Forum - View topicWhy Dangerous Anime Boys Are All The Rage
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18250 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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For me, at least, reverse-harem series in general have no appeal. One the rare occasions when I do find them involving, it's always because of elements beyond the reverse-harem aspect. For instance, I was able to get into the Hakuoki franchise because it heavily involved a lot of hard-core history, and I adore The Story of Saiunkoku for its intrigue elements and how (abnormally for the genre) strong a character Shurei is. |
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Shenl742
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As a guy not attracted to (animated) men, and who likes female characters with good characterization, I'm afraid reverse-harem shows are pretty much an anathema to me.
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rizuchan
 Posts: 976 Location: Kansas |
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I'm a female and while I don't care for most generic harem series, I love a lot of "bishoujo" type game/adaptations and some of the more unusual harem shows (Monster Musume, for example), and it's mostly because the female characters are so interesting. Maybe some men find guys in reverse harem shows to be the kind of cool and mysterious they always wished they could be? Plus I think if you're interested in romance shows in general it doesn't really matter if the protagonist is male or female. Even though the protagonist of Clannad is male, I can see myself as Nagisa, or any of the other girls, in different ways. Not to mention that the casual anime fan has absolutely no knowledge of "shounen" or "shoujo"; it always blows my mind how many fans honestly can't tell the difference between, say, Clannad and My Little Monster. |
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WashuTakahashi
 Posts: 415 Location: Chicago, IL |
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Ah, it's like this column was written for me~ I'm an otome addict, playing every game I can get my hands on and watching every anime. My types are the playboys and the tsunderes. Neither is automatically the "bad boy" type, but bad boy can and often does end up with one of the two (or all three rolled into one!) Laito is my vampire boy of choice (though Kou is damn close to de-throning him, we'll see how the rest of season 2 plays out) while Urie is my preferred devil boy.
The most importaqnt thing is remember here is that IT'S NOT REAL AND AT LEAST 50% OF THE RELATIONSHIPS ARE ABUSIVE. Thankfully, most fangirls recognize that. Sadly, most "outsiders" don't recognize that fangirls recognize that. I'm well aware that the playboy tsundere would make a terrible real-life boyfriend. But that's not going to stop me from enjoying the fantasy. A big appeal to otome is that it allows you to immerse yourself in those unhealthy or frowned upon relationships without committing to them. I'm a very stubborn person who is often in a position of power. Falling for the bad boy who has power over me is just one of those weird fantasy things that is really enjoyable. I have a friend whose preferred type is the shota (why would you want to date a child?) and another whose type is the yanderes/psychopaths (Toma from Amnesia and Kanato from DiaLovers are her husbandos...I'd wouldn't touch Kanato with a 10 foot pole, personally) Otome lets girl dive into those fantasies without actually being in an abusive relationship, which no fan really wants. There's something really sexy about a powerful guy having control over you, though if I was treated like that in real life it'd be adios amigo.
Nope. The yanderes have a very specific place in otome. Take Toma from Amnesia for example. spoiler[He loves MC so much and is so afraid of her being hurt or leaving him that HE DRUGS HER, and then to top it off when she realizes she's being drugged, HE LOCKS HER IN A CAGE.] The yanderes are definitely there if you know where to look.
It's not so much about the character not having defining traits being important as it's important for those traits not to align her with any one type of guy. The character has to be bland enough that any guy could fall for her. It's otome biggest weakness though, since I know of a lot of fans who absolute hate weak MCs. (I'm not a fan of them, but know they have their place) I've really been enjoying Code: Realize, since the MC starts dumber than a pile of bricks, but takes it upon herself to learn to fight and whatnot and becomes a pretty cool character. |
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kotomikun
Posts: 1205 |
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Part of the reason for all these super-dark reverse harems is just that dark things are really "in" right now. The most popular recent anime by far is Attack on Titan (which has several bad-boy characters), magical girls have made a comeback by becoming gritty and angsty, and I've got ads for Tokyo Ghoul and Black Butler staring me in the face right now.
But this article explains a lot about why women actually like this sort of thing, which I never fully understood. Bad boys seem a lot like yanderes on the surface (same concept of unpredictability and fear making them more exciting) but it seems to me that yandere girls usually aren't in control of the relationship. Their wildness is almost like another form of submissiveness (they still tend to follow the boy and do roughly what they want), while bad boys, apparently, are attractive because they seem powerful and almost entirely in charge. I still feel like the only real-life dangerous part of this is the "You Can Change Him!" thing... a lot of women seem to believe they can do this, but it almost never works, and mainly leads to prolonged abusive relationships. Although, we rarely talk about the very common male-audience story of "mean and irresponsible guy is really just lonely and magically becomes a good person when he meets a nice girl" which is pretty much the same thing from the opposite perspective. Relationships can change people, but jerkiness doesn't go away easily, and jerks are often less kind to people they're close to, since those people are more likely to tolerate it. |
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Sneebs
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This is a thing I've been meaning to give some thought to. I suppose I'm interested in the reverse-harem genre as the female perspectives is a nice change of pace when so much of the media I'm drawn to (I've been socialized to think is 'for guys'). Seeing something where sexuality and romantic appeal are explored from a woman's view is interesting.
For me, it's the subversion of my norms. Even in visual media which I like (e.g. Daredevil, RahXephon), the leads are almost always male, and female characters are relegated to subplots. Even when the female characters are handled well and have their own sense of agency and responsibility, the story isn't usually about them - they're secondary to male lead's main storyline. Shojo in particular (and reverse harem as a subset) turns that on it's head, making the view examine the events of the story through the protagonist's lens. Reverse harem in particular is interesting because it deals with female attraction from a culture which is so patriarchal, so we get to see (in theory, at least) what Japanese women want in relationships (or, in a distinct but still telling way, what Japanese men think women want in relationships). |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11430 |
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"You can change him!" has been around since at least Beauty and the Beast, and the mainstream seems to see nothing wrong with that. Yet when it appears in reverse harems of any shade, as well as basic shoujo romances, everyone frets that people will copy it in real life.
Partly because they often do, but I think it's also partly because these anime are more overtly hormone driven than B&B. Nevertheless, the idea that kindness to others and unconditional love can change people is not just a romantic trope but a nearly universal one across all genres of storytelling and even religions. It's so fundamental to human relationships that only cynical misanthropes deny that it can happen. I suppose the problem is that there is no caveat to go along with it about limits and being careful. But it's no surprise that it's a common romance trope, and I think Rose did a great job of explaining why. |
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whiskeyii
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I don't know if I'm picky about reverse harems, or if I just enjoy funny ones more than anything. Makes for slim pickings. :/
But yeah, I get why other ladies would be into darker stuff, but for me, there's usually too many stumbling blocks in the way for me to get into them--a heroine who waffles between doormat and aggressive, being coy about sexuality in general, bad boy personalities that make me grind my teeth in frustration; you get the gist. Though I've heard that protagonists with changeable personalities in otome games mostly arose from the lack of otome games compared to bishoujo games, and the need to market their games to as many women as possible, so developers basically throw just about every "type" of boy at the game in order to please the maximum number of customers possible. EDIT: I will say that in the case of Beauty and the Beast, I always found it key that the Beast himself made an effort to change. That's not something I tend to see overtly addressed in reverse harems, it just seems to magically happen, like flipping a switch somewhere. Last edited by whiskeyii on Wed Nov 18, 2015 5:31 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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butahime
Posts: 3 |
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Are these abuse fantasy reverse harems even particularly "in" right now? There sure are a lot of them being made but they don't seem at all popular compared to soft, pretty boy focused reverse harems like UtaPri and Free. And those are non-entities compared to the light yaoi that's been far more popular among female otaku since at least the '70s.
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Hoppy800
 Posts: 3331 |
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The constant stockholm syndrome and gratitious rape is the reason I stopped playing Otome games although I wouldn't mind playing an nukige geared towards women, you just can't take a story seriously with all the rape, abuse, and stockholm syndrome in the way it's done in them going on. It's more suited for doujin and nukige where you are looking for nothing more than a good sexual romp.
Last edited by Hoppy800 on Wed Nov 18, 2015 5:39 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Northlander
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I don't really go out of my way to watch that stuff, and I haven't actually BOUGHT any of it, but I've seen a few on Crunchy. Neo Angelique Abyss I found to be pretty harmless. It played the "stock archetype" fiddle pretty hard, but me and a friend had a great time watching it due to the hilariously poor animation and the downright goofy enemies our heroes has to deal with. The last couple of episodes were really boring, though, probably partially because the show didn't really have the budget to go all out with action scenes, but... yeah. Still, I had a fun time most of the show, though probably not in the way the show intended. (The highlight of the show for me was when our team of main character had to travel over the sea, and when the ship was attacked by the monsters in question, the crew shot a net at it, hoisted it on board and into a huge ship-mounted slingshot, and then unceremoniously fired it over the horizon.) Kamigami no Asobi is actually pretty good, particularly, I imagine, by reverse harem standards. (Kind of in the same way Monster Musume is pretty damn good by regular harem standards.) I honestly liked most of the characters in it, and the show itself was pretty fun. It was silly and fun, and the serious moments didn't devolve into grimdark territory. I remember one of the guys got a little stalke-y in the middle, but that was resolved amicably enough. And since it had a better budget than Neo Angelique Abyss, the action scenes at the end looked pretty nice too. Not amazing, but... you know. I'm not sure Free! counts as a harem, but it's obviously made with women in mind first and foremost, but I watched it anyway. (I had to, given all the nonsense going on at the forum here when it was announced -- just to see what all the hubbub was about.) I liked that one too. It's clearly the best animated of the lot, and like a lot of the shows I watch that has a female main cast (Aria, Hidamari Sketch, Non Non Biyori, Girls und Panzer, etc etc), the show was pretty fun. I think the only thing I disliked about that show was the character who was basically a suckup to Mr. Shark Teeth. He had without a doubt the most obnoxiously irritating voice I have ever heard in any anime. Every time I heard him say something, I was all "thank God he isn't a main character". I haven't watched any of the ones mentioned in the article itself that had "bad boys". I'm severely not into any character that portray aggressive behaviors of the kind described there, whether they're from male OR female characters, and it doesn't really matter whether we're talking physical violence or emotional manipulation. |
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notrogersmith
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I find myself in the same position:
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silverpixiefly
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I have really gotten into reverse harems lately, but the darker stuff isn't my style. I like the Gothic part, but some of the characters are just too scary for me. I wish there was more for reverse harems in general, though. I think there is a bigger market than most studios may realize.
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azhanei
Posts: 79 |
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One interesting difference between Diabolik Lovers and the sequel Diabolik Lovers: More Blood, is the heroine at least had some interest in what was going on around her in season one. In More Blood, the same girl is truly a walking door mat whose dialogue is 90% a boy's name and "No; stop." Which, of course, they don't. Season one for me became a true guilty pleasure. I kinda didn't want to watch the fang rape, yet, having not seen anything like it before, could not stop. The 15 minute episode length fueled the binge-watch.
On the other hand, season two, without some spark from the heroine, has been harder to watch. What's keeping me going is 1) the new crop of vampires seem a bit more fleshed out from get go. Tropes, yes, but why they need her and their dark pasts are being told as they go. 2) I do still want to know what all this Adam business is about. I'm enjoying Dance with Devils a lot more. Dark, but with a softer edge, a heroine who has a mind, and a more complicated plot. |
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Lili-Hime
 Posts: 569 |
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What a great well written article! On girls rescuing the boys emotionally vs physically; I think there's another aspect to it. For me it's the whole maternal, nurturing instinct. We tend to at least have fantasies of being the one who will heal our partner's past traumas and help them be a better person; some of us even act this out in real life to.... varying results lol.
Fear is absolutely an attraction of it though. Fear's fun, makes us feel more aware and heightens our senses... and also makes things more spontaneous. TBH I don't really see stuff in a lot of otome / shoujo content as rape but more of an exaggeration of the domme/sub dynamic.
You're totally not alone here!  Urusei Yatsura is pretty harem-y but it's one of my favorite series because I identify a lot with Lum. Same with Ah My Goddess and Belldandy. Before a lot of shoujo was released over here me and a lot of other girls I know got into Tenchi and other harem-y shows because it was the only way to get romance
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). That's also the aspect that makes it unclear if the show is playing itself completely straight.
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