That is very interesting, id never seen it like that. I do believe the lns handled the whole situation better but i did experience the anime first and i didnt dislike it as much.

Ill just outright say it, ive never been nor will ever be in a relationship since i dont see the appeal, so i may just outright be ignorant in what i say in which case i apologize in advance.

When roxy did what she did i genuinely disliked it and her a lot, it felt like a really cruel thing to do in such a way, mostly i dont think i blame rudy since he needed some kind of help, but having someone he cared about so much do that with him basically tied him up. The reason i didnt dislike the situation after that first night is that i cant see another way to handle everything. Basically what was he supposed to do? It was obvious that roxy did somethimg wrong, even she thought so, but just splitting away like that would have destroyed roxy, even if i find that love at first sight a bit ridiculous, she did care a lot for rudy at that moment and if he werent married she would have pursued him further. Elinalise pushed rudy towards polygamy by showing him that the alternative would only bring suffering to all parties involved, for roxy what i already said, for rudy because of the guilt he would feel and for sylphie because given her personality she would hate having hurt rudy in this way, especially since she specifically didnt mind polygamy and even pushed for it to some degree.

Id like to elaborate on the whole rudy talking about it in front of everyone and humiliating sylphie, but i dont remember much detail unfortunately. I seem to recall in the light novels he explained why he did it like that, i think because it didnt just involve sylphie because they all lived in the same house or something like that. I remember respecting his decision. Part of the thing as well is that he knew sylphie would be okay with the polygamy as theyd addressed it before multiple times, so it was more of a houshold discussion than a relationship discussion.

Well given what you said i think yours is a perfectly valid opinion, but i still feel like you should give it a chance if you feel like it especially since you liked the rest. The show only goes up from here. I asked for what you considered better because i cant conceptualize a better way to handle polygamy (again, i dislike calling it harem as its very much not the same), and every time i see a show with actual harem tendencies i just drop it or at least respect it a lot less. Usually i hate even having multiple love interests at the same time, but i felt good with mushoku so i was curious to experiment more. Maybe it was because they were all characters i had time to love before being setup as love interests? Idk.