Harem in the Labyrinth of Another World

Episode 12

I obliquely referenced it way back at the beginning of my reviews for this series, and now here at the end, I can confirm that Harem in the Labyrinth of Another World truly was a 'Surf Dracula': A series that spends the entirety of its season working up to its actual saleable premise which most viewers would be watching it for in the first place. By the end of what turns out to be this season's finale, Michio has successfully sexed several slaves, and we even get to watch him fill out the rest of the characters the show has been teasing the whole time in the intro, glossed over as the credits roll because it seems Passione is about as sick of making this thing as I am of watching it. It plays into those accusations of ride-taking game theory I consistently accused this series of: Are you satisfied having sunk twelve weeks into following Harem Labyrinth knowing that you were at last rewarded with a final full blast of pornographic purpose only here at the end? Or like so many lost causes, are you only telling yourself it was worth it?

This is still Harem Labyrinth at the end of everything, so it's still going to find some time for its usual brand of bullshit. The standard droning on about skill slots and combining crystals is actually mercifully light, though it does touch on some ideas that frustratingly might have been worthwhile in a longer run. Basically, Sherry confirms that not only can the people native to this fantasy game world not see skill slots the way Michio can, that also means that many among the population don't actually believe in those mechanics governing the way their lives and abilities progress. That is an interesting concept, to make the rote RPG mechanics of an isekai more of a belief system that not everyone can perceive. But it's only barely brought up here at the end after Michio spent the whole series with unlimited access to those stupid spreadsheets, so instead this mention is little more than flavor text just to make him seem more special.

The other mechanical element elucidated on this episode is more integral to Harem Labyrinth's overall proceedings, and also significantly stupider in how it's deployed here. That is, the special Job Class of the Human race in this game which Michio has access to is…Sex Maniac. This reveal, the lead up to Roxanne and Sherry explaining it to him, and his reaction powering the trajectory of this finale and the implications of what comes after, might have been decently amusing in a foundationally juvenile way had it been delivered earlier on. But as-is, Michio's induction as a Professional Sex Haver only comes off as one more of Harem Labyrinth's last-minute chickenshit justifications. It's basically designed to manufacture still-more consent for Michio to get up to buying women and making them have sex with him, since clearly he can't help his human nature's compulsion to do so and might as well indulge in those acquisitions. The possibility of courting willing partners via mutual, agency-driven interactions is never brought up, naturally. It also says a lot, I think, that Michio comes off as enjoying all this alternate-world action he's getting most after he realizes he can accumulate stat bonuses from doing so. Truly, the terminal gamer-brain mindset.

It all constructs a lead-up to one last illustration of this show's fundamentally bizarre interpretation of slave ownership as an institution for me to be baffled by. See, this episode also delivers on the closest thing this series has ever had to character dynamics as Michio works to navigate his now-multiplayer marriage situation with his hamstrung haremettes. The main thing is him learning what is apparently the proper order of operations in serving and being served by his servants, with Roxanne emitting jealous energy any time he's too forward too soon with new slave on the block Sherry. As with so many other aspects of this series, it calls into question what the point even is in the fantastical benefits of canceling out your companions' agency if you're still going to be narratively compelled to consider their feelings like participants in a standard harem romance manga. Like yeah, you really dodged a bullet there dude, otherwise you might have had to tell your sex-slave what to do.

It exists alongside odd features like Michio worrying about being admonished for watching Sherry changing right before she walks into the bath and she and Roxanne give him a symmetrical-docking scrubdown. It's on the same level of Michio 'graciously' letting his slaves eat dinner with him at the table, in that I suppose it's supposed to paint him as a 'nice guy', as we all imagine ourselves to be that we may comfortably self-insert ourselves into the fantasy he occupies. But in the context of what that fantasy is and what it entails when Michio isn't posing for photos with that prop respectability, it just comes off as fundamentally bizarre instead.

But hey, as much as Michio approaches slave-sexing with all the uncertainty of a dog that somehow caught the car it was chasing, at least you really get to watch him fuck the shit out of that car this episode. Y'all should be impressed I could write as much as I did up there about all the "story" stuff in this episode, since dang-near half of it is devoted to sensually-soapy rub-downs and practicing particular party-up techniques. Us up in the cheap-seats thus miss out on a lot of the artistry on display here, with whole sections of noises and moans muted out as the characters' fantasy frolicking is reduced to a slideshow of box-obscured banging. But by god, from what we can see, with the addition of Sherry to the dynamic, plus I presume Michio's enthusiasm for the act now boosted by the tat-for-stat bonuses, there's actually some mildly engaging energy in play here at the end! Much of this is likely carried by the finale-level finishing artistry— Even a lot of the character animation not related to wild threesomes sees Passione's presentation on a bit of an upswing this episode. I guess it's mildly appreciable to know that after nearly six hours of television, those AT-X viewers and Blu-ray buyers might finally have gotten something they could consider their money's worth.

It's one last joke on all of us involved, though. I don't know that the powers behind this thing are planning on a second season, because if they are, the speedrun through all of Michio's additional sex-squad members in the literal last minute as the credits roll here certainly comes off as them disinterested in properly continuing. Like if any of these characters were my Best Girl from reading the original novel, I'd probably be put right out of this treatment. Most of them barely get their names dropped, let alone any indication of their stories or personality beyond flashing a few pans of them onscreen for their fans to take snapshots of and set as their home desktop wallpapers. If this was always going to be the only point, the only purpose to Harem Labyrinth's handling of the material, then you'd think they could have gotten here this quickly any time they wanted. Instead, they simply performed their own min-max maneuver with my opinion here: I can score this episode significantly higher than I have any of the previous ones, simply on account of it effectively doing what it always promised me it was going to do. But with that recognition, know that my scores for all the previous episodes are retroactively reduced by comparison.

Rating:

Harem in the Labyrinth of Another World is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Chris is a freewheeling Fresno-based freelancer with a love for anime and a shelf full of too many Transformers. He can be found spending way too much time on his Twitter, and irregularly updating his blog.