Manga / World's End Harem

Please, mate with me Mizuhara-sama…

World's End Harem (Shuumatsu no Harem) is a sci-fi Ecchi shonen manga series authored by LINK and drawn by Shouno Kotarou. It began serialization in May 8th, 2016, running in the online magazine Shounen Jump Plus. It's got a lot of nudity and sexual content, in case you hadn't guessed, so it's definitely Not Safe for Work.

The year is 2040. Pharmaceutics students Reito Mizuhara and Erisa Tachibana have been in school together for more than a decade, from elementary school all the way up to university at the Japan Advanced Medical Institute. One day, Reito confesses to Erisa he has always been in love with her, and his confession is reciprocated. However, Reito has been diagnosed with Cellular Sclerosis, a life-threatening degenerative disease that currently doesn't have a cure. Therefore, he will be kept suspended in cryo sleep until the cure is found. Before he goes to sleep, Reito just wanted to tell Erisa his feelings and push her to find someone else, since he doesn't feel it's right to make her wait for him. To his surprise, Erisa declares she will wait for him as long as it takes.

When Reito awakens five years later, he opens his eyes to a world that has turned completely upside down. A stoic, beautiful woman named Mira Suou introduces herself as his exclusive agent, and explains that although they found a cure for his Cellular Sclerosis, humankind was struck by a catastrophe while he was asleep: Four years before, an extremely lethal and contagious new virus surfaced on the planet, one that mysteriously only targets men. Over 99.9% of the world's male population was killed by what they dub the MK or Man-Killer virus; A small number of men escaped into cryostasis to wait for the cure, but they will still eventually die from the virus if the cure is not found. Now the survival of humanity is in peril since there are no males around to father children, and even male babies conceived through artificial insemination die as soon as they're born.

Mira tells Reito that he is one of only five males who were somehow made immune to the virus by the experimental Cellular Sclerosis cure they received during cryostasis: Reito is the second so far to be woken up. Meanwhile, the first subject they revived proved capable of fathering male children immune to the virus, but not through artificial insemination; only those conceived through sexual intercourse acquired the father's immunity. Given these circumstances, the government intends to use Reito and the others as breeding stallions to have sex with and impregnate as many women as possible so that their children can replenish the world's population.

Reito is shocked and devastated by these revelations, and is extremely anxious to learn that his beloved Erisa went missing without a trace three years ago while researching the virus. Now Suou and her superiors are pressuring him to choose mates from among eager female volunteers, but Reito insists that Erisa is the only woman in the world he would want to have children with. Suou lets him bargain for the right to refuse sex for one month while he tries to find out what happened to Erisa, as well as conduct his own research on the virus. As his efforts are frequently interrupted to fend off seduction attempts, he stumbles upon evidence that the virus wasn't a natural phenomenon, but the product of a malevolent conspiracy whose members are working to silence anyone who knows too much. What part will Reito play in the effort to save the human race?

In April 2018 a little spin-off started serialization, this time in Ultra Jump thus going into Seinen territory. World's End Harem: Fantasia is set in a completely different setting, in a fantasy world of warriors and magic on the verge on human extinction due constant attacks from other species. A king receives a prophecy that humanity's crisis can be averted by sacrificing a specific maiden, a solution that seems to be connected to a young adventuring hero and his merry band of female companions. And so, their tale (and trouble) begins. In May 2020, it received a High School AU called World's End Harem: Fantasia Academy.

A second spinoff, World's End Harem: Brittania Lumiere, was announced in 2020, then Cut Short in 2021. This one surprisingly is a more female focused reverse harem premise, with the heroine an ordinary school girl who gets summoned to a fantasy world of magic where females were wiped out. She is made the subject of a goddess project and her harem her protectors.

The mainline series ended in June 21st, 2020, with 85 chapters, collected in 12 volumes. However, that's just the end of Part One; LINK follows it up with Part Two, World's End Harem: After World in May 2021. After World ended on June 2, 2023, with 47 chapters collected in 6 volumes.

An anime adaptation aired its first episode on October 8, 2021, but then the other episodes got delayed until January 2022.

Compare to Y: The Last Man, which shares the premise of women having to rebuild society after the near extinction of men, and the surviving male being in high demand. Compare also to Ōoku: The Inner Chambers, which uses a smaller-scale variation on the premise in Edo Japan. Sex Mission too has a similar plot, where two men wake up after hibernation, having overslept the man-killing M bomb, rise of a totalitarian female regime and being thrust into life or death situation the moment they're out of cryo-sleep.

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World's End Harem provides examples of:

• 20 Minutes into the Future: Though it was first released in 2016, the manga begins in 2040 and ends five years later, in 2045.
• Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: Suou Mira bears a striking resemblance to Erisa, but with a different personality and bigger breasts. The visible differences aren't much in the face of the absurd situation before Reito's eyes though, with Suou throwing herself at him, Reito sometimes sees Erisa in her and is a step away from letting go of his original love. Still Reito finds the resolve to preserve himself till he finds out what happened to Erisa in the new world.
• The Alcoholic: Akane. Nearly every time she's seen, she's drinking. The only time she isn't drinking is when she's sleeping.
• All Men Are Perverts: Played with.
  • Main protagonist Reito Mizuhara completely balks at the idea of being a Glorified Sperm Donor to a woman he doesn't feel anything for, preferring to save himself for his childhood friend Erisa. He only breaks his celibacy in the end with her blessing, having a threesome with Erisa and her clone Mira, since Erisa is sterile.
  • Kyouji Hino, "Number One", is a straight and rather malevolent example: he's initially living the dream as a breeding bull, and once the novelty of his initial harem wears thin, he starts demanding new girls be sent to him, even picking them off the street at times.
  • Shota Doi takes some time to come around to the idea after the real purpose of being the only boy at an all girls' school is made clear to him. Even then, his lingering self-esteem issues ruin things for him once the novelty of getting to legally rape girls who bullied him wears off.
• All Women Are Lustful: Justified. The absence of a male populace in the five years the MK Virus had spread out, apparently made women very willing, extremely so, to engage in mating sessions with the five remaining men on earth. Many women blush uncontrollably in Reito's presence, and those are the allegedly civilized ones; the women dropped on the fallen cities completely lost themselves in despair, so that the very sight of Reito prompted one of them to pursue him like an animal in heat.
• Anime Accent Absence: Regardless of nationality, everyone speaks fluent Japanese, though Anastasia struggles with a couple words. Handwaved by Bingbing, who mentions Japanese has become common throughout the world, probably due to Japan having the only confirmed cases of men immune to the MK Virus.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: Reito only gathers the courage to confess to Erisa when he thinks he has only some time left among the living, since he's been diagnosed with cellular sclerosis.
• Attempted Rape: On several occasions, women have tried to force themselves on Reito. For some reason, a number of characters have great difficulty understanding why this makes him quite reluctant to "do his duty."
• Baby Factory: Gender Inverted. The surviving men are the one who are treated this way, not the women. This is because humanity needs males who possess immunity and antibodies that can fight the virus. So logically, the surviving males must father as many children as possible.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: Averted up top, but naked women's crotches don't show anything.
• Beast in the Building: A couple chapters after protagonist Reito Mizuhara is brought out of cryostasis, he's on his way to a lab in the United Women's Japan HQ when the group is suddenly attacked by a bear coming down the hallway. It was released by one of the villains in hopes it would kill him.
• The Beautiful Elite: You could make a joke that the virus didn't wipe out only the men on earth, but any woman that didn't fit within a strict standard of beauty as well. Actually it's downplayed and justified, in that there are unattractive women present, they just don't interact with protagonist, since they are less likely to arouse him, and thus are useless for world government which tries to make him breed. All the women in the series who do interact with protagonist have the looks of super top models (and even the younger ones are adorable), wearing fetishistic clothing as casual wear to boot.
• Breeding Slave: Reito and the other surviving men don't seem to have a choice but to father as many children as possible. While Reito is given one month to find the woman he loves, it's also because he chose her for having children. However, he is pushed to give up on that and choose from the present women very often.
• Censor Box: The anime caught a lot of flak for extremely intrusive and ugly censorship in the form of black blobs drawn as if the animation cels had been scraped away with a knife.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Remember Chloe, the so called exchange student that smooched Reito? She's the representative of the UW's main branch.
• Conflict Ball: Reito held himself pure for Erisa, but when he reaches a point where saving the world depends on him mating with someone, it's better if it's "heartfelt sex," and she's an option, he suddenly starts considering her a childhood friend instead of immediately picking her as his chosen sex partner. This is completely at odds with his previous attitude toward their relationship, solely happens to cause cheap drama, and lasts for about two seconds before he picks her. Then she suddenly refuses with no explanation.
• Cute Bruiser: Sui, who was thought to be the nurse because of her small stature, is revealed to be the bodyguard when she brought down a bear with one strike.
• Did Not Think This Through: While it is understandable that Reito is more likely to be cooperative if he sees relatives alive and well, like his younger sister, letting said sister visit him without proper coaching, so that she isn't shocked and outraged at seeing her big brother surrounded by very attractive women throwing themselves at him was .. ill thought out.
• Does Not Like Men: Rea Katagiri seems to have a very low opinion about males, even though there are only five now. Even worse than her are The Three Sage that control the UW, who have two things in common between them: high intelligence and unparalleled hate for men.
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Downplayed. Reito doesn't seem to have much issues with receiving unwanted sexual advances from his female friends, but an actual rape attempt by a woman is portrayed as an utterly vile act.
• Dystopia: The UW has so prioritized the Breeding Slave program that the vast majority of the wealth is focused in areas where the various scenarios are taking place while leaving the rest of the world in an abysmal state, completely unconcerned. As shown in the first chapter, the separation is enforced by rule of arms, and it's so close, even a healthy, non-athletic person could simply walk from centers of wealth into the slums. In fact, Reito's sister specifically runs a charity to try and mitigate the divide and lessen the suffering as much she can. The UN may said that having a "man free" world has eliminated war, but if the situation doesn't improve, in a hurry, they're going to find that women in desperate straits are every bit as brutal and vicious as the most depraved man.
• Eagle Land: Type 2. While the U.S. researching for ways to have women produce children without the presence of men makes sense, seeing as only 5 of them are actually viable partners, the fact that the three sages, the completely ax-crazy misandrist leaders of the UW, are running the country and doing their damnedest to make such a thing necessary by exterminating every trace of the Y chromosome, has to be one of the worst ways to portray the U.S. in fiction.
• The End of the World as We Know It: In 2040, physical labor has been made unnecessary, technology handles every sphere of society, with humanity just sitting back letting machines do all the work for them. One day, a killer virus comes and kills every single man on earth, society promptly collapses for apparently the majority within the few people that could handle the independent AI that made society work were men, the surviving women couldn't provide support for the machines as good as it was when men lived and since they grew up in a society that has abandoned the idea of doing things with their own hands, they barely have the knowledge to keep things together.
• Erotic Dream: Reito has one where he relives being restrained to a chair while naked women throw themselves over him to mate. This time with Suou and Akane as the main subjects unlike the original incident.
• Evil Versus Evil: The UW main branch, UW Japanese branch, and the primary rebel "terrorist" group are all run by horrible, horrible people, and the main characters are caught in the middle, just trying to survive.
• Fan Disservice: Poor number 4, Zen. While the earlier three men wake up to praise and service, Zen wakes up to a cult who use him as their toy. You'd think the sex scenes should still be exciting. Not so. Zen is forced to have sex while lying tied up on his back and is humiliated daily.
• Fanservice: Runs largely on it: great focus to curvy proportions on all women and many naked shots of women willing to become mothers of a new human race.
• Fictional Disability: Cellular sclerosis (the literal translation of the kana is "cytosclerosis", which means the same thing), a made-up degenerative disorder with no stated cause that afflicts all five surviving males. Either the disease, or the cure that was developed while they were Human Popsicles, gave them Disability Immunity to the Male-Killer Virus.
• Filler: The Rosania arc has Reito forced into a dating contest with all the interested girls to determine who he's going to have sex with. It's filler because it changes nothing - he's not even tempted by any girl except Erisa, and her own reluctance is easily resolved once they actually talk to each other.
• Foil:
  • Hino Kyouji, the Number One, is the complete opposite of Reito: Hino accepted the new world where women throw themselves at the remaining men pretty quickly, is constantly having sex without a care in the world, and is perfectly happy with a situation where he is treated like a King and the Harem is always at bay to fulfill his wishes. Reito can't bring himself to do what Hino is doing as he's still thinking about his one true love, and he can't stop thinking about the millions of people who died while he was in cryostasis. Instead of having sex nonstop like Hino does, Reito decides to make a cure for the virus and bring back the men who entered the cryostasis when the virus started to spread.
  • Doi Shouta, the Number Three candidate, is pretty much your standard ecchi or harem protagonist in comparison to Reito: he's a teenage high school student who doesn't quite know how to respond to women, and is more susceptible to their charms. For bonus points, he was bullied relentlessly by everyone in sight save his piano teacher. And while Reito doesn't know where his girlfriend went, said teacher appears quickly, takes his virginity, and has a week-long affair with him before taking a break due to "female problems." It's implied that she's pregnant and it's all but stated that Doi's "Agent" is tailoring the approach; where they drowned the eager Hino in suitable women and are playing an intellectual game with the geeky Reito, she's showering the introverted Doi in emotional seduction.
  • The fourth man, Zen, is pretty much everything Reito would have been if the women were less impatient; he also had a sweetheart and a decent life before the incident, but he's thrust into a civilization that won't take "no" for an answer and use him as an out and out Breeding Slave for a whole group. Unlike Reito though, he actually was separated from his developing family, given he impregnated his fiancée.
• Foreshadowing: The secretary of technology suggests tying up and raping Reito in chapter 7. In chapter 9 she ties him to a chair in order for other women to rape him.
• Gendercide:
  • The virus killed billions of men and those who are still alive are the ones who entered cryostasis. Among those, some are infected and it's believed that they'll die in a year. There are five men who are immune to the virus, and they are asked to father as many children as possible.
  • Two women argue about the typical 'Female Utopia' element of this trope. One women claims that without men there are no more wars and society is better (even though the reality of the world situation shows otherwise). While the other argues back that female pleasure has vanished.
  • The Three Sages want to complete the abolition of the male gender, turning humanity into a One-Gender Race reproducing by artificial insemination with no Y chromosomes to get in the way.
• Gratuitous Rape:
  • The lesbian Attempted Rape scene that opens up chapter 32. To wit, neither the perpetrator nor the victim are people the reader has seen before, and only the victim is seen again after the scene is over (and even then, she is a very minor character). And the identity of the rapist isn't the only thing that goes unexplained, the work never tells the reader why this near-rape scene happened. It ends up being just a very weird introduction to a minor character.
  • In the anime, Akira rapes Doi because she can't keep a lid on her libido any more. This doesn't even change his relationship with her.
• The Hedonist: Hino Kyouji, The No.1, is thrilled with the way the world has become and consider it to be heaven on Earth, where women will make all his sexual fantasies a reality.
• Hospital Hottie: Akane, Reito's 'nurse'. Makes sense, since she is also a candidate for mating partner.
• Hot Springs Episode: The girls and Reito go to one in one chapter, and try to seduce him there.
• The Immune: The women theorize that a combination of contracting cellular sclerosis, going into cryostasis in hopes they would find a cure during his cold sleep, and consequent treatment during said sleep made the five men immune to the virus, now possessing valuable genes that the women compete over to birth a new human race.
• In Its Hour of Need: This is part of why Anastasia demands that the MK vaccine be tested first on her father, the Grand Duke of Rosania. She reasons that he wouldn't allow any of his citizens to take the risk before he did.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Maria Kuroda doesn't mind standing naked in front of Reito when talking about science.
• In-Series Nickname: Reito being called "Sir Impotence" by the Secretary of technology.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: What Reito originally intended for Erisa, he only confessed his feelings to get it out of his heart before his imminent death by succumbing to cellular sclerosis, urging her to find someone else, reminding her that she is very popular and has been confessed to by a popular senpai not long ago. Erisa doesn't comply to Reito's wish and says she will wait for him to be cured during cryostasis, in hopes that their advanced society will find a cure during his cold sleep.
• I Will Wait for You: Erisa ignores Reito's plea for her to find someone else, for he being cured of cellular sclerosis is only supported by the possibility of the super AI's of their time finding a cure during the period he is preserved in cryostasis, Erisa says she will wait for him and that a cure will be found for sure.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: Shion Hoshino and Erica, two popular girls who refused to show compassion to their nerdy classmate Shota Doi when he got a deadly disease. It appears that they got away with their mistreatment of him when he was put into cryostasis for five years. But when Shota awakens, things change:
  • Shion Hoshino was one of the most beautiful and most popular girls at school and one of the few people who didn't bully Shota Doi; however, she also had no sympathy for him either and would often ignore him when he was bullied. She's unable to pursue her dreams of celebrity due to the collapse of society, so she came to Shota to beg for his help. He subjects her to a Shameful Strip and orders her to have sex on the school rooftop, remembering how she chose to eat lunch there while ignoring him being bullied in front of her. In tears, she has sex with Shota.
  • Erica was beautiful, popular, and the girlfriend of Shota Doi's main bully Takamatsu and would take part in beating and humiliating Shota, but her life fell apart during the five-year gap. When Shota's handler Karen brings Erica to him, she reveals that Erica has become a drug addict living in the slums, and she is then forced to become the school janitor and Shota's pet.
• Killed to Uphold the Masquerade: Narrowly averted, but there's strong hints that the current government doesn't want the MK-virus cured. For example, a sealed office building where Erisa used to work somehow had a live bear inside, and none of the outer doors showed signs of forced entry.
• Laser-Guided Karma: While it isn't seen, the group of bullies who made Shouta's life a living hell as well as his other classmates before he went into cryostasis most likely got a dose of this. They knew he was dying from a degenerative disease and still belittle him, and many make it clear they don't really care if he dies to his face. Considering the nature of the plague that wiped out the male half of humanity, it is likely they die offscreen, especially the bullies.
• Low Culture, High Tech: The world of 2040 was an advanced society where robots did the grunt work while human labor was limited to advanced fields, such as science, medicine and engineering, where humans could keep up with AI - and the vast majority of STEM workers were men. The United Women have only a handful of engineers who can maintain and build new robots, and they don't really understand the principles behind the tech that keeps their world functioning. If things stay on this track, when bots start breaking down, it'll get even messier in a hurry.
• Mandatory Motherhood:
  • Gender-inverted. Men need to be fathering children who are immune to the MK Virus, and none of the Numbers has the option to refuse. At one point, even Erisa says that she can't be Reito's only mate. For the sake of genetic diversity, he has to make as many children as possible.
  • The reason Erisa initially doesn't want to have sex with Reito in his Mate or Die situation is because she's sterile, and doesn't think he'll want her if they can't produce children. Later, she encourages her clone Mira to mate with him because she's not sterile, and genetically they're the same woman.
• Multi-Way Sex: Both Hino and Shouta get a fair amount of "teamwork" from their respective harems.
• Nature Tinkling: In the 40th chapter, Hakuro urinates in a grove.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Shouta once stopped a kid from getting bullied only to become a target of bullying himself.
• Not So Stoic: Suou presents herself as someone with a lack of varied expressions beyond her deadpan face, only focused in her job to make Reito initiate the mating process with many women (including her). However when confronted by others about Reito's lack of cooperation, she seems to hold some loyalty towards him and when seducing him she tries to put on a smile, which makes Reito see Erisa on her sometimes; almost veering into Sugar-and-Ice Personality territory.
• Oh, Crap!: Reito gets this feeling when he sees the woman who entered the bathroom while he was taking a shower easily break the door handle to keep him from leaving so they can get "comfortable". Of course her idea of getting "comfortable" is forcing herself on him.
• The Power of Love: When Reito is about to die from the injection of crystallized MK-Virus, his love for Elisa allows him to overcome it, killing the virus and letting the antiviral proteins be harvested for a cure.
• Questionable Consent: The UW forbids rape, but their definition of "consent" isn't the best. Thanks to the setting, this trope shows up for both genders:
  • On the women's side, the assistants of the surviving males like to emphasize that every women presented to them is there under her own will. Technically true, but as they also explain, the UW provides the women in the harems with the best treatment possible to ensure their babies will be born healthy. Taking into account the crapsack state of the world, it's effectively a Leonine Contract because mating with the remaining men is the only hope most of them have to escape a terrible life outside. And that's before you get to some cases where the girls really are forced into it.
  • On the men's side, they are all told they must mate to save humanity, which is naturally not a situation most people can refuse. The only one safe from this trope is Hino, who is all too willing to mate. Even Reito can only negotiate a month for researching and looking for his lover before doing as the UW told him to. Shota's situation is particularly damning, as he is put in a "Truman Show" Plot as soon as he wakes up: he is fed several lies about his situation, and by the time he finds the truth, he already had sex with a few girls. Note that unlike the harems of the other guys, the girls presented to Shota were also told lies, namely that Shota is the only surviving male instead of being one of five.
• Red Herring: Akane, who Reito thought was his bodyguard, is in fact his nurse.
• The Reveal: At the end of Chapter 8 a recording made by Erisa revealed that the MK virus is not natural, but a man made one.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: The UW is a tyrannical, misandrist hellhole and employs Questionable Consent tactics to get men and women to participate in its breeding program, but the main difference between them and the Japanese Branch of Izanami, the main rebel organization, is that the rebels don't even pretend to respect anyone's rights, branding their men like livestock, actually enslaving them and raping them by force. Thankfully, there are other, more reasonable branches.
• School Bullying Is Harmless: Averted for Shouta before he was put in cryostasis.
• Sexy Shirt Switch: Yuzu wakes up borrowing Shouta's shirt after one of their nights together.
• Simple Solution Won't Work: Aghast at the prospect of being reduced to a de facto Breeding Slave, Reito asks whether the Lady Land tried using artificial insemination to produce male children after the pandemic. Mira Suou replies that in the five years since the world went to hell, they did try that, but all resulting male newborns died within days because the MK Virus is still endemic in the environment. The point of using him and the other four surviving males as sperm donors is to produce male children who inherit their Disability Immunity. Though this still avoids the question of why it has to be natural insemination and not IVF. Straw Feminists are wholly to blame for that part.
• Single Sex Offspring: As revealed towards the end of the first season, nearly all children born after the Gendercide are female.
• Shout-Out: In Chapter 84, Kamiya does a Cutey Honey "Sometimes I'm..." routine before getting interrupted.
• Supporting Harem: A lot of girls are interested in Reito, but Reito just wants Erisa. Later, Erisa gets him to accept Mira as well.
• Stripperific: 5 years in a female-dominated society, in the verge of collapse for billions of men died, apparently prompted the living women to wear extremely fetishistic clothing. Well, at least among women considered to be of civilized upbringing and still sane. Poor women who couldn't cope with men dying turned insane and were dropped in ghettos, to be left wearing rags.
• Thematic Series: The only thing the spin-offs have in common with the original is being ecchi Harem Genre works set in a Crapsack World of some sort: the original is near-future science fiction, Fantasia is Dark Fantasy, Fantasia Academy is a High School AU of Fantasia, and Britannia Lumiere is a Reverse Harem isekai.
• "Truman Show" Plot: The third candidate is made to be in one in order to get him more at ease with having sex with other women. He's pretty much been taken to a pseudo-school and made to reenact a harem ecchi situation from there.
• Twin Threesome Fantasy: Within one chapter of the three being in the same place, Erisa suggests that she, her clone Mira, and Reito have a threesome.
• We ARE Struggling Together: Izanami doesn't really agree on anything but their hatred of the UW. One faction are an anarcho-primitivist rape cult, while the Chinese branch is a decent bunch who truly wants to restore the world.
• A World Half Full: Billions of men died due the virus and society collapsed because of it, but while they couldn't salvage everything, they've studied the five remaining men and reached the conclusion children born from their genes are immune to what killed the previous men. There's a light at the end of the tunnel after all.

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