more than two characters without it becoming a harem.

Second reason, I don't have time to write all the pairings if they were to be monogamous.

Counterpoint: If you keep the same number of females in the story, then you'd need to write double the characters. But if you keep the same number of characters in the story (that is, plan the story with an even number of males and females), then it's going to be the same amount of character development anyway. If anything, you could argue it would be less work: if you have N characters, it's only N/2 romantic pairings you have to write as opposed to the N-1 romantic pairings you'd get in a standard harem.

As for why I dislike harems:
1. Less romantic value. Imagine a confession scene. MC builds his courage to confess to someone. It's cute, right? Now imagine the same scene except he's confessing to three people at once. It it still as cute? I've read a few stories (on NU) that have started out ok, without a harem tag, only for it to be introduced later for whatever ungodly reason and that's just disappointing.
2. Less character and relationship variation. Which is really ironic, if you think about it. To explain this, I should point out I'm not looking at a particular story, but at a large range of stories. If you have a single FMC, you can develop your MC and FMC very specifically to have a unique dynamic. What about in a harem? Since you spend less time developing the FMCs, you can't develop them as well. So despite each harem novel having a broader range of dynamics than a non-harem novel, collections of harem novels have smaller ranges of dynamics than non-harem novels.
3. Moral reasons- I don't want polygamy promoted IRL. Simple enough. I've heard some defend polygamy in stories by saying that they are just fiction and so they don't affect real life. I'm going to call that ridiculous. Maybe this is true for some harem novels, but I'm going to guess that most harem stories are self-insert wish fulfilment. If they are, then they glorify harems to be a good thing, and in doing so, promote polygamy/ poly relationships.

 

[DaelyxLenAuphydas]

Just like any romance, I will avoid it like the plague. Anything similar to it that I would be able to tolerate would be portraying it in a far more negative light than people generally will do.

 

[TheBestofSome]

I write harem, so one guess which side of the fence I'm on. That said, I don't like the fake harems (like Quintessential Quintuplets) because eventually the MC picks one of the girls, and all the rest just have to go to hell. Breaks my heart, especially if they're well written. And it's even worse if he doesn't pick one, because then everyone's just in limbo forever. If he couldn't commit to each and every one of them, then he had no business waffling around and leading them on for so long.

Cardboard cutouts or flavor of the month harems don't really interest me all that much either, but my biggest peeve with the genre is when the MC doesn't even do anything to earn the harem, and the girls just fall into his lap regardless. MC needs to be worthy of the affection he's given, or the whole thing feels hollow. Humans don't tend to be very good at sharing their partners either (for good reason), so there needs to be a justification that makes sense in story for why the girls are willing to give up exclusive rights to their partner.

Come to think of it, maybe that was part of why I put a harem in my story. I wanted to write a harem the way it ought to be written, if I could. I wanted to write a story that I would want to read.

Now that I think of it, a lot of the elements of my story are a reaction to common tropes I see in other stories. I got tired of the excitable MCs you often see in anime, so my MC is calm and measured, difficult (though not impossible) to ruffle. I hate when I find a good story but then discover that it was dropped halfway through, so I resolved to finish mine, no matter how long it takes. I don't like when the MC seems to be the only one who can do anything, so my supporting cast takes initiative, makes decisions, and acts on them independently of the MC. But I digress.

I think I read harem for much the same reason I read romance; the feelings, the developing of relationships, the growing of characters. There's probably more to it than that, though.

Also the cute girls. The cute girls are definitely a factor.