I'm sorry but this question has always been bugging me for a long time. I want to see what gender has to do with the harem genre. Which gender do harem haters mostly consist of.
Name: otaku31 Sex: Male Gender: Identifies as man Affiliation: Non-harem, but can tolerate harem if tastefully done
There is a big difference between JP harem and CN harem. Usually in JP harem you get a girl for each archetype, tsundere etc, but in the CN it is usually several of the strong independent girls who somehow completely misplaces all of her character development the moment she falls for the MC. The JP girls are usually part of the plot while the CN girls are kidnapping fodder.
It might be controversial, but I happen to enjoy harem novels when done right. However, with the great popularity of the genre, the majority of the novels simply use "harem as a replacement for personalities". The members are often 1-dimensional drones, while the mc usually gets a "I must fix everything wrong in the world"-syndrome and everything falls into place too easily. As such novels progress, all events start to happen due to the 1-dimensional harem drones (in cn's some cardboard young master demands for the mc to hand over all the drones). The story turn's bland real quick. In fact, any novel in which the characters lack "character" and personalities is something I try to avoid.
Im a girl and usually avoid harems/reverse harems but if i dont have anything to read and find a good one mostly comedy or revenge jp ln, ill read it.
I'm a middle age man and grew up on harem and Iove polygons: Robotech, Kimegure Orange Road, Tenchi Muyo, etc. The #1 rule of the harem story: the protagonist must be more troubled by the harem than enjoy it. Otherwise he is just an annoying show off.
Most harems are done pretty horribly, so unless I’m really interested in a novel’s synopsis and tags, I usually ignore them.
Male. Depends. Usually though, no. I don't read a lot of harem (or enjoy it, it's meh). But I wouldn't hold it against someone for reading and forming their own opinion on it so. Eh.
i absolutely despise harems in an action or adventure book. it usually portrays the mc as really strong and the people in the harem as weak and always needing the mc to save them. i also dont really like romance in action or adventure themed books.
I’m a girl. I’ll enjoy some reverse harems, depending on how well done they are. I hate regular harems, although sometimes I’ll end up enjoying one because I don’t realize it’s a harem right away, an example being SAO, where it’s established almost immediately that Asuna is the one and only love interest for Kirito. By the time I realized it was actually a harem, I was already too invested to drop it, although there have been multiple times I’ve considered dropping it, not just for the harem reason. I suppose I became victim to the sunk cost fallacy.
Sex:Male I find that many jp novels are called a harem just because multiple girls like a protagonist so I don't pay much attention to harem tags in that case. Cn novels can have the imperial harem intrigue which is fine by me if written well. Most harem stories though are self-indulgent with poor characterization, that exist solely for wish fulfillment. Why waste time on that when you could just watch porn?
Sex: male I think harems can't make for good romance. The fact you are dividing your attention between multiple people means each connection will be that much more shallow. I don't mind harems as erotic material but I don't like them in romance or where the relationship betweeen characters is important.
I am a Man, and i like Harems, and love them if skillfull, with no Trophy Wives and no shallow personalities. If the Wives are left out, of the Story, after they become lover with MC, then i hate such Harems, it leaves a bad aftertaste. I have seen VERY rarely a Novel where MC shares his Cheat/peak Cultivation Technique with is Wives, helps his wives search for treasures/Divine food suited for them or makes them Pills or others things so that they can help him and not just be left out. Villager Anonymous made me remember something, that for me it is wrong, or at least strange, to read a Harem Novel, where more than 1 woman loves the MC, but MC stays true to only 1 Girl and MC end up with only this Single Girlfriend/Wife at the end of Novel.
My condition with harem is that the girls have to be genuinely on board with it, and the guy needs to be very cautious about what he does.
Meh I don't mind it. I don't really expect a well written harem to add a lot to the story, but a bad harem won't necessary ruin a story either. Ultimately harem is just one facet of the story, I'm more likely to drop a story for having a poor narrative, or an annoying protagonist, than I am for having a harem. Now I'm a guy so when I think of harem it is one guy, multiple women. Although lately I have been curious about the reverse harem. The only thing that bugs me is first it is never a proper harem, just a game of "who will she pick" second the guy harems never seem to have any variety, they all just look like rich douchebags.
I voted I'm fine with it if it's good, but frankly most 'harem' novels aren't harems, just extended love triangles(love polygons?). If the MC isn't married/sleeping/etc. with more than one person by the end then it's not a harem, however many potential people are hovering around. I don't usually read a book for the romance anyway though. I pick up one with Romance as a genre at most once or twice a year.
Well, men are the ones who think of harem the most, it's historically proved(although there are other circumstances to it than just lust) and it's mainly due to the mayority of men being lustful bastards(....let's accept it guys we are.....). I would like to say that women are the ones who hate harems the most, you know since harem is usually one man with several women, and when the woman is surrounded by several men is called reverse harem, nowadays a men with multiple parnerts is synonym of the men being garbage(which is usually true in real life....). Not to mention that the mayority of the harem genre novels are normally shit in either, the execution, the MC, the heroines, the relationship between the MC and the heroines, etc. Also, there are novels that are being called harem genre but they neve end with a true harem ending(those truly piss me off....)moreso when the choosen heroine really is not worth anything, she is not even worth the bother(and this happens really often......)....really, if it's not going to end in a harem then don't make it look like that at all, don't even dare to call it a harem novel either............the number of harem novels which i can really approve are little, just because it's harem doesn't mean i'm gonna like it the story needs to be well execute it, the MC needs to be decent(or at least his development needs to be noticeable), the heroine needs to worth something too......well, that's just me.
The option that's missing, is tolerating harem as long as the story is good, but it would probably better without harem.
It depends on what you mean by "harem". I can't stand those Japanese novels where a clueless meek male is surrounded by trope girls desperately trying to date him. I don't like the stories with a selfish cultivator who clear cuts an area of women and resources before moving on to a higher level area leaving the still in love with him women behind with only a slight chance of being used as a damsel in distress later in the story. I do like stories about actual harems and the difficulties that the women and servants have trying to survive.
I haven't really read Chinese harem but of what I've read of Japanese ones, they're lame. Lamer than a snake. I think I've been reading the softcore ones or something but damn, some of them are like drugs. They keep hooking you in but never truly satisfy you. They build this ambiguous atmosphere but never confirm anything. The chicks and the dude do everything that there is to do but never sit down to work out what their relationship is supposed to be. And they commit to this tomfoolery right to the end! If you're gonna make a harem, at least establish that yes, all the hot chicks are definitely in a relationship with this plain ass mofo. At least that way, I'd leave satisfied. On the contrary, polyandry novels that know that they are polyandry and depict a polyandrous relationship right from the start are much more respectable.