A Harem is a large group of love interests all sharing a singular person as the focal point of their affections.
A common staple of Japanese visual media, the harem genre is renowned for placing a greater focus on the harem members than their shared love interest, often for fanservice purposes, as almost all groups are near-exclusively composed of women. Due to their tendency to balloon in numbers, most harem groups have a large and diverse pool of characters, ranging from sweet to aggressive and others. The person the harem focuses on is likewise varied in what kind of person they are, though a common trope is for them to be inconvenienced by their harem and/or rivals while still trying to pull through for the people who they care for.
Trivia[]
- Although harem and polygamy are considered synonymous by many, they are not the same. "Harem" is a term historically from Arab culture and refers to a group of women considered a private part of an Arab household, and only the patriarch of the household had the sole 'right' to them. Polygamy, on the other hand, means when someone has multiple socially bonded sexual partners at the same time.
- The primary reason Arbatel initially despised Kimihito is her intense hatred for harem-genre rom-coms, with the fact that he had several potential suitors living with him leading her to believe that he was obsessed with having a harem. This is a blatantly false accusation, as Kimihito never actively sought out their society and company and only ended up with his homestays by sheer circumstance and government negligence (specifically, Ms Smith's complete irresponsibility).[1]
- In real life, a number of social animals utilize what is dubbed the "harem structure", in which a patriarch or matriarch has the sole breeding rights within the group. As such, they are very intolerant of others in the group having children, and the offenders will either be punished, exiled, or have their young terminated. Appropriately, a group of mares that mate with the stallion is referred to as a harem.
- Male Centaurs follow a similar structure out of the belief that breeding with a non-Centaur would significantly weaken the entire species' overall strength in the long run, and resort to using unsavory tactics to copulate with their wives. As female Centaurs have little tolerance for males, male humans are used as teasers to make them ovulate and prime them for love-making. Centorea's Mother, hoping to prove that blood purity was a non-factor in their race's strength, managed to successfully give birth to a daughter by cheating on her husband with a teaser human. A later encounter and eventual duel between the two proved them evenly matched, showing that blood purity played no part in determining the strength of a Centaur.[2]
- A popular trend in harem artwork is to depict the girls in the harem wearing Arabian dancer clothing, which usually consists of a sleeveless midriff-baring top and either long, billowing pants or a simple loincloth, either of which is either transparent or opaque, with shoes and a facial veil also being optional additions. In the Monster Musume series, Rachnera commonly wears one of these with a loincloth, which is shared with the rest of her tribe. Additionally, this style of clothing is also prevalent in Lamia and Mermaid fashion.
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