Here's a question.
As a guilty pleasure, have you ever watched any super ugu kawai animes just to get the cheap emotional boost from the cutesy parts?
Also
Opossum
I want your opinion on something in the PM.
So my favourite anime is actually a little show called Heaven's Lost Property (Sora no Otoshimono). It's an ecchi harem comedy, which is normally my least favourite genre. It looks like this.
So at first glance, it fits what you're describing to a tee.
However, I don't watch it for the "cheap emotional boost". Because here's the thing - there is none. It's actually a legitimately well-crafted show. It's got big breasted babes, a harem for the main male protagonist, and all that jazz you'd expect from the genre...but almost each and every character is multi-layered, the main characters often go through multiple arcs and developments, there's a legitimately interesting story going on behind everything, and even the episodes you'd normally describe as "filler" actually at least spend a little time moving the plot along or developing the characters. The emotional moments of the show are also legitimately heartwarming, and at other times, heartwrenching, and you get attached enough to the characters for those moments to be justified and for them to have weight. Also, in spite of it being raunchy and full of fanservice, the animators oddly do show restraint when it matters. They won't give an unnecessary upskirt during serious scenes and the like. Even stuff that you would think is there purely to be your typical "cute anime girl quirk" actually turns out to have a grander purpose for the character's development and narrative.
And just to illustrate the crazy passion this show has - every single episode has it's own ending animation and song.
EVERY. SINGLE. EPISODE. Of which there are over 20. That's literally about two episodes worth of animation. They didn't have to do that, but they did. Some of the ending animations are silly and goofy, some are related to some of the more emotional shifts in the story. But either way, if this show was just here to make a quick buck with anime tiddies, it would not have done something so outrageous. I actually haven't heard of any other show that has done that.
It unfortunately never properly finished (doesn't go over everything the manga does after a certain point and ends up with a rushed ending that's more bittersweet than the manga's), but what is there is pretty fantastic. Also, the comedy is actually legitimately great, largely helped by the strong cast of characters.
Also the soundtrack is amazing. Like, there aren't many anime where I remember more than the most iconic OP/ED themes. But with HLO, I remember almost the entire soundtrack vividly like my favourite video game OSTs. The only other anime that has come to that level of OST goodness for me is One-Punch Man.
As a fun fact, Ikaros (pink-haired girl above) is the only anime character I have went out of my way to get any official merch for as of yet (I have a Gundam Wing Zero -Endless Waltz Ver.- [Pearl Edition] Master Grade kit, but that's not an actual character). I managed to track down her old Nendoroid that was released years ago when the show was still new, and bought it around last Christmas. She's probably my favourite character in the whole show, and by extension one of my favourite anime characters. I just really needed to have something to represent my love for the show.
So TL;DR - it is a guilty pleasure of sorts due to the surface level fan-service stuff, but that's subverted by the actually compelling characters and narrative. This anime literally has both kinds of "plot".