Words Worth

Infobox animanga/Header
name = Words Worth


caption =
ja_name = ワーズ･ワース
ja_name_trans =
genre = EroticInfobox animanga/Game
title =
developer = flagicon|Japan ELF Corporation
publisher =
genre = Eroge, RPG
ratings = 18+
platforms = Windows
released = 1993-07-22 (PC98) 1993-08-27 (X68k) 1993-09-30 (TOWNS) 1999-03-25 (Win95) 2004-10-29 (XP)Infobox animanga/OVA
title =
director = Kan Fukumoto
studio = flagicon|Japan Green Bunny/ARMS
licensor = flagicon|USA NuTech (original licencee)
flagicon|USA Kitty Media (new licencee)
episodes = 5
released = 1999

nihongo|"Words Worth"|ワーズ･ワース|Wāzu Wāsu is a five-part erotic direct-to-video anime series and hentai RPG computer game. It also has a side story series, "Words Worth Gaiden" (in Western parts also known as "Words Worth Outer Stories"), in the PC games transition to the anime, some editing was done in the story flow. Being a multiple path adventure, the plot basically diverges at a point in the original 5 part OVA, respectively in episode #1 where Astral gets his Swordsman's license from Nina. On his way to join the battle between the Light and Shadow Tribe is where he encounters three "female" warriors of the Tribe of Light (April, Persia and Sabrina) and three more ladies from the Shadow Tribe. Their respective plots eventually will lead to Astral's battling Fabris in episode #2.

Both series are based on a Japanese hentai fantasy computer game made by ELF Corporation (originally released in 1993, with a remake in 1999). The series was originally released in English by NuTech Digital in 1999. However, the license was lost due to NuTech being sued for failure to pay royalties. According to AnimeNation, that license was awarded in 2007 to Media Blasters, which will release the series under Kitty Media. However, imports of this series can not be legally brought into Canada due to its exploitation of sex. [ [http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-02-26/canada-bans-imports-of-cool-devices-words-worth Canada bans imports of Words Worth] ]

Characters

*Astral: Prince of the Shadow realm, and heir to King Wortoshika. A natural swordsman, he is also undisciplined and self-conscious (especially where his fiancee Sharon is concerned). In the course of the story, he discovers his lecherous side as well.

*Sharon: One of the two most formidable officers (along with Kaiser) of the Shadow Realm army. Very beautiful, but stern and commanding. Secretly loves Astral, but wishes that he was more manly.

*Nina: A cat-girl who commissions swordman's licenses in the Shadow realm. She has a big crush on Astral. By many critics the most-liked character in the series.

*Maria: A Light realm sorceress, King Fabris' daughter, and mother of Mew. Astral raped her after he fell into the room she was tied in.

*Mew: Light realm novice sorceress, Maria's daughter and King Fabris' granddaughter (In some references, her name is spelled 'Miyu'). There are some speculations that she actually might be Astral's daughter (from his raping of Maria; see above), and that her and Astral's sexual encounter is therefore of an incestuous nature (at this time of writing, her relationship with Astral/the hero of the original computer game is not known).

:Further argument towards Mew being Astral's daughter is her ability to merge Words Worth's fragments on touch: only Ariadne (the sole confirmed Light and Shadow offspring) later displays it. However, an argument otherwise would note that Astral was not in fact a being of Shadow, but rather one of Light. So even if Mew was Astral's daughter, she would not be a mix of Light and Shadow, thus somewhat lending away from the previous argument for the claim that she is his daughter.

*Delta: A member of the tribe of Shadow, she is a woman with gray, painted skin and bat wings, possibly a succubus. In the anime, her curiosity gets the better of her when she follows Tessio and Menza, and is subsequently raped and hypnotized to serve the two in a plot against Astral.

*Rita: A dark-skinned Light tribe swordswoman. Both in the game and the anime, she is prone to unlucky happenings. In the anime, Wartoshika rapes her several times in order to produce an heir following Astral's disappearance.

*Ariadne: Nina's and Astral's daughter. Spelled 'Ariadonne' in Japanese.

*King Wortoshika: A large, muscular blue-skinned man, he is King of the Shadow tribe. His name could be a corruption of the term 'Wordseeker' due to the Japanese pronunciation. While ruthless and practical, he has also an honorable side.

*King Fabris: King of the Light tribe, Maria's father and Mew's grandfather. Ruthless and vicious in his pursuit of the Words Worth tablet and revenge on the Shadow tribe.

*Tessio and Menza: The chief advisors to the kings of the Shadow and Light Tribes, respectively. However, they are two parts of an evil entity which actually has caused the war between the two people.

*Kaiser: His name is the German word for 'emperor'. One of the two most formidable Shadow swordfighters, he is a man of few words. Longs for Sharon but is constantly rebuffed. Note: in the English language versions, he is called 'Caesar' instead.

*Katra: A living, willful Skeleton Warrior and officer in the Shadow tribe army, he serves as a soldier and at times a messenger.

*Stallion: A lecherous half-horse, half-human officer of the Shadow tribe army. He often takes female prisoners to a torture chamber and rapes them. He is most famous in an Internet fad for the quote, "Your resistance only makes my penis harder!" In the series' subsequent omake he is seen marrying Silvanna.

*Silvanna: A Light realm warrior, possibly a cousin of Maria. She was captured along with Maria during the initial encounter with the Tribe of Shadow and is gang-raped by two pig guards. In an omake of the series, she is seen in a backflash wedding Stallion.

*Hide: A young elf of the Shadow tribe, he is Astral's best friend. Despite being a licensed swordsman, he is very timid and cowardly, and thus is ashamed of himself. He is slain by Sir Fabris after attempting to interfere with his attempted rape of Sharon.

Plot

In ancient times, the Words Worth tablet—a huge monolith slab inscribed with the secrets of the universe—was sundered by dark forces. The Tribes of Light (which consists of humans living on the world's surface) and Shadow (mostly part humans, part animals or monsters living in an underground city, who also seem to age at half the normal speed of the Light tribe) blame each other for the tablet's destruction and have been waging a merciless war for centuries. While directing his forces against the most recent incursions of the Light army, the current king of the Shadow tribe, Wortoshika is also painstakingly reassembling the Words Worth tablet to find out its secret. He also actively prevents Prince Astral, his son, from becoming a licensed swordsman because of a prophecy that only one who is of both Light and Shadow may read the words on the tablet.

Astral, who is unaware of his father's plans, meanwhile both longs for Sharon, his beautiful fiancee, and a swordsman's license which would prove his worth to her. With the help of Nina, he obtains one illegally; but before he can join the battle against the Light Tribe forces and their king Fabris, he has his first of many sexual experiences: first with Maria, who has been taken prisoner and whom he naively rapes, and then with Nina, who had always harbored a secret crush on him.

Eventually arriving on the battlefield, Astral sees Hide die at Sir Fabris' hands, which ignites a powerful rage, and he races to rescue Sharon as she is about to be raped by Fabris. Astral surprises Fabris and manages to slice off one of his arms. But then Maria, who had managed to free herself, casts a powerful spell at Astral in revenge, inadvertently blasting him onto the surface and 20 years into the future, and obliterating his memory.

After many wanderings, Astral finally reaches civilization (i.e. the tribe of Light) and is immediately believed to be Pollux, a famous Light swordsman who had mysteriously disappeared many years ago and to whom Astral bears a striking resemblance. Finally, he is taken in by King Fabris, who recognizes both his attacker and his value in his schemes against the Shadow people and successfully tricks Astral into opening the sealed gateway between the Light and Shadow realms.

Meanwhile, Wortoshika has nearly completed the tablet, much to the disconcertion of his advisor, Tessio. As it turns out, both Tessio and his Light counterpart, Menza, are two parts of a monstrous entity which is responsible for destroying the Words Worth tablet in the first place. Determined to prevent the completion of the task, they attack Wortoshika in the cavern where he stores the tablet.

In the meanwhile, Astral confronts Sharon in combat and slowly regains his memory. Together with her and a few other allies, including Nina and her daughter Ariadne, he reaches the secret cave. Fabris and his men also arrive for battle, but instead all end up allied against the dark entity, and a dying Wortoshika reveals Astral's origin: he was kidnapped from the Light tribe as a baby—but it is not clearly revealed whether he really is the son of Pollux, and what happened to his father—in order to fulfil the prophecy with the expected child from Astral's and Sharon's union. However, it is Ariadne—who, as Astral's and Nina's daughter, fulfills the terms—who manages to complete the tablet and read the words, which reveals both tribes to be originally of one people, thus ending the conflict and uniting both worlds.

References