Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.
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@pinkgrapefruit22 Yes I’ve definitely noticed that too. Reading Outbreak Company right now and happy to see it different there. Gaius’ sexuality is treated a little like a punchline but it’s not treated like more of a punchline than most the other characters’ defining traits, so I overall see it as a win.
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@KopiCAT said in Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.:
But what I dislike most about Harems is the fact that none of the ladies ever really goes against decisions made by the MC. It's like they are one and all just a bunch of 'yes girls'.
MC: "I wanna do this!"
Harem: "Yes my lord"
MC: "I wanna do that!"
Harem: "Yes my lord"It's like they have zero agency other then to just support the MC in whatever he does.
That seems like the logical conclusion given that most of the time they don't actually have any meaningful personality. Or brain for that matter, otherwise they never would've joined the harem in the first place. Love(?) makes people stupid; or so the saying goes.
To me the really annoying bit is when the entire harem has to chime in on something and the author writes it on autopilot. It results in a page or two of padding, just the same thing repeated over and over with only the difference in verbal tic. It's a missed opportunity to give the members distinct personalities by them presenting the statement from their own point-of-view. And while at the core it's still rehashing the same statement, the differences help keep the characters from becoming an indistinct blob of forced author intent.
Even something as simple as "'I can't see how anything I say will make a difference,' Tsundere-chan huffed" can really help break up the monotony of a sequence of positive affirmations simply by being a negative affirmation that indicates even if Tsundere-chan is allowing MC to do what they want there's still a personal exasperation in that agreement.
Another good example is the idiot brigade in Trapped in a Dating Sim where they get into a round of positive affirmation harem commentary, but Maries usually horrified negative reactions are interspersed with the commentary keep it from getting stale by introducing distance to the comments. Alternatively, the idiot brigade starts playing off each other's affirmation into a new round of positive affirmation on a tangentially related topic keeping the round-robin commentary fresh.
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@endoftheline said in Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.:
Another good example is the idiot brigade in Trapped in a Dating Sim where they get into a round of positive affirmation harem commentary, but Maries usually horrified negative reactions are interspersed with the commentary keep it from getting stale by introducing distance to the comments. Alternatively, the idiot brigade starts playing off each other's affirmation into a new round of positive affirmation on a tangentially related topic keeping the round-robin commentary fresh.
That has been amusing, seeing just what idiocy her reverse harem will talk themselves into doing this time trying to please her. They're like kids digging up her garden to bring her flowers.
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@HarmlessDave I admit, I have to love what that series did with Marie specifically. She's easily my favorite character in the series and I love how the author got over his "I hate sisters" fetish in continued characterization.
... At least in that series. Then in the next one he hates sisters again.
In fairness, the sister trope just doesn't work for me, or I'd suspect for most westerners.
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@TopChop12 There have been a few that are sort of isekai but not really, The Lost Fleet is a good one, the first six books are pretty good. It's not so much an isekai but more of a man out of his time, he remembers what everyone else has forgotten.
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@KopiCAT You get that with Mushoku Tensei a lot, the girls have defined roles in the household but in the end do whatever Rudy wants. It's even hinted that yuri stuff happens because Rudy wants to watch Sylphy and Roxy play with each other, even though they have no interest in doing so otherwise. Eris is prob the only exception, he can't get her to do anything except with him because she takes over during sex and doesn't want to share.
You can argue that medieval societies would raise their daughters to be submissive and obedient to their husbands, and that a woman should hold on to a powerful man no matter what. Why the trope of a young girl being repulsed by a fat husband is so dumb, to people who don't get enough food a fat man means he eats well, so a woman would find him very attractive. In a society where harems are the norm, why should it be surprising to find the girls ok with it?
Problems show up in Harems when everyone gets older, the girls get fat from age and childbirth, and the husband brings in a young girl to add to the harem. Of course, the older wives are upset because they know they are being replaced and won't be nice to the new girl. At least in anime this is presented as a dick move by the man and makes him out to be a selfish ass. I see Rudy doing this eventually, he's just that selfish.
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@Folker46
Except Roxy and silphy are not human and don't age the same so only eris will get older. I don't think eris will ever be replaced. -
@Carltrue That is one of the tragedies of some harem stories. Rudy and Eris have maybe 70 years left, Roxy has 150, and Sylphy has an unknow amount but prob centuries, just like her grandma. In the end, Sylphy will be the only one left and will prob start adventuring, maybe even falling in love again but otherwise leaving Rudy and the rest in the past.
Anytime I see an Elf in a love situation with a human I feel kind of sad for them.
But this might be easy for an Elf, they may see it like owning a dog, you know you will outlive them, so you try to love and play with them as much as you can. I always thought that was why Elves are considered stand-off-ish when relating to other races, they don't want to get attached to someone only to watch them grow old and die while they stay young. I can see that starting to suck after a while.
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@Folker46 the Magical Revolution anime that just started is going to wind up dealing with this topic if it follows the novels. We should find out who one of the people in question is within the next few episodes, the other two will be around episode 10 or 11 or thereabouts.
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@KopiCAT A loli? Akatsuki was described as a mature 20-year-old female college student of short stature (150 cm), that's all. The world has short women like that. My own mother is one of them... and she's legal.
The chapter about the world's bank vault was not about getting rich; It was about breaking the world's rules. They didn't get anything out of it, not a single gold coin. I think you misunderstood that volume.
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@RobD Guess I'm too hung up on her appearance from the Anime then. Because there she sure as heck isn't a mature 20 year old but short. My older sister is around 150 herself, maybe a bit taller, and she's 37. I know what a short but mature adult woman look like. So again, guess I got too hung up on her looks from the anime which transferred over to the LN. Because in the anime she looked like a little child. Btw, I started reading the LN because of the anime, so anime came first for me in the case of that series.
Also iirc wasn't the whole point of raiding that place because they were having serious trouble paying all their upkeep?
I seem to remember part of the motivation for it was that if they succeeded, they would no longer need to fear being unable to fully pay all the upkeep costs for owning the entire city. But maybe I did misunderstand, and what they instead aimed to do was to stop having to pay it in the first place?
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@KopiCAT said in Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.:
I seem to remember part of the motivation for it was that if they succeeded, they would no longer need to fear being unable to fully pay all the upkeep costs for owning the entire city. But maybe I did misunderstand, and what they instead aimed to do was to stop having to pay it in the first place?
Having just recently reread that section of the LN...
The goal was to purchase and then transfer ownership of all the crucial zones to the Yamato Server itself, so that no Adventurer could wield the power that Shiro demonstrated when he took down Hamelin, and also that the Round Table Council not spend well over 50% of its total budget on fees maintaining their ownership of various zones.
Ownership transferred to the server means the Round Table Council's expenses go down, yes.
Eventually all zones would be transferred this way.The major downside of the Zone Ownership system was that only Adventurers could purchase Zones.
The People of the Earth couldn't, yet were still subject to any changes to Zone regulations the Adventurer owning the Zone applied...and everything is part of a Zone.
By transferring control to the Server, all regulations are the default settings.
So long as no one can do anything to the Zone settings, the property ownership system used by the People of the Earth can be used by everyone, keeping such matters on a level playing ground for People of the Earth and Adventurers alike.Anyway, to purchase the various Zones they wanted to transfer first required more money than every Adventurer combined possessed, so since Shiro f'd up his attempt to negotiate with the Clan managing the flow of 'money' they were left with no option but to obtain control of that themselves... upon which they did the various transactions and handed it all back to said Clan.
There was a significant level of altruism involved.
They ended with less power than when they set out to do this due to no longer controlling the Zone containing the Guild Hall and the Bank.
But it was a recognition that the Adventurers had an unhealthy advantage over the People of the Earth due to being able to purchase their land out from under them at will, and tweak the Zone settings controlling acceptable actions; this was just too dangerous when it came to interaction of societies to be maintained.
As for Akatsuki, her description within the LN, and the illustrations, are in line with her appearing possibly younger than Minori...who is a middle schooler with a typical middle schooler's physique.
It's not just that she's short, she's also flat, thin, and no curves.
She herself relates in her PoV that she was frequently mistaken for an Elementary student prior to the Catastrophe.
The only non-slimy character to have asked her out was an elementary schooler who thought she went to a different school... -
@Geezer-Weasalopes Thanks for that. So it seems I was wrong or at least remembered wrongly about the whole bank raid.
But it seems I wasn't about Akatsuki. If you are mistaken for an Elementary student, you are the very definition of a loli in my mind, no matter your age. And any romance between an actual adult MC and such a person just.. well disgust would be much too strong a word. But I certainly dislike it strongly.
Besides, Henrietta was always my favorite. She also showed clear signs of liking him. I will simply never understand the obvious appeal of a legal loli. Obvious because it seems so popular.
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@KopiCAT said in Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.:
@Geezer-Weasalopes Thanks for that. So it seems I was wrong or at least remembered wrongly about the whole bank raid.
But it seems I wasn't about Akatsuki. If you are mistaken for an Elementary student, you are the very definition of a loli in my mind, no matter your age. And any romance between an actual adult MC and such a person just.. well disgust would be much too strong a word. But I certainly dislike it strongly.
Besides, Henrietta was always my favorite. She also showed clear signs of liking him. I will simply never understand the obvious appeal of a legal loli. Obvious because it seems so popular.
Bear in mind that Shiro is not pursuing her.
It's not his fetish.
He does recognize her as an adult.Should Akatsuki be denied a stable relationship due to her appearance?
I don't give a shit about whether it's a deliberate appeal to a certain type of fan, because it is part of the storyline from the first chapter and the only point where it's being an issue is Henrietta using her as a dress up doll despite her resistance; if anyone in-story has a fetish and is abusing their position, it's Henrietta. That one is a trope I don't particularly enjoy.
Akatsuki has decent reasons to think well of Shiro, and he isn't displaying any of the signs she's learned to be wary of.
Shiro, for his part, isn't noticing either Akatsuki or Minori being into him that way until a long way into the storyline; I'm not sure he really does register it with Minori, who he knows is a Middle Schooler.I won't say that there isn't a trope being examined, given that the young lady rescued from Susukino has a strong case of 'like' for Nyanta.
But the ones with the case of 'like' are the younger in actual age and/or appearance, and the older folks who are the focus of said affections are responding by not responding.
In all three cases there was a bit of a rescue involved early on; Akatsuki with the appearance reset potion, Minori with rescue from Hamelin, and the young lady who's name is totes escaping me just now due to Nyanta sheltering her in Susukino and escorting her back to Akiba as part of the Shiro-led rescue party.So there isn't any lolicon activity involving anyone in-story.
I'm not sure that "loli" or "lolicon" has even showed up as a concept in-story. -
@Geezer-Weasalopes Hmm. Akatsuki always seemed like the main romance partner here for me though. I mean, in almost any shounen that doesn't purely focus on romance, nothing really happens until the very end of the show. But you can almost always pick out the main romantic interest from the start. It's usually the first girl introduced that the MC interacts with all the time. And once they start having positive feelings for each other, it's almost set. And at least in the anime, it seems rather clear that Akatsuki likes Shiro. And he can be as oblivious as he wants, doesn't change the trend of how shounen series usually go. That is ofc if they bother with romance at all. But Log Horizon does seem to be rather filled with it. Not to mention the times he seems rather embarrassed interacting with her. But I'm mainly talking about the anime more then the LN. Been way to long since I read anything about it.
Heck, you even have your typical Harem Protagonist being a side character here.
So until someone who's read this one to the very end tells me they don't end up a couple, I have little interest in the series.
Also I have no issue with her getting a romantic partner. But I don't want that to be the main character. Because that's the person I want to relate to. That's the person that brings me into a show. That's the person I root for. That's the person I sometimes might even wish I was.
So that's the person I want to fit my own tastes. That's the whole reason for me to read for entertainment purposes.
I don't mind that they do things I don't like, it simply means I won't read it. That simple. And because of that, I wish they did not do things I don't like. Aren't we all like that?
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@KopiCAT
I totally get not reading things that you don't enjoy; this isn't a school or work assignment.
While at the end of the 11 translated volumes it can't be said that they're a couple, there have been clear signs of mutual regard and affection.
It's pretty inconceivable that either will end up with anyone else at this point.The eleven volumes run you through Season Two of the anime; season three appears to indicate where volumes 12 and beyond will be going. Volume 12 has yet to be released in Japan, or so it appears.
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Well, one thing is for sure. The author made her small on purpose.
The reason being: she had this potion to change back from being a tall guy back to her small form.
She hated being short, so the author could've written something along the lines of, that she turned back to being female, but a little taller than before.
He didn't choose that route, so he turned her back to the small form on purpose, because it has a role to play in the story.
What role? That's up to your interpretation.
I think it's to add a funny note (short-stuff and so on followed by a knee to the chin).
Maybe it's to capture a younger audience so that they could identify with this tiny but super-strong and smart assassin.
Or maybe to create polar opposites: one is the small flat and role-playing but easily provoked girl, the other is the sensual voluptuous woman. And then there's the tall, super-serious protagonist.
Or, you might think it's because the author liked lolis? I don't think he did, though. There was 1 story where a couple of kids took center stage, having their own exciting adventure. It was just innocent, nothing happened except their road to discover how to live in that new world. -
@RobD
Part of it was to underline what had already been mentioned concerning Shiro and Nautsugo; Naut's the same size as in Real Life, and moves just fine. Shiro is adjusting to being a little taller than he's used to, with concomitant clumsiness for a bit. But still kinda no biggie.Akatsuki? Looks like she's falling down drunk when attempting to move around as a result of just how far off her reflexes are due to the major change in size.
Given their circumstances, can she afford any problems with reflexes at this time?
If there was another character design potion available to her, she might have tried something a tad taller and more developed knowing that if she couldn't adjust in a timely manner she could try again... but so far as she's aware this is it, her one opportunity to undue a mistake.
So she went for the form her autonomic system is used to, despite all the other problems inherent with it.
Staying with the form she was in was not an option if one desired her to stay sane; she wasn't trans, didn't have gender dysphoria, it was just the character she used in Elder Tales so that folks would treat her as someone competent; fine in a game, but when it becomes Real Life not fine at all.The author didn't go on and ignore the situation.
Whether one finds some of the character interactions humorous or not depends upon your worldview, but he didn't ignore the reality that there would be some reaction to the disparities in apparent age due to size, and even if she'd had a mature physique at that height there'd have been a lot of shit coming her way.My sister is around 4'8" or so, two years older than I am, and hasn't grown an inch in over fifty years. She has a mature figure, so hasn't had that issue...other than the folks thinking she was a mature looking kid. But most of her clothes are custom made or carefully altered, and have been since her teens.
And our society does discriminate based upon height as well as all the other shit that can define someone as 'different,' with the distinction that it doesn't matter what race or creed or whatever, short isn't easy when attempting to function in a world of mass produced goods aimed at the 'norm.'.My impression is that she's around Shiro's age, as both are in college still?
Shiro was, I think she was still as well.
So the only thing that would make a relationship weird is how others perceive their respective appearances in conjunction.I must admit that my problem with Akatsuki is how others view her, readers and in-story; I really dislike Henrietta's thing for taking girls she can dominate and using them as dress-up toys because they're so cute. Akatsuki, Raynesia, a couple of others who are fairly main cast. And the folks who let her do so, who look aside going, "Not my problem."
Which is irritating as otherwise it's one of my favorite series.
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@Geezer-Weasalopes Having people try out clothes is really a woman thing. They buy clothes for you as a gift and then 'ask' you to try them on, but there's no room to refuse. It happens to me sometimes and I'm a grown up guy. I think it's just one of those things, maybe the writer wanted to vent about it in some way.
