The Politics and Themes of World's End Harem - DetroitOtaku Discussions

You know what, screw it! Let's piss some people off today! This is a topic that I have wanted to discuss for a while now, ever since I started reading this series back in spring of 2019. Today, I'm going to discuss why World's End Harem by Kotaro Shono is one of the most underrated, and one of the most misunderstood manga series of all time. 

This is a series where once you look past all the extreme amounts of fanservice and all the rather explicit sex scenes that one would usually find in a hentai, that you begin to see what the series really is about, because the actual premise of the series...is truly frightening. 

Too bad that there are some out there who have merely dismissed it as just another typical borderline hentai manga series, and have mistakenly led others to believe their word. 

You know who you fucking are.

And my response to Joey, is this:

And so, let us begin discussing the politics and themes of World's End Harem. 

Also, this is a SPOILER ALERT for those who have not began reading the series just yet, as I am going to discuss the plot of the series as well. But I would recommend that you still read along regardless, because what I'm going to point out is rather important.

World's End Harem is set in the year 2045, and so far, focuses on a total of four main protagonists, but for what I'm discussing, I'm only going to discuss the first three:

• The first protagonist is Reito Mizuhara, a medical student who was forced to go into cryogenic sleep because of a rare illness, and one who is searching for the long lost love of his life - Elisa Tachibana. He was the second male subject to be awakened.
• The second main protagonist is Kyoji Hino, who, like Reito, was diagnosed with a rare illness and was forced to go into cryogenic sleep. He was the first male subject to be awakened and is the "playboy" of the series, as he basically has sex with everything that moves. Literally.
• The third main protagonist is Doi Shota, a high school student, who, like Reito and Kyoji, was forced to go into cryosleep because of a rare illness. He was the third male subject to be awakened. Before going into cryosleep he was a major target of bullying. When he was awoken, he becomes a sexual playboy like Kyoji and then some, and desires to seek revenge on the bullies who attacked him, if they are still alive.

So, these three men are the main protagonists. They are awakened in the year 2045, where 99.9 percent of Earth's male population has been wiped out in a pandemic caused by the Man-Killer Virus, leaving a world dominated by only five billion women. 

Most of the world's nations have collapsed into a state of chaos, as countless riots and wars have broken out. As a result, an intergovernmental organization made up entirely of female leaders known as the United Women, or "UW" was founded. As a result, the UW becomes the de facto world government. 

Reito, Kyoji, and Doi, who were found to exhibit immunity to the virus, were awakened from cryosleep, and have been forced by the UW's Japan branch to take part in a forced mating program to have sex and impregnate as many women as possible in order to repopulate the globe, whether they want to or not. Though Doi and Kyoji take part in the mating program, Reito does not, as he 1) only seeks to sleep with the long lost love of his life, Elisa Tachibana, who has gone missing, and 2) seeks to create a vaccine to the MK Virus. 

Reito, after hitting numerous dead ends in his research on the origins of the MK Virus, eventually stumbles upon some important research conducted on the virus by none other than his girlfriend Elisa. He also finds a hidden video message from Elisa directed to him, and he learns the devastating truth about the virus:

Reito learns from Elisa herself that the MK Virus was man-made, and was released on Earth as an act of genocide against the world's men, and he suspects the UW itself was behind this act of mass murder. 

As a result, Reito gains some allies to aid him in his research, such as his personal nurse, Akane Ryuzoji. Akane has her own reasons for wanting to take down the UW, as she holds a grudge against their top officials, claiming they were behind her brother's death:

And also Maria Kuroda, who is a specialized computer hacker and one of Reito's caretakers:

This does not sit well with the top UW brass, as once Reito and his allies begin to uncover more dark secrets about the virus, they become targets for assassination. Especially after learning from the UW's Peacekeeping Operations Director, Chloe Mansfield, that Elisa has been set up and branded a terrorist for discovering the secrets of the MK Virus. Chloe is also the main antagonist of the the first 12 volumes of the manga (pictured below).

After learning about what happened to Elisa, she then reveals the true agenda of the UW on national television:

So, yeah. Elisa basically reveals that the UW are a bunch of tyrannical, totalitarian, and genocidal man-hating feminists who seek to create a world only filled with women, and this is amplified even further in later chapters:

As a result, Reito, his allies, and even Kyoji are forced to come up with a plan not just to fight back against the UW, but survive. Reito and his allies choose to flee Japan and meet up with Elisa and her organization, and together, they travel to anti-UW nations such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, and Eastern Europe, so they can form alliances, develop a cure for the MK Virus, and eventually take down Chloe and the UW. Kyoji decides to stay and fight, as he learns from his caretakers that one of his girls is pregnant with a male child, and decides to figure out a plan to save it from being aborted by UW officials. The fourth male protagonist, which you will encounter about halfway through the series, gets kidnapped by a radical sex-obsessed female tribe. The supposed fifth male protagonist still remains in cryosleep, and his fate remains to be seen.

But the story has not concluded yet, as Volumes 10 and 11 are still due for Western releases, so we shall see what happens with Reito, Kyoji, and their respective allies in their desperate struggle to survive what gets thrown in their way. 

Now that the plot of World's End Harem is out of the way, let's now talk about some of the specific themes of the series, as it has very clearly been influenced by the works of George Orwell and Ayn Rand. The main themes of the series are that of totalitarianism, genocide, militant feminism, and eugenics. Let us begin. 

The influences regarding the forced mating program are no doubt taken from one of either Orwell or Rand's works, and if I were to guess, I'm betting my money that this was taken from Anthem. In Anthem, children are separated from their parents after birth and are raised by the state, though World's End Harem adds it's own radical feminist twist on this - the male subjects impregnate the women they choose to mate with, they then give birth after a while, and they raise the children without influence from the male subjects, as ordered by the UW. Something that wouldn't sound any bit out of place at a Seattle city council meeting.

The next big focus is on how the UW partakes in eugenics and population control. The plot revealed that the UW's big goal is exterminating all men on Earth, and making sure that no male babies are born. However, they are happy to let the third subject, Doi, impregnate his female partners with female babies, due to a deal that Doi's caretaker made with Director Chloe. If any of his partners are pregnant with a male child, it gets aborted. Again, Elisa revealed that the UW came up with a way to conceive and birth children using only female DNA. Kyoji learns about this, and is now seeking to prevent the partner of his who is pregnant with a male subject from getting an abortion. It's blatantly obvious that this scene took inspiration from the pro-life movement in the U.S. and around the world. When you consider the fact that the pro-life movement is mostly compromised of those on the political right in America, I think even the most religious conservative reader would realize that this series has right-leaning views despite all the sex scenes. 

And speaking of the sex scenes, there was another series that used sex as an important part of it's story.

It's called Blue Gender.

I'm willing to bet that most of the anime fans reading this either weren't even born, or even into anime, by the time Blue Gender came out in 1999. Like World's End Harem, Blue Gender is set in a world where humanity is on the brink of extinction, though the plot focuses on mankind fighting back against alien creatures known as the Blue, who hunt and kill humans for food. 

But one major theme present in both World's End Harem and Blue Gender is how they portray sex. In Blue Gender, you see a lot of sex scenes, even some explicit ones similar to what's shown in World's End Harem. You will see multiple episodes where the male and female members of the Second Earth armed forces engage in some sort of sexual activity with one another. But when you consider the state of humanity, and how the soldiers are trying to fight back against the Blue, it's an excellent way of portraying what mental state the soldiers are in, as they realize that the next day could be their last, and they may never get to see either their loved ones or another woman again. In World's End Harem, sex is used as an important detail of the story because of how the MK Virus wiped out all but a select few men, and said men are forced to have sex with as many women as possible to repopulate the globe. 

So, if you're one of those old-school anime fans who read World's End Harem, and hated it because of the fact that it had lots of fanservice and sex scenes, you would have HATED Blue Gender at the time it came out. 

I cannot be the only one who noticed these themes while reading, and thank god I wasn't. Because this is not some ordinary borderline hentai series. No. This is a clear glimpse into what could be the future for all of us. 

And so, there's your full explanation on the politics and themes of World's End Harem. The topics that nobody bothered to search for, let alone discuss, while reading this series. This is a series that you must read before it gets cancelled by the woke mob for being politically incorrect. It is not the series that you think it is. You'll discover that this is an absolutely frightening read, as many of the themes presented could most definitely happen today. 

And one last parting shot for Joey the Anime Man and the rest of the Trash Taste podcast. 

Research is fun. Try doing some the next time you talk about a manga series that you clearly didn't bother reading carefully.

I'm out.