World's End Harem

Episode 10

I can't tell you how disappointed I am that terrorists did not actually kidnap Doi during last week's kerfuffle. Disappointment, however, is the connective tissue of an otherwise sloppy and soulless episode of World’s End Harem. With (as far as I can tell) only one more episode to go after this one, the plot finally catches up to it, and the ensuing shuffle of twists and revelations is somehow more awkward to watch than all the prior weeks' fumbling fornications. Maybe, like one of Doi's unfortunate sex slaves, I've just been mind-broken by the show, but at least his supervillain arc was ridiculous enough to be something. Bad porn still has the virtue of being bad porn. A bad political thriller, on the other hand, is even worse than staring into screenfuls of genital voids.

I'll start with the part that pisses me off the most, and I hope it's no surprise it's that four-eyed fucker. For no reason, he's a completely different character now. After weeks of lasciviously luxuriating in his hedonism, after waterboarding the audience with the pungent perspiration of his cum-drenched conquest of every piece of pussy in that high school, World’s End Harem decides Doi isn't that bad a guy. Suddenly he's their benevolent philosopher-king, protecting Erika (never mind that he chained her up in the first place) and forming an eye-to-eye alliance with Karen. I have to watch his gaggle of gal pals tearily clamor over his hospital bed, with zero acknowledgment of or reflection on the hump-addled lunatic he had transformed into over the course of the season. It's sickening. When he was evil, he at least had the potential to be entertaining.

On the bright side, Chloe is evil now, so that means I can like her more. That's right: it's twists upon twists, and it turns out it was the international UW that was responsible for the MK virus, not just the Japan branch. Their beef with Japan was only that they were secretly hoarding these five hale male sperm dispensers, when the UW's ultimate goal appears to be a world completely cleansed of the Y chromosome. I've been half-joking that the bad guys were evil feminists all along, but the show is tantalizingly close to making that its explicit reality. Meanwhile, Erisa identifies herself to the world as the leader of the terrorist group fighting for men's rights to exist. How brave of her. There's also a weird religious atmosphere to both sides, with Erisa's group all enrobed and tattooed, while Chloe strips nude for her secret meetings with Girl Seele. I'm not kinkshaming, but if this whole conflict only amounts to a spat between rival gynic cults, then there are much less destructive—and more fanservice-friendly—ways to resolve their differences.

While I dare not accuse World’s End Harem of having a forthcoming political agenda, which would assume a degree of thoughtfulness in no way supported by the quality of the writing, the premise is inherently political, whether you like it or not. You can't write a story about effectively wiping out an entire gender without touching upon gender politics. It's not a matter of intent; it's a matter of inevitability. And for me, the funniest part of these stories is the brain-numbing amount of convolution it takes to imagine a world in which men are oppressed by women. It's less a thought experiment and more like thought gymnastics. Moreover, World’s End Harem couldn't care less about that oppression, except for how it justifies its protagonists' acts of rebellion, i.e. penetrative sex for the sole purpose of recreation. You see this rhetoric in conservative movements all the time, where they rebrand the most vanilla fucking behavior as “sticking it” to an imaginary cabal of radical leftists pulling the world's strings. The people who wield the most power are the ones who most want to be perceived as David and not Goliath. Everybody wants to be the little guy—and World’s End Harem is a show made exclusively for little guys.

Honestly, though, I don't care whether or not a show named World’s End Harem has good politics. I just want it to be entertaining about it, and this episode is an interminable slog of roundabout dialogue driving us to a conclusion we could have gotten to on our own in a few minutes. There are but scant shades of the series' usual garish and groin-obsessed color. Akane tearfully opening up about her family while giving the audience the wet T-shirt treatment is this week's premier example of impeccable mise-en-scène. It's also one of the lewdest shots we've been able to ogle at unperturbed by the void. I guess exposed underwear is bad, but underwear beneath a see-through nurse's outfit is a-ok. Furthermore, I'm glad they lend more credence to my “Mira is a clone” theory, heavily suggesting that she's a product of experiments to create children without using input from those pesky men. That's hardly enough to redeem the entire twenty minutes, however.

Here's the worst part: nobody fucks! There's barely any nudity, even less fanservice, and like I said earlier, the best scene we get is peppered with dialogue about a dead brother and workaholic mother. I have to award this episode zero stars on principle. It also ends on the worst note possible, with a slicked-back Doi slinking into Reito's room like he's the shittiest Nick Fury in the world. Dude looks like Draco Malfoy. Put those glasses back on, you little poser. Don't you have females to subjugate? I can't wait to bid adieu to this toad.

Rating:

World’s End Harem is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Steve can be found on Twitter if you want to read his World’s End Harem livetweets. Otherwise, catch him chatting about trash and treasure alike on This Week in Anime.