As with all changes, some people will like them and some people won’t. But here’s the thing. I don’t want to blog these harem anime series the same way that I blog every other anime series. After all, if I did that, then why even do Harem Hill at all? Why not just blog these shows individually? My point is, I’m not interested in breaking down these shows the same way that I do with the more marquee anime. I just want to focus on why they are stupid, and that is why I switched up the format in last week’s post. We don’t need to deconstruct these shows one-by-one in order to see why they’re stupid. Of course, I have taken some criticism to heart. will try and be more detailed in assessing these harem anime, but I don’t think I’ll go back to the way things were. It just wasn’t sustainable. Those posts used to take forever to read, and they also took forever to write. I had to do something to keep myself sane. If that means I will have turned away some folks, I’m terribly sorry that I have disappointed you. But I still believe that this is a better direction overall for the Harem Hill feature. Anywho…

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Current Standings:

Grisaia no Kajitsu: 36+4 = 40 points
Ushinawareta Mirai no Motomete: 28+3 = 31 points
Trinity Seven: 23+5+1 = 29 points
Madan no Ou to Vanadis: 15+1 = 16 points
Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai: 8+2 = 10 points

Can Trinity Seven mount a comeback?! Remember, it’s one episode behind both Grisaia no Kajitsu and Ushinawareta Mirai no Motomete, so this race is still anybody’s game. Well, not the bottom two shows. They’re pretty much done.

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Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai Ep. 8

Quick Thoughts:

It’s a Kana-centric episode as we find out that the cheery, happy-go-lucky girl is not always so happy-go-lucky. Duh, right? I mean, who on this planet is actually always be cheerful? But this is a harem anime, so this sort of nonsense is considered deep and meaningful. Y’see, Kana likes to write plays and make people laugh, but at the same time, she also wants to be serious from time to time. So what? What’s the big deal? That pretty much describes all of us. We all want to be serious from time to time. Again, where’s the actual drama? Well, when Ikkei makes the harmless comment that Kana isn’t being herself, she suddenly freaks out and runs away from her friends. Kyotaro then ends up having to chase her down and ask her what’s up. So here’s the sob story, folks. Here it comes! In her previous group of friends, she played the role of the clown! But when she took pity on another girl who was being cast out of the group, that same girl stole Kana’s position as the clown! Oh no! And this only happened because Kana stopped being such a clown and tried to be serious! So now that Kana’s found a new group, she’s afraid to give up her role as the cheery, happy-go-lucky girl! After all, she wouldn’t want her new friends to ditch her!

…

Wait, really? That’s it? That’s the goddamn sob story? Yeah, that’s Kana’s “painful” story for you. She’s afraid to be herself, because, uh, she had some shitty friends. Thankfully, the harem lead is here to tell her that he’ll always accept her no matter who she is. Let’s hope she doesn’t become an axe murderer. Again, I have to keep harping on the fact that this series is an adaptation of an eroge. In other words, you get to bang Kana just by simply telling her that she can be herself. Man, being a harem lead sure is easy!

The Hareming:

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Grisaia no Kajitsu Ep. 9

Quick Thoughts:

Hey, check this out! Yep, it’s just good, ol’ father-daughter bonding! No, your eyes are not deceiving you. What papa wouldn’t sleep half-naked in the same futon with his daughter?! And you can’t question it! After all, this is a deep story that has won multiple Moe Awards. So you know it’s a touching depiction of drama, love, and despair! This is a story all about a father doing whatever it takes to keep his precious daughter alive. So instead of following his orders to assassinate his own daughter, Yuuji and Makina are now on the run! It turns out that the girl has photographic memory of some sort, and she has all the evidence of her mother’s corruption floating around inside her tiny head. As such, she’s a very dangerous person to the rest of the Irisu family, and that’s why they want her dead. In fact, she even tried to use this evidence to save her sister’s life, but… well, we all know what happened there. And now, the heat is on.

Look, you probably thought the show couldn’t get any dumber, huh? Michiru got buried alive, Yumiko faked her death, and Sachi pissed herself. How can this show possibly get any dumber? Well, it just did. Blah blah blah, our “father-daughter” duo are on the run, Yuuki’s making a fool out of his pursuers, and Makina’s good for nothing but being pedobait. After successfully eluding their captors for the umpteenth time, however, they made the mistake of leaving behind their sapling of hope. No, I’m not shitting you. They left behind an apple sapling that also doubles as a sapling of hope. Y’see, when they bid farewell to their friends, Sachi gave them an apple sapling. Oh, what’s that? You’re in grave danger and have to go incognito? Here, go ahead and lug a fucking sapling around with you! I’m surprised the meronpan that symbolizes loli innocence didn’t make a comeback for this week’s episode. This is an outrage!

But like I’ve said, after eluding their pursuers, Yuuji and Makina accidentally leave the sapling of hope behind! And despite Yuuji’s better advice, Makina just has to go back and look for the damn plant. Naturally, she runs into some assassins and takes a bullet to the gut. The best part? A bunch of grown men proceed to stomp on a little girl repeatedly. Yuuji shows up to kill them, but he has no choice but to take her to the hospital, where Makina’s mother suggests that they harvest the girl’s organs to save her younger sister. Apparently, this giant explosion somehow failed to kill a little girl. Shrug. So what does Yuuji do? He simply marches his way into Makina’s mother’s office… and kills her. We did it, boys! He’s no longer a fugitive and no one’s going to go after Makina anymore! In fact, we should’ve killed Makina’s mother sooner! Man, being an assassin harem lead sure is easy! Even Michiru can’t quite believe it herself!

Still, it’s funny how Yumiko’s father got to walk away a changed man, but Makina’s mother is an evil, conniving bitch that Yuuji had to put down once and for all. But I’m sure that this is just a coincidence.

The Hareming:

There was hardly any fanservice this week. Even the anime realized it, so they sneaked in this pantyshot just for you! See? Now don’t you feel special? No doubt, you were bored with the episode, but that split second of panties was enough to drive you wild! Kudos, 8-Bit! Kudos!

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Madan no Ou to Vanadis Ep. 9

Quick Thoughts:

I really wish there was something to talk about, but there isn’t. This week’s episode of Madan no Ou to Vanadis is just a bunch of boring strategic planning. And oh yeah, Elen comes to her friend’s aid and fights off another Vanadis. By the way, her friend has the most pointless outfit I’ve ever seen. It’s a skirt in the back, but in the front…? But I digress. The whole thing was incredibly anticlimactic. Elen literally marched her troops all the way out here just so she can clash with Liza for like five minutes before they eventually formed a nonaggression pact. What a waste of time! Still, Liza’s like this huge rival of Elen’s. I bet Liza’s going to eventually try and steal Tigre, too. But other than that, there’s utterly nothing to talk about. Uh, let’s see. Oh, Tigre spends some time with that girl he had rescued in last week episode. Why is the story putting so much focus on such a simple girl? Well, you can bet on some silly twist rearing its ugly head. It’ll turn out that she’s some very important person in this Brune Civil War. In other news, Ludmila is helping Tigre out, because she believes he can repay her in a great way. In other words, she wants him. Even Rurick can’t help but wonder how Tigre’s doing it. Tigre’s all, “Heh, it’s my virtue!” Puh-leeze. You’re the harem lead and they want your dilznick. That’s all it is. Being an army-commanding harem lead sure is easy!

Madan no Ou to Vanadis wants to be taken seriously for its war story, but with these girls all having back-breaking breasts, it’s just not possible. So instead, we alternate between anatomical absurdity and absolutely snooze-inducing battle scenes.

The Hareming:

The new Vanadis has breasts that are each individually bigger than her head. HER HEAD. Also, the episode had some derp animation, so I’m including them in this section anyway. But other than that, another boring and lowkey episode from this series.

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Trinity Seven Ep. 8

Quick Thoughts:

This anime is terrible. It really, truly is terrible. Every episode is just a giant dump of exposition. Our heroes’ latest mission is to investigate the strange happenings at the Royal Liber Academy. Forget a good anime. Let’s just imagine how this would’ve be done in an average anime. A place got destroyed? Gosh, why don’t I let you see this place getting destroyed! You wouldn’t see who had done it, of course. That would ruin the surprise. But at least you’d see what had happened. In Trinity Seven, the characters simply talk about its destruction instead. They gather in Arata’s room, sit on the beds, and talk, talk, talk, talk…

So of course, with this dangerous mission coming up, Arata has to train and study even harder. This amounts to nothing more than a montage–… wait, no, it’s not even a montage. It’s literally just still images of Arata reading some goddamn books. Seriously, what is so hard about actually letting us see the harem lead train? I know training montages are cliche, but replacing them with nothing is not the solution! If anything, you’re just making it worse! Well, the problem is, the anime doesn’t have time to show us any of that stuff! The episode would rather devote its attention elsewhere.

For instance, each of the girls represent a deadly sin! Yes, we have a long ass conversation just to eventually make the joke that Lilith represents lust. Gee, her name already told us that. Then we have another conversation about how Mira now has an interest in Arata, but she doesn’t want to admit because she’s tsundere. Well, her color could’ve told us that. Y’see, there are these things we can already discern for ourselves, but the anime feels the need to spell them out anyway. It simply sucks. There’s nothing more to say than that.

Anyway, our heroes get to the Royal Liber Academy to find, however, that someone has used Creation Magic to construction an illusion in its place. Also, someone here is disguising themselves as Arata’s precious cousin. Oh boy, how mysterious! Still, being a magic-using harem lead sure is easy!

The Hareming:

Not surprisingly, Trinity Seven has the most fanservice out of the five shows. When you have this little story to tell, what else can you do but pile them high and sell them cheap?

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Ushinawareta Mirai no Motomete Ep. 9

Quick Thoughts:

It took two months, but Kaori finally got run over by a bus again! We did it, boys! Time to go home!

…

Oh, you still want to know what happens next? Well… this isn’t going to be comprehensive — and I’m not even going to bother trying to make sense of it all — but here we go…

Kaori’s apparently not dead yet. She’s just in a coma. Nevertheless, she will never wake up again. At this point, Yui, having failed her mission, comes back home and simply deactivates. Afterwards, the harem lead pours himself into medicine, and tries to find a way to save his childhood friend. Unfortunately, modern medicine can’t help the girl, and Sou can’t help but despair. He catches up with Airi, however, who has been working on quantum cybernetics and, uh, quantum Turing machines. They also meet with Nagisa and Shiori, a.k.a. Kaori’s mother. Apparently, the latter two have been studying Yui’s body, and they’ve come to the realization that she’s a robot! So they’re like, “Yo, what if we made a robot just like Yui, but in Kaori’s image?!” Yes, that’s right! They want to transfer Kaori’s brain to a synthetic Kaori… but it still doesn’t work. Finally, Sou realizes that time travel is possible… but only for Yui. Somehow, she can interact with the black box — remember that? — and it can send her back in time. Therefore, he takes the synthetic Kaori, which was really just a copy of Yui’s body, then turns it into another Yui. Yeah, Yui is really just Kaori… who is really just Yui… uh… anyways… Sou then raises her, teaches her, spends time with her, blah blah blah. Eventually, he sends her back in time to save Kaori… so we’re in a time loop.

Who made the first Yui? Who knows. Sou thinks that it may have been Shiori. Where did the black box even come from? Who knows. Sou speculates that it might be some sort of Akashic record. Akashi-wha? Yeah, I had never heard of the term either, because, y’know, I live in the real world, but here’s the Wikipedia definition for it if you’re curious:

In theosophy and anthroposophy, the Akashic records (a term coined in the late 1800s from akasha, the Sanskrit word for “sky”, “space”, “luminous”, or “æther”) are a compendium of thoughts, events, and emotions believed by Theosophists to be encoded in a non-physical plane of existence known as the astral plane. There is no scientific evidence for existence of the Akashic records.

Riiiiight. So basically, all these mindblowing scientific breakthroughs — intelligent AI, quantum Turing machines, quantum cybernetics, time travel — are all due to Kaori’s tragedy. If she had not been so stupid and gotten herself run over, would her friends have gone to such lengths to save her?! So for the good of humanity, maybe we should keep her dead!

…

Naw, man, naw. If we don’t save Kaori, how else is Sou going to get the good end with all the sweet sex scenes? Let’s be a bro, save Kaori, and end this time loop once and for all. Man, I didn’t realize being a time-altering harem lead would be so difficult!

The Hareming:

There really wasn’t any fanservice in this week’s episode. Just sit back and enjoy yet another convoluted story about time travel. And of course, gawk at Sou’s weird face.

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Week 9’s Poll