Polyamory (from Greek πολύ [poly], meaning "many" or "several", and Latin amor, "love") is the practice, desire, or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved.
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I'm probably not the best person to write about the subject of polyamory, since I've never experienced these kinds of relationships, let alone anything to do with monogamy. However, it is interesting to see how this subject is in regard to anime, which is something I do have experience with, based on the history of this blog.
I wouldn't say that anime has an inaccurate view on polyamory, it just tends to focus more on the harem flavor of things. Since a large amount of the demographic, that watches anime, are teenage males, and the anime being aired will cater to said demographic. As a result, we don't really see an accurate -- or what I perceive to be accurate, based on my limited research -- view on what is polyamory.
There are a few anime I want to highlight as examples of a poor representation, or oversimplification of polyamory. More specifically, you can call it polygyny, and in the rare cases where I watch the reverse harems or polyandry.
Harem Pursuer
It's harder to find anime characters that actively pursue having a harem, because the character usually ends up falling for one specific character, or the conclusion is just too vague to actually determine if it was a harem or if no one was even picked. Besides, if there was a character like that, most people would hate them or they would be represented as a super pervy, but more of a comedy act, and never really be taken seriously.
One example I can think of as a clear example is Itou Makoto from School Days. This was more of him going on cheating spree, but really thats the closest thing that came to memory.
It is defiantly one of the worse examples of a misunderstanding of what being polyamorous is, and more of a moral lesson to people in a monogamous relationship, not to cheat.
Accidental Harem
The more common example in anime is the main character is living a regular life, and out of nowhere a group of attractive characters -- most of the time females -- start to get closer to said main character.
There is bunch of examples of these types of anime, as I've stated, but one that stands out the most -- and the OVAs seems to be focused on that expect, more than an actual story -- is To Love Ru. I've only watch the main storyline of this anime, some of the OVAs, and a small portion of the other seasons -- so I'm not that sure how the more recent iteration of the series ended on.
Yuuki Rito was way more focused on Sairenji Haruna before all the other girls began to show up. The biggest contender that split his focus from Haruna, was Deviluke Lala Satalin. I've lost most interest in this series, so I don't have much to say in detail, but you can see this was another monogamish relationship, that kinda morphed into something polygynous because of the alien traditions of the Deviluke family.
Pseudo-harem
Since most of the anime that follow this pattern, of a 'pseudo-harem', sprout from its dating game roots, it is almost like having your cake and eating it too.
When I see these type of anime, it feels a lot like these girl -- or even males -- are disposable, because the next episode or so, they move on to the next one on the list. I've got two examples of this, one being a more recent -- as far as this season goes -- and the other being a case where the anime is a polyandrous one, or reverse-harem.
The more recent example being Photo Kano. It was decent when they first focused on the childhood friend, but as it keep going on, I could see how bare bones most of the relationships were. Also, it followed a specific formula, making most of the relationships really bland, consisting of:
- Girl has problem
- Main character comes along
- They fall in love
- All problems solved
As for the reverse harem, we have Amnesia. This type of anime isn't geared toward me at all, but the female was one of the blandest character I've seen in awhile. Most of my criticisms are covered in the review I did, so I won't go into much detail. However, along with the female, the men and the relationships didn't really feel genuine; ending up with a bad example of a reverse-harem -- though harem don't really have that great of a representation, despite the volume they have accumulated.
Closing
I actually want to see a romantic anime that can pull a non-monogamous relationship off well. With ALL parties in the relationship not feeling hurt because of their standing in this romance. I do feel like it can only really work if they focus on a smaller group, maybe three or four at max; however, based on Japanese culture, I'm not sure we will see any of the sort for a while. But anime are in need of more maturer relationship in general, whether it being monogamous, polyamorous, or whatever combination you desire.