Humanity Has Declined Episode 4--Mass Appeal

Ever wanted to live inside a manga?




I think it's safe to say that Jintai has established a pattern; present an aspect of human society and/or culture, show how it works in "decline," then have the fairies come in and take it to an extreme. That probably states the obvious, but I think that it's a formula that will allow Jintai to tackle pretty much any topic it chooses. So far, we've had capitalism and the manga industry, one parody more biting than the other. While I'm still enjoying Jintai and can't wait to see what it does next, I'm starting to wonder which arc is more representative of the series as a whole.

I liked last week's episode, but it hardly broke new ground. This episode is vastly improved by the presence of the fairies, but it still doesn't top the capitalism arc, which easily lent itself to multiple interpretations. The manga arc has been hilarious, yet it feels... safe. And after carrot bread suicide, it's hard to believe that this show puts much stock in being safe. While capitalism is an extremely broad topic and there are many arguments that can be made for or against it, the manga publishing industry is something incredibly close to the people who are watching this show, so only a small amount of people are able to get the joke. So which does Jintai want more? The satire or the otaku humor?




Don't take this the wrong way; Jintai is still one of the most entertaining shows this season, and this episode did do a lot right. There are the literal manga rankings, with the lighting getting darker or brighter depending on how many people are reading it, it takes a stab at basically every popular manga genre (they start out by wanting to be an "moe analogue game manga" but decide that it's too boring), and makes an overall play at what happens when a series tries for popularity first and a coherent story second. My two favorite moments in this episode where when the fairies took a jab at mangakas (according to them, cancellation means death because of a lack of marketable skills) and the final scenes of the manga, where a storyboard was published. That moment reminded me of some anime as well.

I also liked the discussion about cliffhangers and shock value for the sake of shock value, but a lot of what was made fun of there could be applied to Jintai as well. The cliffhangers and the shock value definitely got it attention, but once that stopped in this arc people got disappointed with it, including myself. I do hope that the show was just poking fun at the stereotypes that come a dime a dozen and not trying to be ironic about where it will eventually go. There doesn't have to be a cliffhanger or something shocking in every episode, like the fairies' manga panels, but Jintai has proved that it can be far wittier than this, and I hope it goes back to that. We'll just have to wait and see if the show can take its own advice.

Images from Crunchyroll.com.