Humanity Has Declined Episode 3--Define "Culture"

Never underestimate the obsessive power of a fujoshi, even when the human race is dying out!




This week, Jintai puts aside the commentary on manufacturing, capitalism, and the ignorance of the human race for something much closer to the audience who is watching it: fangirls. More specifically, yaoi fangirls. In a way, this is a step down for Jintai, since fujoshi seem to be the go-to joke for otaku humor. If you've seen it before, there's not much difference here; the episode riffs primarily on their obsessiveness and the lengths that they will go to for their passion. However, it's the little details that fit this well-worn joke into Jintai's eclectic setting that still make this an interesting watch.

Our focus for the episode, Watashi's "friend" Y, discovers a yaoi manga masquerading as every shojo manga ever made on a copy disc in an abandoned mansion. She's supposed to be looking for things to add to the "Human Monument," something to document the great achievements of mankind before they disappear, but she honestly doesn't care about it ("What I'm lacking is interest in human history") and throws herself into the production of "manzines" instead. Despite her efforts to stope Y, in the end Watashi does commend her for creating a living culture, something that has spread and affected many people ("Even though I don't buy that crap").




And there is something to be said about her comments over the Comiket scene (yaoi-only apocalypse version) about people sharing the same interests, regardless of what they are, being able to come together and have a good time. It's extremely easy to parallel this to fan culture of today, and comes out surprisingly positive for a show that a week ago had chicken suicide at the hands of capitalism. The adults' non-reaction about the "festival for girls" also strongly reminded me of how my own family condones my hobby.

Of course, there are a lot of things untouched right under the surface of this episode that I hope the next one will discuss, since Watashi says towards the end that this was just the "setup." What does it say about the world pre-decline that yaoi manga is what's preserved and found, as opposed to anything else? I'm not here to argue the pros or cons of the genre, since it's just not my thing (although, if you want to push the flawed reasoning that all female otaku are fujoshi, bring it on) but if anything else had been found, would it have gotten the same response? Can it even survive in a world that doesn't have the same infrastructure to support it? The short scene where the truckers refused to transport the huge anthologies because they were taking space away from food and other necessities was easily the most interesting part of the episode.

And how are the fairies going to twist this? They certainly made a strange case out of food production, so who knows what they will do with manga? The "blank panel" is clearly their doing, but to what end? If the point of this episode was to get me more interested in how things might go wrong next time, it has succeeded. Since Jintai covered all the common fujoshi jokes this time, will it dig a little deeper for the next episode?

Images from Crunchyroll.com.