To some, it's a dream come true. To him, he desperately wants to wake up from this nightmare.note
I'm the Main Character of a Harem Manga, but I'm Gay So Every Day Is Hell for Me (Harem Manga no Shujinkou daga Gay nanode Mainichi ga Tsurai) is a one-shot parody manga published in Jump Square magazine on 17th July 2015 with the premise being Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
Average-looking schoolboy Touge Yuuguri is constantly surrounded by attractive girls in his everyday life, all desperate to be his girlfriend no matter what. There's just one problem: he's gay. Thus, Touge's life becomes exceedingly difficult and spirals into a living hell, truly reflecting how one man's harem fantasy can be another's nightmare.
The manga contains the following tropes:
- Brother–Sister Incest: What Touge's younger and older step-sisters are trying to accomplish but their brother is understandably grossed out and one hundred percent done with this situation, Incompatible Orientation aside, as shown in the image above with the sisters doing the classic Lover Tug of War.
- Character Catchphrase: "Uh, okay." for the main character since what else can he say for his increasingly absurd and especially unwanted harem situation?
- Chick Magnet: Touge Yuuguri somehow gets every type of girl imaginable vying for his attention without even trying (much to his ire). In ten pages alone, he managed to attract six girls (Including the most popular girl in school and his step-sisters) as they would "accidentally" topple on him or even invite him to spend some "special time" alone like the protagonist of an overly-cliche Harem manga. Alas for them, Touge couldn't care less about the attention since he's gay and wants nothing to do with the opposite gender, romantically or otherwise.
- Genre Savvy: Touge is well aware that everyone around him is behaving as if they're in a harem manga. A really, really shitty harem manga.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: Touge does everything in his power to make all the women in his life hate him for justified reasons, yet all his attempts to escape, reject, or scare the girls away have the complete opposite effect and only intensify their admiration as if some cosmic interference was at work. Special mention goes to feigning a morbid fascination with squishing caterpillars until their guts come out, only for the interested girl to perk up and be revealed as a Nightmare Fetishist.
- He-Man Woman Hater: Touge, while understandably fed up with girls he's not interested in, seems to have a very low opinion of women by default.
- Incest-ant Admirer: Touge's Unwanted Harem includes his two stepsisters. He wants absolutely nothing to do with either of them because of both the Incompatible Orientation issue and because they grew up under the same roof.
- Incompatible Orientation: All the girls want Touge, Touge's gay... you do the math.
- Meaningful Name: Touge can mean "pass" in Japanese which is exactly his attitude towards all the women wanting a romantic relationship with him and throwing themselves at his feet, he'll pass it up.
- Straight Gay: Touge has the same generic personality as most Harem leads— except he's gay.
- Parental Abandonment: Touge mentions that his parents are always inexplicably away on business trips and never come home, unfortunately leaving him alone with two stepsisters who are both trying to get in his pants.
- Tsundere: The second segment has Touge encountering one. It goes as well as you expected:Tsundere: Just so you know, I-It's not like I like you or anything!Touge: ...Uh, okay. I don't really like you either.Narration: [Tsunderes are ineffective against gay people]
- Unwanted Harem: Every girl he encounters is by default enamored with Touge including his own sisters (Non-blood related but that doesn't make it any better) and make his life a living hell because of it. However, this is deconstructed in that the harem is truly unwanted and no amount of begging can change it since the protagonist is gay and has a very low opinion of women in general from the constant bombardment of nonsensically perverted situations and unwanted sentiments he finds himself in.
- Versus Title: The first chapter is titled this way with Touge facing the obstacle of turning down a Tsundere.
