Of all the shows you mention, I’ve seen six; ef, Clannad, Shuffle, Air, Kanon, and KGNE. I think KGNE is my favorite, followed by ef and Air. Clannad was alright–and had some good, genuine humor going for it. I did not like Kanon (and because I did not like it I did not watch KyoAni’s remake) and Shuffle is a pile of crap, IMO. :D

H20 is on my to-watch list, though, as is Tsukihime. And maybe, since your quiz suggested it, I’ll try True Tears. I’d never heard of it until now, though.

I was surprised that I got so strong a split - 6 thoughtful, 3 emotional, 1 dramatic. And my matching show ef was one I haven’t seen so maybe I’ll put it in my queue. When I flipped my 2 categories around I got Air. I love Air - I’d love to see a 26 episode remake of Air over more Clannad episodes.

Anyways, great post.

- I’d say visual novels adaptations are a subset of harems, not the other way around.

- ef had 3 girls and 2 protagonists, can that ratio really count as a harem?

- True Tears is a love triangle, Aiko was an incidental plot device more than a girl.

- What, what, WHAT happened to the harem of all harems, the quintessential collection of archetypes surrounding, punching, and eventually loving a humble nerd, the omission of which makes me what to go all-caps — Love Hina? I’d say it goes for the lighthearted-dramatic end, but it’s also just plain great.

But getting away from all that nitpicking, props to you for putting together such an involved piece of work, not to mention have it make some sense, yowza.

I looked up emo-elitist (’cause drama’s totally not my thing) and I found, lo and behold, Air. One of my favorite shows ever, and yet, I have nothing but disdain for (almost all) the things you mention in your description of it. It was an eye-opener and a thought-changer and it entranced me with its visual and aural aesthetic. Plot? Characters? Come on.

Freakin’ disgrace.

Tsukihime and EF were MUCH better on those fronts. Psh.

EDIT: also, since when were AIR and EF harem shows?

@IKnight / Caitlin / Baka-Raptor: A lot of H2O’s in the crowd, which surprises me. This was a hard category to pick, honestly - dramatic and thoughtful works don’t usually overlap (because usually the drama will move along the plot so fast that most sensibility will be left behind), and so the analytical power in H2O is more of a ‘figuring out what happened in the story’ type thing, rather than really getting to take the powers apart.

That, and the first 4 episodes of H2O are neither dramatic nor thoughtful nor good. Still, I enjoyed the show, so, who knows. KimiNozo was a ‘thoughtful’-type too personally since it was so different compared to the rest of happy harems.

@ shirokiryuu: Ah, guess I forgot to account for that. What’s the female equivalent of manly tears, I wonder…womanly chest hair? XD

@ IcyStorm / nckl: Good to know the quiz seems to work.

And yeah, this post was basically borne out of a “I feel like defending harem shows today” urge mutated by insanity. Keep in mind that I’ve watched all of these, so don’t try to make yourself more of a ‘harem whore’ than I am. :P And the purpose of this post was to show that the harem genre isn’t that horrible, that it’s not completely full of pandering junk, so don’t be so ashamed of it, eh?

Maybe that’s because I usually call them ‘visual novel anime’ rather than ‘harem shows’ though.

@Lenroc: Glad to see I’m not the only one that started with Air. I enjoyed it very much too (I think it was the anime that affected me the most), although I’ve learned to love other shows more now.

@Teeif: Yandere make a show interesting, but I think that’s only because they aren’t very common in anime. Too many of them and I would go crazy too, I think, from all the drama.

@issa-sa: Yeah, I was mainly referring to the first season of Da Capo. D.C.S.S wasn’t too bad and had a great deal of characters, although this means they were spread pretty thin. (Not to mention Aisia being far too annoying at the start.)

I really disliked Da Capo II and never got past the 3rd episode … I wonder if it’s necessary to watch it in order to make sense of D.C. II S.S. - like you said, I’ve heard it’s better.

@Nagato: I only hinted at it a bit, but that recommendation applies to the Tsukihime visual novel as well. I hated the anime a lot at first, but that’s just because I’m much more of a ‘far side of the moon’ fan. A lot of characters had to get shafted but the anime did quite a few things I liked; it’s one of the better anime at ‘mood’ I’ve seen.

@Miha: Hahaha, KimiNozo really is emo, not emotional sometimes. (Yes, I treat them as different words.)

I would try the reverse then, emotional-drama, since I think Tsukihime is something that would move a lot of people.

@Michael: They are pretty close, true. I found myself more affected by Tsukihime the visual novel, while True Tears made a dent but not a quake; the emotional category reflects my personal bias of what shows moves me most, so Tsukihime was that first and foremost.

Maybe Tsukihime just gave me too much of a headache with its vampire world terminology and the like for me to really reflect on it on any deep level.

@Owen S: Copy-cat. Took it myself and I got that same distribution.

As mentioned, I like Air, but Key’s style of emotional pandering (aka ‘cry now plz’) doesn’t work for everyone - although I really adore it personally.

Well, except for the Clannad movie. That just sucked, but spoilers go elsewhere. D:

@Drm: Yeah, forgot to mention that. This is mainly a list of vaguely serious and recent harem anime, since I haven’t watched a lot of the old harems, or the fanservicey type.

Never heard of Wind before, and I’m hoping never again from what you said … but I’ve proven myself to be a masochist before.

@DKellis: Someone lighthearted! Finally! XD

Did you try Da Capo? I was tossed up between that and Shuffle! for the thoughtful category - both tilted more towards the dramatic side.

*takes breath, passes out*