Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Harem in the Labyrinth of Another World
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Gamen
Posts: 221 |
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There's that too, and there's also that when he does finally casually bring up someone's past he realizes how they ended up a slave might be a sensitive subject and not something to have brought up so casually... but he didn't think about any of that today, did he? |
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MagicianMan
Posts: 120 |
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"I own you. You are my property. Your life is forfeit to my personal safety and your body is an instrument for my pleasure. But no, I won't take the time to learn anything about you or your needs. Why, That would be rude. I wouldn't want things to get awkward between us out there after I make you strip naked and get in my bed." All I can say to that is "lol". I'm not even really that bothered by the "slave harem" trope most of the time, but let's at least try to have more self awareness about it than that. |
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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Huh? He was open and attentive at everything Roxanne said and bought anything she asked for. If he really didn't care (or was dense like so many protagonists) about her needs, he would simply would have thought "oh, she is bare footed? wolf beastfolk must not feel discomfort like us humans do". |
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Hiroki not Takuya
 Posts: 2514 |
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So yeah, our boy straight-up bought himself a hot woman for her fighting skills and checked her out really well. Is this the first "mainstream" show to have this as a major plot point? |
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Covnam
 Posts: 3650 |
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Well, looks like they're following the manga over the LN
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Gamen
Posts: 221 |
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I don't know if this is what mangamuscle meant, but I would include both the sex and the fighting - and more besides - in the "job description" for the unpaid, forced labor she's being employed for. That is, not "bang your co-workers out of professional courtesy", but "hire a sex worker/bodyguard/maid/guide" |
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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Objection: 1)No doubt Roxanne is not getting a monthly salary, but I would not said she is unpaid just like scholarship holders are "paid", she is getting levels which would be the real life equivalent of a formal education and this world seems to be brutal enough to have "warrior" as a profession in demand. 2)I get this definition for forced labor: Forced labor occurs when individuals are compelled against their will to provide work or service through the use of force, fraud, or coercion. Yeah, I understand that societal pressure makes Roxanne accept her condition (the alternative is living as a hermit in someplace barely habitable), Which reinforces my assumption that this is modeled after japanese society, where people accept their lot in life and try to be law abiding citizens at all times, no matter if the system is rigged against them. 3)I have yet to see Roxanne work as a maid. Make no mistake, unless we are shown some kind of common magic apparatus, cleaning cloths was a back then back breaking continual shore. |
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Gamen
Posts: 221 |
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1) I think you mean internships. Regardless, yes, slaves historically were used for more than menial labor and gained skill and experience, including management experience. It's still unpaid labor. Hell, it's still unpaid labor when it's an intern! If "compensation" included anything gained while performing labor, it'd be a distinction without a difference. 2) Again, that's turning forced labor into distinction without a difference. We always have a choice, even if it's taking our own life. Being left with no choices but to take one's life, submit to beatings and torture, fight back, escape and hide from the slave-catchers, or do the work basically exemplifies forced labor.... 3) ...I take that to mean they didn't include the scene of her washing their underwear and admiring his elastic boxers? spoiler[Regardless, yes, washing clothes is explicitly something she'll be doing...] |
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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@Gamen
1) If it is "a distinction without a difference" then all those slaves performing management instead of menial labor did all that effort (acquiring skills is not something you do without effort) for no good reason, madness! 2)An example to show the difference: when illegal immigrants are sequestered in a farm and are told to work or they get no food, that is forced labor. When the government tells you to pay your taxes (which means, part of your work is done for the IRS), that is the rule of law. The difference is, when a group or organization does it, it is frowned on, when it is part of the law of the land, nobody is should protest (albeit some people sometimes do pour gasoline and set themselves on fire or throw tea from boats). 3) This is an adaption and the director is at the driving wheel, the alternate reality time skip shows he can change some details if he so pleases. We will cross that bridge when we arrives. |
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ATastySub
Past ANN Contributor
 Posts: 647 |
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It’s amazing how hard you are going at trying to call the slave and slave-owner relationship anything other than what it says on the tin. The tin the show itself is very clear about. The show where the slave owning protagonist decided “I really want to own a slave” and then bought a slave from a slaver. The show that then has the slaver rap about how cool slavery is. Roxanne is not an indentured servant. She is not an unpaid intern. She is a slave. Thr show can make any excuses it wants about how that supposedly good and we can rightfully scoff at it because it’s slavery. Just as we can read your posts going a step further than the show even bothers to because at the end of the day it is doing so for a lazy and gross fetish, while you’re branching into defending the actual practice probably also out of fetishization but hell maybe even worse reasons. Either way, it’s slavery. You don’t need to keep pretending otherwise when the show sure isn’t. |
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Gamen
Posts: 221 |
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1) How about because it was an escape from back-breaking labor? Because it gave them power over others? Or most importantly: because if they didn't there'd be painful consequences. Whatever, that's not the point. The point is that unpaid labor has a definition, and that definition does not include intangibles as valid compensation. Like Roxanne gaining knowledge and experience and skill in the dungeon. 2) ...I don't even know what your point is. It's not the law of the land that'll beat Roxanne or withhold food and water or lock her in a room if she doesn't perform the tasks demanded of her... it's Michio. spoiler[I mean, he won't, because he wants a pleasant and enthusiastic nighttime companion and comrade-in-arms so he'll avoid giving her intolerable tasks. And the story has contrived that not only won't she find anything he wants her to do intolerable, she'll even find some of them agreeable and pleasurable.] I don't think you'll take my word for it, but Roxanne's situation is an example of forced labor. (Taxes are not an example, even head taxes. Jury duty, military drafts, prison labor, etc. OTOH are...) Also this is not a "Japanese society" thing. This is a universal "you do what you have to to survive" thing. Ugh. Also to make clear where I'm coming from, I don't find slavery a gross fetish. I mean, yes it can be a lazy way for an isekai to bring together an ensemble cast/harem, but I don't find it objectionable. So I don't see any reason to pretend it's something only incrementally more benign in order to spare the thin-skinned.... |
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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@Gamen
I suppose I should say upfront my fetish is not slavery/bonding/subjugation. I simply think Roxanne's situation is not as dire as some people would seem to infer. 1) My point is simply that "unpaid labor" infers that she is not getting anything of value out of her present situation (as in, working as a maid would be the same thing over and over for decades to come) which is not true. 2) My point is that Roxanne is not forced, she is (at the present time) embracing her current situation to make the most out of it, the "forced" part of "forced labor" is a carrot and stick scheme, but here there is only carrot. spoiler[If Roxanne turned rogue it would not be Michio who would punish her, but the rule of law, he has neither the experience nor the inclination to do so.] I get that in real life the above approach would most probably put her in a road towards pain, but as you say, fiction is always contrived; just take the example of the other series this season where a teenager goes alone at night into a desolate building with what appears to be a hooker and then she bites him, that would normally be a "shit hits the fan moment" but I don't need to tell you it was all in good fun. |
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Penrhos
Posts: 167 |
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I'm still watching this to see how much of a car-crash dumpster-fire it'll become (and for the Tiddies)
Slavery is bad and potato-kun's slave harem is lazy writing. However no-one knows why Roxanne became a slave, She could have done something illegal (like the villager), been in debt, or even like Chise Hatori in magus bride - we do not know and I suspect the series probably won't bother to tell us. She may have even desired an owner like potato-kun. Even uncensored this is struggling to rise much above 2/5 (unlike potato-kun's pants). The only "Slave" ownership Anime I've enjoyed has been "How no to summon" and that does the slave, ecchi, & adventure bits so much better..... Last edited by Penrhos on Fri Jul 29, 2022 12:19 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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lossthief
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 1392 |
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"Unpaid Labor" is exactly what it says, and exactly what Roxanne is doing. Just because somebody may get something beneficial out of said labor doesn't mean they're actually secretly being paid. When I volunteer to clean up the local historical cemetery with a local greenery club, I get a decent workout and a sun tan, but that doesn't count as payment. You're trying to split hairs here for no reason and intentional or not, you appear to be arguing that it's not *really* slavery if she gets anything out of it.
I'm not sure how you managed it, but your second sentence there makes it obvious that there is a "stick" as it were: if Roxanne didn't obey Michio's orders, she would risk being abused or harmed, even if, through the nature of stroytelling, we are assured Michio wouldn't do that. From Roxanne's perspective as a character without the omniscience of the viewer, Michio is entirely capable of hurting her or otherwise physically forcing her into any and all labor - including sex work. And even if she were capable of overpowering or escaping him, she's aware that it would then be entirely legal - even encouraged - for anyone who wanted to to kill, assault, or otherwise harm her. That's the stick, and the insidious nature of systemized slavery is that Michio never has to way that stick around, because Roxanne is always aware of it, and the same is true for any slave. That's what makes slavery different from simply exploitative eployment. If I quit a crummy job, I might face negative financial consequences, but the company and government aren't given permission nor incentive to take my life or force me to return to work. |
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jr240483
 Posts: 4378 Location: New York City,New York,USA |
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are you surprised? it's because of Japan's draconian laws regarding censorship as well as their draconian geo-blocking laws that are the primary cause of this. aka hentai is sadly a paradise for the pirating industry. specifically for illegal streaming websites. unless their govt change these laws, its gonna canalize itself into extinction |
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