Revisiting Shuffle!

I had watched Shuffle! back at the beginning of my anime-watching career, and it was my first exposure to harem anime. For perspective, the anime released back in 2005. The story is based on a visual novel. I will include spoilers.

Enter Rin, a typical droll harem protagonist defined by his “niceness” and his, ahem, dumbassery. Like many harem protagonists, he has the emotional intelligence of a thrown brick. As I watched, I kept thinking of him as a, for lack of a better word, a dumbass. Much ...