I have a few ideas for future things for my story but I’d like sone extra opinions and feedback if I can:
1. Which do you think sounds better: Shinji being a part Juraian like Tenchi, an interdimensional being Kenshi and Rea, or just being a plain pure terran like Seina? (Return of Kagato/ Villains entrance Arc)
2. Should I go for a harem/multiple RI’s or just a single love interest? Im already planning on having Mikami as being one- as I think its a waste to throw her to seina. (GP Arc)
3. If I go multiple should I use canon characters or PCs? In kind of wanting to do OCs personally.
Thanks in advance to any and all who chime in. Tenchismile
All subjective, but since you asked…
1) Idk, I like Shinji just being a normal Terran. Idk how you’d make him part Juraian (his mother’s side?) but I’m sure you’ve got some ideas. A Rea/Kenshi type…I honestly don’t know enough about what the heck Rea is, what Kaji was going for there, but if you can make it work, why not? (Especially if you’re going to have multiple dimensions/universes…if it’s all set in one universe, so to speak, prob not much need for an “interdimensional” being like Kenshi, who travels from one to the next.)
2) RI, romantic interest, yes? It depends entirely on what you wanna do: do you want the male fantasy of your protag having lots of women to choose from? There ya go. Or, do you want drama, conflicting love interests, and in the end Shinji becoming devoted to one person? There ya go. I find most harem endings shallow and unfulfilling, but I don’t want to say you shouldn’t do it if that’s what you want to do! It’d be challenging, but you can write a polygamous scenario that also has depth–jealousy, break-ups, confusion, angst–but again, not like you have to do that…you can have it be surface level and everything work out, everyone getting along with not much conflict, but imo that gets boring.
This is also subjective, I’m sure, side tangent, but to me “harem” does not equal “multiple female characters around/multiple competing love interests. That’s just called life (if they’re around and aren’t all love interests) or, if there are multiple competing RI’s, drama. You don’t have to have oh he’s interested in only one person, no conflict, no indecisiveness EVER (but you can), OR all the way on the other end of the spectrum, what I consider an actual harem (ya know, the definition of the term) and it being a polygamous (technically polyganous I think) arrangement where, as is often the case in nature, one (“dominant”) male mates regularly with multiple willing female partners. You can do that, of course, your prerogative…but just so everyone knows, there’s a LOT in the middle of these two extremes that make for good storytelling! (Look at Tenchi, particularly Universe/TV and Tokyo.) The thing about most harem anime (though I’m not familiar with many), like Kaji with GXP, Geminar, and what he’s now done to the OVA, is he doesn’t want conflict, he doesn’t want competition, jealousy, anything “unpleasant” to him…male protag gets all of the girls and they all get along, the end…a setup which, to many viewers/readers, is, frankly, dull.
3) Early on in this topic, years ago, I had said I don’t care for OC’s too much because they’re hard to do well: but it can be done, and in a way if you’re doing something way out of the normal wheelhouse of a Tenchi story, it might actually be beneficial to have OC’s who are unknown variables…if you write an odd scenario involving Aykea or Kiyone or whoever, someone could say ‘well so-n-so wouldn’t act that way’ but they can’t do that if ‘so-n-so’ is an OC, someone whose personality they don’t know yet, they don’t have memories attached to, etc.
