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I realized I sounded like I was expecting patriarchy to like, screw up female characters, but what I'm really looking for is character depth/more plausible behavior. In more action type stories, I cut characters some slack and just take them as they're presented, but for shows that focus more on characters/relationships, I really need to be convinced that the main/side characters are properly there, so to speak.

flat characters are fine and necessary sometimes, but if everyone loves a character for no plausible reason, or if we're clearly supposed to like the character when they have no redeemable traits/their redeemable traits are taken to the point of being unbelievable, and it's portrayed as true with no strings attached, i'm really like. gone. my main impression is that girls tend to be put on pedestals, and when the character is around, it tends to screw up my suspension of disbelief. I end up approaching all girls who are positioned to have a specific set of flags (mc is infatuated with her, she's portrayed in a heavily positive light, etc.) with some suspicion because i feel like they might ruin my immersion of the story. I basically expect a lot from girls, regardless of genre/target audience.

even if a harem had really vibrant personalities for the girls, I can't stand it because, after their arcs or whatever, their subsequent actions become really unbelievable for me when they're around the protagonist character. The protagonist generally doesn't have any strong personality traits that would justify a harem situation, you know? not to mention the whole point of the harem type story is wish-fulfillment/fanservice--not a bad thing, but it's not the kind of fanservice I like. so basically, what you said about harems is p much exactly what I feel about them.

gotta send this cuz im gonna be late for my meeting asdhfasdflasd ttyl

oh! yeah! it wasn't on my radar for that reason too! harems really aren't my thing, even the reverse ones aimed at girls, and this one has a bit of a rude title at first glance, since it seems to objectify a character who is supposed to be a real person in the show, so i was particularly put off. my friend (a guy) who seems to like harems said he really really enjoyed it (called it #1 of the season) because the reactions were "realistic" compared to other ones and like, kept recommending it to me. recently he brought it up again and I was like... "why not, i have time and he's never recommended something so highly/repeatedly" so i picked it up.

there's 2 seasons, and i ended up watching the whole thing in a p much a day. the first season runs more like your typical harem show--there's a good amount of gratuitous fanservice and squabbling over the MC--but there's a sort of meta theme running throughout the show since the characters are working on a harem game themselves. what i mean is, unlike other harem shows, this one treats each heroine, and also the protagonist, as more than 2D characters. season 1 especially has a lot of points where they explicitly call out unrealistic expectations born from being too immersed in otaku culture; i really appreciated the self-awareness. also (this is huuuge for me) i could understand why the girls fell in love with the protag; they each had reasons to and it was tied directly to personality traits/beliefs/actions/etc. that the protagonist consistently expressed.

s1 basically introduced and explored the girls' histories/relationships with the protag, but i didn't only learn things about the girls. i also learned more about the protagonist himself and grew to love him. two of the girls didn't have much development due to length constraints and one of them was very on-stage, so i felt kinda betrayed by that, but my friend said "watch s2."

ok, so onto s2. s2 p much departs from the harem genre and jumps into drama. all the characters, even rival-kun, changed/grew thanks to their experiences. the girls already had relationships with each other in s1, but this was even more present in s2 and explored a lot more--there were even episodes where hero-kun wasn't present. i grew to like, respect, and trust every character by the end of the show, and even in the beginning i felt like i could trust most of them. this is coming from someone who is p harsh on female characters in shows--my neutral state is 0 trust and general suspicion. I basically wait for them to prove that they aren't there (at least mostly) for fanservice/a guy's motivation, etc.

a couple of big things i look for in shows (if they have these i'm pretty much gonna think of them very highly)
- if the characters have their own perspectives and reference past events the way they saw it (i.e. heroaca has A LOT of examples of this and i wish i could talk about them but they're during/after s2 so i can't bcuz spoilers QAQ)
- if the characters don't compromise their backstories/personalities (i.e. such as satellite love interests or sth)
both seasons had these (season 2 especially)!

also the bgm ost is really good.

all in all, this is an anime that delivers a lot more than just a harem, though it does have aspects of it, and i really enjoyed it. i'm writing this pretty late at night, so i hope what i wrote makes sense. i really recommend this anime!

honestly, having seen s2 and having taken a look at the LN's further developments, i think it shouldn't even be marketed/tagged as primarily a harem show, which is the feeling i get about how it's marketed, but rather as a romance comedy/drama with harem elements.

random extra stuff: i was actually pulled in from the very beginning of ep 1. the opening scene really left an impression on me (in a good way). the show also digs into doujin circle workings a bit, which I found really cool! also, if you decide to give it a shot, pls don't watch what seems to be usually marked as ep 0 of either season. these are extra episodes that are for fanservice and offer almost nothing of substance. so you can tell if you accidentally started watching them: ep 0 of s1 opens on an airplane; s2's ep 0 opens at a pool in a hotel.
pls pls pls don't watch ep 0 of s1, because it spoils a character relationship that I feel like the watcher should walk in cold to.

ngl the picture was just really cute but after exams, whew catching up on all these shows ; ^ ;

Ahh it's been a while for me as well ^^ I'm really glad you got some time to relax after all your hard work!

Thank you for the advice on kiki uvu I actually made it into my top choice college recently and that news has been occupying my life for the last week and a half- it does sound like a perfect fit for when I leave home and it's on my college to-do list (right before all my packing begins aaa)

I'm glad you've finished your batch of job interviews aa! I'm sure you did really well~ you'll have to give me some tips for those for when I start job-hunting as well haa ;v;
An evangelion fanfiction oh my god that's actually really cute .v. Thank you for your well-wishes aa i'm just. Really excited to start on a path towards a career, really, if that makes sense? I'm just really nervous and excited and also a bit scared but just. In a really good mood? I'm really glad that you've found something you enjoy doing (and it's probably going to pay really well as a bonus eyy) and I hope that you have a really good work experience ahead of you and have awesome colleagues and geez I'm also really excited for you too haha
Where I'm most likely going to college is a good... six hours? away by plane. But I suppose that's to be expected when Texas is the size of several small nations put together. I'm really nervous to be really far away from home because my dad is strikingly old and my mom works and I spend a lot of time helping him as it is- it all feels really surreal to be leaving since I'm so used to all this, I suppose?

I really hope I have a pretty great college experience because everything is going to be so different. Talking to you here has made me feel more confident and excited about things I might otherwise be a little more timid and worried about, so thank you for that! Ah- and I was kind of wondering, what are some things one should take with them to college? Like, evidently conventional utilities like clothes, toiletries- but like. Are there a couple of things that I may not realize I need until I'm there? (and on a side note- and a less serious one haha- what would you say is the saddest anime you've seen? .o.)

I hope that things are going well for you way up there uvu Thank you for taking the time to drop by! ^^

Ahh the english books are alright. I enjoyed the ones they gave us last year, but this year my teacher really enjoys giving us books and short stories that are pretty difficult to read and interpret, so it's been a lot harder ;v;

wheeze thank you im v glad ;v; i love hearing people talk about their passions as well! ahh and le chevalier d'eon was.. something else. I enjoyed it to an extent- as in I liked the story bc I absolutely adore historical fiction. And a lot of it connects into the reign of terror in france, which i found pretty damn cool. I kind of just took pleasure in the interactions between characters, read a lot into the story. It's not one of the animes I was completely into like- able to just stream it with no breaks just loving it (as was the case with Bokurano or Death Parade for instance), but the two of us got through it pretty quickly and like.. Everything starts out just fine but it picks up speed as the show moves along and it's.. one wild ride. Especially in the last 3, 4 episodes? There are a ton of twists that neither of us expected. So in short, I think I would recommend giving it a try- though if historical fiction isn't too big on you you might not enjoy it as much haha.

Ahh wolf children with my mother was absolutely perfect- though you just hit me w something omg. I never watched Kiki's delivery service. Like that's been on my to-do list for years now and I completely forgot about it. Aah I need to get on that really soon ;v; Especially now that I know you really adore it oh wow.

Ah good luck w finding a job! I have a feeling you're gonna do just fine out there uvu As for programs, computer science sounds really cool!! we were offered that as a class at my high school and while I was never able to take it a lot of last year's seniors said it was really difficult .o. Are you enjoying it in college as well? .v. Ahh and I'm planning to major in psychology- it's my starting point anyhow. I've applied mainly to liberal arts colleges where you don't have to finalize your major until the end of your sophomore year, so I'm kind of just opening myself to everything. As it stands, though, I think I'd like to be a juvenile counselor?? We'll see how things turn out though

And ohh dear thank you for the tips ;v; I live in possibly the lowest point of the US- as in, right on the border between here and Mexico haha. And as it stands there's like.. a 92 percent chance im heading up to the northeast, so I'm v likely going to be leaving home for the first time as well. I suppose based on that how often do you get to visit and how do you keep in touch with home usually?
Ah thank you for being a senpai to me ;v; I'm really glad that you seem to be faring v well in university and that you're job hunting and just- you're gonna do great and you're gonna be successful and I'm so excited for you!! I'm also v nervous to make friends, but I'm hoping for the absolute best and you've made me feel just a little more confident about things. Thank you very much!

Oh geez i haven't been on here in a short while- I'm sorry for a bit of a late response as well :'D

The holidays were pretty relaxing once I finished the books we had to read for English- I underestimated them and a bit of the time I spent with my friend was her sleeping off the medication and me laying next to her reading haha.

Ohh dear yeah- yes I think you're right about osomatsu san with me. In my experience with it my friends and I have kind of all connected really strongly with at least one of the brothers? And it's ridiculous because you look at some of these episodes and you're like ... okay even the creators aren't taking this seriously right now. And then one episode later you're extremely emotionally invested and it's like ??? wha t ??
Ahh I dearly hope we get a season 2 and I'd love for you to join in the hype for it as well ;v; Thank you for allowing me to just blabber about osomatsu-san oh wow

My friend and I were going to watch Madoka but while we were talking we ended up stumbling upon Le Chevalier D'Eon and somehow got really caught up in that for the first two days we spent together. And then she told me she really wanted to watch Erased because she'd heard great things about it and I was like !! Yeah let's do it. And then she very vigorously persuaded me into watching Teen Wolf with her because since college started for her she's just spent her free time getting invested in it and I cannot believe..
Anyhow we weren't able to get around to Madoka unfortunately, but I still want to do that myself once school settles down for me again ;v;

Ahh the girl who leapt through time- okay so that was essentially my mother wanting to watch a movie with me because a while ago we watched wolf children together and she loved it. And so I remembered that I hadn't seen the girl who leapt through time since middle school and I was like !! Yo we absolutely have to watch this one mother. And we did. And when I came back here to say I'd rewatched it I realized that I'd never even put it on my list ahh. But still it was really great seeing it again ;v; I felt like I hardly remembered the movie- I don't think I appreciated it as much as I do now. It's just so many little details throughout the entire movie that so perfectly piece everything together and as I went along I was just dreading getting to the part that made me sob as a twelve year old. It's just so innocent and fun until you realize how heartbreaking everything is and god it just. Absolutely crushed me again. And I never realized how real the characters were until now and that made it hurt a lot more. God it's just so good- and one of your favorites reasonably so! Ah I'm just. Beyond glad I decided to watch it again. My mother adored it as well.

Anyhow I hope that school is going well for you right now! May I ask what you're majoring in right now .o. And on top of that do you have any advice for me for when I actually start my college journey :'D

Ah- I'm applying in the US .o. most reply in March and April and there's one or two that respond in may as well so I'm bound to feel the same way as the time goes by ahh ;v; But yes thank you!! Donuts sound amazing rn haha

Noragami was really cute, that's true. It's one of my best friend's favorites as well and watching it a second time with her was actually more enjoyable than watching it alone my first- the characters are really cute and it was really nice to just have a nice relaxing time watching it uvu

And oh, wow, Osomatsu san haha. Yeah I went through the same thing where I was like ??? Who are these children?? And I avoided it for several months up until the second to last episode sparked a sudden onslaught of "i can't believe this is happening" "im broken. im ended" "osomatsu san killed me" on my YouTube feed and I wanted to see what on earth made all these people so distraught. And then those sextuplets became a part of my life for a long while lmao. It's definitely not for everyone and it really depends a lot on your sense of humor? But then there are just certain bits and pieces of it that are so uncalled for and emotional and it's like. Someone suddenly splashes a bucket of warm water in your face and you're just standing there wet and confused but somehow still enjoying it way more than expected?? Anyhow I'm just rambling now ;v; Talking about it makes me really happy. I'd say it's worth a shot if you ever have the time haha

I completely get that ahh! Going through my past obsessions especially takes me back- when I was 12 or so I got extremely caught up in several shows that just. Reeled me in completely. It's kind of a really weird way to see how much I've grown in all the time since then and it's just. Bizarre? But yeah, self-reflection is inevitable in those moments for me as well uvu

Ahh thank you for the well wishes for her uvu Our time together starts next Tuesday and she's all up for Madoka w/ me :D So I'll let you know how that goes! She does know about Mami because of all the... Memes? I guess? That arose a couple of years ago lmao. But she has no idea about anything else that happens, so I'm excited to see how she reacts as well .v.

I'm going to go ahead and grab some donuts from the cupboard then get back to finishing up the last of the schoolwork I have to do over the break uvu
Thank you for the kindness, and have a great week yourself ^^

Ahh I'm glad you're finally going to rest ^^ congrats on finishing your exams!

I'm going to find out whether I got into the majority of the ones I applied to in mid to late March ;v; So I have a bit of waiting to do, but I'm just trying to feel a bit of relief now that I'm done with applications.

Yeah I 100 percent understand the going into something without any expectations thing! In my case I went into Noragami with the mindset of 'oh, this is absolutely going to be the anime of the century' because once again a friend had been kind of blowing it up in my head for months before I watched it. And I mean it was good but it wasn't what I was expecting and that kind of brought it down a little for me?? if that makes sense? The first anime I really went into thinking I wasn't going to enjoy it very much was Osomatsu-san, and just. Wow. Yeah you're completely right about the going in blind thing because somehow it became one of my favorite things that I was able to really bond with my friends over and it was a lovely experience for myself haha.

As for Madoka, I think that I'm going to go ahead and watch the movies over the break because I've heard a lot about that third one and I'm too curious to let it stay a mystery to myself .v. I've been getting back into a lot of things from the past few years recently and it's been really great. I'm excited to delve even deeper into the past haha

Ahh my best friend is healing from an operation so I'm going to be with her for a full week finally dwelling on the past things we used to watch for the first time since she went off to university. We're essentially having a week-long Naruto/Osomatsu/Cowboy Bebop/Various new things we wanted to watch but never got to watching marathon lmao. I might take that time to rewatch Madoka with her, because she's actually never seen it!! I'm v excited really uvu

Ahh I'm glad I have someone to talk to about anime again .v. and someone with great taste nonetheless uvu
I hope you enjoy these days off!! Get a lot of rest and have fun ^^

ahh hana is fine ;v; and its v good to talk to you nova~
same as you my best friend went off to college and i haven't had an actual discussion about anime since maybe early summer? so this is pretty great to get back to.
Applications are a hell of their own but I'm nearly done with them! Thank you for the encouragement ;v;

Ahh i guess i do like suffering omg that's one way to put it lmao. Uhh I enjoy growing emotionally attached to characters and watching them go through some pretty tough times and I have little idea why, but those tend to be my favorites. Just drawn-out emotions uvu

Madoka wow... That was a good eternity ago. I should probably go back and rewatch it again because I had a pretty bitter experience when I started watching it. As in I was kind of made to by an old friend? It was just persistent nagging until I started it. I suppose the characters didn't really make it into my heart? Though again, that was probably because of how obligatory watching it felt at the time? My friend had kind of exaggerated a lot and had made it this huge perfect thing in my head and I mean... Ok like. For instance, she made Mami seem like the best thing to ever exist and when she died really early on like. I wasn't expecting it but she wasn't there long enough to meet the expectations that were built up in my head. The way I remember it Sayaka's development piqued my interest and Kyouko was someone I absolutely adored. Their arc broke my heart and I really adored that one but. Homura and Madoka's characters were something I never really got into (I remember that by the time I began to really look at Madoka it was essentially the end of the series and I wasn't really into it? I wish I remember more about what I thought wow). I really wish I had, because now there are like. Movies and extra things and characters I don't recognize but I was never really able to will myself to watch them because Kyouko and Sayaka were kind of the only things I liked a lot and they both died and I was just overall disappointed?
I'm glad you brought this up because I really would like to rewatch it to see if maybe an older, less upset me can appreciate it a bit more without any outside influences? But yeah that's my old take on madoka the way I remember it being??

Anyhow sorry for the really long response ;v; I hope that we get along as well! It's really nice to talk about all this to someone again. Good luck on your tests in university! I'll be here back here in high school cheering you on~ .v.

!! Hello I'm v sorry for being almost 5 months late to respond to this ;v; I never really check my profile too often and i just so happened to scroll down a bit further down today and here this was!! Again I'm incredibly sorry for being really late to respond- I might have noticed sooner but college applications have been murdering me since october. I'm really glad to find someone who felt the same way as me about Bokurano! I actually came back here right now because I finished rewatching it again as well. I went through your anime list and noticed that you also love Shinsekai Yori and that in itself makes me very happy to see someone else give it such a high rating ;v;

Again I'm sorry for an incredibly late reply, but I'd love to be friends or something too!! I understand if I'm (really really) a bit late for this but thank you so much for the message as well ;v; You've certainly made my day <3

hahaha seriously?? why would you even watch it XD it was like, 2 cour, so it wasn't even "short"
then take a look at like, these shorts that were aired a couple seasons ago about sherlock holmes and like... vampires or something?? it's seriously so bad it's not even good

I get what you mean XD

^_^ yeah, of course! and also, frog-kun?? it's the funniest thing, but I found him today because we have common interests/thoughts about rezero XD so I was trawling through his twitter feed; he tweets pretty interesting things XD unexpected side? it would happen eventually if we would allow it ^^ and unexpected would become integrated so it's fine right (and also I'm sure you also would see a lot of unexpected things about me too LOL)

ehh, haikyuu sucks away your energy? I feel very energized when I watch it XD if I'm feeling down, I catch up a chapter or two (well, it's not limited to haikyuu, many of the manga I follow lift my spirits quickly)

btw response to email is forthcoming but I actually got stuck trying to answer a dilemma ^^;;

EDIT: also when you're done with rezero let's chat XDDD though I'm a little shy about it so I usually wait for the other person to express their own interests and opinions before volunteering my own preferences (not really as many qualms about theory or interpretation though)

ugh golden time, I really wanted to rate it low because I didn't like the female heroine girl (understatement) or the way they did the ending but I think I copped out
hahaha if you do though ever rate something a 1, I hope you didn't watch the whole thing through cuz that would be such a waste of time

only some shows LOL like yowamushi pedal or inuyasha or the aformentioned beelzebub (it's a comedy slice-of-life but it had a lot of shounen action sort of arcs so I thought it was actually leading somewhere a la naruto or something, but it turns out... nothing developed at all...)
hahaha (same here about the automatic 10! XD but I think I have a couple that I cried during but didn't rate a ten) btw I cried at one part of re:rezero, it was great LOL

lol who is this guy on twitter you speak of (are you on twitter often? I don't really use it and I also don't really get how it works... ^^;; tweet convos seem so painful to follow)

EDIT: I see you're already on episode 7?? :D I look forward to hearing what you think!

Www well, actually, I forgot to mention that if I was disappointed by a show or peeved about some part of it, I would be pretty scathing and rate it low (but my ratings aren't really consistent since I feel bad about using any number below 7... Which isn't very low. I'm gonna go through one day and switch my ratings to a 1-10 scale lol)

An example of a show I didn't rate? Uhh, let's go with beelzebub ^^; I watched the majority of this show expecting it to go somewhere lol so when I skipped to the end and the ending wasn't an ending, I wasn't very happy. I expected it to be a completely different genre from what it actually was, so I couldn't give it a proper rating. Like, my rating wouldn't be very valid since I didn't even know what genre I was watching lol. Though you could go the other way and say "it wasn't clear about what genre it was and what the reader should be expecting!! This was a badly executed show! Don't walk in like I did and expect anything of importance to happen!"
About the ratings I do give though, I don't think too hard about it! If I get serious I'll probably do one of those category rating/overall rating things that a lot of reviewers do, revamp my whole rating thing. But I kinda don't want to pick any fights on the internet about things like these, so I tone down my opinions a lot and don't write reviews.

Lol seriously?? Come to think of it my list might need some pruning too
Speaking of anime though, I recently picked up re:zero and enjoy it quite a bit! I also have a somewhat far fetched theory about some side characters that pretty much don't show up ^^; it's been a while since I've been so interested in anyone's actions/etc.

geez www yeah, I didn't really like it (+ I don't really remember what it looks like, but I'm sure I prefer the old one lol) some because I don't remember them anymore but also because... well, sometimes I don't really enjoy a series, but the series itself isn't badly executed etc. It's kind of like, it wasn't really my style. So I leave the ranking blank since I wasn't part of the target audience.

EDIT: Also, damn your to-watch list is long!!

Nice to meet you ^^