Humanity Has Declined: Complete Collection

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When I first heard of Humanity Has Declined: Complete Collection from Sentai, I didn’t know what to think of it just going by the title. But after watching it, I found myself enjoying this weird but fun take on a post-apocalyptic situation that only the medium of anime could provide.

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In the future where mankind has achieved great things to reach their pinnacle in life, their population is slowly fading and dying out, giving way to the rise of the next beings that will inherit the world…fairies. Yup that’s right, fairies that have long been a part of our lives through fairy tales and fantasy are real in this series, with some being cute and others not so cute.

While most people are okay with humanity fading to the echoes of time and living in a simple village, there are some who wish to learn more about the fairies while also longing for a purpose to not fade away into the night. So the UN Conciliation Commission sends some people to wander into where the fairies are and learn what they can about their ways of life while also gaining what they can from the creatures.

One such person is our main heroine, the mediator (also known as Watashi), who has decided to take on her grandfather’s position as an arbitrator between humanity and the fairies. This short series chronicles her interactions with them, both good and bad, in some of the weirdest yet most times humorous ways possible. One of the reasons the fairies are taking over is thanks to their magic ability to make anything they want out of nothing, except for candy.

So like most humans that are left, Watashi bribes them with candy to learn some of their secrets and trade for some of their items, and sometimes she has to resort to violence to handle problems. But no matter what’s going on, there’s always something interesting happening in every episode.

The best thing about this series is how it pokes at humanity and their hubris from being at the top of civilization for so long and how some are desperately clinging to it, even Watashi at times. I’ll admit another weird quirk about the show is that it can be tricky to follow as every two episodes the themes change from humor or more serious fare, as though it’s going for some kind of hybrid anthology show.

For a series to been released a decade ago, it looks and sounds great on Blu-ray, as the simple but clean artwork and animation come through nicely. As far as special features go, there’s the clean opening and closing scenes, Story Digest episodes that recap some of the series, and lastly six mini-episodes titled “Survival of the Fittest” that gives viewers a bonus story to go along with the series.

If you’re looking for a truly different spin on post-apocalyptic stories, you’ll want to pick up Humanity Has Declined: Complete Collection. Trust me when I say you haven’t seen anything like this and will be pleasantly surprised as I was following these weird but fun adventures that make for a sweet time.