I dunno if you consider every girl you meet a love interest, but at least there should be some. My problem with most of these novels is that MC just doesn't look at girls at all. It's like he is eunuch or something. And in the end he often does not end up with any of them, which is quite common in japanese novels. I don't know how are the teens in Japan, but the MC's in these novels just don't feel human at all...
I actually like this particular story conceit when it's handled by a good writer. It lends towards a kind of comedy that I appreciate. The main problem is that it's often handled poorly, and that this happens all too often because it's something that writers with no experience use as a crutch for fixing their writing challenges. They don't get it from real life; they're largely regurgitating ideas they get from the anime and manga they consume. And this is exactly why so many stories of this type fail - they're tackled by amateur writers who don't know how it's supposed to work.
that could be, also it's hard to tell now if the ln authors got ideas from manga or manga authors got idea from ln authors. But this still doesn't answer the question, where the idea of dense protagonist came from. Regardless if it appeared in manga or ln first, the question was "how did authors came up with it?". And I think they came up with by observing teens
I thought "dense protagonists" came as early as parables from Aesop Fables or Greek Tragedies. I mean the presence of "dense protagonists" was to create drama/conflict. For TV form, the earliest form of "dense protagonists" came from "Soap Opera" shows like "Days of Our Lives" (which was better known as "Daze of Our Lives" because some main characters are really dumb/dense, such that showrunners can drag/delay plot advancement and yet create drama/conflict).
So you classify them as light novels then? I like how you went ahead and expanded the discussion of Japanese media to international Or do you think that Japanese were inspiered by the ancient literature and western soap opears?
Meiji Restoration -> Westernization of Japan (Japan learns from and adapts to the West) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_Restoration https://www.economist.com/the-econo...0-years-why-does-the-meiji-restoration-matter
great non sequitur. and still does not answer the question where the idea of dense protagonist came from lol In modern anime and manga, for example, they are popular because 1) people like them and 2) It's easy to make them good for no reason. They can keep going forward with a simple motivation and basically be an idealist. It's all fine and good and can be used effectively with proper writing, which unfortunately rarely the case. Usually, they don't make any sense the way they are portrayed in the novel. So basically, dumb or dense characters did appear in literature as long as literature exists, but the literature is influenced by the society at a time and the function of such characters changes depending on this fact. It's also not unreasonable that the authors in different cultures can come up with similar characters independently, as people with similar traits exist everywhere.
Isn't it for the comedy? People will laugh or get frustrated over the MC not realizing what's going on around him, or maybe the girl will suddenly get embarrassed and make up some crazy excuse and the MC will just look confuse, it's funny but frustrating if used too much
It's not too hard to figure out if you can first determine why the dense harem protagonist exists. And that is to solve a particular problem that can be found in harem novels. Namely, these are to demonstrate the sexual availability of the female harem members while simultaneously not notably altering the relationships of the characters. The solution the writers came up with was to make the protagonist oblivious to advances so it's easy to keep the relationships stagnant. It's basically a case wanting your cake and eating it too, and it's no surprise that the solution leaves a lot wanting.
That's true. You have a case of a relationship which is not a relationship. I do think they try way to hard with the status quo. Like when MC activly resits a plenty obvious advances and then in the end runs away from the harem. There is also many better ways to do this...
Just pointing you in the direction that Japanese didn't invent the concept of "dense protagonist". And you just answered your own question as above "dumb or dense characters did appear in literature as long as literature exists". But of course, literature also exists "oral literature", so basically it can be as early as the first versions of tribal storytellers that possesses a "creative and comedic mind", which of course is undocumented in human history unless you gain omniscience. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ObliviousToLove https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CluelessChickMagnet https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CaptainOblivious Examples: 1) Cyrano de Bergerac(1897): Cyrano uses Selective Obliviousness to refuse to comprehend that he can be loved even with his enormous nose. 2) Anne of Green Gables(1908): Walter. He's a dark-haired, dreamy-eyed poet and really has no idea the girls want him. 3) Charlie Brown from Peanuts. Difficult as it is to believe, he is the object of affection for many of the strip's female characters, and a few more girls in the TV specials too. Unfortunately for him, he is completely oblivious to it due to his lack of self-confidence and his own hopeless crush on the Little Red-Haired Girl.
I never said Japanese invented the trope We were discussing the genre in Japanese novels, so it makes sense to limit discussion within that area unless it's warranted to go in another direction. There is nothing wrong with such character, if it's used properly. However, in Japanese novels, these characters differ so much, and they are dense to the point of absurdity, that one can to wonder how did we come to this. True, some of the novels are not bad, but for each one of those, there are several filled with utter nonsense. There is not much of a plot in these novels and the characters are pretty much stagnant. It seems like the only function they serve is to keep the status quo with women. Given, that this can be achieved in a number of different ways and the sheer love of the genre by the authors, one can't help but wonder: does it really just server the function in the plot and the authors in Japan are just incompetent and can't use the character properly, or there is some other reason behind its popularity? For example, it's relatable to the target audience because they self-identify with it?
Status quo. If the protagonist remains oblivious the "harem" and the readers will keep there hopes of having a chance.