It is February fourteenth and for those that don't know that means, it is Valentine's Day. So instead of doing something silly like appreciate my loved ones or even spend time with them, I want to just write about the many variations of structure in a romantic relationship. So for this new installment of "Imagine That" I want to look at the harem anime in a different light where there can be a harem for all people involved; essentially making the relationship a lot less funnel shaped, when it comes to the person receiving the majority of attention from several people of the opposite sex.
In many cases harems are very much focused on either one main guy and many girls or the reverse making the appeal of watching these things steered toward a certain demographic, depending on the sex of the person getting the bulk of love. To make this genre work, a lot of times that person's personality is striped and simplified to make that character more like a mirror that reflects, or represents, the view in whatever harem they are in. Of course there are outliers to such a formula -- like The World God Only Know, or Monogatari Series -- but for the most part harems sticks to that pattern pretty wholeheartedly. But what if we where to modify this slightly where both the male and female had multiple partners? Of course their partner might also have some other relationships, which makes it both complex and something new to think about.
Lets Get to Terms
The term that I'm alluding to is called polyamory. It is something that in compasses both polygyny, many women one man or "regular" harems, and polyandry, many men one women or "reverse" harem. However, both of these types of harems are very much one sided in focus and even less believable. So when we are talking about something like polyamory where it simply means multiple love, this "love tree" instead of looking like a funnel -- that meets at one point -- it will resemble a web. This web has many nodes that represent people and the lines are the relationship between people; also all the nodes don't necessarily need to connect and that is where most of the complexity comes into play. Basically that means that you have multiple relationship with other people, but everyone in this romance web doesn't need to be in a relationship together, or even know each other that well.
What Does Polyamory Mean for Romance Anime?
Keep in mind that I personally never tried polyamory, so my understanding of it is from the outside looking in, but I'm not apposed to relationships like this.
Like many teenage focused romances, whether that be harem or monogamous, they can be heavily focused on the possession aspect of romance. You hear a lot of common phases like "She's mine" or "my boyfriend", which does tap into the selfishness of what one way relationship are based off of. However, when this connection is no longer one way but two, three, or even more, those statements become far less valid and the focus is more on the current relationship each partner is in.
Of course there are times when the relationship is the focus in non-poly types of relationships, but that specific attribute gets muddied in all the other details of "normal" relationships -- like jealousy, which plays into the possessiveness angle really well.
On the polar opposite end of relationship focused story, there is also the fact that polyamory is very much people focused. I've notice, mostly when it comes to harem relationship, most people apart of it aren't as much of value and can easily be swapped out. For the majority of harems the people involve are niche driven, making most people simpler, and that also includes the previously noted main love interest who can be consider a stand in for yourself. Now, I don't think by having something like polyamory in anime would change the natural use of simple characters and simple relationships, but this type of poly romance has a separation of self from the multiple relationship you are in -- simply because the people involved need to be selfless, for the most part, for these multiple relationships to foster.
Whether or not that actually gets covered in a possible anime about polyamory is really up to the people creating it. But I will be honest and say that Japan will most likely never cover this type subject, but I like keeping my hopes up.
Why Japan Hasn't Tackled Polyamory?
When it comes to social stance, Japan tends to lean on the conservative side of things. Things that are deemed deviant, or outside the norm, quickly get frowned upon. So with that type of audience, it wouldn't be that easy to find this type of romantic relationship in a romance -- matter of fact, I'm not sure I see it here in the west either. Which is pretty sad to see, but unpopular things don't get made, plus monogamous and harem relationships are what people are far more intrigued by.
The second reason, to piggyback off of what is popular, the reason many people like those types of relationships is because it is relatable. The concept of share your love is unfathomable to most people, making it a difficult task to convey to others who don't practice polyamory. Especially with a lot of the media conveying love as something that where is that one special person who is out there for you and only you; or in the case of most harems, it is a one-sided sharing situation, but never dual-sided.
In the end there probably wont be any poly romances outside of the harem, simply because it is mostly a dream come true type of scenario, but it is still fun to speculate what might happen regardless. So I guess spread the love?
Imagine that.
Orginally posted to the now shutdown sekijitsu.com: Archived Page