Trope Name Proposal

[soc_puppet]

So we've got some established names for the common tropes of "harem series" (where the main character is a guy and has female love interests falling all over him left, right, and center), and "reverse harem series" (where the main character is a gal and has male love interests falling for her left, right, and center). But there are other options! I propose the following term names:

- Inverse Harem Series, for pure yuri harem series such as Strawberry Panic (I think?), where the main character is a gal and has lots of gals falling in love with her
- Double Reverse Harem Series, for a pure BL harem series such as Kyou Kara Maou, where the main character is a guy and has lots of guys falling in love with him
- Bisexual+ Harem Series, for a series like My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom, where the main character may be of any gender and has lots of characters of any gender falling in love with them

I'm not sure what to do with any series where the main character is agender or nonbinary or otherwise does not fit into a neat gender category, or if it changes at all depending on the gender(s) of the people interested in them. Bisexual+ Harem would fit regardless, but do NB x M and NB x W get different names? What about NB x NB? M x NB or W x NB? The term "Sideways Harem" comes to mind as a possibility, but would it be for all of those options, or just one? If just one, which one?

More thought and input are required.

Comments

[vriddy]

More research needed :D I like bisexual+ harem haha.

[soc_puppet]

There aren't enough of them! I came up with one for Anime Twine Con, and I think that "Full Clearing Another World Under a Goddess with No Believers"* might qualify, but other than that... Yeah, "My Next Life as a Villainess" is the only one I can think of that really fits the bill. There need to be more!

I guess Ouran High School Host club might also fit? Kinda? Slightly? It's hampered somewhat by the fact that none of the girls who fawn over Haruhi know she's a girl (or some flavor of genderqueer, etc), but with so few options...


* So far, mostly a traditional harem series, but has one male character who is written a lot like a love interest. No idea what, if anything, canon will be doing with him, and also I've only read the first three books, so. I would also be quite pleased if the character in question turns out to be a trans girl instead, but I'm not holding my breath.

[krait]

Hmm.

I think I prefer using the two extant terms and just expanding the base concept to cover different main characters: if the main character (regardless of gender) is surrounded by female love interests, it's a harem scenario, and if the main character (regardless of gender) is surrounded by male love interests, it's a reverse harem scenario.

Perhaps "Pan-Harem" would be a good choice for setups where the main character (regardless of gender) is surrounded by large numbers of love interests (regardless of gender)?

I feel that, given the common usage of it in discussions of fandom/tropes, "inverse harem" implies that the main character is one of the multitudinous love interests of another character... ;D

How about "null harem" or "nullified harem" for an asexual main character who's clueless about being surrounded by love interests? :D (Or not clueless, but still not interested in picking any of them.) "Sideways Harem" might also be a good fit for this one!

[soc_puppet]

This is fair! I'm pretty sure some part of my brain is rejecting the term "reverse harem" and wishing there was an entirely different name for the concept (maybe something to do with insects? I know that bee hives, for example, have one female mating with multiple males), and is trying to come up with funny ideas to expand on it in self-defense. And also as a mental rejection of what I'm pretty sure the actual terms will end up being, of "Lesbian Harem" and "Gay Harem". (If the culture goes that route, I'd much prefer Sapphic and Achillean harems, but, well, we already acknowledged that it's not actually up to me 😛) I guess Diamoric Harem could work for any nonbinary/agender/etc characters who don't feel like the others could work.

I like Pan Harem, but I feel like it should be slightly expanded to Pansexual Harem of Panromantic Harem, to specify that the main character is not part of every harem in existence.

Inverse Harem might also describe one of those older fanservice titles, where there's one guy who goes gaga over everyone even remotely female but they are (almost?) all abjectly uninterested in him (such as Lum! Urusei Yatsura, or if Pokémon were about Brock and ever had more than one regular female castmate at a time).

I like Null Harem for an oblivious ace and/or aro character surrounded by love interests! And Sideways Harem could also definitely work for at least one of those. ...More likely ace, I'm thinking, given a certain amount of hentai titles.