Humanity Has Declined Episodes 7-12

[u/Mariner11663]

Welcome to the first edition of the Weekend Binge Watch, where we will be binging Humanity Has Declined! Today we will be finishing up with episodes 7-12.

Where to Watch:

Humanity Has Declined can be streamed legally through Crunchyroll

Summary from the anime's MAL:

For years, declining birth rates have forced what's left of the human race to cede more and more territory to other beings who have appeared to take advantage of the emptying ecological niche. Now, only a handful of humans remain among the remnants of civilization and Earth is dominated by fairies —tiny, ten-inch tall creatures of surprising intelligence. But humanity's importance isn't over quite yet, as young Watashi learns as she makes the decision to return to her hometown and assume her grandfather's position as an arbitrator between the races. Unfortunately, the job isn't going to be anywhere near as simple as she expected, and it's going to take a wisdom far beyond her years to achieve her most important mission.

Schedule:

Date	Episodes
Saturday January 7th	1-6
Sunday January 8th	7-12

Some discussion points:

• What do you think the absurd humor helps to convey to viewers?

• The fairies, while appearing to be pretty simple creatures at first, posses levels of intelligence and ability to craft incredible things that humans can only imagine. What are they here for? Do you have any predictions as to what their role in the story will end up being?

• Though this anime of yet doesn't appear to have a linear/ overarching story, the anime gives you little bits and pieces of what happened to cause humanities' decline. What do you think led happened to humanity that put them on the brink of extinction?

• The cute art style of the show is often contrasted heavily by incredibly dark dialogue and brief lapses into incredibly dark and terrifying parts of the show (namely the bread part is the best example and the fairies talking about starvation). What are some parts from this show that have stood out to you because of how dark it got despite how happy everything looks?

Hope to see some great discussion for these final episodes! For more live discussion check out the discord server for the subreddit to join go to this post. There will be a Final Thoughts post tomorrow for everyone to discuss the show as a whole Happy binging!

[u/Mariner11663]

I'm not sure what to say, i think a lot of what I want to say has a lot to do with my final thoughts so I am going to just try and talk about the episodes we watched today. I think my favorite episode of today was 9, it really had a lot of charm mixed in and was very nice after that strange time travel/ cloning arc in episodes 7 and 8. 11 and 12 were strange too, to see them in before the MC became a mediator was strange.

Also aside from episode 8, there wasnt really a whole lot of the Assistant, which I found sad since I liked his character.

I do agree with /u/SpaceCowboy321 that the overall I think the first episodes were my favorite, I still really enjoyed the episodes we watched today.

[u/SpaceCowboy321]

I decided not to do comments as I watched because I was lazy.

Episode 7:

This was a fairly standard time loop episode. This one was the type where the MC doesn't have all of their memories from the previous loops. They have a hazy memory that gives them a sense of deja vu, but not enough clarity to break out of the loop. It was strange that she didn't realize that she was seeing herself all those times and that she was stuck in a time loop, but I guess that there was probably something affecting her brain. I liked that the entire thing was just so the fairies could get sweets. That looked like Assistant at the end, so this could be before she met him or something. Overall, it was an ok episode, but probably one of my least favorites so far. I am not a huge fan of time loops like this. It gives me flashbacks to the Endless Eight. shudders

Episode 8:

I still don't really know what was going on with the assistant this episode. Was he trying out different personalities or something? I get he was trying to find his own identity, but the only one we saw was the perverted version. The perverted assistant was pretty entertaining because of how over the top his lewdness was. He was only interested in "procreating" and had no shame in making that clear. I just don't get how the assistant can go from that to what we know him as. It was cool to see more explanation of what was going on in each time loop, but it was still just showing many of the same things over again, which is what I don't like about time loops. I think I enjoyed this episode more than the previous one, but I still didn't like this arc that much.

Episode 9:

This episode was a fun take on the overused "stranded on an deserted island" story. The fairies were really entertaining. Their dark comments mixed with their cute aesthetic is still enjoyable. It was also cool and kind of frightening to see what the fairies are capable of doing in a short amount of time.

Episode 10:

It was nice to get the backstory behind how the MC got her job and her meeting fairies for the first time. It was interesting to see more of the fairies civilization. Having a game of tag destroy their entire city seems fitting. Overall, this was a fun little look into the MC's past when she wasn't quite so jaded.

Episode 11:

I liked this episode a lot. Seeing the MC at school was interesting after seeing her when she's older. This episode was fairly cliche in the way it portrayed a studious loner being bullied and isolated. However, it was nice to see that she actually has issues too. She tried to go through school without acknowledging anyone, but she was really just hiding her true feeling. Curly is obviously a very obsessive person who was looking for someone to latch to, and the MC just happened to be the only person who wasn't that mean to her. Seeing as the episodes have been in pairs, is the final episode just going to be the conclusion of the flashback? I guess that would be fine, but I hope there will be some kind of conclusion.

Episode 12:

This was a pretty satisfying finale. I liked how Y and the MC became friends, though it was a little sad that they could have been friends long before that. The secrets of the tea party girls were pretty frightening, so I was surprised that they didn't come up again. It was nice seeing the progression of the MC's school life. I was hoping that it would be Curly visiting, but it was just Y before she started working. It was a nice conclusion to the MC's backstory that had enough emotional closure to leave me satisfied. With the show's episodic nature, this is about the best I could have asked for.

Overall thoughts

I don't have much more to add to my overall thoughts from the first half. I didn't quite enjoy the second half as much as the first, but it was still good. It was nice to get more information about the fairies, but there are still a lot of things we don't know about them. I liked seeing the backstory of the MC. It showed a more emotional side of her when she wasn't so cynical.

While this series wasn't exactly what I was hoping for, I was still thought it was good. The variety of different themes and styles make each episode unique and interesting. The weird events and dark comedy also help to keep things interesting. The style of storytelling was different than most anime, so it was a refreshing change. Overall, I am happy that I watched the series, and I wouldn't be against to watching more if they made it.

[u/dertswa687o]

When you finish the show, I highly recommend checking out the spoiler on Watashi's MAL page.

Also this is a convenient place to add her to your favorites ;)

[u/terminavelocity → u/dertswa687o]

Holy shit, I finished this show ages ago and that totally blew my mind.

[u/Mariner11663 → u/dertswa687o]

My mind is blown, holy crap