As you regulars know, I don’t make coverage decisions based on comments or even post engagements. But that said, I do find it sort of interesting that Darwin Jihen is generating next to no discussion – here or anywhere else. I can’t speak as assuredly regarding on the J-side, but it seems to be true there as well – and this is a Manga Taishou winner we’re talking about. As for the English-speaking world, well, it’s a series that delves into some pretty contentious issues. It does so clumsily, no question – but it does so, and not that many series do. Are viewers just not interested, or is it the show itself that’s the problem?
As I’ve said before I wish I could righteously rage about the glaring inaccuracies about my native country in The Darwin Incident. But truthfully most of them are on the detail side, more or less. Can I deny that we have school shootings pretty much every month? Admittedly very few of them are politically motivated, but there are a numbers of examples of mass shootings committed by issue-driven zealots, even if few of them take place at schools. Veganism is hardly one of the more divisive issues in that deeply divided country though – most people don’t give a rat’s ass one way or the other.
That makes it sort of an odd choice for Umezawa Shun to have built his series around. Maybe it’s an issue he personally feels passionate about – except if so, would it be so hard to figure out which side of the issue he comes down on? Rather, my sense is it’s one he’s mused on and finds vexingly difficult (me too). And decided to use as the vehicle for a larger deconstruction of American culture, which is certainly an interesting thing to watch play out. That’s where his misses are a little more glaring, but that in itself is an interesting element to experiencing the series as an American.
However you feel about the larger issue of animal rights, I don’t think there’s any angle through which this series paints the ALA as anything but the villains. Gale is a pawn in Feyerabend’s hands, a useful martyr, easily manipulated. Except he – and Charlie – screw up the martyr part. Gale loses his nerve when it’s time to end things, and Charlie – whose dispassionate compassion (I don’t know what else to call it) doesn’t pick and choose its recipients – shows more respect for his life than he did for the 41 people he killed. Except Lucy, who he chooses to spare, presumably because she defended him in the past.
Phil sees enough of Charlie in action here that he can’t realistically convince himself that Charlie is culpable. He carries as many victims as he can carry to safety, he’s the one who apprehends Gale in the end. Gale certainly didn’t do Charlie any favors by calling him out in his final message, but Phil knows the score at this point. He’s the one responsible for Charlie leaving the scene with the Steins rather than in the back of a police cruiser, but turning one grunt cop more or less to his side is really a drop in the ocean of public opinion at this point.
It’s hard to see a road ahead for Charlie at this point, and he’s smart enough to realize that. House arrest is about the best he can hope for, so he resolves to take down the ALA himself – much to Lucy’s horror. Rep. Linares has suggested that crushing the ALA is a prerequisite for Charlie having any chance at a normal life, and the authorities certainly haven’t shown much headway in getting that done – so why wouldn’t Charlie want to take matters into his own hands? With the posse at the Steins’ door demanding the lot of them leave town, he may have more immediate problems on his hands.
