Hey there, all you awesome people! Last week, I mentioned there were two things that struck me as a refreshing difference in Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody. The first, as I said, was that Satou is shown to have certain limits despite his obviously OP nature. The second I promised to write about later. So here we go.

What I Used to Think

There are certain archetypes of ‘harem anime’ male protagonists. The paradigmatic harem romcom, Nisekoi, exemplifies a guy who has a circle of girls crushing on him, and who could potentially love any one of them (though only two were ever really in the running)—a guy who, moreover, intended to wind up with one of them, even if which girl changed throughout the series.

Last year’s In Another World with My Smartphone included the archetype of the guy who has a bunch of girls crushing on him, but is not himself particularly keen to get attached to anyone yet. (Smartphone also throws in the unusual twist that, theoretically, the guy could wind up with all the girls, as the society in question considers polygamy normal. For all I know, he may actually have done so: I never finished the series because reasons. If I need reasons.) Log Horizon‘s Shiroe likewise has a circle of wistful women but is himself disinclined to attach himself to anyone.

Sword Art Online is unusual in that Neo… ahem, in that Kirito, despite having a bevy of female (and possibly male) adorers, never wavers from his One True Pairing… er, one true love, Asuna. A sweet mutually-attracted pair love story is honestly refreshing in a harem setting. (It’s the mutual attraction thing that sets SAO apart from, say, Re:Zero: I didn’t get the feeling that Emilia strongly returned the hero’s affections.)

What I found refreshing about Death March is that, like SAO, our hero develops a single, reciprocal relationship with one woman. In addition, his ‘harem’ is actually not very harem-like—despite the fact that, since he technically owns most of them, it’s a lot closer to a literal harem than in most anime! The two little girls are clearly not interested in Satou romantically (this being anime, it wouldn’t have been unthinkable at all if they had); Liza gives no indication of thinking of him in any way other than as a very kind master; the shy black-haired girl (I forget her name) seems to have suffered sexual trauma in the past and isn’t keen on romance at the moment; and even Arisa, who tries to seduce Satou, doesn’t really seem to have her heart in it. The elf girl, again, doesn’t give us any reason to think that she’s attracted to him, either.

It’s possible that one of the reasons Death March comes across as so ‘flat’ to many viewers is that this lack of romantic competition removes one of the mainstays of anime character drama. Yet to me this seemed actually somewhat refreshingly different.

What I Think Now

Between the previous post and this one, I saw Episode 11, which opens with Satou allowing a prostitute to lead him to a ‘love hotel’ bedroom.

What happened to my faithful Satou-san and his OTP?! What I thought had been fidelity turned out to be nothing more than an acute vertebral lacuna. He’s not in love, he’s just too wimpy to say no whenever a woman does show him affection. (He shot down Arisa, yes, but in retrospect I think he made it clear that it’s because,at least physically, she’s a girl—i.e., not developed enough for his taste. Or maybe he didn’t appreciate her trying to brainwash him into it.) Satou is the Bertie Wooster of anime—possessing an excess of resources and a dearth of willpower—and without any Jeeves to preserve him from his own folly.

The odd harem dynamic suddenly appears in a less appealing light. It’s not that the anime’s creators don’t want his slaves hitting on him, it’s that they can’t have them doing so: It would highlight Satou’s lack of agency and spine. The guy can’t say no (unless it’s to a fifteen-year-old, in which case see previous comment). He lacks so much character that he would actually make a love polygon boring. How pathetic is that???

So contrary to what I wrote previously, I only see one redeeming feature of this series, the one I mentioned last week. I admit it: Y’all were right, Death March is pretty bad.

At least, that’s what I think now. Maybe I’ll change my mind again. What do you think?