As I look at the list of anime to watch, my gaze will occasionally fall onto a harem romantic comedy anime. These usually cause me to sigh as the formula usually turns out to be the same: fanservice, characters moulded from the same cast (the direct one, the flirty one, the ditz etc.) and most important of all, the very dense protagonist.
Viewers of current anime would have heard of very dense protagonists like Raku Ichijou (Nisekoi), Ichika Orimura (Infinite Stratos) and Natsuru Senou (Kampfer) along with insults aimed at them (I wish I could recall a indecisive girl protagonist for an example but I can't think of one that made me bang my head on a wall). I too am one of these many haters who feel that these characters should be disallowed from reproducing to prevent more of their ilk from spawning yet they persist due to and for the genre of romantic comedy and harem. Some of these characters do have good points or even lose their denseness due to the plot but for those like Raku, they prolong the existence of a dying work (yes, I am a Nisekoi hater since I actually want resolution or actual story advancement rather than an endless parade of barely amusing sequences).
Despite my utter contempt of these characters, I do acknowledge that they play an important role in their works for a couple of reasons (at least in my opinion). These reasons include a prolonging of plot, a emphasis on other characters, self-insert (along with wish fulfilment) potential, and to create comedic hijinks. Once again I must stress that what I write here is my own opinion on the topic at hand and not objective fact. There are personal views here and some of it may even change over time.
Under the first reason, a very dense protagonist stretches out the story as their inability to see hints of romance (whether implied or explicit) will lengthen the story by an absurd percent. Some series are even centred around the protagonist's inability to decide between girls/guys (the Archie Comics will never truly resolve the comics with the Betty-Veronica debate even with the decision to kill Archie in one comic). Some series that have focus on slice of life and comedy with touches of romance can use the very dense protagonist to lengthen the story and eventually create the tension along with the dilemma for the final arcs. The very dense protagonist would either lead to the love interests deciding to actively prove that they are suitable for being the romantic partner or said protagonist discovers their romantic feelings, leading to the protagonist having a pondering montage (that could amount to a clip show of their antics or a meaningful insight into the protagonist's character, seeing why they choose to ignore such blatant emotions, any possible self-hatred and eventually understanding their desires while finally being able to determine their true romantic partner). These stretches can be good for some shows (Lovely Complex comes to mind for me mostly because there was enough comedic characterization to keep me from wishing to strangle Otani) as long as they understand their limit and resolve the excessively stretched story. Series like Nisekoi (To-Love-Ru may be another but for other reasons (*nudge, nudge, wink, wink), the overly stretched story can be excused by certain fans (I don't like it at all but I understand how it can remain popular)) utilise the utter denseness of protagonists to this end and stretch out said series for profit. From a business perspective, a popular rom-com series with a very dense protagonist (and a harem) will sell due to merchandising.
The second reason relates to the protagonist only being present to establish the story before introducing the other main characters who wind up either being more adored or vilified by viewers and readers. These characters will have character arcs that are brought into focus by the protagonist's involvement and with the help of the protagonist, the arcs will receive some form of resolution. In some works, the other main characters are given emphasis for the sake of promoting a new character to be used for merchandising and sometimes, it is done to make a unique character with a facinating character arc (I'm not sure if there is one, I hope there is if it has a very dense protagonist in it). The very dense protagonist acts as a tool for the creator to introduce these arc and sometimes these characters end up with greater depth and likeability due to said arc (Ruri and Shuu for Nisekoi as an example, I guess...). Once again, this could be linked to merchandising as appealing characters (visual and/or personality based) as these characters end up with more fans and probably have higher sales when it comes to merchandise linked to them.
The third of these reasons is probably the most likely reason in this modern age. Having a very dense protagonist often results in the typical bland character where the character is always the same (or has similar characteristics to a very dense protagonist). There are times where this isn't the case and usually, this can be notable such as the denseness being induced by genuine trauma, a parody story where comedy is present (that does not stretch out the story), decent characterization that justifies the protagonist's behaviour and settings where romance cannot be ideally created. However, some very dense protagonists tend to be bland for the purpose of making it easier to insert one's self into a character or use the character as a form of wish fulfilment where the individual imagines their ideal self to be a guy or girl who has the attention of ideal romantic partners and that all these idealised moments happen to them. Characters that are very dense tend to have little flaws and some positive traits to allow them to charm women (aside from their density and inability to empathise until necessary). This helps the work to be sold to the current audience where certain individuals in said audience would wish to be the character presented to enjoy this idealised reality where they have everything they want and more. People want to imagine themselves in a better position than they currently are and being a person whose only flaw can be remedied by human perceptiveness is probably one way to do so.
The last one really doesn't need explaining and links to the first. The comedic mishaps that the very dense protagonist undergoes not only stretches out the story but it could also be cathartic to those that hate the protagonist, yet enjoy the work said protagonist is in. The relationship is symbiotic as it could help keep the work alive though I could be wrong due to my own limited expertise on this area.
Just going to point out that this whole post is mostly opinion based and I could be wrong about what I have said here. If there are more things that can prove me wrong, let me know (in a civil manner) and I will re-examine my position. I still have a strong dislike for very dense protagonists and this only shifts after the character has left that archetype or been part of a deconstruction of the genre. As it stands, I prefer my characters to be reasonable individuals and the density being toned down.
P.S: The poor quality shows that I have no idea what to write about this week and may have problems in the coming days.
P.P.S: F*ck Raku and Ichika! Those dense motherf*ckers!
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