Idea: Counter-Cliche Haremu Adventure - Introduction

[Jason_Miao]

A brief introduction to a "harem" style series, which I finished about a year and a half ago, mainly written to see if I could.

Note: I have no plans to actually write anything past this intro.  Fairly rough -- I wrote this in wordpad, so spell/grammar check was by eyeball.

JR Encounter

Serendipity can come in disguise.  Although I'd intended to buy a more comfortable seat for my long distance train trip, the Green compartments were fully occupied.   I was late enough, and did not wish to delay my trip further, so I had to settle for one of the cheaper seats.   Seemingly terrible, but had my travels followed my plans instead of my circumstances, I would not be having the current conversation.

"Well, that's that," declared my seatmate, flipping through a stack of dossiers.  "A princess in hiding and an orphaned artist in this 'fiancee summit'?  This trip out here is going to be a complete waste of time."

"We haven't known each other for very long, Miss Nakano, so I can't claim to know that much about you or your circumstances."  We'd only started chatting on the train only a few hours ago, so true in a sense.  "But aren't you being a bit hard on yourself?  If you're a candidate fiancee along with people like that, I'm sure you must have your own good qualities.  If you weren't, you'd have hardly been invited to an event hosted by the Fujiwara."

"Sure I do.  It says so right here, see?"  She pulled her dossier out of the stack, and pointed to a line close to middle.  "Talent: Cooking."

I looked at the entry where her finger pointed.  Indeed, it said "Talent: Cooking."  "Well, cooking's not so bad.  Everyone has to eat."

"'Not so bad'?  What use is 'not so bad' when you're trying to impress a prospective fiance?  And besides, the girl who has a talent for cooking is never the leading girl in harem-type situations, unless everyone else cooks as well."

"Never?"

"Never!" she declared.  "Was Sasami really in the running in any of the Tenchi Muyo series?  What about Shinobu in Love Hina?"

I thought about that for a moment.  "Weren't they much younger than the male lead?  It would have been pretty disturbing had they ended up together."

"True, but you can't say that about Ranma ½.  Heck, two of the three fiancees had restaurants!  And who does Ranma end up with?  The girl who can barely make curry."  She absently drummed her fingers for a moment.  "Not such a great sign for someone who has a talent for souffles."

I grabbed the stack of profiles of her competitors, and rifled through it.  "That is a good a point.  Still, you can't be the only girl who can cook in this group.  See, this one likes tea.  That's somewhat like cooking, isn't it?"

She took that particular dossier from my hand and pointed.  "Her hobby is drinking tea and pondering deep thoughts while staring at the sky.  Her talent listed here is destroying monsters.  That's completely different!"

"Whatever her hobbies may be, from the past few hours, I learned that your hobbies include following politics, anthropology, philosophy, and historical battle records.  And of course, anime - but I suppose these days, that's still politics and anthropology.  Either way, perhaps your prospective fiance will find your interests more suitable to his tastes, whatever your particular talents."

"Maybe.  But that's not usually how it works.  What guy is going to find my interests more interesting that a..." she quickly glanced at the dossiers "...a member of a bi-curious magical-girl kunnoichi squad?  Especially when that squad shares everything?  And furthermore..."

At that point, I briefly lost track of what she was saying, pondering that last sentence with only the purest and most intellectual of considerations.

"...so that can't be true.  What do you think?"

"Hmm, I see your point."  Luckily, with my agreement with whatever else it was that she had said, she didn't notice that I'd been distracted.   "But there is one common thread in your examples that you might consider: In anime, it's not the most interesting fiancee that ends up with the main lead, but the one the lead meets first.  Ryouko, Naru, Akane, and all of the other examples you've mentioned follow this rule.  By that reasoning, as long as you meet your fiance in person before anyone else, your success inevitably follows."

The train slowed as it pulled into the next stop, which happened to be our destination.  "Maybe," she said with a brief, shy smile.  "Out of fifty, I don't like the odds.  And I know I'm not the first to arrive at the country manor, so I doubt that my "

"Since when do the odds mean anything in romantic situations?  And whatever the odds, I will be rooting for your success.  Although we'll be parting here, I am sure that your fiancee will find your wit as interesting as I have."  With that, I hefted my bag and stepped away.

"Thanks!  And It was good meeting you...uh, what was your-" Ah yes, I hadn't actually given my name during our conversation, and by the time I'd registered her reply, I had already stepped into the crowd headed for the train doors.  The flow of the crowd pushed me away before I could send a parting word.

I'd thought about the conversation as a purchased some canned green tea from the station vending machine.  I hadn't had a pick-up conversation with a fellow traveler in a long time.  My travel plans usually don't have me seated with a stranger, so I don't often have the opportunity to chat with someone I'll never meet again.

And I as it turned out, the conversation I'd just had did not break that trend either.  I saw my recent companion not two minutes later, staring at a line of black limousines waiting to fetch their passengers.  I tapped her left shoulder briefly, and waited until she'd turned around to face me.

"Fujiwara?  You'll want the second one from the right."

"Ah, you again!  How do you know that?  They all look the same."

"Because I recognize the driver.  I always see him when I'm visiting the manor."





Series outline:
The male lead is not the focus - he's really foil for the female lead.  Multiple increasingly absurd situations arise which should be solved by swordfights, athletics, restriction seals, whatever, and instead the female lead solves them with unconventional solutions that involve cooking/baking/etc.  This is not magical/alchemy cooking - there is no pastry that gives the eater the strength of 10000 men.  Male lead is not in line to lead the family, but is so important to the wealthy and influential family's continued prosperity that they kindly arrange the fiancee summit but put it some obscure countryside rather than in the middle of a big city.

The world literally follows anime trends.  Social scientists find evidence that anime-like activity (somehow - this is clearly scenario-generating bullshit so no point in trying to rationalize it) increases social, economic, and military benefits, so the world is slowly restructuring accordingly.

As the story progresses, all of the other fiancees fall in love with the female lead (to her slight distress, as she protests that she isn't that way, but never very strongly), as she solves their problems.  Story ends with female lead marrying male lead.  All other fiancees act as second wives to male lead, bpout mostly try to seduce female lead.  i.e swapped roles for harem genre.

Discussion:
I pretty much wrote this to see if I could set up a fic for a scenario I generally dislike.  Anime that tries to be harem-styled tends to use flat cliched characters. 

No idea if the cooking == lose correlation still holds.

If anyone has read this far - is the basis for the "tea" character (who doesn't actually appear) too obvious?

[alethiophile]

Reading this, much belatedly, I am amused.

Harem scenario that's actually centered on one of the women has happened. Sorta. I guess FSN UBW (good end) could be said to qualify. Can't think of others, but wouldn't be surprised.

The tea girl sounds like a familiar archetype, but I can't place individual sources right now.

[Jason_Miao]

Reading this, much belatedly, I am amused.

Thanks!

Harem scenario that's actually centered on one of the women has happened. Sorta. I guess FSN UBW (good end) could be said to qualify. Can't think of others, but wouldn't be surprised.

If you remember any others, let me know.   I usually find media that messes with genre conventions to be worth perusing.

The tea girl sounds like a familiar archetype, but I can't place individual sources right now.

Years ago, I read a throwaway line in one of the Touhou game manuals describing Reimu's daily life as drinking tea and staring at the sky.

I don't follow Touhou fan-culture, but that seemed like a nice life.  Good to know that the reference is not blatant.