I’ve watched a lot of harem anime in my time as an anime fan. When I was an awkward teenage boy who didn’t have a lot of confidence in myself, the idea of a scenario where several girls instantly liked me and found me attractive and the main character was bland enough for me to self insert myself into his place was appealing…for a time. As with most people, my tastes changed and got more complex as I got older, so I opened myself up to a bigger variety of stories and mediums. I would occasionally watch another harem anime if it caught my eye, but it would often just feel like the same show with only a few differences here or there. But the Harem genre, like any other, is not good or bad on its own. It’s merely a way of telling a story, which can still do some neat and interesting things if someone is willing to mix things up. Heck, really going for a big swing and trying to shake up the formula can be pretty rewarding. But sometimes a story hints at that big swing and then…steps right back to home plate, which is arguably even more disappointing than if they just kept it the same. On a related note, here’s the Season Review for Love Flops!Asahi Kashiwagi wakes up one day to find five hot girls living at his house, swearing their love for him and apparently set up as potential brides! Seems like pretty tried and tested Harem so far, right? Well, after a half a dozen seemingly typical episodes (that are still a bit on the wacky side), things take…a turn. Suddenly four of the five girls have mysteriously disappeared and the remaining one has gone berserk! This leads to the STUNNING REVELATION that the whole series up until this point has taken place in a virtual simulation! Not only are none of the girls real human beings, but they were all written with the memories of Asahi’s dead childhood friend! So, after stopping the glitching girl from somehow dooming the world in some way, all of them get to have physical bodies, including the one that went off the deep end. Hooray, he gets ALL the girls! And we don’t need to think about the horrific and disturbing implications of this! If you wanted to think during you’re anime, you wouldn’t be watching this! Hopefully you understand now that this was a rather unsatisfying viewing experience for me.The twist regarding the simulation is probably the most disappointing aspect of the show, mainly with how they end up squandering the potential of it. Having the rug pulled out from under the protagonist, who up until that point thought the world revolved around him, could have been a way to make a comment on the weak points or overly used cliches of the genre, perhaps to then reinvigorate it and provide an example of how to make more interesting takes. But instead, whether this was the plan all along or them backtracking out of fear, the result simply led to a pretty forgettable experience. The show has only been around for a year now and most have forgotten it entirely, leaving it to the anime dustbin of history. In fact, as soon as I have completed and submitted this review, I too shall purge all memory of this show, if only to preserve brain space for more important things, such as remembering to clip my fingernails, which remote controls the TV volume, and how to describe the color beige.