So, another update and I’m typing this in the evening time on Sunday 4/13 ahead of a long work week. I’m going to try and make this brief, he said knowing he will be typing a long winded rant feast once again.

I wrote chapter 7 today for my current writing project. And my buddy Zach and I are going over this same project and just proofread chapter 1 today. So, now I have incentive to at least write one or two chapters of this project so Zach and I can go over it and have a few laughs and insightful discussions.

On site news, the full 15 chapter of both blog stories, “Zombie Xapper” and “Your Dreadfulness Lines With Mine” are now completely up! Yeah! There will be 3 parts each to my Afterthoughts on the blog stories and I will admit, there is nothing else in the pipeworks after that.

I have been in a funk, such a deep dank funk that I have no new blog stories written. I have plenty planned and when I get around to writing for blog stories, there will likely only be one. I considered taking some old backlog material I have and posting that but I made the blog stories to specifically be my motive to write new material.

There is one story I have in mind, which will pay homage to light novel slice-of-life laid back tale. I’m in love with “I’ve Been Killing Slime for 300 Years and Maxxed Out My Level” and really would like to write a story with the same chill vibes. Because, damn, there is so much crappy crap happening in the world today and yes, action and drama and laughs are all good but sometimes, you just want something neutral to forget all your worries.

So yeah, those are the updates. I would have written more on one of my days off but that time was of course eaten by the Eldritch Horror known as anime. I’ve been watching some stuff and on a gloomy day off, I needed some laughs. And a sure fire way to get my to laugh is the “Harem” genre. I hope I do not need to go into too much detail but its basically a romance genre about one protagonist being whooooooooaa’ed by multiple partners.

Usually a Harem features one guy (and sometimes a girl) pursuing or being pursued by five or more girls (or guys). One series called “My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!” featured a lady protage having multiple partners of both genders (but she was oblivious to the others true feelings). So, the genre is not limited to hetero fantasies.

But geez-laweez! The two Harems I watched that day were so hetero they had to be censored.

“World End Harem” and “Harem in the Labyrinth of Another World”

There were more out of dares to myself. I knew of both of them for a while but never got around to watching them. And wow, what a ride these were. They are naughty as all hell, make no mistake and fair warning on that. At least on Crunchyroll, they are censored which made me wonder if they were on actual Japanese TV when they came out. I’m guessing they were on some cable channel that has one huge paywall. Because wow, I had a good laugh but damn there were some awkward moments as well.

And I hate to admit this, but both Harems had legit interesting lore, world building, and plot. So, World End Harem is all about the world’s men being wiped out with only a handful of men left and what that does to the human race as a whole. An intriguing conspiracy theory and mystery is being unraveled. And it is all undermined by the constant [CENSORED].

And then “Harem in the Labyrinth” deals with slavery and I have to admit, it got really uncomfortable with how casually the lead bought his first girlfriend from a slaver. Slavery is not a cool practice in any reality to me. And I was wondering if the lead was going to have some conflicting thoughts about slavery and dealing with the slave trade. But all of that gets swept under the rug when the [CENSORED] happens.

Good-God-all-mighty, I wanted to take these anime seriously because they had genuine interesting stuff going on for them. But this is why I avoid animes that are borderlining on hentai [aka porn]. I did have a lot of good laughs with these, some almost busted by gut, but seriously why have all this deep lore and world building when it boils down to fantasy hanky-panky? I guess that is some people’s kicks, they want some richness in their porn. And I am not judging but it's not my thing.

The slavery thing in “Harem in the Labyrinth” was a huge red flag and in “Worlds End Harem” the whole one dude impregnating dozens of women is way over the top. I’ll go back to watching a Shonen superhero powering up for five episodes before I watch another anime that makes me question my taste in entertainment. And I am no prude, raunchy anime comedies are a dime a dozen and sometimes, I get some genuine laughs from them.

But these two Harems were not trying to be comedies and they just made me laugh, sometimes awkwardly and aghast of what was happening. Sometimes, the laughs came when the screen was completely blank and the Japanese voice actresses were screaming their lungs out. Like . . . what did I witness on that day? Was it even real? It did not feel real. Fever dream? And it was called “Harem in the Labyrinth” but that lead guy didn’t buy his next girl until episode 11 and didn’t get three more until the end credits.

Will I be watching season 2 of these Harem masterpieces? Probably. Because I will likely need a good laugh in the future.

I made it past the 1000 word mark with this and it is getting super late, so that is more than enough for this week! Until next time . . .

Good Luck and unintentional laughs all around!

—Buck

PS: I forgot to mention that both sexy-time Harem animes made the important point to emphasize consent when it was time to get it on. “World's End Harem” was all about how both parties were to consent before getting down to reproduction. Even in “Harem in the Labyrinth” with its casual slavery, the lead asked for his slave girl’s consent before getting down to business. Which I was relieved they did, otherwise I would not have given them any shoutouts at all.

Oh “Harem in the Labyrinth” was first based on a light novel series. Because even something as geeky as Japanese light novels can get spicy. Hell, dare I assume that there could be more erotica in the light novel genre than any other work of literature! Well, outside of slash-fic, that is.

PPS: So while looking up info on the Harems, doing some fact checking, I forgot the first girl from “Harem in the Labyrinth” was named Roxanne. Tells you how invested in that anime I was. 🎵Put on the red light!!!🎵