I picked this up recently and it's a surreal fucking read...

I picked this up recently and it's a surreal fucking read. It's written like the writer had studied traditional literature, wanted to become Natsume Soseki, and begrudgingly fell into harem light novels and needs to remind everyone that he's actually above that but needs the money.

>First novel opens up with a reference to Anna Karenina as the first of several literary references then discusses how the downfall of anime tropes and romantic expectations. Cuts to fanservice scene opening
>Story constantly pauses to talk about how things that happen in anime and h-games aren't realistic for two paragraphs before anime antics go down
>Every character is written as a dialed up character archetype and called out on how annoying they'd be in reality. Still gets played straight for charm points instead of actually being problematic
>Main character has to constantly point out how lucky it is that a contrived coincidence worked out or that people around him are willing to handwave and ignore reality so that the plot can happen

Don't get me wrong I have very low expectations in the stuff I consume and I'd have been content with an actual mindless romcom but I need to pause every chapter wondering what the fuck I'm reading. It's not even attempting to deconstruct anything or to be a parody played for laughs. Everything happens as you'd expect it to in a total lowbrow romcom but then someone in the story has to stop and point out how stupid it is.

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You should read Nisio's novels for the true "I'm so much better than this" experience.

>but then someone in the story has to stop and point out how stupid it is.
Sounds like a moderately less irritating Kaguya.

>"I'm so much better than this" experience
I'm surprised I've only now had a name to put on annoying stuff like that. Took the words straight out of my mouth.

Man's gotta eat.

also very common in visual novels

>It's written like the writer had studied traditional literature
>and needs to remind everyone that he's actually above that but needs the money.
Within the broader romance genres this is more common in shoujo/josei demographic stuff. I don't mean in the sense of wannbes trying to transcend the standard faire by writing a masterpiece but more the sort of lampshading you're describing where it's paint by numbers stuff that calls it out a bit but then proceeds with coloring within the lines.
Like pic related is literally about a boy and a girl talking cliches while ironically bumbling into them anyway.

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I love when normalfags are forced to bow down and pander to otakuchads.

A bit offtopic but I wonder if there's more stuff like pic related, I really liked it.

Maybe he is just trying to be self-referential, I seriously doubt this is the case:
>It's written like the writer had studied traditional literature, wanted to become Natsume Soseki, and begrudgingly fell into harem light novels and needs to remind everyone that he's actually above that but needs the money.