It’s not as simple as you make it look. There are several different ways for a character to be unlikeable.
Let’s compare two different characters in a very similar position who started off in a love triangle setting.
In WA2, there’s Haruki, who becomes a pathetic lump of LAME, losing all of his positive traits in a flash for no good reason, just derping his way through people’s feelings like a clumsy fat bull in a china shop. He feels guilty as heck but he goes ahead anyway because “B-But muh true love. I have- I have to…” Who is this awkward horndog and where the heck did the previous Haruki go? He used to handle pretty much anything so well.
It’s the kind of character that makes me think “dude’s totally worthless.” If I saw him on the street, begging, I wouldn’t give him a single penny. I’d just walk by and forget him within 2 seconds. He just doesn’t matter.
I wouldn’t talk about him so much if it wasn’t for the amazing person he used to be, as well as the wasted potential of the show..
And then there’s the protag of the School Days anime, Makoto. This dude is DESIGNED to be hated. If you don’t hate him by the end of the show, you just failed to understand it. This bull will walk pridefully into a china shop and make a beeline for the most priced porcelain vase in there, which would be the first thing he’d knock over. After demolishing the rest of the shop, he’d eat all the money in the register and take a dump on the counter.
I hated this scumbag with every fiber of my being which is what made the show so damn good. I’ve never hated a fictional character so much. That seething hatred was one heck of a powerful emotion. This is a very different kind of “unlikeable”. Your negative feelings bind you to the character instead of creating more distance to him. If you were to run into him on the street, you’d want to beat the hell out of him.
To draw a simple metaphor, it’s like the difference between a pile of poop and a thumbtack that you step on bare-footed respectively.
You don’t really hate the poop. You just try to wipe it from your foot as fast as possible and then you don’t want to have to do anything with it.
With the thumbtack, it’s different. First of all, it hurts. It leaves a nasty injury. You get mad and try to take your anger out on it by crushing it with a hammer or something.
And hey, Symphonic Rain was great. Some people did some bad things but I didn’t actually dislike them for that, except maybe one dude. Fal is dedicated and more honest than she gives herself credit for, Asino is a good guy and Torta just ended up in a really bad position. The only guy worthy of some hatred would be Lise’s dad, and even then you can tell he’s just broken and bitter. So he’s actually half-hateworthy and half pitiful.
