I don't mind the harem genre per se. It's not a favourite or a go-to, but as a genre I think it's fine. I'm more interested in whether the story is good. If I don't enjoy it I won't read it no matter what the genre is. I haven't found a harem novel/webnovel that was memorable to me yet. Maybe I'll just have to write one in future. I don't know.
My take, they can be good if done right, but if done wrong can go VERY bad. On top of that it is very easy for one to go bad, and very hard to balance it properly to do the series right. If done well, all the love interests (or suspected love interests) need to have different fleshed out personalities (which requires a lot of screen time for each of them), and their own reasons to be with the central figure. I also feel that people (well mostly horny teens who only se members of the opposite gender as vessels to slate their lusts) are all to often all to overly happy to slap the label on any series that has 2 members of the opposite gender smile at the MC. let alone any actual romance.
harem, but all the female characters don't seem like human beings... have you noticed that cn novels from 2010 to 2022, "no romance" had replaced "harem"?
Just my opinion. I don't like harem. Idk specific reason. When I started reading novels as a newbie I started from novels like, martial god Asura, soul land, BTTH, strongest system, ultimate scheming system, god level demon, Japanese novels, Korean novels like everyone else is a returnee Which got tons of harem character But I never read them cuz they got girls Instead it was simply cuz I liked the plot. But after around, 1 year. I started feeling bored. That's when I read a cold mc novel who kill enemy on first sight instead of trying to speak cliche or author not writing a plot where he needs to save girl every moment. And started shifting slowly like from, dragon marked war god, Paradise of demonic gods, warlock of magus world, dungeon defence....etc Then I found discord and how to read raw novels by mtl So I started shifting to Reincarnation Paradise, ascending the heaven as an evil god, extreme eternal demon, hell app,... ( Well now these are translated, at least a part of these are.. ) Lol what really funny is that once I read so many novels, shifting from cold to evil mc Only then I come across Reverend insanity lmao But so now, I can read slice of life or gaming or sports or vr or comedy or novels with less romance or none, something like solo leveling, etc..... But harem. I can't stand for some reason. Unless I'm really bored, even then I end up dropping them after reading a little.
I myself like harem genre but sadly most harem novel/comic/anime i found is trash, full of wish fulfillment (transported/transmigrated or reincarnated with cheat and bring deus ex machina), also most of them are fake (you got either open ending or OTP ending, not harem ending)
I can't say I fully know what's inside the head of someone who enjoys something so can't comment on that. But for me Harem trope(it's a trope not a genre) most commonly now in this sphere as an outlet for male fantasy and it's not wrong but it could be not as simple as the inside of a horny person mind. You can have Harem as a settings of which story revolve on the harem of an Emperor where they plot,scheme, assassinate,conspire on each other like it's a day in game of thrones and it's still valid. Trope is like many others a tool of which the skill of the artist who uses it determine the quality of the works.