Chikyuu no Houkago

We got trolled this chapter. Damn...

harem gone. no reason for living.

Aside from the Restaurant at the End of the Universe smart aleck comments, I'm really feeling sorry for Masashi right now.  Over a year with three girls he's been protecting and having feelings for, and they all get taken by the phantoms in a few short hours.  Sucks to be him, especially as I'm a male dude with a "protect our girls no matter what" syndrome buried deep in my psyche.  As a testosterone driven kind of goofball, I would tend to start destroying things which appear and seem to have anything to do with the phantoms.  As a rational sort of bloke, I would try to think up some sort of believable hypothesis that could explain the latest happenings.  However; if that didn't come up with anything soon, my first "going postal" instinct would probably take over.  A number of years of military training lead me towards trying to reason things out first, but when "doom" seems to be definitely at hand, instinct definitely takes over.

 

]The falling stars in Anna's dream makes me think the world is going to be destroyed soon, likely to a meteor or asteroid shower. The phantoms are creatures created to save the soon to be dead world's humans by sending them to another timeline/world before that happens. The kids are left behind initially to act as witnesses and to make vibrant memories of the "old" world, while phantoms occasionally appear to check on them.[/spoiler]

Sort of "So Long and Thanks for all the Fish?"  I knew the Japanese (a superior culture that often takes the best of other cultures and does great thing to them in manga) would make Douglas Adams' works into a great seinan saga!  (I can hardly wait for Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency).  

it is time

Spoiler

time to travel back

Gotta get back.

Back to the past

Spoiler

Oh, maybe it won't turn out that ba...

Spoiler

Well, shit.

DAMN ... this is the worst ending posible, please no ...

NONONONONONO DON'T LEAVE IT HANGING LIKE THAT!!!
DAAAAAAAAMN!!!

WHAT? FUCK

it is time

Spoiler

time to travel back

So... it's pretty obvious the old man is Masashi, right? I mean, it's not like the author made it a big mystery with Sanae blushing at him and everything.

...Don't stop there! After something like this I need to be able to power on through to the ending. Otherwise I'll get too depressed to keep reading and will drop the series.

Nah. That guy is a pirate. Old Dougie McJap, that's how crew call him. He's a demon of the sea. He can find one piece in a day, and spend it all on booze and women in a next day. Scourge of a Golden Armada, but a kind person inside. And so one time he decided to be a hero, and became Dougie McJap, the time traveling pirate!

Ally: Captain Crunch.

Rival: Mr T

Enemy: none, because nobody survived.

I'm like pretty sure now that the old guy is Old Man Masahi (ಠ_ಠ)

I might be strange for thinking this but after reading this chapter, I have a feeling that the old man is just Masashi when he's older. Since so far in the story he seems to be the one who has been traveling through time. I am not sure what that means or for what purpose until we see more.

I was thinking the same thing. That or the old man is Masashi's son from the other time/world the phantoms take people to. Further theory-crafting ahead...

I might be strange for thinking this but after reading this chapter, I have a feeling that the old man is just Masashi when he's older. Since so far in the story he seems to be the one who has been traveling through time. I am not sure what that means or for what purpose until we see more.

That won't work, as mutations don't work like that on the short span, specially the radioactive initiated mutations as most mutations will be effectively eliminated by the immune system.

If anything, radiating one person to "mutate" would at best provide him/her with cancer.

looks like we are at the final stretch.

i would like to thank the translator for both making this amazing series available to us and the very thorough translation notes.

The fact that he hasn't whipped them up into a "rebuild the human race" breeding hysteria and impregnated them both just means he's unfit in terms of Darwinian evolution. Sad.

They're like 12, they have to run away from monsters on a regular basis, and they're in a world with no medical professionals.  I'm pretty sure impregnating them now is a bad idea survival-wise.

15 total to form a viable breeding population from 4 people. 
Further, they also must each have 10 children in order for the 45 person group to then become viable in the long term. From there, they must then split into separate family groups for no fewer than 2 generations to ensure enough genetic drift before strict monogamy can happen. To finally complicate matters, each woman must mate with at least 5 different men. This ensures a wide enough genetic pool from which a strong future can be assured.

...I sat through a weird biology lecture once or twice...

...

Multi Level Fucking ?

Reproducing humanity is an excuse. Those girls want to mash Masashi.

...

They want his D ...

Reproducing humanity is an excuse. Those girls want to mash Masashi.

And if you were half as smart as he is, you'd know that one male and three females isn't enough for a sustainable population, since within 3-4 generation their offspring would have horrible inbreeding issues and would most likely die out.
 
Don't believe me? Charles II of Spain. Do you see that ugly mug?
 

Spoiler

 
THAT'S THE BEST THE PAINTER COULD DO. That's why first cousins breeding over multiple generations isn't a good idea.

easy girl.. you just wait for 3 or five year....

 

for population to contain genetic diversity.. I guess those girls should have 5 or 10 children.. lel

15 total to form a viable breeding population from 4 people. 
Further, they also must each have 10 children in order for the 45 person group to then become viable in the long term. From there, they must then split into separate family groups for no fewer than 2 generations to ensure enough genetic drift before strict monogamy can happen. To finally complicate matters, each woman must mate with at least 5 different men. This ensures a wide enough genetic pool from which a strong future can be assured.

...I sat through a weird biology lecture once or twice...