Lots of Western fans have a lot of difficulty with the female-on-male slapstick presented in anime and manga; I attribute it to third-wave feminism where that sort of thing just seems wrong, but maybe it's not such a society-wide thing. Either way, you're totally not alone in that (there's one fellow I know who is particularly loud and annoying in his hatred of any female character who shows hostility towards a male, but then he's got some women issues...)
Personally, I don't find that stripe of comedy very funny; it just doesn't deliver to me on a humorous level. There are a lot of times where I feel bad for the character in question, though it's not so much because "ow, that's got to hurt" as much as "but it's just a misunderstandinggg! ;___;" ie, Love Hina. It's rarely, if ever, enough to make me outright dislike the character, though- to be honest, I usually end up feeling bad for Naru or whoever, since she's got such a hang-up with being honest and listening to other people. (Uh, my sensibilities are so backwards!!)
This is kind of unrelated, but I have noticed that recently there's been a trend of making "tsundere" or violent characters more flawed than funny; in characters like Haruhi or Asuka from Evangelion, the inability to take people seriously and to treat them like toys (or dirt) is presented as a crippling social problem that has repercussions, as they end up (or start out at the beginning of the story, in Haruhi's case) feeling emotionally isolated because of the way they chase people off. I'm personally very fond of this; it takes a kind of annoying trope and makes it into a serious part of the character.
But that was kind of a tangent. What was I saying?;;
Personally, I don't find that stripe of comedy very funny; it just doesn't deliver to me on a humorous level. There are a lot of times where I feel bad for the character in question, though it's not so much because "ow, that's got to hurt" as much as "but it's just a misunderstandinggg! ;___;" ie, Love Hina. It's rarely, if ever, enough to make me outright dislike the character, though- to be honest, I usually end up feeling bad for Naru or whoever, since she's got such a hang-up with being honest and listening to other people. (Uh, my sensibilities are so backwards!!)
This is kind of unrelated, but I have noticed that recently there's been a trend of making "tsundere" or violent characters more flawed than funny; in characters like Haruhi or Asuka from Evangelion, the inability to take people seriously and to treat them like toys (or dirt) is presented as a crippling social problem that has repercussions, as they end up (or start out at the beginning of the story, in Haruhi's case) feeling emotionally isolated because of the way they chase people off. I'm personally very fond of this; it takes a kind of annoying trope and makes it into a serious part of the character.
But that was kind of a tangent. What was I saying?;;
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