Humanity Has Declined Episode 8--To Be or Not to Be

I'm my completely biased opinion, best episode ever.




I wondered if maybe I had dug a little too deep last week by connecting some lose strings in the episode to a commentary on identity, so I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out I was on the right track. Assistant's backstory is something that we couldn't have guessed from what we'd seen of him before this arc, but it turns out that Y's accusation that there is something more between him and Watashi is somewhat accurate, although not in the way that she was thinking. Watashi and her alternate universe selves gave him an identity, resulting in the best episode this series has offered so far.

I also think that this was the first time an arc really wrapped up all the lingering questions aise from the big picture ones that have been constant throughout (read: Fairies). There is very little hand-waving in the form of "a wizard fairy did it," which is a definite step up from last time, where we were supposed to accept as is. Time travel and its implications have become common enough in entertainment that it's not a distraction when it goes unexplained (unlike the giant nautilus). This gives the episode free reign to be a quirky as it wants without completely losing the audience in the process, which is the fine line it's walked all along.

And it's a good thing that the basic ideas are easy to follow, because it doesn't get weirder than meeting your own grandfather when he was a horny 13-year-old. At first I also thought that what we were seeing was a different incarnation of Assistant--maybe he took people's comments on how boys behave too literally?--but the little details pointed in a different direction. The gun obsession. His vague non-story about getting the sundial watch from a lover. Green eyes. The fairy's statement that the last banana sent her back "too far." The whole setup reminded me very strongly of Back to the Future, and whether that was intentional or not, it's not a bad movie to emulate when you're dealing with time travel.




But the spotlight still goes to Assistant and how he finally obtains an identity. Last episode, Watashi's idea that he should be wearing a Hawaiian-style shirt only contributed to the confusion of not knowing when we were in time, but the focus on other events that happened during the time slip this week contribute to something more interesting. The only time I can remember seeing kids in this show is once or twice in the background, and we never see Watashi interacting with them. In a world where humanity has declined, the birthrate has obviously taken a hard hit (a problem that Japan is struggling with today). It stands to reason that Watashi doesn't have a lot of context for how boys Assistant's age would act, so she ends up unconsciously using her grandfather's appearance as a template.

Just the idea of a person with no set identity--and therefore can become anyone--is fascinating in and of itself. This episode takes the idea presented by another character in a different show this season and takes it to the next extreme; the doctor remembers meeting him, but has no memory of him as a person. Watashi's grandfather makes up his own mental image to apply to him. While in the end Assistant does conform to what Watashi decided he should be like, I think her wish that he could be whoever he wants to be does carry though. In the earlier episodes we do see some flashes of personality that she didn't specify; he has a talent for drawing, fondness for old-school games, and the occasional outburst of dark humor that even makes the fairies depressed.

And then there's the one moment when we hear him talk, finally explaining the "paradogs." While all the discussion on identity and time travel is interesting, it's made clear that a lot of it was to set up that pun. And with Fukuyama Jun's voice! We still have four episodes to go, but I think that was a defining moment for the series. You're all wrapped up in this amazing commentary on identity concealed in a time travel plotline, and then the show drops a pun on us. If anything, that showed that my concerns about Jintai not being able to balance itself are unneeded; when this show wants to, it can have its cake and eat it too. I'm going to make a leap here and say that how you reacted to that scene will probably reflect how you'll feel about the show once it's over. You'll either think that it was stupid and that the show is wasting it's time trying to be "different" or you'll think that it was brilliant and declare your undying love to this show despite its missteps. I fall in the latter category, for sure.

Images from Crunchyroll.com.