It’s just a mindless sort of entertainment which is perfect after stressing out my brain on work. The male protagonist gets caught between his two strong-willed love interests, and both blame him! Funny! The Official Couple go on a date, and their friends tag along to spy on them! Hilarious! Things like that, which would never elicit a laugh from the stratified critics, but which don’t rely on brain power to understand. It’s like watching a sitcom.

I watch slice-of-life for the comedy as well, but harem comedies have the additional fun factor of romantic entanglements (which nevertheless get resolved with a Happy Ending, or at least a Status Quo Ending), and (almost by definition) the large number of cute girls.

Weirdly, I’ve actually managed to offend some Clannad fans by my opinion of the series, and this is an opinion which is favourable, albeit in a very narrow sense: namely, I mentioned that I wouldn’t mind if I could watch a version of Clannad which was the same as it is, but with all the angst, the drama, the serious bits, all carefully surgically removed, and thus leaving the comedy. Because the Fujibayashi twins are awesome, and Sunohara is utterly misplaced in a drama series.

Personally I found a lot to like in all the Key productions so far, but maybe that’s because I looked past a bit of the intrinsic ridiculousness (and the whole get-in-line arc feel to it) and more towards the characters, who, while a bit forced, were very moe. XD Clannad does feel a bit better with the way they’re building up Nagisa and Tomoya’s relationship, though.

DKellis / Griever: Hmm, that’s another side to it. I didn’t really consider the humor side of harem shows, mainly because I couldn’t think of many that had real humor to it (as opposed to, ‘hey look, I fell on top of you. laugh.’).

But I suppose shows like Clannad could be a good example of funny shows that happen to have some harem elements to it (although arguing that it’s going to stay that way is futile). I personally haven’t watched (or haven’t recgonized that I have watched) a lot of shows that mix harem and comedy; usually I stick to harem for the drama/romance and slice of life for the comedy.

Most of the time, I watch harem shows because for the most part, what I watch are the harem comedies, rather than the dramas. It’s a chance for me to de-stress and unwind after a long day. There’s damned little to laugh about without reservations in the Real World, so I treasure every chuckle I get in a harem show, when all I need to think about is how amazingly cute this character is, or how amusing the situations can get.

Weirdly enough, too much schadenfreude is unfunny to me, which is why several harem comedies (Seto no Hanayome, for instance) don’t really appeal to me that much. But I don’t really care how many cliches or lazy plots there are in a show, as long as it gives me plenty of cute girls to look at (and has the screentime focus on those girls), has enough comedy (preferably witty banter or Boke/Tsukkomi), and doesn’t try to take itself way too seriously.

I suppose it could be considered wish fulfilment in a way: it’s not that I wish I had a girlfriend like one of the female haremettes, but more that I had friends like the haremettes, who are easy on the eyes, and also aren’t as apathetic/cynical as most people I meet in Real Life. Cynics, after all, are not moe.