Is this really true? When you look at the best-selling anime series ever, you see Madoka, you see Haruhi, you see Monogatari. Which wish-fulfillment harem anime matches up there? The only one that comes even close to being best-selling in that category is Urusei Yatsura, which is 40 years old at this point. Your viewpoint of what anime fans like seems to be tied up in some sort of grievance over the fact that they don't like what you like.
i really doubt that those series are among the overall best-selling ever -- do you mean highest dvd sales during their individual airtime? the best-selling ever are probably those shonen franchises that never end and have global popularity with brown people (naruto, one piece, bleach).
the average japanese otaku does like Madoka and Haruhi, but they also subsist on a diet of isekai, harem, and wish-fulfillment romance that may or may not actually have an ending and for which the plot may or may not really matter, because the purpose of the anime is to present you with cute girls and a self-insert protagonist... i don't see how you could dispute this. looking at the highest dvd sales right now: i'm skeptical roshidere will have an actual ending considering the LN is ongoing. and i would not be surprised if the LNs continued for many more years without an ending.
also, a huge driver of DVD/merch sales is whatever love live and idolmaster are.
also, Monogatari is harem, albeit very good harem.
aside from all of this... i'm not sure what point you're trying to make. am i or am i not out of touch with common anime fans? do they or do they not want unchallenging genre works lacking distinct authorial vision and/or bold artistic statements? if they
do want these things, as i do, why are we not getting anime comparable to Madoka every season or even every year?
It's not as if the early parts of Haruhi are as "deep" as Disappearance, or some of the later novels. A world where the average consumer wants serious art is a world where Haruhi is never even made. Obviously you could say the current state of Japanese art isn't perfect, but it's an extraordinarily good state regardless.
Haruhi is mysterious and highly original from the beginning. it is presented nonlinearly and the concept is unveiled slowly and piecewise.
Kyon is also a kino protagonist on par with Araragi. their personalities and motivations are complex.
KyoAni treated Haruhi as an unconventional work, which is why they made Endless Eight.
Both of these series have accomplished what the author set out to do-- they're not held back by a "lack of direction", you think they're held back because they don't have the direction that you want them to have. These are fundamentally episodic stories, it's like saying Doctor Who should have an ending wrapping up all the moving parts in it; just an absurd idea.
the author talking about his "stupid, stupid brain" isn't held back by anything? he has these great characters, but he doesn't know what to do with them -- at least not anymore.
monogatari is not "episodic," what are you talking about? it has story arcs, but the series does progress as a whole, even if it's not to the extent i would personally prefer; Araragi makes consequential decisions and changes his relationships over time. other characters are subject to permanent changes as well. it does not rinse and repeat or reset, and it is not locked into a monster of the week or cute girl of the week cycle, and to frame the series this way is to oversimplify and diminish it. i don't think nishio is held back by anything, and i revere his abilities as a writer, so i would be very disheartened if he viewed his work this way, if he was not thinking about the long-term development and eventual resolution of the relationship between Araragi, Shinobu, and Senjougahara in particular...
doctor who is cancerous soyfeed, btw.
Yes, because these are fundamentally different works. What the fuck does this even mean? You couldn't make a Haruhi analogue of the K-On! movie, is the former worse than the latter?
*reiterates my point* "What the fuck are you trying to say??"
i was saying nothing other than what you've just rephrased, which contradicts your previous post, in which you denied that "these are fundamentally different works" by directly comparing Haruhi to Lucky Star:
It's notable that Disappearance is made by Yasuhiro Takemoto (RIP), who you probably know from making Lucky Star, Hyouka and Kobayashi's Dragon Maid. Again, he's made the conscious decision to create mostly light-hearted works. These people aren't being constrained by any industry. They're choosing to make less serious works, and they're succeeding. Lucky Star is more popular in Japan now than Haruhi. Both the Japanese public and the authors of these works want to make less serious works.
why should we place the same expectations upon both Haruhi and Lucky Star if they're fundamentally different works?
