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pokoko on 09 April 2016
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Super_Boom said:
pokoko said:

Not at all.  I think it has more to do with the main female often being a standardized girl that's built to appeal to the most people, which, unfortunately, sometimes translates into a 'safe' choice with fewer quirks that catch my interest.  The female lead just doesn't seem to align very often with what I prefer, especially if they're the clingy type.

I can see where you're coming from...though for me, it's kind of the opposite. The main girl is usually the character that gets the most character exposition, and tends to be a lot more fleshed out in general due to the needs of the plot. That's important for me, because I can't root for a character simply due to superficial qualities like appearance or personality. The main character might not have 'quirks', but they usually tend to get a lot more character development over time, which is something I require when deciding on my favorite characters.

There are definitely a lot of exceptions of course, and I'm sure I can think of several times where I preferred a side character over the main one. Diane in Seven Deadly Sins is a recent example that comes to mind...though I liked her character a lot more for the same reasons above. I definitely consider those examples to be the exception rather than the rule though.

I guess in short, you can say I root for the more "human" characters, and that typically seems to be found in the lead characters in my personal experience.

We're just going to have to agree to disagree, yo.  One of the more common reasons I turn away from the primary female character is that they often feel too perfect, which makes me think of them more as a plot device than a person.  As far as having more story elements, that's true, but with harem anime, that often doesn't translate to character development.  In fact, one of things that bothers me about harem anime in general is that character development for a lot of the female characters comes down to, "I realize that I love him because he saved me from X."

As you said, though, there are exceptions everywhere for everything.