World's End Harem

Episode 6

I hope you like hackneyed conspiracies and irresponsible attitudes about consent and homosexuality, because otherwise World’s End Harem's platter of pubic pratfalls is bone dry this week. It's difficult to imagine a way in which the uncensored version would add anything to this installment, even for the most cum-brained sect of the audience. There's noticeably less fanservice than usual, and in its place we have stunningly lazy plot developments and frankly rancid vibes. I know I've been bullish on the series' potential for tasteless dumb fun, but that's a fine line that the show crosses with all the grace of a rhinoceros this week.

As far as the overarching conspiracy plot goes, nothing revealed this week is surprising. However, it is surprising to witness just how hard the story doesn't care. After several weeks of speculation about the MK virus's origins, Reito's smartwatch simply beams out a helpful powerpoint presentation about how to make it. Even if we ignore all the egregious conveniences around Taniguchi's photograph, it's just a laughably anticlimactic way of doling out that information. And while you might think incontrovertible proof of intentional global androcide would light a fire under Reito, his dead-eyed stare is as dull as ever. This guy, through and through, is as flaccid a protagonist as you can get.

Despite how limp these developments are, this subpar and sub-pulp investigation into the true nature of the UW shakes out to be the most entertaining part of the episode. At least in here, there's evidence that World’s End Harem still knows how to have good, dirty fun. Akane tries to squeeze information out of Rea (quite literally) with her chesty kabedon, and that's the kind of gleefully gratuitous fanservice I like the most. Similarly, Akane and Maria's secret naked meeting with Reito in the shower is another beautifully stupid excuse for bare breasts and some light dick grabbing in between half-cocked secret agent bullshit. It's dumb, bad writing, but isn't that what we're here for? Although I'll admit that I briefly thought World’s End Harem might have been making some pointed commentary about the harm of concentrating vaccine research and efforts into the hands of a select few privileged countries. I was impressed, until it turned out that it was just a cover story for the government killing off all the good virologists. Joke's on me, I guess, for expecting anything poignant out of the harem anime starring a guy who refuses to fuck.

Unfortunately, the episode's other subplots fare even worse. Kyouji realizes he's finally getting bored of his sexy coworker feeding him strawberries like he's a Roman emperor while another girl spits wine down his gullet like he's a baby bird. Poor guy. Now, this is a perfectly natural development—the inevitable monotony of a paradise—but it's one that requires a modicum of thoughtfulness to do it justice. World’s End Harem, on the other hand, has Kyouji pontificate on ennui while he's sucking titty. This too, however, would be fine if that's all there was to it, but Kyouji decides to fixate on banging Reito's little sister, and it's just very uncomfortable. While the powers that be emphasize the importance of consent in their plan to repopulate the planet, I can't trust WEH to not push that boundary.

Kyouji's efforts to woo Mahiru are played like a joke here, emphasizing his pathetic neediness, and that's all well and good. He seems to accept his rejection, and I hope that's the end of it. But now I have to worry that it won't be the end of it, and that worry makes the entire show worse off. There is not a single facet of World’s End Harem delicate enough to handle the topic of assault (and it proves that with another scene I'll dig into shortly). As a piece of incompetent pseudo-porn, its lane is incredibly narrow, and veering even the tiniest bit off it can be disastrous. Also, this is an incidental point, but Reito is an awful big brother. Mahiru is exceedingly clear about not wanting anything to do with Kyouji, but Reito still folds like a house of cards and sets her up on a date with him. I'll say it as many times as I need to: the dude could not be any more flaccid.

But hey, at least World’s End Harem finally broaches the subject of lesbian relationships, and it only took six full episodes into a series about the ramifications of the nigh-eradication of all male humans. Hopefully surprising nobody, it's also terrible at it. Our first canonical gay scene is about one woman forcing herself onto another, so that already crystallizes my fears about the show using assault in a misguided and uncomfortable way. The anime's only saving grace is direction so flat that its attempts to make this look lascivious just make it look like everything else, i.e. bad. Then, it turns out Rea is evil because she's a misandrist who doesn't want Reito to take Mira away from her, sublimating her jealousy into a later scene where she feels up her former classmate to no avail. With just one episode, World’s End Harem hits all of the stereotypical predatory and exploitative lesbian tropes. I can't necessarily say I expected better from it, but I didn't expect it to be so thorough in its wrongness. And don't get me wrong, I love stories about messy, problematic lesbians. However, those stories tend to be about those characters, so I'm much less tolerant of these tropes when they're just scandalous set-dressing.

World’s End Harem is inching dangerously close to the revelation that the MK virus was a feminist illuminati conspiracy to kill all men, and the sad part is that I don't know whether this would make the series better or worse. I already turn my brain off to watch it, so if I get proof that it is completely politically bankrupt as well, that would at least help me parse the kind of unsavory digressions we've gotten this week. Of course, it's also possible that WEH is just thoroughly thoughtless and completely winging everything. I have certainly been guilty of reading too much into the subtext in the past. Maybe there's no more ill intent in here than there is in a raccoon that gets in your garbage and strews its contents all over your kitchen floor. But that doesn't mean I have to like it. I have high standards for my trash consumption, and I will never apologize for that.

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.