So, I have an unpopular opinion.
I hate harems.
The way I see it, there are a few different ways that harems can play out.
1. The main character is completely and absurdly dense, to the point where all the women in the harem fall in love with him only for him to be like 'Love? What is that? I've never heard of that before.' This is bad for very obvious reasons. It's painful to watch, and nobody gets any satisfaction in the end.
2. The main character is a complete perv and/or wants to mess around with all the women who are in love with him. Why is it, that in so much fiction, the women in a harem continuously love the man despite the fact that he is a complete scumbag, and doesn't even choose one to be with but rather puts off the decision while being with whoever is with him at the moment?
There is one series which I believe was a satirical take on this type of harem which many have probably heard of, an anime called 'school days'.
(Spoiler warning to anyone who intends to watch this, but imma be honest I wouldn't recommend watching as it will hurt your brain and your heart.)
Basically, the mc is exactly how it is described here, but the girls in this series react somewhat realistically.
Instead of clinging to him and never getting angry or depressed, the mc does end up severely hurting the people who are in love with him as he does what he wants and fails to choose a single one to be with. It's painful to watch, but makes you ask the question 'Why in most harems do the women not get hurt ever? Why do they continue to cling to the mc, and never get truly angry at him or sad that he is being bombarded by 5 other women and their assaults?' Sometimes, the women don't even consider each other as rivals but merely only focus on the mc and nothing else. It's just unrealistic, and so tailored towards what people want their own personal little world to be like. They want to be surrounded by women who will do their every beck and call, and not question the other 6 women who are doing the exact same thing. Preposterous.
3. The main character actually chooses one of the many women among the harem, hurting the ones who lost but ending up with the one who won.
This is the one that I hate the least, out of all harems, but it begs the question- why was this a harem in the first place? Just to hurt these other characters, or temporarily please the viewers at seeing the mc be ogled by many women before finally settling on one of them? Idk.
Well, my point is that harems are just painful to watch. The only reason people enjoy them is because perhaps they want to imagine themselves with a harem, but this is just.... wrong. Instead, I would much rather prefer the mc to have a single, focused love interest, or to not have one at all (Particularly in series where romance is not the focus).
This is just a rant. I'm sure many disagree with me, and I will be getting essays about the 'artistic meaning' and 'thought out character building' that composes a harem. Just, no.
This post is not referring to series which are dramas. Those are of their own genre, and completely focused on the drama itself- so I understand that. But, how many isekais do we see where the mc is surrounded by multiple women in love with him? More importantly, how many do we see that aren't like this? Very few. Why is this? It's clearly because there is a demand for it. People want it. People love it. But I, do not.
i can afford.....one concubine.