When Your Anime Harem Becomes Self-Aware 

My friend once called this the Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared of ecchi harem anime, and it disturbs me how accurate that summation actually is

Just a note... "flops" happens to be a computer term. "FLoating-point Operations Per Second", referring to the rate at which a computer can complete an instruction involving a floating-point number (that is, one that contains a decimal point, for representing non-integer numbers). Thought that was an interesting connection. Just to be clear, I have not been watching this anime and probably won't, the only harem series I'm watching currently is Zeta Gundam :P

you mean to tell me that for once a harem anime was actually subverting the trope instead of just being an absolutely and unrepentantly terrible derivation of that trope? holy shit, never thought I'd see the day. Someone finally managed to find the definition of subversion, good on them.

Honestly, if they got rid of the childhood friend angle and it turned out the guy was just so basic and boring that generic AI waifus could legitimately seduce him, this could be the greatest work of satire of all time. Like, imagine if instead of a brain scan, the AI was just basic GPT-2 stuff from right now and that still suckered him in and the anime roasted both him and the audience for it.

The thing is, I feel about the the first 7 episodes of this show the same way I feel about Endless Eight. In the abstract, I have a genuine admiration for that level of artistic confidence and commitment. In the concrete, watching it is awful.

Having heard about the twist I decided to grit my teeth and start making my way through the first few episodes, and I’m impressed by how well they show the signs of it not being real. I can occasionally lucid dream, and so many of the things I pick up on to realise a dream are shown in this- not quite remembering where to sit or someone’s name, and near impossible things happening like a whole new section of a house appearing. These are the kind of things that often clue me in to a dream, and sometimes I pass them off as “just the way it is” and then wake up wondering how on earth a part of me just accepted the ridiculous scenarios, and to see it depicted is incredibly strange but impressive. For this reason I will probably continue slowly making my way through the episodes, as I actually kind of love how they so accurately depicted the subtleties of what I call “dumbass dream brain” accepting dumb shit.

They literally dropped the "Snap back to reality." Meme on his ass.

This anime truely relies on the viewers ability to pick up something being wrong from day one and still sticking by, i and many despite watch a lot of anime saw the signs early and just wrote it off as bad, and while the ending could change all that and even make it great, i like the twist enough to start giving more shows i write off seen it before a chance to win me over

I saw someone in the MAL forums make a prediction back in October for some sort of big twist happening, mainly because this show was written by Ryou Yasumoto, the writer of visual novels Chaos;Child and Steins;Gate 0. I don't want to spoil the specifics, but this also really reminds me of the way the last 2 episodes of Animegataris fly off the handle after a similar late-game twist. Always interesting to see original anime pull wild stunts like this.

I’m still not gonna watch the show, but I’d sure as hell watch a wrap up once the shows over. This was wild.

Me and my boyfriend watch a lot of our anime together. When watching the first episode of this series I got this weird feeling about it, like everything seemed too created or over the top on purpose like it was made to be that way in a cheeky way. And then when the flashbacks kept happening both of us were convinced something was up, and as someone who adores the Simulation trope, I immediately put it out there. I'm so happy I was right! Watching this series has been a blast for me. I love it.

Her name is Ai and she’s an AI.

In context, the banana toaster is probably a reference to one of the early attacks on image recognition AI - a little sticker that tricked the system into thinking a banana was a toaster.

If OSP can make "So... yeah" work as an outro for about a decade now, I fully believe in the potential of "...bye?"

Funfact: Love Flops and Steins;Gate 0 share the same writer, Ryou Yasamoto, at least to an extent.

Honestly, the big twist of the show caught me off guard. And I'm legitimately surprised at how much care was put into the foreshadowing and background details leading up to Episode 7. That whole-ass Terminator episode (complete with the damn theme song)? Foreshadowing. The Bunny Butler telling Asahi as he walks out the door in Episode 1 that his new "upgrade" will be installed before he gets home from school? Foreshadowing. The little animation details like Asahi pocketing what he thinks is a handkerchief (but was Aoi's panties), the color scheme in the sim (complete with the shade of green we see in the first few minutes of Episode 1 where things glitch out for a moment) being oversaturated, and the moments where you see Aoi in the background of scenes where she's not taking part? Big damn foreshadowing. It turned the show from an unusually horny harem setup to a meditation on grief after the reveal. It was nice touch that Asahi basically had PTSD from the whole experience while Feynman was explaining the plot to him. And even in the most recent episode where he decides to go back in, there are some odd Ara Ara moments between him and Feynman that are very tense rather than titillating because we went from over-the-top fan service to ZERO fan service at all. All of this to say... I'm surprised that this show cared enough to do this sort of thing. It may not be a masterpiece and with three episodes to go, it still has plenty of time to not stick the landing... but I admit that I got invested.

The minute you mentioned the girl being mysteriously absent I thought "holy shit it's DDLC". I kind of wish I had heeded your spoiler warning because "something's not quite right here"/simulation stories are one of my favorite niche genres. Even if the first 7 are garbage I'd watch to experience the twist unspoiled. A lot of those kind of stories blow their load too early to where you see it coming from the jump. Like DDLC having a content warning (and don't get me wrong content warnings are okay, but having one there immediately clues you in that this is not a normal dating sim). You're right though that it takes an insane amount of balls to commit to the bit that hard, to the point where a lot of people looking for the twist will probably tag out before it comes and the people there for pure smut will probably be mad when it does.

Wow. I havent been watching this, and I doubt I will, but I do have some respect for, as Geoff put it, sticking hard to their idea, committing to it. And it *is* an interesting twist. I look forward to seeing more of his videos on this, if he does any more.

I love it when anime (or other media) have huge plot twists like this. There's absolutely no way in hell I'd ever watch this anime though (even knowing it has such a twist), so I'm glad you made this video for us to watch instead.

Those first 1.5 minutes got me interested, so I started watching it. I'm at the end of episode 6 and I REGRET NOTHING! Thank you, this is a wild ride and I'm all over it.

Negima is what you get if you’re told to make a harem anime starring Harry Potter but you want to make Pokémon starring Goku

I stopped at the second spoiler warning, but I left a like, I appreciate all that you do Mr. anime pope

So... It essentially turned from Girls Bravo to Doki Doki Literature Club... Well played!

The base concept really just sounds like "Quintessential Quintuplets but switch the genuine wholesome character bonds for stereotypical harem trash" so it's nice that it deviates from that and actually becomes an interesting concept. Were it not for how little I can tolerate ecchi bullshit I'd probably actually give it a watch

"Exactly how much ephebo-" with the cut has to be one of the best jokes ever told.

The interesting thing about this show is that while it appears to be a parody of basically every harem/dating sim out there, it's likely a more specific parody of the Muv Luv visual novel trilogy. Some cgs from the first game are referenced directly, the mysterious room being added to the house with no logic behind it is a scene from the game, the random sci fi is Muv Luvs main hook, the whole roomate thing(kinda), and more significantly (HUGE spoilers for Muv Luv Alternative) - - - - - The protagonist has a childhood friend who was turned into a robot/ai thing and warped reality based on their feelings of love from their past memories together so that she could be the main love interest.

I wasn’t sure about this, but after watching the first ep, I realized that’s what this current video was about, started watching your review, and became intrigued enough to binge the entire show before finishing watching your review. I found it a worthwhile and even ultimately moving experience. So, thanks for doing what you do.

Just finished this after finally getting around to watching this, and man this was insane the flip this does in the last third of the series. It had me bawling over the turn the story takes though maybe it's due to being sick & highly emotional due to life changes lol. I really loved this one so much as it really turned things around from a generic harem romcom into an insane story by the end. I'm glad I watched this video awhile back and decided to add this to my list of ones to check out eventually. Wondering how you liked the ending episodes after you finished this episode when you made this video.

Yeah, I dropped this after viewing the entire first episode. It's far more entertaining listening to and watching your overviews of anime like this than actually watching the anime. If I want trope- or genre-related weirdness this season I'll watch Akiba Maid War.

you could say "and that's basement life baby" as an outro

Based entirely on the set-up we got, I was praying for a simulation plotline. Learning that flops is a coding term made it even better tbh.

Good on you for sticking with this show long enough to catch the twist.

To be honest: I was actually really disappointed to see that so many people disregarded this show from the get go. When I first encountered the show I thought it was waaaay to much over the top, even for harem anime standards and in episode 2 it just went on to become even more crazy than before. Like the house growing out of nowhere, everyone stalking around or trying to get the mc to sign marriage papers and stuff like that. But at the same time the show introduced the first glimpse of "but wait there is more", as Aoi went after Asahi in episode 2 and talked to him about the girls caring about him. She got a flashback about remembering him from youth. This was fine, but the next episodes featured everyone of the girls also having the same kind of childhood memories of him, but neither they nor Asahi himself remembers anything about it. It was at this point that the series kind of got my interesst and I began thinking about the plot and how this crazyness might fit together, since a jump from literal tengu, to terminator to pervered magical girl was too much of a leap to be taken at face value, while at the same time hinting with every weird story at something common: Memories. Personally I would not say that Renai Flops is a great anime, but I think it is kind of unfair to disregard it as being just a bad show, like many people did after witnessing one episode. It is a really interessting concept and begs the question of "what would you do" - Having memories worth of 5 months of love, fun, companionship and affection, where the world forces or expects of you to just let go, as if it would have never happend. I don't think the series will find a fitting ending and tend more towards an "he would occasionally visit them and live with them happily" end, without answering any of the interessting questions at hand. But I'd like to thank you Geoff for bringing Renai Flops to the forefront again. The series is kind of special, due to the sheer commitment and parody level or some might even say critique of waifu culture. They are all model clichee waifus and that's kind of fun, since it is selfaware about it. Aoi, the yandere. Irina the trap. Amelia the tsundere. Karin the genki girl. Mongfa the onee-san.

Yeah I'm going to need a part 2 to see how this ended

Having finished the series at this point, no cap, Renai Flops is a 9 on my MAL. From dumpsterfire to Masterpience in three episodes. He nailed how the rest of the show would pan out too with his first hypothesis.

That is exactly what I would expect if AI made an anime

When he said DDLC my PTSD came back, all those repressed memories, especially of that last song during the credits. I am gonna go cry now.

When you described Renai Flops on the Trash Anime video, I was somewhat reminded of "Romantic Killer" - a parody of Reverse Harem tropes, where a magical creature forces an otome game obsessed shut-in girl to experience IRL love. And damn does that creature contrive some anime bullshit. You get the tsundere ikemen, the pro-baseball player childhood friend, and a rich bastard that nearly runs her over with a limousine. Both the ikemen and the childhood friend move into her house after her parents are transfered overseas for work. Even the magical creature turns human, and becomes a choice for the shut-in girl! It's even funnier now, knowing that "Renai Flops" is actually a fake simulation - very similar to "Romantic Killer" also using magic to contrive bullshit romance plots.

I didn't get into this show because I thought it was *just* trash, but this kind of twist is what I love in fiction.

About what you said on episode 8: I. Kind of hope they did that on a whim. Like, they were knee-deep in the production of say, episode 2 or 3, saw the result, and said "screw that, we're going rogue." and pivoted the entire plot to be dokidoki literature club. the sheer confidence you would need to do such a thing would be staggering. it would also go a long way to explain how they kept their cards to their chest for so long.

This……sounds unironically fantastic

Holy shit what an amazing execution. Never thought I'd see someone take this genre somewhere this interesting.

Wait, so you're telling me a *committee* discussed, designed, and gave the go ahead for the, um...dog? As a national symbol for love. Did...did the dog nation win the harem war?

Just blindly jumped into the show on episode 8 with the boys expecting some cheap laughs, we came out the other end saying this would've been a decent first episode were it not for the previous 7. Edit: Thanks for the context! Bummer me and the boys slept on this one.

I could tell early on (like episode 2) that there was some underlying twist coming, and I was hooked from there. Knowing that it's trying something and trying to figure out what it is is very fun, and I'm also the type to greatly amused by seeing just how over the top something is willing to go. The level of absurdity they went to really made me laugh. I kept on thinking "holy shit they're really doing this" and was really invested in seeing where they were going with it. I have not been disappointed so far, this is great watch if you're into meta stuff.

"Just Monika".....so on point.

I was wondering why all the characters' outlines were blue/purple instead of typical black. At first I thought it was a style choice, but when the protag is finally in the real world the character outline changed to black. What an awesome, subtle way to differeniate the computerized fanatsy and the physical world!

I want to recommend another romance harem anime that came out recently that isn't seasonal. Romantic Killer was released on Netflix a month or so ago, and I think Geoff and Yazy (and whoever is reading this) would really enjoy it. I'd love for more people to know about this fun show.

So this one was soft on my radar, but I was going to watch it maybe after seeing the spoiler thing. As soon as you described the car intro to the beach episode I have PAUSED THE VIDEO midway through as my jaw has hit the floor and this has rocketed to the top of my list as I smell some "I was right the whole time" genre subversion happening here and want to witness it for myself.

Still not watching this, but when I heard the twist, well...I mean wow. The chutzpah on these guys to wait this long. Good on them.

I am halfway certain that the AI is just trying to create an "IRL" harem anime and is responsible for everything via it's absurd processing capabilities. It's like if instead of Ultron deciding that "humanity needs to die" after it first connected to the internet, it instead went "UwU". Edit: Or that's exactly what it was. I should really start finishing the videos before deciding to comment.

I'm one of the people who paused during the intro to come back after episode 8, and let me tell you, I was screaming "wait... is this GOOD, actually???" LONG before the "big reveal(s)." It had no right to be this good, but here we are 🤷🏾‍♀ do we deserve this? Maybe we've earned it after so many years of *actually* trash harem anime 🤔? Haruhi be praised 🙌🏾!

14:33 this show is absolute genius. it's insane that it keeps up the facade of the cliche harem storyline for half it's damn runtime before the plot twist hits like truck-kun

The concepts behind the waifus sounds like someone took that scene from Welcome to the NHK where the guys use every trope from vn love interests to create their porn game love interest

This show I’m honestly impressed it did this turn. It really did feel like hot trash, but it somehow has me invested to see how this all ends

Reddit called that it was a VR world from episode 1, but I don't think anybody saw it coming that the AI running the simulation was Cortana-style organically derived from copying the MC's childhood friend's brain and that it short-circuited the system. That's straight up Tropeception.

I really enjoyed this show, and the twist was a big part of it. But I also liked how each of the girls seemed to have a piece of Ai's personality that resonates with the memories they retained. For example, Aoi has all the desperation of Ai's last days when she just wanted to be with Asahi and had no other focus, and those emotions push Aoi to full on yandere mode. Though they never quite spelled that out it seems pretty clear as I look back at it, and that concept is a pretty clever one to sneak in there for those who are paying attention to each of the girls' memories from Ai's life.

As someone who's not watched a second of Love Flops, but just comes in as an analysis connoisseur... This sounds like the sort of series where the title is going to aim to be true in as many meanings as possible. So, 50% it goes for something grounded and ends with the Protagonist and his childhood friend-turned AI girlfriend deciding they're better off as friends, and 50% it commits to the over-the-top and they turn into that on-again/off-again couple with a cache of costumes, a vault of kinks for every occasion, and not so much a dumpster-fire of a relationship as a municipal garbage-incinerator: Stable in it's way, and arguably more useful to society, but just... _wow._

Renai Flops feels like a more child-friendly version of the Euphoria visual novel.

Here’s me calling my shot for an ending that would actually work: Asahi successfully teaches the AI to feel humanistic emotions by teaching it how to process grief and loss. He and the AI, together, process the loss of the original Ai and come to some sort of meaning-adjacent conclusion about it, teaching the AI how to Do Feelings and teaching Asahi… how to move on with his life.

definitely binging this when the season is over. seems like mandatory viewing, not because it's good, but because it's interesting. It's not...a good idea to make seven episodes of a show bad on purpose just to build up to a twist, but it's kind of cool if you're doing it with total intentionality. It really depends on what they're doing with it, though. There are probably more twists in store. Nothing as earth-shattering, probably, but it's unclear what they're trying to say, other than taking the piss on ecchi harem fantasies being unrealistic pandering nonsense/actively trolling the members of the audience who stuck with the show. but it's fun to be on the precipice of that and wonder, before probably getting severely let down.

Thank you! I was watching this almost out of spite when the twist finally happened. I've been trying to get my friends interested enough to try it now...to mostly negative results. But you just put it into words much better than I managed. Which makes sense really. So now I can just show them this video instead!

*Sees the Spoilers* I HAD THIS IDEA YEARS AGO! God darn it, life sure does have its scary scary coincidences!

Just finished episode 10. Was not expecting to become emotionally invested in this series but here we are. I have several regrets, but I wouldn't change a thing. 10/10 better than FMA Brotherhood.

I stayed because i just found the series super funny. The comedy clicked with me for some reason. The twists were just a suprising bonus.

this is honestly the first harem anime that made me want to cry

I decided to watch this anime after seeing the first few minutes of this video and I am glad I did. I don't typically watch harems anymore but I noticed "wierd things" happening in the first episode that I thought was purely in my mind or lazy writing... Only to have those suspicions reinforced over the following episodes. Every episode got weirder and weirder until I was completely sucked into this anime. To think I was going to skip this anime and (so far) is one my favorite anime this year. Wow.

if you’re looking for a longer, more in-depth kind of dating sim subversion then try totono/you and me and her! It’s a ddlc-like nitroplus visual novel from the 2010s that goes for a deconstruction of what dating sims actually are rather than just catching you off guard with a tone switch (though it does that great too). It’s one of my favorite things ever and everyone I’ve seen talking about it has considered it in some way life-changing Slightly unrelated to the video but I like to take any chance I can to talk about this game lol

*spoiler warning: Banano tech. Someone was really proud of that pun.

surprisingly this is the first ever video I’ve seen of you, and I’m only 80 seconds in and I’m subscribing.

Now that I'm thinking about, the German girl is kind of a pervy play in the concept of Miraculous the adventures of Lady Bug, where the co-protagonist is both a Magical boy and a teen supermodel too

Watched it. Blew my mind. Honestly pretty good so far. A trashy harem anime with some actually interesting ideas for once.

I love it personally its funny as hell. The craziness ramped up to 11 and i respect that

You had me at "it is a fun ride if you enjoy trash". Sorry for not completing the video, I'll come back after I watched it.

What about, I'm Geoff Thew, and I'm just living my basement life. For an outro

Because my life is so busy lately and my phone is discolored, which makes all the beautiful animation ugly, I haven't been able to or want to watch anime in months. I'm glad I have you here on RU-vid to help me stay caught up with what is out there.

This sounds like school days kinda vibe. I can be up for a degenerate harem anime when the mood hits me

I really want a part 3 where you talk about the end of this anime.

HUH can't say I was expecting that after hearing about it in your earlier video haha

Jeff, you are really, really good at this.

I would say this show is like Doki Doki Literature Club. The generic buildup with offputting details most people don’t notice if they aren’t paying attention is why the twist works. If this twist happened immediately, I don’t think it would be as impactful or meaningful. The downside of this is, many people can’t get through that buildup, and even if they know the twist will happen can’t be asked to watch it. I like this anime and ddlc for their buildups and twists, but I know it’s not for most people.

Love the outro, dude, never change it

Ooh, glad to see you mention Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei! I'd say you should do a video on it, especially with it finally getting an official English release and all, but I guess the algorithm probably wouldn't like it, huh... I mean, the show literally opens with a joke about... making yourself taller.

It is made by Passione. They love ecchi harems. It is a very affectionate subversion so it is very much made for the type of people who love over the top ecchi shows.

Been a long time since I stopped a video to compose myself. the way you summarize the episodes in rapid fire absolutely broke me down

These anime are always more entertaining in short format videos than actually watching it all. Hahaha the way you explained the possible endings.

I feel like the ending will be a parody of the crying anime like Clannard and Your Name. They are going to set up this sappy ending and rob everyone the chance to cry. If they managed to that, this anime will end up in my top 10 anime list for being the ultimate anime troll.

That was probably my favorite video of yours that I.ve seen.....so far.

I watched this show and was instantly transported back to my childhood in the mid 2000s this show just hit all the right points for me, someone who spent their developmental years watching the most trashy anime they could get there hands on from old-school illegal anime streaming sites.

The protagonist is such a harem anime protagonist, even the Matrix has a childhood flashback with him

I love your Psychonauts poster.

honestly id like to see it go back and re explore itself again from this new angle. not a pure "harem anime are dumb and bad" to the end. or leaving that concept entirely, but going into the more existential angle of what has been set up so far

spoilers but I just realized FLOPS refers to floating point operations per second which is a measurement of computing power for gpus and other AI systems.

To be honest one good idea for a harem anime would be this: Have 6 top tier waifus be in a contest to see who is the best girl, no joke the 6 girls are legit in competition to see who among their friend group is the quote on quote “best girl” but each girls fan base of boys in their school is dead even at 99 boys per girl but there’s 1 boy left our bland food hearted generic protagonist who’s as plain an mc to the max and the girls goal is to see who gets the last boy and boy 100 So now you play on the troupe of the waifus being obsessed with our mc but they have a reason to win a competition but our mc is clueless to it all and genuinely thinks these are interested in him despite knowing they have no reason to be and we know it’s not genuine love it’s just to win a stupid contest and as soon as there’s a winner they pretty much abandon him But slowly the girls see that what they’re doing is wrong and they see that he is a good hearted person, even have the mc grow as a character to the point where he develops a following but of the females in the school and now our 6 waifus are the one chasing him not the other way around, the waifus friendship can be tested because they genuinely want our mc here and will do whatever it takes to win him However when our mc realizes why they were after him to begin with he’s heart broken because he has grown close to them only for him realize they never truly loved him or cared for him he was just a means to an end to satisfy their own egos Where it goes from here idk but I’d like to see this idea call it: • 99 and counting • Love 100 • Clueless

i feel so called out rn, you literally knew i scrolled by it

That cut, man. Got me.

I quite liked this show. I stopped at your major spoiler warning, intrigued enough by the weird shit you described in the first half of the show, and I was not disappointed. A lot of people saying the start was bad or even unwatchable, but I disagree. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it sidesteps a lot of my issues in shows like this around cringe and major miscommunication issues (by having the girls mostly come to their own conclusions about having reacted too harshly). And the over-the-top craziness is always presented in such a way (and with a level of comedic wholeheartedness) that it doesn’t trip up my suspension of disbelief at all. The whole first half of this series had me laughing so much, and thoroughly enjoying my time with it. Plus they do really, REALLY well at setting up a constant feeling throughout that something isn’t quite right. The alarm clock glitching in the very first shot of the entire show. The train car he meets Mongfa in being COMPLETELY empty at that time of morning. The girls all acting extremely weird in the beginning, except for Aoi. Someone respecting personal boundaries shouldn’t be a red flag, but here it really served its purpose as one. And of course the brief flashbacks to them as kids even though none of them should know each other. Very well executed sense that something’s just a bit off, without ever completely giving the game away. (Even the obsession with bananas. Seriously.) Episode 7 blew me away. The first half is fine, whatever, but the second half of the episode had me feeling a creeping, overwhelming dread. The shots are so perfectly crafted to set impressions in your mind (like the sink “blood splatter” panning to be her cutting the steak). The way he completely forgets the other girls ever existed, and moves around the house like he knows it (which actually he does!! because the backstory), even though he’s supposedly never been in this house before. And the ED that episode? The complete absence of all the girls genuinely floored me. Episodes 8 onwards proceeded sort of predictably (with the whole exposition episode violently bringing forth my enraged comp student self) but I still enjoyed it, in a more conventional way. It did still manage to get me emotional though. I particularly enjoyed the thought Ai posed in that one flashback of “if i got to meet my mum once, I’d probably just want to meet her more”. I also appreciated the expression of the idea that hiding a terminal illness really only hurts those around you, that the worry isn’t outweighed by the ability to truly spend as much time together as you can. Thank you for getting me interested enough in the first half of your video to watch. Like Punchline, this was a story with a good amount of heart, and one that was clearly having a LOT of fun, and I had a great time with it.

I love subversions like this, the only issue is that you still need to ultimately enjoy the tropes to some degree, to survive the scene-setting episodes before the big twist, and I just can't do that with trashy harem anime. Not for 7 full episodes. I very much do hope the regular viewers of this show did appreciate it though, based on what I've seen people say the past few weeks, it was foreshadowed well enough that no one should be mad about it :)

I wish for a kissxsis reboot, it's the dark horse of all ecchi genres

Ooooo I didnt know about this channel! :D