The List
7 Strangest Harem Set Ups
by Lynzee Loveridge,
The harem genre isn't going anywhere anytime soon. As long as customers are interested in one protagonist surrounded by adoring romantic interests, we'll continue to see at least two or three shows every season. The hard part is creating new and interesting ways to set up each harem scenario. The market has seen plenty of "guy transfers into recent co-ed school" and "magical girlfriend falls from the sky." Not all set ups work out smoothly and some even fall into strange, convoluted, or downright ridiculous territory. Also: Spoilers for We, Without Wings.
7. Nisekoi for the most recent example) and magical girlfriend. In this case, said magical girlfriend is a mermaid mafia heir. All of hapless Nagasumi's other love interests are equally strange: an idol singer mermaid, overbearing classmate Mawari, and an otherwise nameless girl with a split persona,
6. Recently, my sister is unusual. It might be too soon to put Recently, my sister is unusual. any higher on The List right now, but the first episode set up is enough to warrant a mention. Riding on the wave of "incest but not really" romantic comedy anime, ImoCho. follows new stepsister Mitsuki after she's possessed by a wayward spirit, Hiyori. Hiyori equips Mitsuki with a chastity belt that transfers any romantic and/or sexy feelings for her brother into "stairs" to heaven. Basically the only way to exorcise the spirit from Mitsuki is for her to come on to her stepbrother as much as possible. I guess the Catholic church wasn't an option in this case.
5. 
4. moe-ify" its different train lines and followed it up with an online manga. The anime introduced the idea as a sort of mysterious train filled with gorgeous guys (with predictable personalities) that you could only find by accident. The execution is pretty generic and the show is only slightly less odd than our top "objects turned into people" entry.
3. Card Captor Sakura and shacks up with aforementioned Necromancer and attracting a bevy of vampire ninjas while hunting down his murderer.
1. Sekirei, if you can imagine that.
The new poll: What's your favorite robot sidekick?
The old poll: Last week's poll asked Here's the full results (anything under 1% was omitted):
- Nyaruko (Nyaruko: Crawling with Love!) 17.5%
- Wagnaria!!) 14.5%
- Chihiro Kosaka (The World God Only Knows) 13.9%
- Yuno (Hidamari Sketch) 11.3%
- Kiyal (Gurren Lagann) 8.4%
- Komari Koshigaya (Non Non Biyori) 4.9%
- Ran (Shugo Chara!) 4.8%
- Strength (Black Rock Shooter) 4.3%
- Blanc/White Heart (Hyperdimension Neptunia) 4.2%
- Toto (Magi) 2.9%
- Frey (Unbreakable Machine-Doll) 2.8%
- Marika Tachibana (Nisekoi) 2.3%
- Honoka (Maid Sama!) 2.3%
- Other (Answer in the forums) 1.4%
- Madoka Harumi (Dog & Scissors) 1.3%
- Fumi Hibino (Hayate the Combat Butler) 1.3%
- Touko Hio (Witch Craft Works) 1.0%
When she isn't compiling lists of tropes, topics, and characters, Lynzee works as Associate Editor for Anime News Network, blogs about women and LBGT topics in anime and manga on her blog Engendered Dilemma, and posts pictures of her son on Twitter @ANN_Lynzee.
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