anime review

Jinrui wa Suitaishimashita (人類は衰退しました) Anime

This entry was posted in Anime/Manga series I follow and tagged Anime anime review decline fairies food shortage funny series humanity Jinrui Jinrui wa Suitaishimashita quick review review 人類は衰退しました on by

Jinrui Opening


I’ve been watching some of the summer anime and I am pleasantly surprised at some interesting series that has come out. Recently I’ve been watching Natsuyuki Rendezvous and Jinrui wa Suitaishimashita (Humanity Has Declined). 

Jinrui has taken a comedic approach to discuss the fall of humanity set in a world where mankind is nearing extinction. As is the series is filled with slap stick comedy but at its heart it is a bit depressing how humanity has declined due to over indulgence or reliance on technological advances. Take for instance the first episode is dealing with food shortages, heavy machines are not available and humanity has reverted back to the hunting and gathering society.  At this point nothing seems out of the ordinary. The heroine is tasked with providing meat to the village residence by killing chickens that are no longer producing eggs. However the people there are not familiar on how meat is brought to the dinner table due to their ignorance with the food process.

Similiar to South Park's Underwear Gnome strategy

They see it similiar to South Park’s underwear gnomes strategy; 1) Live Chicken 2) ??? 3) dinner meat. The ensuing resolution to resolve these difficult matters such as food productions involves “Fairies” as an way to get mitigate some the seriousness from the food shortage theme.

This continues onto subsequent issues that “plagues” humanity such as the subculture of anime, manga, doujins, comiket/conventions, and their influence on society.  I find this a great amusing series. It is interesting since the anime industry is reaching out more to avenues of sources such as Jinrui’s origination of light novels for ideas for series. Perhaps this is a possible sign that interesting anime/manga series are on the decline since only big series can sustain the industry and smaller series that might be interesting is not seeing the light of day. As the fairies stated, “It could become a fad”.

Nevertheless as with any well enjoyed series, a good story keeps fans longer. If you have time, I would check this series out.

Why perceptions are scary….Dance in the Vampire Bund

This entry was posted in Anime/Manga series I follow and tagged anime review Dance in the Vampire Bund loli shota on by
Dance in the Vampire Bund cover

Don’t let the cool cover deceive you! >.<

I’ve been finding better time management ways to lower my anime back log.  No more naps… it’s a sacrifice I’ll do once in a while. A good friend of mine gave me the DVD box set of Dance in the Vampire Bund series.  I’ve watched the first ep when it came out last year and didn’t finish the series since I thought there were better series out at the time. Looking back I don’t recall what I considered “better” series.

So I had the evening open and decided to finish this series. Normally one hears the mantra that beauty is only skin deep. But at this point I have doubts when it comes to this particular anime. As with any animated series based on a manga/book I understand there are a lot of back story the director has to condense into an extremely short time frame. So it tends to leave two general options:

  •  Follow the manga and take some liberties in order to fit in an animated series.
  • Create a new storyline/timeline using the characters from the manga as a launchpad.

While both options have plus sides which introduces existing fans and new people to the series; there’s always drawback that can be potentially fatal to a series. Not having read the manga, I personally felt the series was following the first option I listed and the emphasis was heavily set on “liberties”. I have not read the manga but the loli/shota scenes with adult innuendos did not sit well with me and it was really taking away from the supposed story between .

What I did find interesting was series theme on one’s perception to decide what we think is correct. The loli references in the series and the lore of vampires definitely places one’s decision heavily on looks versus having all the facts before making judgement.

Unfortunately the flow of scenes was really choppy in which events transitioned from one piece immediately to another without much explanation. You would start on a scene where the protagonist, Akira, is conversing with Mina Tepeş, princess-ruler of all vampires, on vampire culture and their relationship. Then suddenly halfway another event comes and I find myself thrown into a new topic and scene without the previous scene being completed; nor did it have a direct connection to the previous scene I was seeing.

Initially I thought this is to emphasize the male protagonist’s fragmented memories.  But having it constantly happen throughout the series really took a toll on the focus on the story. I was not sure if the story is focusing on a love story through an innocent children storybook type narration or the perception of what one uses to decide what is right or wrong. Unfortunately the series didn’t really congeal until towards 2/3 into the series and abruptly ended. At the end of the series I’m left feeling rather dirty watching due to many loli scene and a creepy shota one based solely on my perception on what a normal relationship should be. All this and I was not watching an adult rated movie.

If you are curious about the series, I’ve included the link to Wikipedia pertaining about this:

Wikipedia Link to “Dance in the Vampire Bund”