this is something that came to me at 8 am after sleepless night and i thought im too insane to post this publicly but i can post it into your askbox
i was looking at this. and was hit with the realization that it's very unsettling that they're all looking at the viewer (especially considering that they're not in the most comfortable positions while doing so, and especially considering that they interacted with each other before it)
because it looks like a harem anime cover 😭
particularly about them interacting before it, it's a common trait among illustrations where girls interact in affectionate ways that are made with male gaze/targeted at male audience that the girls interact with each other but still look at the viewer instead of at each other (i couldn't find good examples, but it happens even when girls are straight up almost kissing and they still look at the viewer), this is a form of objectification of female characters
yunos look at each other in other frames where they interact, but in the frame where they're all gathered together and portrayed in full height they freeze in not the most comfortable poses and look at the viewer... also with the whole setting of the scene and yuno's themes... good bye
74n5n you have to know this is the exact sort of thinf that makes me go insane at this point. Anyway as someone who…let’s say watches too much trashy isekai specifically and never wants to touch harem with a seven foot pole- yeah I’m nodding along here.
Additionaly when it comes to harem each girl usuallt fufills a specific archetypical fantasy. Yknow, tsundere, childhood best friend, etc. Usually these can be divined through the character’s design, and we know each version of Yuno appeals to a different person. In a sense, she embodies archetypes that appeal to different people.
Interesting thing to note: Catgirl Yuno isn’t exempt from this. One because Catgirls ARE a harem archetype, and Two cause cold, agressive, standoffish characters who hate you IS an archetype that is literally what a tsundere is. So that’s fun I think.