Lordhippos
Pokémon Master
I've never really gotten along with harem shows (nor many examples of its modern cousin, the isekai, though there are exceptions to this)
For the most part I definitely agree, a lot of harem shows are kind of poor, but I like some of them (and I am a fan of the better isekais personally, I don't like them all though).
Which isekais do you like out of interest? My list would be things like: Overlord, Saga of Tanya the Evil, Konosuba, Slime, Shield Hero.
due to finding their bland and uninteresting (and often weirdly sex-averse to say they’re surrounded by women lusting after them) male MCs who are apparently supposed to be viewer inserts utterly unrelatable
I never really got the viewer insert angle, do people watch stuff so they can put themselves in the MC's position? Maybe because I'm a bit older, but no matter what I am watching I don't ever feel like I'm the MC, I just want to see what happens to the characters and the story
The only kind of harem protagonist I’d be interested in is one who screws all of the girls and then leans back, smiling as he is beaten to death by them in the final moments of the show and whispers “worth it”
You'd like School Days then!