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An Empty Shell of a Man
zherok:
To be fair, it says as much about eroge creators as it does their intended audience. It's not a very positive inference no matter where you stand.
Zalis116:
Yet when a character like Makoto Itou of School Days decides to act like a man and take advantage of the opportunities presented to him, everybody calls him a jerk/asshole/etc. I would agree with zherok's assessments that they are supposed to be blank slates for audience identification and self-assertion. The flip side of that is that if the producers want to move merchandise, they have to make the female characters dance a line between sexual attractiveness/willingness/availability and virginal demure pureness. Thus the need to make male leads overly passive/weak/scared, lest they create a Kannagi-esque "mai waifu has been defiled!!" situation. (And that was just from a backstory mention of the female lead having had an ex-boyfriend at some point in the past.) Other causes for indecisiveness include the challenges of adapting multi-route VNs or incomplete manga.
I would say that male harem leads fall into one of three molds:
1) The scared/weak/inexperienced/shy boy who is in some cases actually allergic to female contact. Examples include Love Hina, Girls Bravo, Hanaukyo Maid Team, Maburaho, Please Teacher, Onii-chan no koto, Sekirei, Omamori Himari, Vandread, and various others, often from the early/mid-00s.
2) The "indifferent/indecisive" lead who's either "above it all" or trying to eke out a normal life and normal relationships amidst all the crazy hijinks that surround him. Examples include Da Capo, Shuffle, Air, Kanon, Clannad, Happy Lesson, OniAi, DearS, Nyan Koi, and Please Twins -- these tend to come from the mid/late-00s.
3) The "aggressive/perverted" type who tends to be more traditionally masculine in stature and behavior. Most of them can't take things too far because of the constraints I mentioned above, but they are a bit better than the average. Examples include Yumeria, Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-kun, High School DxD, Princess Lover, Nakaimo, School Days, and Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero -- becoming more common in the late 00s/early 10s. If these broad trends over time are any indication, maybe we will see an evolution away from the wussy types.
--- Quote from: megido-rev.M on February 16, 2013, 08:32:05 PM ---Gintama and Mushi-Uta definitely do not fit.
Then we have Black Lagoon with Rock in it, and it doesn't really fit either.
--- End quote ---
None of which are harem anime, which are the main subject of discussion here.
When it comes to watching harem anime, I accept that they are wish-fulfillment, and try to appreciate the looks, personalities, and behaviors of the female characters without directly trying to identify with the male lead.
ConsiderPhlebas:
How many thousands of these feeble guys do you want us to list? The most typical ones are just...
Harem-style characters that go a bit beyond the stereotype may be for example Touma from To Aru xxx.
It's fine if they actually try, but some are just hopeless people :-X
But most interesting anime characters are girls.
jaybug:
That article was crap. It's called Demographics, and who is actually buying whatever is being sold. As an example, I don't know if you know or remember that until the 1980s it was 13 year old girls who controlled the US radio markets top 40 pop charts. How so? They went by sales of 45 rpm records, which 13 year old girls bought the most thereof. Seems odd that they were buying Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love, but whatever.
I mean guys have been guys for the most part, they haven't changed all that much. But this is the same reason 80s hair metal bands were such a rage back then. Chicks dug androgynous guys. Maybe it mad it okay for them to be the aggressor sexually speaking, I don't know.
megido-rev.M:
--- Quote from: Zalis116 on February 17, 2013, 11:00:24 PM --- (click to show/hide)Yet when a character like Makoto Itou of School Days decides to act like a man and take advantage of the opportunities presented to him, everybody calls him a jerk/asshole/etc. I would agree with zherok's assessments that they are supposed to be blank slates for audience identification and self-assertion. The flip side of that is that if the producers want to move merchandise, they have to make the female characters dance a line between sexual attractiveness/willingness/availability and virginal demure pureness. Thus the need to make male leads overly passive/weak/scared, lest they create a Kannagi-esque "mai waifu has been defiled!!" situation. (And that was just from a backstory mention of the female lead having had an ex-boyfriend at some point in the past.) Other causes for indecisiveness include the challenges of adapting multi-route VNs or incomplete manga.
I would say that male harem leads fall into one of three molds:
1) The scared/weak/inexperienced/shy boy who is in some cases actually allergic to female contact. Examples include Love Hina, Girls Bravo, Hanaukyo Maid Team, Maburaho, Please Teacher, Onii-chan no koto, Sekirei, Omamori Himari, Vandread, and various others, often from the early/mid-00s.
2) The "indifferent/indecisive" lead who's either "above it all" or trying to eke out a normal life and normal relationships amidst all the crazy hijinks that surround him. Examples include Da Capo, Shuffle, Air, Kanon, Clannad, Happy Lesson, OniAi, DearS, Nyan Koi, and Please Twins -- these tend to come from the mid/late-00s.
3) The "aggressive/perverted" type who tends to be more traditionally masculine in stature and behavior. Most of them can't take things too far because of the constraints I mentioned above, but they are a bit better than the average. Examples include Yumeria, Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-kun, High School DxD, Princess Lover, Nakaimo, School Days, and Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero -- becoming more common in the late 00s/early 10s. If these broad trends over time are any indication, maybe we will see an evolution away from the wussy types.
--- Quote from: megido-rev.M on February 16, 2013, 08:32:05 PM ---Gintama and Mushi-Uta definitely do not fit.
Then we have Black Lagoon with Rock in it, and it doesn't really fit either.
--- End quote ---
None of which are harem anime, which are the main subject of discussion here.
When it comes to watching harem anime, I accept that they are wish-fulfillment, and try to appreciate the looks, personalities, and behaviors of the female characters without directly trying to identify with the male lead.
--- End quote ---
I would say it is quite more difficult to produce an appealing harem anime when the male character goes far off being a generic guy.
Can't really agree that personality traits inherently follow, as that greatly depends on plot-line elements as well.
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