"A weapon doesn't need to think, just destroy."
"Stop pretending to be human and just do what you're told."
Chances are if you've watched your fair share of anime you've heard lines similar to these in one show or another. They're typically spoken by villains or high ranking military officials to an individual with immense power that comes in a humanoid form of some sort. Human weapon stories come in many shapes and forms such as the usual android tales or characters literally turning into weapons, to give a couple examples. Often times these stories are used to explore the facets that make us human and posit concepts that make the viewer question those established concepts. Along the way you have lines such as the ones above spoken and the protagonist clinging to the human weapon (who is normally in the form of a girl) as he desperately explains the importance of life with tears in his eyes. If you want a example hot off the press look no further than this season's Alice and Zouroku. While offering fresh new characters, such as an old man protagonist, Alice and Zouroku has still followed the tried and true formula of human weapon stories thus far. Human weapon stories have stayed relevant over the years by focusing more on their mysteries of how the human weapons came to be in their respective universes, but the core formula for each has remained the same and it's hard not to say the genre has become stagnant and predictable as a result. It is upon this stage that WorldEnd: What do you do at the end of the world? Are you busy? Will you save us? (sic) has come into play and it aims, from what it has shown so far, to redefine just how a human weapon story is told.