It’s funny how a meme crops up among several people at the same time, as I was recently reflecting on the same things that I’ve found Steven Den Beste and Pixy Mixa Shamus ruminating on: The differences between Japanese anime and American TV — and whether it’s possible to become as burned out on the former as we are on the latter.
So, Tuesday night was time to watch The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, episode 11. After a slump through episodes 6-9, the last two have definately been on target again with the insanity, Kyon’s sarcasm, and the totally unpredictable madness of Haruhi.
Even though it was predictable that the Computer Society would cheat and that Yuki would hack their cheat codes, it was just a riot to watch.
So Jason, over at Anime on My Mind decided a month ago to challenge his viewers to put together their very own animé harem. Just in case you’re not familiar with the genre, an anime harem involves 2 or more girls (usually 3-5) all chasing after the same guy. Often he’s hapless and hopless, and he usually can’t (or won’t) make up his mind between them, or something prevents him from doing so. Competition between the girls is often fierce, and provides about half the entertainment; the other half being the frequency with which the girls lose articles of clothing.
For the selection, the rules were: six girls, plus one maid to kind of keep the place in order. No two girls could be from the same series, unless they were twins/triplets, in which case the sisters would count as a single “girl.” Pretty simple, and quite generous. The thread is still going, so I chimed in with my contribution. Just for fun, I decided to cross-post here, since I can add the pictures and show my choices, not to mention discuss my reasons at greater length.
Many of the posters developed “themes” with their choices, and as I sifted through my collection mentally, I found one developing with my picks. Once I identified it, I ran with the idea, although it did change my choices slightly. I chose to restrict myself to anime that I owned or had seen on TV; if I’m picking my favorites, I can’t claim a girl as a favorite if I haven’t seen her series. So a lot of worthy candidates got eliminated from the outset: CBD Kei, CBD May, the original Nuku Nuku, Lum, and so on.
The theme I ran with was flexibility.