page 890 – Surprise!
Well… That just happened.
…and man, this is a REALLY awkward page for me to be posting a week in advance, woozy from pre-MAGFest sleep deprivation and thus virtually unable to provide any intelligent commentary on what we’ve just seen. Hopefully, I’ll think to come back and add something more meaningful before the page actually goes live.
Speaking of which, I’m really desperately HOPING there’ll be a new Voting Incentive ready by the time everybody reads this. Usually, when I actually manage to get an extra page finished before I leave for a con, it frees up enough time for me to get a new Incentive done when I get back. If not… well, I hope I’ll have the sense to come back and erase this message to save myself some embarrassment.
(Historical Notes: OH MY LORD did this page ever get a pop from the crowd. It very VERY quickly became obvious that we were all better off with this NOT being the pre-Christmas cliffhanger. There’s no WAY anyone would have survived a whole month of filler material instead of resolving this. Of course, the funny thing is that, nearly four years later, this page IS serving as the last in a batch of re-posts, so in a way it finally IS a cliffhanger. Like, for a few days, at least.)
Tabitha, you must not watch enough harem Anime otherwise she would understand that by far the most common result when a straight teenage male is surrounded by a large number of very attractive females every day who are all very aggressively and blatantly pursuing him is that … no smooching (or anything else) ever results from it.
Tabitha! You’re not listening at all, are you? I just said NO smooching!! NO Smooching!! You’re doing this Trigger harem anime all wrong!!
I think it was around this point that the idea of the Short Pants Squad started forming, just so Trigger wouldn’t be the only boy surrounded by all these girls.
But now you’ve just created the Layla Reverse-Harem Anime!
(sorry, Kevin, your application to the Layla Reverse-Harem cast has been rejected)
Kevin doesn’t want to be a part of a Reverse-Harem Anime, he wants to have kissy time with cute girls. Just like how Jenna wouldn’t be happy being a part in a Harem Anime. And that’s ignoring the fact that she’d be the girl who gets little screen time because she’s always off doing things for other people and it’s too awkward to get her character into most scenes for extended periods where she isn’t working on something.
Kevin wants to be part of his OWN Harem Anime, because he doesn’t think things through
…the sheer amount of blunt force trauma someone like Kevin would be subjected to as the MC of their own Harem Anime…
…there’s a few different ways it can go, actually. The first includes his family, and it would probably end up being more of his sister’s Harem who gravitates to him as a “hopefully-close-enough” option due to the fact that she’s straight and Megaweapon is more than happy to attack her.
Second would be the normal MC-lives alone because “reasons”, Harem Setting, where Kevin moves out of home and gains a Harem. Thing is, given Kevin’s personality, he’d probably end up being the damsel in distress for the Harem Members, more than half of which start out as members of his secret security detail. If you watch all types of Harem Anime, think of a Reverse-Harem Anime, and then gender-flip everyone so that the MC is a male (Kevin) and all the “cool and/or sexy” guys who end up fawning over them are actually female, and you have a Harem Anime that Kevin could be the male MC of.
All other idea’s I’m having require Kevin’s personality to be completely reworked by something, which just isn’t happening anytime soon.
the problem with option 2 is that there is no way Kevin’s servants are going to fall in love with him, Jenna is right there treating all of the so well that they can’t help but have standards.
only two options i see kevin getting a harem is
1 multiple people thinking they could get with him for his money. he has already shown himself to fail to keep such attention on himself. maybe post layla talking to he is more aware enough for this to happen
2 coma. there has been several stories about medical professionals’ putting in so much effort to save a person over a long time that they fall in love with the person they are putting in so much effort for
I’m going to have to disagree with the first point – having personality flaws, no matter how horriffic or severe has never, ever, neither in RL nor in fiction, kept women from falling for a guy, no matter what other high standards they may be shown as an example. If I love him enough, he’s sure to change!™
In RL, option#1 is certain – with Augusta’s Galactic-level wealth, he would be surrounded by an actual harem after his family money, who would have far more greed-induced patience with his flaws than Layla. (Heck, even Megaweapon, when he grew up, would be surrounded by girls after the money, there will always be people who will tolerate ANYTHING for money) However, it wouldn’t count as a Harem Anime situation, since in an anime-type harem all the girls actually have affection for the guy. At least, I can’t think of any anime harems that were made up of girls all faking it.
@ Ed8: I know of one (manga) Harem Story that I didn’t actually read, where the central premise of the plot was that all the girls were faking their obsession with the MC.
It was called something like “1000 girls who really, really love you”, where the MC made a wish to find his true love, and got a harem of 1000 girls chasing after him. All of whom have a “make him fall for you, or you’ll die” threat from the wish-granter hanging over their heads, according to the Blurb I read. Guess why I never read it.
From Googling, I’m thinking its probably this one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_100_Girlfriends_Who_Really,_Really,_Really,_Really,_Really_Love_You
If Wikipedia’s description is correct, and if I’m understanding it right, the 100 girls really all do love him (they’re all his “soulmates”), so they’re not faking it, but if he rejects the advances of any of his “soulmates”, that soulmate will be fated to a tragic early death (It doesn’t seem the girls know they would die if the got rejected). So it doesn’t quite meet the criteria of them not loving him – but, yeah, still super creepy in so many other ways. I’m definitely going to have to skip this one as well.
@aqua: If it was just about him getting a Harem, “His parents are obscenely rich” is enough of an excuse for Kevin getting one. Aiming for an Anime-Style Harem, however, was a bit more difficult.
My second suggestion is basically a variant of Stockholm Syndrome via employment. “Kevin goes to live on his own, but his parents employ five attractive females to ensure his safety! Good for him, because he is kidnapped basically every second day for his parent’s money, leading to them all moving in with him for his own safety! Watch as he adorkably fails to flirt effectively, eventually winning their hearts in the stupidest manner possible!”
I can definitely see that as an actual harem anime plot. I’d almost be surprised if there wasn’t something at least a bit similar already out there
You do realise that there’s no smooching in Harem Anime for various reasons, the greatest of which is that the writers/publishers prefer their girls “untouched” and “pure” for the fan’s fantasies. And because they often make the MC a receptacle for the most vocal part of their local audience’s (aka, Hikikomori Otaku) self-insert characters. As stupid as that often is.
That, and the authors fear alienating most of their fanbase by doing anything to suggest that they favor the wrong ship, so they HAVE to keep the status quo maintained.