Sakura Sakura (Morishige)

 

Depending on the answer, I'll take the decision whether to continue the manga Does a harem ending or an ending where the hero choose someone?

Thanks in advance for the answer

PS: I apologize for any errors in my writing, freshly am learning English. Therefore, I keep making mistakes.

 

judging from the raws it seems like it's a harem ending but one of them is special to him over the others. Which I guess is to be expected when humanity is dying out and your one of the last studs, kinda need him to repopulate.

Does he ever get boners? I mean, for f*ck's sake...

He had one when he tried to sneak into Himeshiro's room to find Shikishima sucking her breast.

Spoiler

here is the thing though, lets take animals for example. the reason why we enforce the protected mating of certain species of animals, is because within those groups, they can only breed with each other to create viable offspring that can make sure that their species survive.

 

human races are not like that, a mixed race offspring is as fertile and as viable to carry on the human species as any "single race". there is no genetic reason to enforce a mating regime for humans to ensure continuation, because human races &ethenicity arent species and the only thing u can hope to continue is a very vauge and deluded sense of identity, formed by  "us" and "them" that is completely artificial.

 

lets take the country I know best and a good example of this : Vietnam. a country with a now dominant ethnic group called the Kinh. This ethnic group can be called racially pure group of Vietnam but they are anything but pure cause their formation came as a result of several tribes in the region and even from outside the region blending together and forming a single identity. the japanese or Yamato people are the same, since there were many different tribes, cultures and ethnicity that lived on the peninsula and then come together to form the kingdom.

 

also if u try to apply to logic of the project to an area like mainland Europe, good luck trying to make it consistent in anyway shape or form, cause the area is so mixed ethinically that preserving any "race" is just drawing an arbitrary line on people and exposes the nature of this flawed view of "race".

 

Race and ethnicity is a cultural form, not a genetic one, that has just become based upon appearences in the eyes of humans. therefore to make decisions and seperate people and determine their lives base upon it is a political decision, not a decision of science. thats why its racist, at least to me, because you are making these decisions, base upon a prejudiced concept, based upon physical appearances and saying that it has greater importance then it actually does, and ignores the contributions of others to your society.

 

again, if the project has no plans of protecting the purity of race, then it is sort of meaningless and also even very inefficient since u could just u know, release them into the "wild", which will get u better result since they are given a wider selection of people anyway. since the country is populated, this should be fine. the fact that they try to control it and select "specific kinds of people" that should be allowed into the project, this shows how they feel about people the "them" that they dont want and still makes it again, xenophobic at best and really racist at worse because the fact they find one kind of people "acceptable" and another not is the proof of that. if they were just fine with him making babies, then what is the point of that wall that still seperates them from the outside world.

 

In the begining the manga acknowleges the reason for this project, because the old people are obsessed with their past, their vision of japan, their japan, which they feel is no longer there, populated with "their" japanese and with "their" japanese sterotypes. this is old school Asian-Nationalism, the kind that is still in every East Asian country, and some south east asian country that i feel horrible everytime i hear it, this sort of very seemingly tame racism that breeds fighting and hatred and is just completely meaningless.

 

to your question of : if u can save the Japanese race? My answer would be: that is a meaningless question. because again its an artifical concept of culture. If there are people who do Japanese things, talk like a japanese, act like a japanese, have a japanese name and identify as a japanese, even have japanese citizenship, but just look different, would you say to them that they are not japanese? also in making their physical apearance the defining characteristic, it implies that all other aspect of a people is somehow not that important, like saying that the Zen buddism they created, the bushido code, the arts, the literature and the god-like food, their politics and their religion and espcially ANIME AND MANGAS, are somehow not as important to being japanese as their face. its not about politcal correctness, its about what is it u r holding dear, ur face or ur way of life.

 

your physical appearance could be a part of it, dont get me wrong, but its no where being the most vital and no where near the level where it should somehow be protected. we protect cultures and languages around the world for a reason and not ethnicity, because that actually matters.

and that was my rant, srry about that, this is just something that gets on my nerve because I at this point, find it difficult to call myself my race or ethnicity sometimes, even if im not mixed.

 

Honestly, if this story doesn't end as a legitimate harem, I will be shocked. The story itself is practically begging for it as a moral option.

In fact, I'd almost be a bit disappointed if it didn't go that route. Don't usually like harem endings since you are often left with an aftertaste of insincerity on the part of the protagonist, but Haru is seriously just so goddamn pure.

Sorry this additional followup comment is so belated, but rereading your post helped me realize why some harem endings seriously annoy me and some are (or would have been) believable and heart-warming.

 
Here's how the project was laid out: At first it was just Haru and Sakurako (and Shikishima, who, I guess is Japanese?) - phrase one of the program was to have the Japanese kids create offspring. Should there be any issues with this this, the greater coalition of people interested in this would change the program to phase two, which allowed the inclusion of foreigners into the mix. Who knows what later phases there are. Once Sakurako was taken away, 'Pierre'(god I love calling him that) brings Haru a thick book with countless foreigner women -- telling him to pic one, or even pick all of them. At that point, it doesn't matter who he does it with, they just want him to make babies.
 
If you really think about it anyway, there is no such thing a lasting racial purity in the project to begin with. They simply want to keep as much Japanese blood in the pool as possible. It's not like Haru and whoever he gets with can subsequently do their kids, or have their kids do each other for purity of blood. Even if there are hardly any ramifications to one or two generations of incest, if you keep going down that line, it will get ugly. Maybe the Japanese were just hopeful that by the time Haru's kids grew up, they would be able to mingle with the New Gen kids.

As for treating races like dog breeds problem you mention at the end, sure I get why you would think that. It is in effect what they're doing. However the calls for it being deliberately racist or xenophobic... Let me ask this: If it's possible to save the Japanese race from dying out, would you even try? Because anything you did would be seen as something racist. It seems like the only politically correct answer would be 'let it die' -- I think what they're doing being a crime, rather than being racist, was more like coercion, forcing them to breed. Instead of normally helping foster a sense of intimacy between Haru and Sakurako, they locked them in a fake area with both of them highly aware of what the desired outcome is. Though they've since removed the fence and thankfully made the program less repulsive, at least. Ever since the inclusion of Collette, though, any sense of racism should be out o the story, since it's clear foreigners are an okay choice.

and that was my rant, srry about that, this is just something that gets on my nerve because I at this point, find it difficult to call myself my race or ethnicity sometimes, even if im not mixed.

dat masochist kuudere yo. so damn cute

plot twist, hes gay and the world is doomed

Or worse, an otaku. (^_~)

Dis cover... I like it.

Does he ever get boners? I mean, for f*ck's sake...

plot twist, hes gay and the world is doomed

Does he ever get boners? I mean, for f*ck's sake...

I'm not sure the entrance of Collette makes it so that they are open to alternatives, more like desperate and was pushed into allowing it because she's rich and to them somewhat desirable. I mean we are talking about a group of people who at some point said :"screw reproduction and immigration, we will just create a new kind of Japanese people", thats not really open.
i mean if they had wanted to u know keep it racially pure, why allow for a blond hair, possibly blue eye foreigner when u know, there are people in the regions with closer genetic and physical traits.
even if it makes sense from a preservation point, even that requires treating races like dog breeds or more likely, species of primates; which is xenophobic at best and deeply racist at worse.

 
Here's how the project was laid out: At first it was just Haru and Sakurako (and Shikishima, who, I guess is Japanese?) - phrase one of the program was to have the Japanese kids create offspring. Should there be any issues with this this, the greater coalition of people interested in this would change the program to phase two, which allowed the inclusion of foreigners into the mix. Who knows what later phases there are. Once Sakurako was taken away, 'Pierre'(god I love calling him that) brings Haru a thick book with countless foreigner women -- telling him to pic one, or even pick all of them. At that point, it doesn't matter who he does it with, they just want him to make babies.
 
If you really think about it anyway, there is no such thing a lasting racial purity in the project to begin with. They simply want to keep as much Japanese blood in the pool as possible. It's not like Haru and whoever he gets with can subsequently do their kids, or have their kids do each other for purity of blood. Even if there are hardly any ramifications to one or two generations of incest, if you keep going down that line, it will get ugly. Maybe the Japanese were just hopeful that by the time Haru's kids grew up, they would be able to mingle with the New Gen kids.

As for treating races like dog breeds problem you mention at the end, sure I get why you would think that. It is in effect what they're doing. However the calls for it being deliberately racist or xenophobic... Let me ask this: If it's possible to save the Japanese race from dying out, would you even try? Because anything you did would be seen as something racist. It seems like the only politically correct answer would be 'let it die' -- I think what they're doing being a crime, rather than being racist, was more like coercion, forcing them to breed. Instead of normally helping foster a sense of intimacy between Haru and Sakurako, they locked them in a fake area with both of them highly aware of what the desired outcome is. Though they've since removed the fence and thankfully made the program less repulsive, at least. Ever since the inclusion of Collette, though, any sense of racism should be out o the story, since it's clear foreigners are an okay choice.

Dang I don't think its possible to dispute the way Shikishima won that contest hahaha, that girl knows her target well!

Well. Whether she "won" or not, she certainly ended up being the wingman that Himeshiro needed.

The reason is basically that Japan has a declining birthrate IRL and the media and politicians want desperately to avoid people concluding that Japanese economy or work culture has anything to do with it, so they come up with extensive theories about uniquely Japanese social and psychological afflictions to explain it. The actual explanation has more to do with lack of socio-economic support for raising a family outside a very specific employment pattern that's been steadily shrinking in availability over the years, but the massive PR campaigns to avoid having to spend money and political capital making changes has led to a sort of public perception of some kind of mass affliction unique to the Japanese psychology that certainly couldn't be fixed by adapting business practices and a re-evaluation of women's place in the economy from other countries.

It's all pretty silly when you consider how many people are in that little island chain to start with.  I mean, I'm a Canadian, my country is bigger than Australia which is a continent.  We don't worry about lack of people hardly at all even though we have less than a third as many people in this huge land as Japan has in that dinky little country of theirs.  Far as I can tell Japan is way overcrowded.  I knew their population was shrinking but my view on it was always "Good job Japan!  Lead the way for the world!  Onward to sustainable world population levels!"

While it's true 'racial purity' is essentially what the entire premise is built on (in stage one of the program, anyway, since Collette is supposed to be part of a later stage, and she's a foreigner), I think it makes perfect sense from a preservation standpoint.

 

It's not about Japanese people being superior in any sense of the word, it's just about them continuing to exist at all which is the problem. Ideally, them existing in a pure form would be preferable, but it's clear they're very open to alternatives, what with all his foreigner choices and the very fact that they're even letting Collette into the mix right now.

 

It just feels weird because we're talking about humans, but these kinds of meddling exists in human preservation efforts of near-extinct animals too. 

the very concept of racial purity is extremely racist and offensive. Thats one of the main reasons hitler cited for the Holocaust... 

Dang I don't think its possible to dispute the way Shikishima won that contest hahaha, that girl knows her target well!

While it's true 'racial purity' is essentially what the entire premise is built on (in stage one of the program, anyway, since Collette is supposed to be part of a later stage, and she's a foreigner), I think it makes perfect sense from a preservation standpoint.

 

It's not about Japanese people being superior in any sense of the word, it's just about them continuing to exist at all which is the problem. Ideally, them existing in a pure form would be preferable, but it's clear they're very open to alternatives, what with all his foreigner choices and the very fact that they're even letting Collette into the mix right now.

 

It just feels weird because we're talking about humans, but these kinds of meddling exists in human preservation efforts of near-extinct animals too. 

I'm not sure the entrance of Collette makes it so that they are open to alternatives, more like desperate and was pushed into allowing it because she's rich and to them somewhat desirable. I mean we are talking about a group of people who at some point said :"screw reproduction and immigration, we will just create a new kind of Japanese people", thats not really open.

i mean if they had wanted to u know keep it racially pure, why allow for a blond hair, possibly blue eye foreigner when u know, there are people in the regions with closer genetic and physical traits.

even if it makes sense from a preservation point, even that requires treating races like dog breeds or more likely, species of primates; which is xenophobic at best and deeply racist at worse.

shikishima is the best

I'd have to agree. I had been assuming that most people knew... but to be fair, it probably wasn't as obvious as I imagined. And not everyone is guilty of reading the manga you're alluding to. (^_~)

 

Excellent points. It belatedly occurred to me why they might have made such a weird choice... an undertone of "racial purity" as extremely desirable, which I would find very sad.

 

Sorry for not responding sooner, and for the lame-looking quote (I don't know of any way to add attributed quotes that show the correct source during an edit).

 

While it's true 'racial purity' is essentially what the entire premise is built on (in stage one of the program, anyway, since Collette is supposed to be part of a later stage, and she's a foreigner), I think it makes perfect sense from a preservation standpoint.

 

It's not about Japanese people being superior in any sense of the word, it's just about them continuing to exist at all which is the problem. Ideally, them existing in a pure form would be preferable, but it's clear they're very open to alternatives, what with all his foreigner choices and the very fact that they're even letting Collette into the mix right now.

 

It just feels weird because we're talking about humans, but these kinds of meddling exists in human preservation efforts of near-extinct animals too. 

Excellent points. It belatedly occurred to me why they might have made such a weird choice... an undertone of "racial purity" as extremely desirable, which I would find very sad.

 

The reason is basically that Japan has a declining birthrate IRL and the media and politicians want desperately to avoid people concluding that Japanese economy or work culture has anything to do with it, so they come up with extensive theories about uniquely Japanese social and psychological afflictions to explain it. The actual explanation has more to do with lack of socio-economic support for raising a family outside a very specific employment pattern that's been steadily shrinking in availability over the years, but the massive PR campaigns to avoid having to spend money and political capital making changes has led to a sort of public perception of some kind of mass affliction unique to the Japanese psychology that certainly couldn't be fixed by adapting business practices and a re-evaluation of women's place in the economy from other countries.

Takamura? More like

Spoiler

Tsugumi

I'd have to agree. I had been assuming that most people knew... but to be fair, it probably wasn't as obvious as I imagined. And not everyone is guilty of reading the manga you're alluding to. (^_~)

 

(Purple Library Guy)

Spoiler

Yeah, although it's weird . . . all this time I had the impression that the lack of reproduction was world wide, not a Japanese thing.  If it's just Japan . . . I dunno, the whole thing seems kind of dumb then.  For one thing, how would that even happen?  For another, even if it did, how could it possibly happen in such a way that there was no way to figure out how it happened and how to fix it?  I mean, if the rest of the world is still fertile then obviously there has to be some factor that just hit Japan, that you could isolate.  Plus thematically "the human race is dying" has a tiny bit more resonance than "one country is depopulating".

Excellent points. It belatedly occurred to me why they might have made such a weird choice... an undertone of "racial purity" as extremely desirable, which I would find very sad.

 

Sorry for not responding sooner, and for the lame-looking quote (I don't know of any way to add attributed quotes that show the correct source during an edit).

Takamura? More like

Manga ended with chapter 40

So, the heroine knows the world is crap, yet she still falls in love like a little highschool girl.
Yeah, I don't buy that...The jump from dystopia  to Romcom is a bit too steep, I don't see the actual connection here.
This manga uses the most strange asspull justification to initiate a "lul romcom" harem...

"World's population is zelch, yo buncha stupid kids, the adults are evil and want to harvest yo liver"....
Was that necessary?
The characters are enjoyable for sure, but the drama is overblown for no good reason. It even overshadows the comedy most of the time.

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

What are you talking about? There's nothing that is not awesome about this scene hands down!

Ditto. I could easily see the main two getting along well enough and being practical enough to share him. Collette mildly annoys me, but the mangaka seems hell-bent on including her and making the main two accept her... and she's not quite annoying enough to evoke a "No. Just no." response.

 

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like the evolution of the harem manga is on a sine wave between works like this, and works where it seems more likely that someone's going to wind up on trial for manslaughter. Currently this style of work seems to be the exception to the rule, but it's a happy exception.

 

I have a feeling her butler likes her. I'm not convinced anything will come of it (he seems more interested in respecting her wishes than anything) but I do see a possible "you're not bound by fate, you can truly live your life as you want" speech aimed at her by someone, which may make her realize her love for Haru is partially dependent on her own resignation in the 'responsibilities' assigned to her. Truthfully though, I do want a harem ending, and I do actually want Colette to be a part of it. 

 

I actually do like Colette. She's definitely a pampered princess type character who is used to getting her way and as such can be pretty annoying, but I can see a real sincerity deep down inside. As the story goes on, I think she will mellow out a bit more. Her principal responsibility in this story is making sure some distance between Haru and Sakurako exists. Otherwise he would end up all over her in relatively short time, since I don't think Ouka is enough of a stopper for that. In fact, since she likes Sakurako so much, I think she would be outwardly perfectly fine with it and merely brood over it alone.