Vae Victus Fanboy: A Harem Anime Rant
| 07 April 2009
Screw you, Masaki Kajishima! Like I wanted to watch the culmination of your years of repressed libido, manifesting in an anime where you are God, and created a universe of women to FUCK! Every guy does it, but I'll be damned if want to watch another guy doing it! And if that wasn't bad enough, you...YOU PERSONALLY...are responsible for finding this chink of pure fail in the lonely beta and omega's armor, parading it around like one would the kill from a grand hunt, which it WAS, and spawning an entire industry of imitators who distilled down your preachings to its purest form like some unholy bible at the Council of Nicaea! Okay, sure Hayashi takes half the blame for the original concept, but at least he grew the fuck out of it! Seriously dude, as if Ranma wasn't bad enough, I....
Oh that's right. I suppose I should explain the premise first before I start dispatching minions to do a mass slaughter of the likes of those who tore up their Kannagi manga and sent it back to the production company complaining about not wanting a second hand wife with a dull and rusty spoon. Really dull, and really rusty...and they love their work, the murderous evil little cuties that they are. It's so hard not to get into the slow bleeding of the pathetic and futile though considering the Sith level of pure hatred this topic evokes in me immediately, so if I start to scream about eating the entrails of some random otaku sometime during the course of this dissertation, consider yourself warned in advance.
I was sitting here thinking of Harem Anime; having long ago promised that I’d write up an article on it, when I realized that I had no real idea of where to begin, at least until that damn song from 'The Sound of Music' started playing in my head and caused flashbacks from that old musical presentation my class did back in gradeschool. In my minds eye I see so many intersecting tangents that relate to the subject, that it became impossible for me to decode in any rational way and present it in a format that would be, at the very least, marginally readable. It did not help that when I think about it, in the form that it has been presented in for so many years in such abnormally large quantities, that I wished only to burn every trace of it away with a fire that negates all existence, where are you when we need you, Darkseid? The depth of the hatred I have towards the genre has thus far has prevented me from any meaningful dissection of the hatred’s source or to give voice to the varied points and organize the aforementioned tangents into a semi-coherent whole, not that I haven't tried with many and varied blunt objects...some of which were aimed right at that piece of adamantium called my head. It wasn’t until some very recent events that brought to light certain details regarding the whole culture surrounding Harem Anime that I fully began to grasp with startling clarity the full horror of what I’d been struggling with for so long:
Harem Anime is A symptom; not THE problem.
To clarify, it may be best to first define what Harem Anime actually is, or perhaps to be more accurate, the type of Harem Anime that seems to form the overwhelming abundance of the genre, may Kajishma be damned to the yaoi pit for five minutes for this one.
A harem anime or manga can basically be broken down into its basic component as one guy, three girls, and no sauce. It’s a love triangle if there are only two girls, so you need at least three. In its purest form, that’s all there really is to it, and as such, has no real bearing on weather or not the story is good, bad, or otherwise, it’s simply a plot point; possibly the main plot point, but still only a plot point. Now a Harem Anime, in the truest and most horrifically capitalized sense, takes this main plot point and makes it the very foci of the story. The harem MUST continue and there can be no deviation from this rule, for to end the harem will end the story, and you'd think all life as we know it. This can and does go on for years you understand, and honestly must since money is being made and the author of said story typically has questionable writing skills overall. Yes, I'm looking right at you, Akihisa Ikeda. Right. At. YOU! There is a very specific formula in how this works which is why those with questionable writing skills, but with great artistic skill, can put together one of these stories with their own slight variation on the theme.
Again, first thing you must have is a male protagonist, and I use the word 'male' only because a singular pronoun does not yet exist for 'complete failure of sentience.' To put it another way, the more of a blank slate you make him the better. Nearly every Harem Anime protagonist can be exchanged with any other and you’d have about the same place holder masquerading as something with a pair of testicles flapping in the breeze, and then only because someone who can completely ignore reality told you that's what you were looking at. Typically this character will have poor grades, terrible physique, and (this is the really important part, pay attention there will be a test at the end) a near autistic personality. Some glimmer of a personality may help to identify with this character at the start of the story, but once the harem gets into full swing, it is mandatory to just forget you ever saw that, because you won't see it again, much like modern politics. This serves a very specific purpose, and is part of what drives me absolutely insane with rage, in that it allows the audience, who is invariably a lonely beta male, to paste his own looks, personality, and ability onto what amounts to an absolute cypher. That's right; this character is not someone ANYONE should aspire to be like, unless you are a pussy the size of the entire fucking multiverse. You know, characters like Optimus Prime, First Sergeant Conrad S. Hauser, and Luke Skywalker; heroes all...bringing one of them together with Herb the vegetarian veritable veggie up there would be a form of pair annihilation where the void of a being that is the harem anime protagonist blinks out of existence and Optimus goes, "Anyone hear anything?" Just to drive the point home with a railroad spike, this isn't even someone to empathize with like your sibling or your best friend; you'd have strangled this person after they were born as they'd not even have the will to cry after getting smacked by their own mother. This character is The Nothing you yourself must fill with the substance of yourself, but as you'll find even Rahziel isn't this good at reeving souls. The reason this becomes a desired course of action rests with the next part required of The Formula.
What is required at this point are three or more girls that are little more than archetypes themselves; most of which have been cataloged at TV Tropes if you care to look for them, assuming you don't already know them. These girls are desperately seeking the attentions of the previously described male character to the exclusion of all else, and I do mean ALL else. Barely PG-13 hijinks ensue (unless you're in an ep of Shuffle, then it's the land of bountiful boobies of the kind you'll never ever get to touch in real life), fanservice is rife, and embarrassments are aplenty; all to be reset next episode for more of the same. The archetypes have a wide range of variety, and some mixing and matching even happens, but don't expect any accurate description of a real girl here any more than the previous paragraph described a real guy…or a non institutionalized human being at all, and I do mean the padded room and straight jacket type. The idea that girls of any sort, especially this cluster of girls whose bodies put Aphrodite's to abysmal shame, like the female abysmal ones, would collect around something that doesn't even rate as sentient is absurd in the extreme.
This leads invariably into the final thing needed, which are the hijinks involved. This is merely the showcase whereby you have the girls interact more with each other around and with the guy (as much as he's capable of…which typically is not much)…the very guy the lonely beta men have plastered themselves over. The hijinks can be anything from the usual comedy to hard core sci fi, it really doesn't matter what they are, just don't expect any cool sex, or you'll be blue balled for decades, unless you're planning on Nice Boating it later. The story is not about some slice of life, love of a man or woman, space operaish, or whatnot, that would actually be interesting. It's about the girls surrounding and lovingly devoting themselves to the character upon whom has only your own creamy good filling; the adventures providing the excuse for interaction with them, which is fucking easy since there's only like two other people besides the girls and that singular impotent sperm bank on that whole fucking planet. This is also why other guys do not exist as anything other than comic relief or unattainable extras (typically being too young or too old) in these stories. An actual guy with a personality in this show (the comic relief having already turned the girls off faster than a beta in an alpha farm) would destroy the illusion the audience of lonely men are seeking faster than Unicron devouring an inhabited world, but not nearly as satisfying..
Revealed then, in all its Hellish splendor, is Harem Anime's main and most damning feature. This is not really a story in the traditional sense, though it has trappings of it. This is not just taking you to a place far far away where the adventure is the story and the characters live and breathe on their own in raspy breaths of a portable ventilator on a heavily burned set of lungs. No, whatever story this show may have is there to draw the lonely beta and omega men in so they can be loved and in turn love one, more, or all the girls in it. This is a substitute for the interaction the watching guys wish they could have with pretty girls in real life, and like a life preserver they didn't even know they needed. They CLING to it, like a smoker clutching the final cigarette ever to be made before he remembers he can grow his own only to have it stolen by a horde of nicotine addicted cat girls. However, it eventually ends; as there is only so many times that the writer can repeat the same scene in slightly different ways to express the standard formula before the meaningless of their own efforts smack them in face with the butt of a pistol; I'm still looking at you Akihisa Ikeda; keep this shit up and I will FIND a succubus for you...the wrong kind...the kind that read all about what you did to the one in your story (and we won't even go into the the Ice Maiden)! Like a drug addict, looking for another fix to fill the void of loneliness in his own hollow existence, the guy in question moves on to the next show of which there have been plenty made in recent years…often times based on hentai and dating sim games, as they attract the same audience en masse.
This was my problem; I could not quite pin down what it was that caused such unreasoning hatred in me for the genre. What did I care if some dumbass decided to take these in like coke fiends lookin' for their next snort of nose candy? I was better than that, or so I thought. It wasn't until I realized as messed up and disgusting as this situation is, it's not the true problem. It's only a singular symptom, but one that has been elevated to religious levels and has become very telling about The Problem. A problem which affects society as a whole on one level or another…and certainly has affected me in more ways that I'd care to imagine.
What is the problem, one might ask themselves, if one were so inclined? The problem was actually so easy for me to deduce, that I'd been nuking it with a city class Transformer, as I am wont to do with the really simple shit. I mean, how could it be so...EASY...as that? I even DEFINED it up there, but the connection wasn't quite made; there was some sort of disconnect that prevented me from fully grasping the multiversal totality of this enigma. What led me to the problem, as I'd been living in a sort of quasi unlife of category error, was a little issue that I read about concerning the manga Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens. It was revealed in the manga, before the author went into the hospital due to flagging health, that our dear little pettanko, Ms. Nagi the kami had been in a relationship in times past before her appearance in this story. You must understand, that Kannagi has most, if not all of the story elements described in excruciatingly dull detail in the previous paragraphs as Harem Anime elements. So to say that one of them is not a virginal little girl who has never loved...never loved anyone but the faceless cypher the fanboys have plastered themselves into? This caused a massive outcry from the realms of the purest fail, culminating in one waste of protein to go so far as to tear up his manga and send it back to the company, like a petulant little brat and scream about not wanting a second hand wife.
Remember you wanker, the minions are not merciful, and they will enjoy feasting on your bone marrow as you watch. It'll be youtubed for the entire world to watch and laugh at. Revenge is coming, and you will be among the fallen...oh yes...there will be blood, and it will be yours.
Sorry about that, had to get that out of the way. As much as that lowlife rejected all notions of humanity, sanity, morality, and sentience which made him the universal embodiment of the antithesis of life itself resulting in anything that was its opposite classifying him among the most contemptible existences known, this was not the problem, but still only a symptom. The symptom taken to that level of super fail level 5, but a symptom none the less. A similar thing happened in Kimi Kiss, where the main character role was split up between about three guys...which turned what was supposed to be a harem anime, as it had been based on an H game, into an actual story. That vocal minority 2 chan cried foul, and since they consume the lion's share of the drugs..errr...merchandise these corporations produce, they caved in faster than a girl's panties fly off after a Gackt concert. Of course this ruined the story since it had already been underway and was reaching a conclusion in its own time, but that didn't matter...as long as all the girls were after a single guy they could make themselves believe themselves to be. They were...jealous, if you can believe that. Jealous of another guy muscling in on their girls.
Yet, these girls aren't real. It was then I heard the words in my head, like the voice of a (or possibly THE) sadistic god, repeating, "I don't want a second hand wife." I had realized that these male humans, as I cannot conceivably call them men in even the loosest of senses, at least not without a serious shot of LSD, no longer wished to even have the trappings of a relationship with a real girl. They had promoted these cartoon figments of someone else's imagination...these stereotypically boxed in personalities with only the visual trappings of a womb (if they were lucky) to the role of actual girlfriend and wife. They weren't just plastering their faces on the main character to romance the girl(s), they had graduated to actually romancing and courting the celluloid. Though this realization was beyond any spectre of horror my dark spirit could conjure; this reaver of souls finally cleansed my vision, and I saw the greater blight upon which all could, at its feet, be laid. A problem I already knew about, had experienced first hand in so many ways, but had no idea that its effects would be so far reaching, or that it would take this form.
The problem is that the lion's share of girls are just not interested in the lion's share of guys.
I know, I once wrote an article about the fandom evolution...about how the girls and the guys are getting over their shyness, and getting together...starting families and such. Remember I also wrote another article dealing with warning signs that your relationship was doomed. Now as I've been going through the message boards, talking with various fanboys, and just watching the goings on, I've been seeing something else that has been making my blood run cold.
All kidding aside for a brief moment, I would like to point out, before I go further, there's a girl's side to much of this, but as I am male, this is going to be coming from a guy's point of view. If I can get a girl I trust to write out her impressions of this situation, I will certainly post it as another article. I think this is about as close to a disclaimer as I can get.
Thing is, as it has become more acceptable and mainstream to get into sci fi, anime, D&D, and that wonderful delicious yummy cosplay, what has normally been the realms of geeks and nerds, has now been encroached upon by...everyone that used to, and still most certainly does, hate and despise us. Our beloved escapes, the worlds...OUR worlds are now being invaded by the same individuals who threw those like us out to begin with; first it was girls, those alien life forms that wouldn't even talk to us if they did have half a brain that wasn't dedicated to looking good and fucking jocks (and let's face it, most didn't have said brains), and then with said fashion fanatics and wack jobs you eventually grow up to be boss of. Seriously, what the fuck does a nerd have to do to get some peace and quiet?
So anyway, the seeds of what I'm talking about were already there in the fandoms that those of us who fit the definition of geek and/or nerd, and don't lie to yourself about what you are. C'mon man, search your feelings you KNOW it to be true! The thing is, that though our reactions have been gradually increasing in intensity over time to the point where now we have the greatest of epic fails actually romancing someone else's imagination (usually another GUY'S just to add insult to injury), it was never truly just our problem. We just the worst of the shit on us for the longest time.
Believe it or not, as you're walking on air watching your favorite Claymore being sexy and hot, the greater portion of guys who were just normal guys, which is honestly most of us, had to deal with this situation too. Oh yeah, sure there are a greater amount of them with girls, but that's not all it's cracked up to be anymore. Most of them were looking for wives and to have children with said wives, thus perpetuating the cycle of life most nerds have been summarily forced out of, though it still burns within us until it finally causes us to think that cartoon girls voiced by Innou Kikoi are hugging and kissing us in our caves we call homes. The problem is now that most of those men are being summarily divorced by their wives who then force them to pay alimony while they go off and start having sex with the same five guys that every other girl in the city is doing. The state is complicit in this indentured servitude of men, this...slavery...even to the point that they're often forced to pay alimony and child support for a wife who cuckolded them and children that aren't theirs. Horror stories abound, and don't believe for a second what the feminists tell you, it's usually the wife who initiates a divorce, or forces the husband to do so. And hell, if you don't believe me...that's what google is for...have fun with that shit.
The point is, that even for those not in our rarefied profession, the dating scene has become a blood bath; the war of the sexes going from occasional random spurts of gun fire to full on nuclear fucking holocaust. I can't imagine what the survivors of this fallout are going to live like, maybe running around the wasteland and sticking their dicks into hot robots, avoiding electrocution, and our kids being born in tubes, but I don't think too many of us here now are going to be around to give a damn in that aftermath, not that our giving a damn now means much. Urban anonymous living is what one guy called it, which enables most girls to go after the alpha male of their dreams, and sleep around with them without fear of either social or actual consequences. Problem is so is every other girl, so if they want these guys, they have to share...and share they do. This results in a soft polygamy; the true harem anime situation. Those relatively few alpha men servicing the lion's share of women, and the greater portion of males, being beta types, are at best, used for alimony to help facilitate this lifestyle while their children and very lives are taken
Granted, this doesn't always occur. Make no mistake, though...you've all heard this. From your brother, your friend, your acquaintances, and just by hanging out on message boards and conventions...we've all heard it. It's happening more, and more, and more. To the point we can't even remember a time or a week that goes by when we don't hear another case of it...to the point where we're SICK of it, screaming, "Die, Unciron! Die!"
Hell, in Japan, where you have the hordes of 2chan fucking anime and trying to mind fuck 2D girls, they have this thing called Parasite Single. Do a google search on it; the wiki article is an abortion of justice when one wishes to experience the whipping of the most merciless of dominatrix's we call actual information, or possibly just bad news.
So, with girls like that constituting most girls you'll meet through your life, starting from the tender age of negative nine months, what's to become of the guys in the nerddoms? Remember, it started with geek girls becoming more and more common in the fandoms, which eventually caused them to start looking for mates in these enclosed environments having found a place where they themselves were accepted for what they were. Indeed, they'd been shit on like their male counterparts for the longest time, and here these guys understood...even if they weren't exactly the most, how shall we say, attractive men of all time?
Thing is, with our exile becoming mainstream, it's now okay for those who exiled us to realize something we've always known...geek girls are often quite cute and cuddly. Try squeezing one sometime...they squeek! In fact, the word 'moe' comes to mind for a great deal of them, and now their intelligence and proclivities just make them even more so...to the point of finally impressing it upon whatever passes for the grey matter of the alphas that are discussing with you why Goku kicks everyone else's ass (though granted, most of those guys aren't alpha...just dumbass). And with those guys comes those hot Chun Li and Urd cosplayers, and you know the ones I'm talking about. Goddamn those girls are phenomenal; I just want to...yeaaaahhh.
Well, anyway the original fandom filled with guys has now suffered a two pronged assault. Seriously, do you think any of those highly attractive cosplayers of any sort are going to want to have anything to do with the likes of El Geekoblo? Of course, we all know the answer to that question...which is neither fourty-two nor thirty-seven. Then we have the girls we were relating to, just finding out that they're not being shit on anymore...and are actually rather sought after for the most part. They look at Nerdzilla and then over at Alpha Prime and who do you think they choose? Hell, we all know what happens next...perhaps even breaking up with their pet geek (who they're not even having sex with) to go off and be loved for five minutes by the guy who used to treat them like a cockroach.
I am willing to say it won't happen as much as it would for a normal girl and guy. Most of the girls forced into the fandoms by their virtue of being geeky, are far more intelligent than your garden variety fashion hound with boobies, and as such, won't be as apt to throw over what they may now have for what they may get. Don't for a moment think it can't and doesn't happen though, and if you're in a relationship with a moe little geek girl like that, don't think it can't happen to you. Been there, done that, done that again, done that yet again, and I'm writing the fucking rant right now.
So what's a nerd left with? His world invaded. His women taken. The invading women are exactly what he was forced away from back at time-line start zero. He can't get away; it's there in his face now...he can't turn around without it being shoved head first into it. Being reminded of the raging need he tried so desperately hard to forget, and even succeeded for awhile, every five seconds. How long before the free market cashes in on the insanity? How long before the least of them snaps and starts calling the latest pettanko Rie Kugimiya tsundere performance their wife? And what's next I wonder? What dregs of humiliation oil can we dredge up before the apocalypse is upon us?
More than all that, I wonder...what can be done to stop it? Then I think...why bother? Perhaps it's best to let the judgment come, and perhaps best to let the chips fall where they may. So crack a beer, settle back, and keep your eyes open...if nothing else, it should be entertaining. Oh, and burn all typical spineless harem anime wuses in effigy. Trust me, fire makes it all better.
