The following contains spoilers for Love Flops Season 1, Episode 1, "Don't Get So Grabby, You Clumsy Oaf!," now streaming on HIDIVE. This discussion also contains mention of rape.
The Harem anime genre is no stranger to objectifying women and depicting them as falling in love with an average man who lacks interesting qualities as a person. These average male protagonists either rarely show romantic interest in the conventionally attractive women who love them, or they lust after them. None of this is new as the genre very much thrives on the idea of an Everyman being able to attract women who are out of his league, and all the worst-case scenarios that come with this.
There are, however, clever ways of playing with the tropes associated with harem anime that actually elevate the story's humor. These tropes can even be astutely subverted with thoughtful writing, effectively paving the road for the reverse-harem anime genre. The newest anime from Kadokawa and Passione, Love Flops, attempts to parody the various tropes associated with harem anime, and even tries to subvert one of them. The problem with how Love Flops tries to parody its own genre, however, is that the jokes rely too much on trivializing sexual violence against women and men.
Love Flops' Humor Relies on Degrading Its Female Characters
Viewers are introduced to Love Flops' protagonist Asahi Kashiwagi in Episode 1, which is actually off to a good start. Asahi begins his day watching the news and getting ready for school as he normally does. When his horoscope is broadcast on the TV, however, his life -- and the rest of the episode -- takes an unexpected turn for the worse. Not only does Asahi's day begin to go downhill the moment he sets his foot out the door, but the writing for the episode suffers from this moment onward.
On his way to school, Asahi bumps into the series' first main character, Aoi Izumisawa. Before this, however, viewers' visual introduction to Aoi is a camera angle focused on her crotch area. After she runs into Asahi, she falls on top of him and is immediately concerned about him seeing her underwear, but not for the reasons one might think. Instead of being concerned over a potential boundary violation, Aoi is instead worried that her underwear isn't cute enough to be observed. It is then revealed that it came off when she fell on top of Asahi, who later tries to return it. Unfortunately, Aoi ends up flashing Asahi when a breeze billows under her skirt, and the underwear is lost to the wind.
The second person Asahi runs into on his way to school is his new homeroom teacher, Bai Mongfa. She sits next to Asahi on the train and falls asleep on his shoulder. Like with Aoi in the earlier scene, viewers are visually introduced to Bai via camera shots of her chest and crotch areas. When Asahi tries to get her off him, both individuals fall to the ground and Asahi accidentally gropes his teacher's breasts, earning him a kick in the face.
When Asahi gets off the train, he meets Love Flops' third main character, Karin Istel. Like the two women before her, viewers' introduction to Karin is far from flattering as she's depicted falling down a flight of stairs. Her crotch lands on Asahi's face, complete with a camera shot of her underwear. The rest of the scene plays out as a simulation of the "69" position, with Karin even mistaking the banana (the fruit) in Asahi's pocket for an erection.
Love Flops Trivializes Men's Experiences With Sexual Violence
Following the encounter with Karin, Asahi starts to take his horoscope prediction more seriously and attempts to avoid a cleaning robot at a park. Unfortunately, the cleaning robot steals the bra of Love Flops' fourth main character, Amelia Irving. While Asahi manages to retrieve the bra from the robot before it is destroyed, Amelia still mistakes him for a pervert. Out of the four women introduced, Amelia's is by far the strangest as there was no reason for her bra to come off in a setting such as a public park. Even when the incident is written off as the robot mistaking Amelia's clothes for garbage, it still doesn't explain how it even had access to her bra since it was hidden under layers of clothes, including a hoodie.
Ironically, the cleaning robot incident is far from the worst joke Love Flops has to offer. In fact, it manages to outdo itself with an even worse offender: the depiction of an anal rape joke -- twice. The first time this joke is depicted in Episode 1 is when the fifth main character, Ilya Ilyukhin, is introduced. In this case, she is depicted on all fours with a dog going at her from behind, which is played for laughs. The second time, Asahi himself is sexually assaulted by the same dog. The fact that he's shown holding onto his butt with his trousers down in the aftermath makes it pretty clear penetration took place. While Asahi is depicted as being traumatized by the whole thing, the writing once again plays it off for laughs.
On the whole, Love Flops is off to a bad start for a pilot episode. Despite its attempts to be "edgy" and "over-the-top" in its use of humor, the jokes are grossly outdated for today's more self-aware audience. The jokes are similarly in very poor taste, even by harem anime standards.