RRF: Things I Hate About Harem Anime

1. The Main Character- The main character is most of the time, unrelatable or has no personality to get invested in. For some males it's usually the cool calm type that's virginal weirdo around girls. He has this stoic demeanor that's never really explained or changes throughout the show. For example, Ichika from Infinite Stratos is that way. He genuinely doesn't seem pleased at times with having seven girls fawn over him. Yet he never says anything to them. A good protagonist would have recognized this and said something. But I'm supposed to believe that our main character is so dense to seven females flirting with him, that he doesn't know how to simply say "I'm not interested." or pick one of the girls? I don't want to see brainless baboon stand there like a knight in shining armor yet has no idea how to deal with women. That's just unbelievable. The reason I liked Ikki Kurogane from Chivalry of a Failed Knight was because he recognized his feelings for Stella early on and stays with her. He even says that the only girl he has eyes for is her. Despite the fact that other females like him. You can have girls love the MC but don't make them act like they're completely clueless about the situation.
2. The Love Interests- This is another big important thing to in order to get a harem anime right. You can't make the love interests one note personality traits. Because usually, they all end up the same way. One's the tsundere, one's the cool type, one's the cute type, one's the pervert type etc. It becomes less of trying to create your own anime in your own vision and more like you couldn't be bothered to create your own characters. Because I bet you there are tons of anime with these same characters that are much more enjoyable. Like the characters in the Asterisk War. There's literally walking cliché girls who seem to exist just for the sake of Ayato (main character). Plus some of these girls don't really have clear reasons as to why they like Ayato. Saya loves him because they're childhood friends....I think. Claudia flirts with him because....he's attractive? Julis does because...he's strong? At least with Kirin it's a little more understandable because he saved her from her abusive uncle but that's one girl out of the three. Not to mention all the other females that flirt with Ayato. Why don't any of these girls just come out and say that they like him? Julius is a tsundere so it's more understandable. Claudia is pretty forward and even tried to seduce him but he runs away. Shouldn't that signal to her to either give up or just straight out ask him up? Saya doesn't seem like the type to hide her feelings and makes I very clear she likes him. So why doesn't she just confess? How you could do this is by letting the characters slowly grow attached to the main character as friends before feelings develop into love. Tomoe from Kamisama Kiss had to learn to love Nanami and Nanami straight out confesses her feelings before the first season ends. The two don't stop being friends and companions and as time went on Tomoe started to return her feelings after getting to know her. Just saying, sometimes the journey is more important than the destination.
3. Story- Sometimes the stories in harem anime are just plain boring! The kind of boring I felt while watching Powerpuff Girls 2016. The story tries so hard to focus in on the harem that there's virtually no story or they use the minimum amount to create a story. The most notable for me would be Koi Koi 7. You probably haven't heard of it before but it was anime released in 2005. It featured all the bad ingredients for a terrible anime and yes, a lackluster excuse for a story. This anime starts off promising, introduces the harem and then the story is gone. Now I'm not saying every anime story has to be on par with stuff like Attack on Titan or Fullmetal Alchemist. Drama can keep a person wanting to continue following the story. Say I Love You is full of good drama and even though it doesn't have a particular story, it develops around the main character and the people she interacts with. We get to see her grow, her friends grow and how people's actions can impact others. That's more than enough to keep me going if it's written well.
4. The Main Character Never Picks One- This is possibly one of the most common tropes that I cannot stand. When the main character just doesn't pick anyone. It's enough to make me drop a star on the rating of the anime. What was the point of watching all these characters flirt with each other if they don't end up hooking up in the end? As much as I don't care for the main couple in the Familiar of Zero, at least they ended up together! Some couples do get together in their original source material like Ouran Highschool Host Club and Nisekoi but it still stinks when you don't see the couple end up together.

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