Unwanted Harem: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

 

 

Even if he does like one or more of the girls, the young man won't or can't admit it. Besides, until the point comes where one of the girls is in danger, the young man would [[I Just Want to Be Normal|rather have his nice quiet life back]]. May or may not involve [[Innocent Cohabitation]].

 

 

As shown by poor Tsukune in the above picture, the most common and immediate consequences of said Harems is the hilarious (if incredibly painful to watch) [[Lover Tug of War]].

* [[Dump Them All]]

* [[Third Option Love Interest]]

* [[Chaste Hero]]

4. No one wins

* [[No Romantic Resolution]]

* [[Maybe Ever After]]

 

== Anime and Manga ==

** Ranma has two unwanted harems, one for his male form, and one for his female. In the manga, with the exception of one persistent lunatic (his lunacy is not related to his persistence), all of them are oneshot characters who usually either only want something very specific from Ranma (for example, the astral projection of a [[Dirty Old Man]] who wants a date to be reminded of his young wife) or lose interest in disgust when they find out they've been "tricked". The one persistent example won't give up only because he's apparently too dumb to realise that [[Gender Bender|"she" isn't quite what she seems...]]

** Akane also has an unwanted harem: Ranma, Ryoga, Kuno, Shinnosuke...

** Likewise for Kaede Rukawa, Sasuke's probable manga ancestor from ''[[Slam Dunk]]''.

* ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' has an unusual one in that the male lead is ''[[Adorably Precocious Child|10 years old]]'', and all the girls are well above his age (although still too young), so the romance is mostly played for laughs.

** We stress "mostly". The ones who ''have'' had serious romantic moments are {{spoiler|Nodoka, Yue, Ako (in love with his aged-up alter-ego), Makie, Chachamaru (a ''robot'') and Asuna ([[Like Brother and Sister|Maybe]])}}.

'''Chisame:''' ...don't say that kind of thing with a straight face. I swear, a girl's gonna stab you one of these days... }}

** By chapter 340, Negi has to deal with all of the above, plus {{spoiler|Shiori, Akira, Anya, Ku Fei, Ayaka, and [[Even the Guys Want Him|Fate]]}} - and these are just the ones who can be described as having a ''serious'' crush. For the non-serious: Konoka mentioned that Negi would be attractive when he got older in an early volume, Setsuna had a pretty shipteasy moment that Chamo noted sounded 'like a love confession' during the Tournament arc (though it turned into a [[Schoolgirl Lesbians|KonoSetsu]] moment pretty quickly), and Misa proposed the [[Wife Husbandry|Reverse Hikaru Genji plan]], noting that if they waited five years it would be much more normal for the girls to go out with him {{spoiler|and later also got a crush on his older counterpart}}. Overall, that's ''11 or 12'' that have a definite interest in him, and 3 more that have expressed at least a small attraction. Negima [[Zig Zagged Trope|Zig-Zagged]] this trope a lot at the beginning, but it's certainly playing straight the harem aspect now. (Though it's very probable this is less an unwanted harem so much as an [[Oblivious to Love|Oblivious Harem]]...)

* [[Tower of God|''Twentyfifth Baam'']] has the [[Tomboy Princess]] Yuri Zahard, the [[Empathic Weapon]] Black March, the cynical princess Androssi Zahard as well as the the Guide Hwa Ryun and the noblewoman Yeon in his harem (the last ones are up for debate, though). He doesn't care about that, though, since he is focused on finding Rachel.

* Another all male harem is in ''[[Kyou Kara Maou]]''

** Notable in that he's already [[Official Couple|clearly picked his favorite]], which the others notice.

** Don't forget when a guy comes in to recruit Tsukune for the monster mafia. He suggests he can just bring all the girls with him, [[Tenchi Solution|using polygamy to solve the problem]]. The [[Official Couple]] disagrees...[[Crowning Moment of Funny|but everyone else thinks its a great idea]].

** Some later issues deconstruct the trope by showing emotional effects on the girls who know they have [[First Girl Wins|already lost out to Moka]] but are still hopelessly in love with Tsukune, in more realistic, non-comedic, non-[[I Just Want My Beloved to Be Happy]] ways rather than a typical use of the trope. Kurumu in particular has had a few heartbreaking scenes of unrequited love.

** While that was true at first, Tsukune later confesses to loving '''both''' Mokas, each in their own way. This is possibly due to the prolonged amount of time he spent with the "Inner" Moka (the real one) in the second season. {{spoiler|And "Outer" Moka approves of this (reluctantly in the anime), encouraging "Inner" Moka to accept her feelings for Tsukune.}}

* ''[[Happy Lesson]]'' has a school full of [[Hot for Student|hot teachers]] who all decide to play mom for the [[Hikikomori|socially withdrawn]] Chitose, who doesn't really grow to appreciate this sudden forced invasion of personal space until well into the series, and even then he still blows his top when he thinks they go too far.

* ''[[Gokujou Drops]]'' uses a [[Girls Love]] version of this trope with a [[Seme]] harem and an [[Uke]] harem lead.

* ''[[Ninin ga Shinobuden]]'' parodies this in episode 11 when Sasuke [[Hostile Show Takeover|takes over the show]]. He promptly makes all the female cast members (including Kaede's mom) fall in love with him.

* ''[[Kurogane Pukapuka Tai]]'' is a [[Girls Love]] version of this, in which [[Oblivious to Love|Oblivious To Lesbianism]] Commander Kuki is the center of a harem of women after her: violently protective but shy XO Mamiya, (mostly) [[Chivalrous Pervert]] U-Boat captain Nina, and aggressively womanizing Royal Navy Captain Ann. Much violence (but little blood) ensues, naturally.

* ''[[The World God Only Knows]]'' is a rare example of the lead character ''working'' for his harem. It's still unwanted though: he's only doing it because he has an [[Explosive Leash]] forcing him to.

*** Averted by the fact that {{spoiler|some of the girls do keep their memories and stay in love with him later in the story}}

* This seems to be the situation in ''[[Tona Gura]]'', til you scratch the surface. While nearly all the cast is female, very few are interested in Yuuji; the one who seriously is reels from how he apparently changed from a sweet boy to a 'pervert'.

* ''[[Shugo Chara]]'', wherein the main character, Hinamori Amu, has her choice of Hotori Tadase, Tsukiyomi Ikuto, Soma Kuukai, Sanjo Kairi, or Fujisaki Nagihiko. The manga and anime both had pretty open endings, so there's not much evidence to say this is who she chose.

** An early-series assassination attempt - before a large part of the harem even ''meets'' Touma - makes this a Canon plot point.

* ''[[Magikano]]''

* ''[[Hiatari Ryoukou]]'' features an unwanted reverse-harem involving high school students living in the same boarding house.

* An unusual case is Leicester Maycraft of ''[[Shukufuku no Campanella]]'', who doesn't seem to be too bothered by the attention from the main girls around him, including his [[Hot Shounen Mom]] Shelly. He seems to just laugh it off even when it happens in public.

** Although one of these men is in an [[Official Couple|rather official couple]] thus far

** It is a merciless parody however, as Fujimura is in no way happy with the attention he gets '''at all''', and all of the girls are more or less complete morons with Fujimura being the [[Only Sane Man]].

* ''[[Yumeria]]''

* Nitori from ''[[Wandering Son]]'' has a harem of sorts, both with girls and boys, though it comes off as a [[Deconstruction]] of a harem. So far Chiba has liked him, he's had a ''very'' close friendship with Takatsuki (who Nitori says he had a onesided crush on at one time), Doi is unusually into him, Seya fell for him, his friend Mako has a crush on him, and he has an (ex?) girlfriend called Anna who still likes him from the looks of it. He doesn't seem to really like the attention.

* ''[[Rappi Rangai]]''

* ''[[Half Prince]]'': Both [[Even the Guys Want Him|male]] and female for Prince.

* ''[[Mayo Chiki]]''.

* ''[[Asu no Yoichi]]'' - Yoichi doesn't even realise he even ''has'' a harem.

** Played for laughs in one storyline where the female characters (including old lady Otose) and ...MADAO convince Gin that he had a one-night stand with them (on the same night) and now has to take responsibility. It's a ploy to get him to stop drinking so much.

* In ''[[Kemeko Deluxe]]'', Sanpeita ends up with MM, Izumi, Vanilla, Miura and a [[Miko]] after him.

* Happens to Muneakira in ''[[Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls]]''.

** And he does.

* ''[[Tubame Syndrome]]''.

* Jiro of ''[[Hajimete no Aku]]'' has 4 girls all vying for his affections.

* ''[[Kiniro no Corda]]'' has a reverse harem surrounding Hino.

* ''[[Hozuki-san Chi no Aneki]]'' There's one developing around Gorou with Misaki, Mizuno, and Kyou - it's unwanted because he's too smitten with his stepsister Haru to consider any of them as a love interest.

* ''[[Bleach]]'': This trope doesn't exist in the manga. However, it didn't stop the anime [[Adaptation Expansion|trying to create]] it by using the following females: [[She Is Not My Girlfriend|Rukia]], [[Childhood Friend Romance|Orihime]], [[The Tease|Yoruichi]], [[Precocious Crush|Ririn]], [[Genki Girl|Senna]], [[Cute Monster Girl|Nel]] and [[Sugar and Ice Personality|Riruka]]. To prevent things getting too far away from the manga, the anime naturally makes Ichigo [[Oblivious to Love]] to maintain the status quo.

 

 

** [[Tenchi Solution|Not necessarily.]]

 

== Film ==

* Didier, the French exchange student in ''[[Son of Rambow]],'' was ''so'' androgynously beautiful that he had '''two''' harems; one for girls, and [[Even the Guys Want Him|one for boys]].

* In ''[[White Sun of the Desert]]'', Sukhov gets stuck with an actual harem, formerly belonging to Abdullah, the leader of Basmachi guerrillas. While the women consider him to be their protector, they do not actually try to jump him (this being a Soviet film and all).

* The title character in ''[[Kull The Conqueror]]'' inherits a literal unwanted harem from the previous king. At the end of the movie, Kull officially disbands the harem, proclaiming that "the king commands no one's affection".

 

== Literature ==

* [[Harry Potter]] ends up with a large number of admirers in the sixth book.

** Of course, [[Robert Pattinson]] gets this in real life, to his bewilderment. He claims he gets out of dates with random girls by acting like Edward. ''[[Alternative Character Interpretation|His]]'' idea of Edward.

** [[Stephenie Meyer|The author]] insists that this was based on her successful love life in college after she wasn't looked at twice in high school. In one quote, she mentioned that she was dating three guys at the same time (which none of them knew about).

*** [[Sarcasm Mode|Sure she did...]]

* [[Anita Blake]], the eponymous heroine of Laurell K. Hamilton's monster hunting series, although as the harem gets bigger it seems to be less and less unwanted. When it was just a vampire and a werewolf she was stressing over it.

** Slightly justified in that she has fairy blood, which for vampires (and maybe other supernaturals) is like cat nip.

* In ''[[The House of Night]]'' series, heroine Zoey Redbird has three admirers/boyfriends: Heath, her human ex-boyfriend and quarterback of the football team, Erik Night, the hottest guy in the vampyre high school, and Loren Blake, a teacher and poet. Loren leaves the harem later on when {{spoiler|he's revealed to be evil and then dies}}, only to be replaced by Stark.

* In ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'' series, each of the main three male characters (Rand, Mat and Perrin) all end up with multiple women pursuing them, sometimes even teaming up against the man.

** {{spoiler|Rand eventually confesses and marries ''simultaneously'' all 3 of his fangirls, who are luckily the best of friends/surrogate sisters to each other anyway}}

** This also happens to a side character, Gaul, who wants one half of [[Heterosexual Life Partners|a pair]], but has to marry them both thanks to the rules of his [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|culture]].

* Henry James' ''[[Portrait Of A Lady]]'': The lady in question, Isabel Archer, has quite the unwanted harem.

* Suleiman-bin-Daoud of the ''[[Just So Stories]]'' has ''nine hundred and ninety nine'' wives. He's not very happy about it.

* Miriam, the elder sister of Jonathan in ''[[The Roman Mysteries]]'', has one.

 

== Live Action TV ==

** Another Buffy episode, "Him", has Buffy, Willow (who by this time has come out as a lesbian), demon Anya and teenaged Dawn falling for a high school boy, to the point where they are each trying to kill perceived rivals (or in Willow's case, work a spell to turn him into a girl) for his affections. The boys manage to work out that the boy is unwittingly wearing an enchanted letterman jacket which causes women to fall madly in love with the wearer.

* Ned's Unwanted Harem on the live action but [[Animesque]] ''[[Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide]]'' call themselves "Club Ned" (but are referred to by Ned and his friends as The Huge Crew). They may be a tough, intimidating, leather-and-bandanna-wearing gang, but on the bright side, they don't see any other girls who like Ned as competition, but invite them to join the club!

* Seth Cohen in ''[[The OC]]'' spends years as the Dateless Nerd before finding himself pursued by both Summer and Anna.

 

== Music ==

* Jimmy Reed had a song about it. "But I Ain't Got You".

* The Duane Elms song "Who Do You Love?", where the protagonist feels he must choose just one of them.

''There is such a thing as too much good.'' }}

* The Warren Zevon song "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" is a masterpiece mixture of this and complete obliviousness.

* The Carl Perkins song "Everybody's Trying to be my Baby"

* The Eagles song "Take It Easy," as seen in the page quote.

 

== Theater ==

*** One of Pinafore's major influences is a poem by Gilbert called "The Bumboat Woman's Story", in which Lt. Belaye, who commands a British gunship, discovers that his entire, unusually well-behaved crew is made up of young women, who dressed up like sailors to continue being around him.

 

== Video Games ==

* The way the dialogue in [[Neverwinter Nights 2]] is written, a male player expressing interest in Elanee is reacting to Neeshka as if this trope is in play.

** The dialogue in question is probably an artifact from when Neeshka was going to be a possible love interest for the male PC.

* ''[[Persona 3]]'' plays this trope straight with Akihiko: he has a harem, but he [[Oblivious to Love|doesn't pay attention to it]]. He doesn't even know the names of the girls involved.

* From ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', [[Badass Bookworm|Mordin]] [[Cool Old Guy|of]] [[Crazy Awesome|all]] [[Deadly Doctor|people]] claims to have had one of these, or at the very least many come-ons from different species, and he is able to rationalize why each species would find him attractive.

** And the reason he even ''tells'' you all this is because ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCtFrIFs_Fo he thinks you're making a pass at him].''

** Shepard also gets this. No matter what species you are, chances are you will want to bang Shepard.

** Best shown in Grunt's loyalty mission, where after defeating a Tresher Maw, ''[[Beyond the Impossible|on-foot]]'', the first to do so since Wrex over a thousand years previously, EDI calls and informs you;

** In the non-canonical endings to this game, the harem is also pared down thus: {{spoiler|Nessiah, Aegina, and Siskier}} in the good B ending, {{spoiler|Aegina winning}} in the bad B ending, and {{spoiler|Aegina, Luciana, and Siskier}} in the C ending.

* ''[[Fable]]'' has this if you get attractive enough. It will result in you being blocked into your house/shops. It is a [[Scrappy Mechanic]]

* [[Sonic the Hedgehog]] has one of these, though most of the girls are never shown.

* In ''[[Come See Me Tonight]]'', the main character's parents mysteriously disappear one day, so an old friend of the family offers to let him stay with her. When he arrives, he discovers her 3 beautiful daughters and a [[Dojikko]] act as hostesses in the restaurant she owns. He slowly but surely becomes the target of their affections as he helps out in the restaurant.

** The sequel involves the son of a family that runs a shrine famous for its annual harvest festival and accompanying "Dance of the Shrine Maidens" taking over his grandfather's duties as chief priest - which involves helping 3 beautiful maidens-in-training learn the dance, as well as learning his own part, and picking which of the maidens will become his wife.

* Ohgami of ''[[Sakura Taisen]]'' gains one, and is one of the earliest originators of the [[Harem Hero]] subtrope.

 

** [[It Got Worse]]. One of Steve's old friends, being a voyeur, set up hidden cameras to spy on Steve and Miriam. Hence, Miriam's unwanted career as the porn star Mila Fila was born without her knowledge or consent. This led to hundreds of fans, a few living in the Evansville area, mistaking Candi for Miriam and casting awkward glances. Some days, the only escape was to run around rooftops dressed like a centipede. The poor girl's [[All Women Are Lustful|mostly]]-[[Urban Legend Love Life|undeserved]] [[Really Gets Around|reputation]] could ''never'' catch a break!

* Lampshaded in ''[[Tsunami Channel]]'' [http://www.tsunamichannel.com/index.php?date=2003-04-24&comic=ExCoKo here]

* Piro from ''[[Megatokyo]]'' is a geek and harem anime fan, yet he views his own with an increasing level of bemusement and disbelief, completely unable to communicate his feelings (mostly fear and confusion) to any of them.

** But ''not'' Rumisiel, who all but a rare few know as Ash's boyfriend, but who knows that Ash is in reality a straight boy.

* Cassie in ''[[The Wotch]]'' ends up accidentally building up one of these in her attempts to get Robin to drink a love potion, instead attracting [[Ninja Brat|Robin's younger brother Kirk]], [[Those Two Guys|Xander]], and finally [[Cargo Ship|a plant.]] And now it's starting to look like Robin and Cassie might start going out anyway.

* [[Yamato Nadeshiko|Mye]] of ''[[Charby the Vampirate]]'' appears to have admirers wherever she goes, although she describes herself as not all that pretty. Eventually {{spoiler|this is revealed to be, unknown to her, the effect of a spell that draws men to her.}}

 

== Web Original ==

** Chaka herself has a lot of people after her. More than a few are female.

 

== Western Animation ==

* In ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'', Baljeet has one composed of Mishti, Wendy and Ginger.

 

== Real Life ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Love Tropes]]

[[Category:Harem Genre]]

[[Category:Wish Fulfillment]]

[[Category:Love Interests]]

[[Category:Unwanted Harem]]