Novel Review:人類は衰退しました

[ShadowZeroHeart]

The chinese title is 人類衰退之後.

However, I am not too sure what the english title would be. After humanity has deteriorated...?

The story is rather simple and cute, simplistic is the best word I would use on it.

The world:
The world is in total ruins, with the lack of new births, the population of humans have deteriorated so much so they might come close to extinction. Amidst the last batch of children to receive education from a collaborated institution(Due to lack of students, all schools shut down, and this is the very last one that shut down), a girl graduated with high grades(out of two), and went back to her hometown to take on the role of her grandfather, as a mediator(?).

The mediator is something like an ambassador, but of a new human race which is like what we call sprites/fairies etc. they have an average height of 10cm, and a big head like our dear anime characters. Also, they have very interesting living conditions and all. (Example: they wet their pants when in shock. If under threat/shock, they roll up and form a ball, and goes into hibernation, for a few minutes, waking up to not recall what just happened.)

And so, the girl takes on her role to study and interact with these new humans(they are considered new humans as they now dominate the planet, rather than humans).

Story:
In the first chapter, after the girl went back to town and begun interaction with these (cute, in my opinion) little creatures, she came to discover that they love sweet stuff, candies and all. During one fateful encounter, she erm.... "brought"(kidnapped actually) three of them back, and became friends with them(though some among the few hardly recalls the incident, and the number increased from 3 to 4), and named them, only to get requested to be named by all the rest when she took them back home. The very next day, the fairies' habitat evolved from a dumpster into a high tech city with future vehicles flying around, a building that opens up to reveal a robot, and when the girl showed that she meant no harm, the pilot of the robot flew off in a helicopter at the top of the robot. (In this story, NEVER, ask how they did it. Further proof will be mentioned in chapter 2, DONT ask how the hell they did these things.) The numbers of the sprites/fairies increased from 70+ to thousands(in a single night, everything changed. DONT ask how or why). In order to give all of them names, she left a encyclopedia with them...

And the very next day, she found a statue of her, raising an encyclopedia high above in their city, and her being deemed/worshipped as God. Realising that things are getting out of hand, she took measures to destroy this mini civilisation that these cute simple-minded things built overnight, peacefully, mind you.


And so in chapter two, she encountered one of the four friends she made, and was led to a new habitat. The forests and ruins were cleared to form a big grassy area(with trees of the size of the sprites/fairies perhaps?), and discovered that they are trying to retrace the evolution of men, but is stumped as they are stuck with their advancements. (later revealed because they have no need for food, so their technologies came to a halt, with no need for food, advancements in farming/crafting etc etc). But the protagonist gave them the suggestion to start hunting, as she had thought that perhaps that is how people got over their first hurdle. And to surprise her, the very next day, she found a DINOSAUR(DONT ASK ME HOW), well, sorta. It became Jurassic age in that grassy area it seems, and so everything is tuned down to 1/10 of their original size, since the sprites/fairies are so much smaller. And everything is made of paper, so they arent exactly dangerous (Paper being the fact that the sprites/fairies are too small, they cant use harder materials). And the reason(the girl asked), was that one of them were rolling and rolling at one of the trees, and accidentally made pre-amoeba(not sure of the name) accidentally, with paper, and it started evolving and all, and eventually led to the creation of dinosaurs, paper dinosaurs, that attacked and stole their tidbits/candies from them. Later on, with the girl around, they decided to rise up and "hunt" the dinosaurs. (The dinosaurs are run by rubber-bands... rubber-band powered paper dinosaurs, the rubberbands are tangled in complicated ways they work like muscles...)

When they got their victory over the dinosaurs, they would dismantle the dinosaurs to see if there is loot within(candies, kinda like RPG, enemies dropping loot). And they would nicely pack up the dinosaurs(rubber-band+paper) in nice packages they call: "Good Children Animal Tidbits(With paper figure within)~ Set 3 - Dinosaur series" (The outer packaging is part of the dinosaur, dont throw it away!).

And the next day.... Dinosaurs are extinct, with them hunting mammoths and all now... And... at the end.... Oh well, its hard to say explicitly haha? Welcome to the world of paper and rubber bands!!

[Darklor]

[EusthEnoptEron]

Ah, I read that one too! As expected from Romio.

I especially liked the scene at the end when this special visitor came to their office. That concluded the book just too nicely.

[ShadowZeroHeart]

Ah, I read that one too! As expected from Romio.

I especially liked the scene at the end when this special visitor came to their office. That concluded the book just too nicely.

Romio...? you followed the author? mind telling me other works?

And yes, the scene was quite hilarious...

Spoiler! :

Both of them decided to take on a "heck care" solution to the problem they created.

Sadly, my local bookstore doesnt have stock on the volumes, i even had to have them order volume 1... and now, i have to get them to order vol 2 one of these days...

[EusthEnoptEron]

Romio...? you followed the author? mind telling me other works?

I know him because he's quite famous on the Visual Novel-side of the Japanese Otaku-culture. He wrote e.g. CROSS+CHANNEL and Kazoku Keikaku which are worshipped as some of the best eroges ever.
Well, but to be honest, Jinrui wa Suita Shimashita is the first work I've read by him. I'll probably order the second book together with the remaining volumes of Kami-sama no Memo-chou (currently reading volume 2 of that one).

[ShadowZeroHeart]

Guess we share similar tastes? Even though I must say Kami-sama no Memo-chou and this are vastly different, one having a dark atmosphere, one having a cheeky atmosphere, though both are good, VERY good

[b0mb3r]

Kana Little Sister, Family Project, Cross Channel, Yume Miru Kusuri Visual Novel God Romio wrote novels too?! man somebody give me a list or something.

[ShadowZeroHeart]

Kana Little Sister, Family Project, Cross Channel, Yume Miru Kusuri Visual Novel God Romio wrote novels too?! man somebody give me a list or something.

A list of...?

Man, I didn't know Romio is so famous... though i must admit, i am quite charmed by Yume Miru Kusuri

[b0mb3r]

my bad shadow. I meant a list of novels he wrote since I can't read japanese.

[EusthEnoptEron]

Other than Jinrui ha Suitai Shimashita, he has only written "AURA 〜魔竜院光牙最後の闘い〜" (AURA -Maryuuinkouga saigo no tatakai-).

I also liked his afterword in Jinrui (notice that the target audience of the publisher are elementary school students as far as I know)

Hello, I'm Romio Tanaka.
Many of you may already know me.
Please refrain from googling my pen name to make sure your tomorrow stays vigorous. Especially for the ones born during the Heisei period (1989+), googling my pen name might be prohibited by law. Please be careful.
To introduct myself simply: I'm living by "producing the text/data that is used in Windows Application Software".
A trader as it is called.
That's alright like this, isn't it! Yoroshiku onegaishimasu.

Which reminds me that I'm anticipating Rewrite, the newest VN by Key. Romio, Ryuukishi07 and one of Key's writers~~~(ﾟ∀ﾟ)!!

[b0mb3r]

Lol got to love Romio. So far half of the VN games I played are written by him. the other half is katawa shoujo, F/SN and brass restoration.

[Darklor]

Ah, hmm... and I have had hope for another teaser

[ShadowZeroHeart]

Ah, hmm... and I have had hope for another teaser

What kinda? These days i am a bit too busy to carry on with my translations, but i might be able to make a mini teaser for this one. Choose a small part from what i wrote earlier, then i might seek out a portion to use as teaser, or is it up to me?

Or does EusthEnoptEron or b0mb3r want to make the teaser instead?

[b0mb3r]

I'm a noob shadow b/c I don't even know how to make one, especially on a wiki.

[EusthEnoptEron]

Same here; I'm also quite busy with Zero no Maria, so I won't have time in the near future.