It took a bit of Google searching to find
this old article (some content on the site may be slightly NSFW, but the article itself isn't), but I think it's relevant. Without wanting to regurgitate the whole thing, the author proposes that there are four different categories of moe images, and that they exist on a sort of continuum that involves different levels of involvement of "the male gaze" (or that of his narrative proxy). The net result, if you buy into his theory anyway, is that both harem anime and these "all girls" anime (as they are so-called here) can both very much center around moe characters, but the main difference is the type of moe on display in the work. So I think it's quite true that a) these sorts of works have less in common than some (like the OP) might think, and b) you can't really try to approach them in the same way just because it seems like both types of works center around female, moe characters. It's pretty clear that the kinds of interactions that are shown and encouraged in a show featuring moe characters with a prominent male lead are totally different than the types of interactions you would find in a show where there is no male lead at all, but this is because the shows have totally different objectives/goals.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gsilver
The biggest difference between anime now and back in my day is that back then (late 90s) was that the main thing people talked about back then was "complex plots" Now, it's all about "cute girls"... What happened?
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I would say "Late-Night TV anime and the Internet happened", but this is really a topic for another thread (that has, granted, been done before).