Humanity Has Declined Episode 10--Society in a Nutshell

Do we have an ETA for when all cities will have giant robot defensive units?




I'll admit, I was a little disappointed in this episode at first. We'd just had an episode where Watashi became the center for a fairy metropolis; why where we doing this again? However, while last week's episode was a rapid-fire joke about the rise and fall of modern-day society, this one gives itself a bit more breathing room. It's the earliest we've gone in the timeline (I feel like I'm saying that every other episode) and Watashi's first contact with the fairies provides a little more information about them which is particularly interesting with the context from last week. At least, we seem to be getting closer to defining them as a race with certain behavior patterns rather than satirical silly putty.

Two concepts really stuck out to me in this episode. The first was the difference between fairies and humans. Humans are aware of the fairies, but they clearly don't have much contact with them, being outright terrified of Watashi at first. And why wouldn't they? Humans are giants to them. This was also the first episode in a while where we really saw the decay of the surrounding area, with buildings that are slowly being reclaimed by nature. We also hear again about Watashi being part of the "last graduating class" and that afterwards the school she went to was shut down, something we haven't heard about since Y's episode. I've been using to title to explain mankind's situation in this show, but Watashi doesn't say that they've "declined." She says that they're "retired," and the fairies are "the new humanity."

Even with their limited contact and fear of humans, fairies still flock to the areas where traces of humanity still remain (in this case, a dump) and re-enact our society with amazing haste. Just like in last week's episode, a fairy metropolis can rise and fall within a mater of days, and time it was over naming and the concept of God. Clearly they do learn from their mistakes in some way (see last week's "religion is created" dig), but what will happen if they attempt to copy mankind's wars as well?




Putting that thought aside for now, the second concept that grabbed my attention was the idea of names. Naming is a human construct that results from our society, so it was really only a matter of time before the fairies stumbled upon it. But in contrast to Watashi's stance that it would be difficult to keep track of the fairies without names, nobody in this show has a name, or at least what we'd consider a conventional one. "Watashi" is literally "I," and then everyone else is known by a title: Grandpa, Assistant, CEO, etc. In all the other episodes, Watashi refers to the fairies with a generic "You," with the exception of "Wanderer-san" last episode, but that's still a title, not a name.

This show has already put a lot out there about identity and titles, but doesn't seem to put a lot of stock in either of them. Much more emphasis is put on what these characters actually do, which I agree is much more important than a name. When I watched through the first episode, it took me a couple minutes to realize that no one's name had been mentioned. That's usually something that bugs me, but I've had no problem with it in this show.

Since this idea has come up several times, I think it's safe to say that it's a theme. Modern society (at least in the western world) does place a lot of emphasis on expressing yourself individually. I do have some thoughts on where the show could be going with this, but I'll save them until after the final episode. However, it's just as likely that we're in for another "time paradogs" pun. Either one wouldn't surprise me at this point.

Images from Crunchyroll.com.