Misery Porn in Another World: The failed fantasy of JK Haru is a Sex Worker

CONTENT WARNING: Discussions of misogyny, sexual assault, and rape of a minor. SPOILERS for several chapters of JK Haru is a Sex Worker in Another World.

Fantasy has often had a problem accurately portraying women. These problems range from the relatively minor—such as the everpresent “titty plate” and its sisters “revealing armor” and “ridiculous outfits”—to the egregious—like the constant damseling of otherwise competent women. (Yes, I’m looking at you, Sword Art Online.)

Down at the bottom of the barrel, we arrive at the grotesque. The stories here are flavored with deep misogyny and often use sexual assault and rape as a bludgeon against their female characters to keep them in line or use them as tragedy fodder.

These worlds are portrayed as barbaric in the extreme, where might is all that matters and women are defined by their lack of access to the same strength men have, whether by societal or physical barriers. This last section is the providence of some of fantasy writing’s worst offenders, from Conan to Gor to Game of Thrones, all of which feature worlds in which women are graphically treated as sub-human and placed among the lowest classes.

The treatment of women in many of these settings is bound up in misogynistic misunderstandings about the historical eras they resemble. They claim the periods were patriarchally dominated and use “realism” as an excuse for excessive gendered violence.

Putting aside the issue of “historical accuracy” in worlds full of magic and dragons, in reality women were integral to the functioning of medieval societies, even as they were treated in legal circles as the wards of their husbands or fathers. Gendered division of labor was common, but women were by no means the objects of contempt to society at large that many ahistorical readings of our past would imply.

Keeping these categories in mind, if you’re looking for a metric for where the society of JK Haru is a Sex Worker in Another World falls, you really don’t have to go any further than this line delivered halfway into the book: “Women are…cum dumpsters…ngh!”

This was, of course, grunted out by a man as he ejaculated into the principal character, Haru Koyama, a high school student thrown into this new world after she was run down by a truck in Tokyo.

The novel itself (originally published on the web before being picked up by Hayakawa Publishing and translated by J-Novel Club) is a black comedy, told from Haru’s perspective as she arrives to this world with no skills nor special advantages (unlike her classmate Chiba, who received serious advantageous skills from the God who resurrected them here).

With much of the city’s industry controlled by guilds and having no connections of her own, Haru turns to sex work, a job she is intimately familiar with. The “JK” of the title is a reference to Joshi Kosei (high school girls) and often used in the context of compensated dating and underage sex work, a world Haru got wrapped up in during middle school and only narrowly escaped. Unfortunately, she finds herself back in the same line of work as before and rises to the challenge admirably, putting on a can-do attitude inside and out for her job as a brothel worker.

Hiratori Ko’s prose is at its best when the characters of the brothel play off one another, when Haru is at her wittiest and most enjoyable. Haru’s voice is at the forefront when she’s allowed to put aside the tired fantasy lines she delivers during sex and can instead be herself, a snarky 17-year-old who hates the world she’s been thrown into but has found a home for herself nevertheless.

She shows genuine camaraderie with some of the other workers of the brothel, cheering them on even as she tries to climb the brothel’s rankings. She even goes about the work of setting up a communal lunch bench outside the establishment so they can have a public space all to themselves, something women have been forbidden in the past.

Haru continually goes out of her way to connect with people and grow as a person, a strong counterpoint to Chiba, who plateaus early in the novel and discovers the innate level cap he has as a person. Haru instead carves a place for herself in the city and becomes a major player at the brothel. It’s sort of heartwarming—if you ignore the reality she’s forced to face to to get there.

This is where JK Haru has significant problems. Haru’s life is genuinely a nightmare. Early on, the cheapness of her life is established by a customer who wishes to strangle her during sex. She declines but states the price if he truly wants it. He gladly pays, slapping the money on the table and delivering a shitty jibe straight out of hentai:

This is what you get for underestimating men, you dumb bitch. Make sure you don’t die, now!”

Even with Haru snarking in her head the whole way through these encounters, the writing is on the wall: women are expendable.

Throughout the novel, Haru sees her fellows abused and humiliated in the bar by men and is herself nearly raped in public by a jumped-up mafioso. Her best friend dies after her boyfriend tricks her into being gang raped by his squadron of 100 men to ‘prepare’ for a dangerous mission. Haru only survives the events of the book because of plot contrivance that makes her essentially a demigod, so tough that she can survive a three-day ordeal of constant gang rape and physical abuse at the hands of soldiers where her friend did not.

Frankly, most of the novel’s main selling point to the average reader is as erotica, and this is where its most glaring weaknesses lie. As smut goes, JK Haru does fine, unadorned by florid prose during Haru’s recounting of her sexual escapades with customers. However, it’s dialogue during sex is weak—shallow and stereotypical at the best of times—and does little to distinguish itself from other hentai works.

Worse is when the sex turns from lighthearted, as is the case with some of her customers (like a teacher who could only get an erection from her acting as his student, which is played for laughs as somehow the least worrying sex scene in the story) and turns to the grotesque. The aforementioned public near-rape is followed not long after by an attempt to blackmail Haru, and followed shortly after that by the gang rape by the garrison soldiers. The soldiers, who start out as sweet college bro-like figures who care about protecting the city and care for the women of the brothel, become hardened sex fiends only concerned with strength in less than a chapter’s span.

Were it not for the lighter segments of the novel, this would be one of the most gut-wrenchingly disgusting pieces of media I’ve ever read. At best, it trends toward misery porn. You root for the girl stuck in it, but the book seems to expect you to just move on once it’s over instead of critically examining the heinous events of Haru’s life.

It’s hard to tell if the story was attempting a deconstruction and simply failed in the face of the awful situations the writer came up with, or if this was as it was meant to be: a plucky can-do girl getting beaten down again and again, only to get back up and ask for some more.

I want to like this book so desperately. Haru Koyama’s unflinching view of sexuality and pure smarm are a joy to read when the book allows them to flourish, but not even an acerbic wit can save a book that has been violated so deeply by misogyny and abuse.

With a charitable reading, JK Haru is the story of overcoming some of the most awful things that can happen to a human being and still be alive to tell the tale. Haru truly is fighting every day for her place in the world, as small as it is, and calling out everything she sees, even if only to herself.

I would even argue that Ko Hiratori takes great steps towards battling the worst offenses of bad fantasy writing, namely female character depth and emotional resonance. Everyone Haru knows feels like a fully realized character on their own, with just enough depth to make me actually want to hear them talking shit to one another while Haru cooks fried rice, or goes out for tea, or just sits on the bench out front of the brothel to people-watch the day away before their night begins.

JK Haru is a Sex Worker In Another World dives headfirst into the darkest waters of its genre with a grin the protagonist would be proud to wear. Ko Hiratori’s unflinching view of a world so deeply immersed in misogyny as a mirror to our own would be deeply interesting if it didn’t simply reproduce the sins of those who came before it, cynically observing without ever properly criticizing (assuming, of course, it was even attempting critique at all). Instead, it only comes out reeking of the filth it presents to you.