Why is Urusei Yatsura considered a "Harem"?

Like many have already said, it’s not a harem. It’s actually anti-harem or a parody of a harem. But most people who label Urusei Yatsura as a harem never watched the series. They're also the same ones who say Lum is a tsundere or the original anime has too much filler.

Like many have already said, it’s not a harem. It’s actually anti-harem or a parody of a harem. But most people who label Urusei Yatsura as a harem never watched the series. They're also the same ones who say Lum is a tsundere or the original anime has too much filler.

That still doesn’t make it a harem. At least not in the sense we see the harem genre nowadays which is what OP was talking about.

What do you mean by that?

I guess so. But it lacks what it takes to be classified as a "true" harem. In that sense, Ranma 1/2 is much more suitable to be called the "OG harem" because it actually has all the elements of a harem series, even if that probably wasn’t what the author had in mind.

@0451
The old Urusei Yatsura anime takes a lot of liberties with the manga. I hope we can agree on this? Because they are so different, there is no guarantee that someone who likes one will like the other. I believe someone who prefers the manga would say the anime has too much filler. But you said the only people who complain about the anime filler are those who haven't watched it. You even say it's as common as calling Lum a tsundere. Yet I actually do not see others complaining about the filler.

@0451 None of these shows are harems in the pure, modern sense of the word, since they didn't exist at the time. Personally, I would rather call Ranma a prototype of battle shonens and gender bender comedies. Obviously we don't have any patent on this, but the first harem show in the modern sense of the word is Love Hina, which also featured the first mindedly violent tsundere and fully embraced the "accidental pervert" comedy. All romance shows up to this point either didn't have the full set of necessary tropes, or only inspired the genre without being it.

@RobertBobert Well, then Love Hina would be the "OG harem". Not Urusei Yatsura or Ranma 1/2. They may have elements of the harem genre, one more than the other, but it wouldn't make them a harem series. They might inspire certain aspects of the harem genre but not sure if I'd call either of them "OG harem series".

And I don't see how that has anything to do with what OP and I were talking about.

@Lucifrost When I said "people who label Urusei Yatsura as a harem never watched the series" I meant people who are not familiar with Urusei Yatsura in general.

"You even say it's as common as calling Lum a tsundere."
I didn't say that.

"Yet I actually do not see others complaining about the filler."
When the Urusei Yatsura Remake was announced plenty of people were saying that this adaptation wasn't going to have any filler because it had less episodes and they were basically saying this as if it was a good thing. These people have the impression that the original series has tons of filler episodes just because it's a long series. Only 18 episodes out of 195 were truly anime original or "filler" episodes. As in they weren't adaptations of manga chapters.

"The old Urusei Yatsura anime takes a lot of liberties with the manga."
Yeah, it did sometimes. But most of the episodes were still based on manga chapters and the original content they made was out of necessity to stretch the runtime. Most of the time the anime's original content was good. And since Urusei Yatsura is an episodic series anyway, I think of those "filler" content as actual content and not something you should skip just because they're labeled filler.

I'm sorry but what does this have anything to do with the original topic? I was just saying how there are a lot of misunderstandings and misconceptions about this series spread by people who didn't watch/read the series because they heard it somewhere else. Like Wikipedia saying Lum is a tsundere. Sorry if my original comment wasn't clear.

I think it's rude of you to conclude that someone hasn't watched the series simply because he disagrees with your interpretation.

Like many have already said, it’s not a harem. It’s actually anti-harem or a parody of a harem. But most people who label Urusei Yatsura as a harem never watched the series. They're also the same ones who say Lum is a tsundere or the original anime has too much filler.

@0451 Lots of weird flexes in the replies trying to label UY a Harem series or 'Harem Adjacent' when it's cast is the farthest thing from any sort of harem, glad to see you know that such a claim is as erroneous as claiming Lum is a Tsundere. A lot of these fans need to actually watch some classic UY to see neither of these tropes are present in force, like you mentioned Ramna 1/2 had far more of these 'Harem' tropes in place even before the genre became a thing.

@MKSTEEL I am glad to see that someone else gets the point.

While as I don't deny the possibility that manga artist and anime writers where inspired by the most popular 80s romcom to make their own romcom that particularly was about a person who had more than one love interest constantly through the series, I think the idea of crediting Urusei Yatsura as the first harem is absurd. This also goes for anyone calling it a "proto-harem". The idea of 'proto' means that it takes one step towards it, UY turns 180 and runs away from it.
The series makes is clear that most of the female cast who Ataru ever approached are either annoyed with him or/and wants him dead. The lack of love for him are very explicit.
With only a handful of girls that shows up time to time, Lum is the only one who liked him throughout the length of the series. Shinobu and Kurama relationship with him both turned sour, with Shinobu becoming more like a friend and Kurama wants nothing to do with him.

I think the better, or at least, the easier option to argue as an origin point is Ranma, but that is up for debate. Ido welcome citations from the creators of the first harem series (80's-90s), if they ever bring up Urusei Yatsura story as an inspiration.

@Cooltaff12 While I don't have any source for this, I heard the creator of Tenchi Muyo created Tenchi as a sort of "anti-Ataru". I didn't watch TM but from what I've heard about it, it seems to be the opposite of UY. So while there might be at least one harem mangaka who might've used Urusei Yatsura as some sort of inspiration, it seems they wanted to make the opposite of Urusei Yatsura instead of making something similar to it. It seems like they might've seen UY as an "anti-harem" and made a harem series because of it. Assuming what I heard was true and someone didn't just lie to me.