22nd May 2010, 5:34 PM
Yeah, I agree that it's definitely inconsistent, I've definitely noticed that myself as well...
I mean, I certainly don't like all harem shows or something, but I have enjoyed some. I thought Love Hina was pretty good, for instance, and Kanon (2002) and the first season of To Heart too. But yes, of course if I think about the ridiculousness of the basic concept they look really bad. They're silly wish-fulfillment fantasies, essentially, I think I'd say.
Really though, I have a problem with the depiction of female characters in anime in general. I'm not sure I'd say that harem shows really are worse overall than anime as a whole; most animes have so many negative stereotypes for their female characters that that harem ones have more in some aspects sort of gets balanced out by the other stuff others do...
I mean, anime characters in general don't act very, um, "humanlike" I guess, but while male characters are most definitely stereotyped too in ways that often can be negative, their stereotypes aren't quite as bad on average I think.
I mean, like, even in non-harem animes female characters usually seem to be in love with whoever the main male character is. Of course there are exceptions, but it's often true. The idea that women can exist for anything other than romance is foreign to the writers or something...
Can I compare that to the the conservatives in America saying "Elena Kagan is female, single, 49 or 50, and plays softball, so she's gay" idiocy? It shows a somewhat similar lack of ability to really accept women as anything other than romance items, I think.
So yes, of course I have a problem with the concept of harem shows. I think, though, that I just can't take them seriously, so it doesn't bother me as much as it would if it was "believable". I mean, people obviously don't act like anime characters in harem shows. It doesn't happen, and that's a very good thing. They're just silly fantasies, really, only harmful in that they reflect the sexism of the society that created them, as any media in general will reflect the values of the society that creates it. So I guess that would be the best excuse I can come up with right now. :)
Oh, I find the fact that in real life Japan has one of the lowest birthrates in the world (it's around 1.2, while replacement is 2.1) an interesting and perhaps amusing aside here. I've said all this before, but to repeat... The traditional values that still make up their culture are not entirely compatible with the modern world, like in other places like Southern Europe, South Korea, etc. Women are discouraged from having careers after marriage or having children when not married, so the focus is on the man to support the family -- but in today's world, that doesn't work anymore. The US and Northern Europe have come up with solutions here that result in higher birthrates, from immigration to massive social funding, but in the places that still have the worse problems, those things are not happening. They care too much about the "purity" of their people to allow in many immigrants, don't want to change their social views on women, and don't have the programs either. So in Japan, there are very few children. People simply cannot afford to have children, or even get married in some instances because the woman would be expected to quit her job.
Anime reflects this with the traditional values you often see - all of the things I just listed are frequently present in anime. In America, however, we have come much farther with coming up with effective answers. I do think that it's likely that over time Japan will slowly change and improve on these matters, but before that happens their population is sure to drop significantly, I think.
So yeah, perhaps one reason why harem fantasies are so popular is because of the problems in Japanese society? Most people, both male and female, want to keep doing things the way they have been for some time now, but it's just not working anymore... hopefully sometime they will change, as we have come much farther in doing over the past century.
On a related note, I also blame the prevalence of incest stuff in these at least partially on the lack of children too... I don't think people who actually have an opposite-sex sibling would be as likely to fantasize about that stuff... though it's probably partially cultural too; traditional older Japanese culture did have an incest taboo, but only for immediate family members; I believe that even cousins were okay. Of course, European royalty would have agreed with that, so it wasn't something exclusive to Japan or anything. But anyway, that's just a guess, I don't really know why that stuff is so popular.
Oh yeah, and as an aside, is it worth mentioning that in fact Japanese society was very different before the Chinese influence got stronger? Before the first Chinese contacts in the 6 or 700s AD, and continuing to a lesser extent all the way until the 14 or 1500s, the status of women was higher, Japan was sometimes ruled by female monarchs (in fact, up to the 600s, the usually female Shaman was one of the most important people in any Japanese tribe or society), women could inherit some property, there were a few female warriors, sexuality was relatively open and quite unlike the kind of thing you see in anime today... in both Japan and Korea, most of the conservative, Confucianist changes are thanks to China. I find that kind of interesting.
I mean, I certainly don't like all harem shows or something, but I have enjoyed some. I thought Love Hina was pretty good, for instance, and Kanon (2002) and the first season of To Heart too. But yes, of course if I think about the ridiculousness of the basic concept they look really bad. They're silly wish-fulfillment fantasies, essentially, I think I'd say.
Really though, I have a problem with the depiction of female characters in anime in general. I'm not sure I'd say that harem shows really are worse overall than anime as a whole; most animes have so many negative stereotypes for their female characters that that harem ones have more in some aspects sort of gets balanced out by the other stuff others do...
I mean, anime characters in general don't act very, um, "humanlike" I guess, but while male characters are most definitely stereotyped too in ways that often can be negative, their stereotypes aren't quite as bad on average I think.
I mean, like, even in non-harem animes female characters usually seem to be in love with whoever the main male character is. Of course there are exceptions, but it's often true. The idea that women can exist for anything other than romance is foreign to the writers or something...
Can I compare that to the the conservatives in America saying "Elena Kagan is female, single, 49 or 50, and plays softball, so she's gay" idiocy? It shows a somewhat similar lack of ability to really accept women as anything other than romance items, I think.
So yes, of course I have a problem with the concept of harem shows. I think, though, that I just can't take them seriously, so it doesn't bother me as much as it would if it was "believable". I mean, people obviously don't act like anime characters in harem shows. It doesn't happen, and that's a very good thing. They're just silly fantasies, really, only harmful in that they reflect the sexism of the society that created them, as any media in general will reflect the values of the society that creates it. So I guess that would be the best excuse I can come up with right now. :)
Oh, I find the fact that in real life Japan has one of the lowest birthrates in the world (it's around 1.2, while replacement is 2.1) an interesting and perhaps amusing aside here. I've said all this before, but to repeat... The traditional values that still make up their culture are not entirely compatible with the modern world, like in other places like Southern Europe, South Korea, etc. Women are discouraged from having careers after marriage or having children when not married, so the focus is on the man to support the family -- but in today's world, that doesn't work anymore. The US and Northern Europe have come up with solutions here that result in higher birthrates, from immigration to massive social funding, but in the places that still have the worse problems, those things are not happening. They care too much about the "purity" of their people to allow in many immigrants, don't want to change their social views on women, and don't have the programs either. So in Japan, there are very few children. People simply cannot afford to have children, or even get married in some instances because the woman would be expected to quit her job.
Anime reflects this with the traditional values you often see - all of the things I just listed are frequently present in anime. In America, however, we have come much farther with coming up with effective answers. I do think that it's likely that over time Japan will slowly change and improve on these matters, but before that happens their population is sure to drop significantly, I think.
So yeah, perhaps one reason why harem fantasies are so popular is because of the problems in Japanese society? Most people, both male and female, want to keep doing things the way they have been for some time now, but it's just not working anymore... hopefully sometime they will change, as we have come much farther in doing over the past century.
On a related note, I also blame the prevalence of incest stuff in these at least partially on the lack of children too... I don't think people who actually have an opposite-sex sibling would be as likely to fantasize about that stuff... though it's probably partially cultural too; traditional older Japanese culture did have an incest taboo, but only for immediate family members; I believe that even cousins were okay. Of course, European royalty would have agreed with that, so it wasn't something exclusive to Japan or anything. But anyway, that's just a guess, I don't really know why that stuff is so popular.
Oh yeah, and as an aside, is it worth mentioning that in fact Japanese society was very different before the Chinese influence got stronger? Before the first Chinese contacts in the 6 or 700s AD, and continuing to a lesser extent all the way until the 14 or 1500s, the status of women was higher, Japan was sometimes ruled by female monarchs (in fact, up to the 600s, the usually female Shaman was one of the most important people in any Japanese tribe or society), women could inherit some property, there were a few female warriors, sexuality was relatively open and quite unlike the kind of thing you see in anime today... in both Japan and Korea, most of the conservative, Confucianist changes are thanks to China. I find that kind of interesting.