Darwin Jihen • The Darwin Incident - Episode 2 discussion
*Darwin Jihen*, episode 2
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* [MyAnimeList](https://myanimelist.net/anime/58886/)
* [AniList](https://anilist.co/anime/177679)
* [AniDB](https://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=18646)
* [Anime-Planet](https://www.anime-planet.com/anime/the-darwin-incident)
* [Kitsu](https://kitsu.app/anime/48884)
* [Official Website](https://darwinsincident.net/)
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**All discussions**
Episode|Link
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1|[Link](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/1q5lwny)
2|[Link](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/1qbuesl)
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**Reminder:** Please do not discuss plot points not yet seen or skipped in the show. Failing to follow the rules may result in a ban.
---
**Streams**
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**Show information**
* [MyAnimeList](https://myanimelist.net/anime/58886/)
* [AniList](https://anilist.co/anime/177679)
* [AniDB](https://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=18646)
* [Anime-Planet](https://www.anime-planet.com/anime/the-darwin-incident)
* [Kitsu](https://kitsu.app/anime/48884)
* [Official Website](https://darwinsincident.net/)
---
**All discussions**
Episode|Link
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1|[Link](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/1q5lwny)
2|[Link](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/1qbuesl)
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I also wonder how he feels about his true nature;
From the human perspective, he's "a chimpanzee (mixed with a human)"...
But from his own perspective, he's no more chimpanzee than he is human.
So while he knows that humans don't really see him as one of theirs, he should not have any particular inclination to think of himself as either species. The only thing that might shape his perspective, is seeing that humans don't really accept him (other than a few of them) so he may feel more Chimpanzee.
It seems like he does see himself as a bit more chimpanzee than human.
I’m kind of curious how Charlie and his bio mom get along?
Also Charlie was out of media's eyes for 10 years, because of the incident. And this ALA people reappear when Charlie also reappears to public (they mentioned ALA was not doing much past years, and they suddenly make terrorist attack with human casualities).
And what do they want Charlie for? Maybe creepy dude knew about experiment from the start and made ALA attack lab same day as Charlie's birth, coincidentally. He'd be great military asset, that's for sure.
Well, if you look at terrorism in the real world, it always make many hate the group responsible (not just the terrorists, but everything they stand for)... Yet some people still do it.
I think it's part of the cycle; They point to an enemy, they attack them, everyone hates them in turn, so they only have each other, they are even more motivated into attacking them, etc...
A decent human being would be very out of place in the force! This is immersion.
"Those 7 officers definitely attacked a 5-year old".
I can't stop laughing.
It's funny because police are rogue, delinquents, bandits, monsters, you name it. Not all of them, but many are.
If Charlie had attacked them out of nowhere, NO WAY all the cops would've agreed to keep this a secret (no matter what pressure they get from scientific or political associations), there would've been 'leaks' or whistleblowers or something.
Only way both sides agreed to keep this a secret, is if both sides wanted to hide something. The cops' actions obvious, and for the scientific community, well even if Charlie acted in self defense they were probably more than happy NOT to let this go public, for the image. For many people, the news wouldn't be 'Humanzee defends his life', it would be 'Humanzee shot people'.
(That being said, there may still be more to this story, because attacking Charlie this way with a million eyes on them would be the worst idea ever... I wonder if perhaps it wasn't *much* an attack, like they were kinda bullying him or maybe a bit of a beating so he gunned them down. This would even more explain why both sides agreed to keep it low).
How are humans different from animals? Maybe we are the lowly beasts and there is something above us?
I look forward to getting it wrong or seeing the anime surprise me some more. See you guys next week!
He'll be at the center of everything, but I think it's a story of how humans react to things, not a story about a chimpanzee/human doing things.
She'll be the key in the end (in good or bad) imho!
In lots of places it's more illegal to eat a human who consented to it before death and died of natural causes than drowning a kitten/puppy. idk about y'all but that seems ass backwards.
To me the most consistent ideology on what should be ethical is basically utilitarianism with some additional allowance for prioritising oneself (and therefore transitively prioritising your loved ones more than strangers), although it's commendable if you opt to treat others equal or better than yourself at times of course. All other ideologies usually fall apart under the right hypothetical.
The ethical portion of what to eat and not to eat is to me just humans given themselves too much importance. Just eat what you wanna eat.
Humans decided that, not animals themselves. The non-human animals operate mainly on a survival of the fittest view. Humans are the ones who arbitrarily decide which forms of lives are ''sacred'' and which ones are acceptable to kill (mosquitoes, roaches, flies, etc.). Humans are the ones personifying other animals in some weird self-conceited worldview. I have no reason to agree with the vegan's ethical view on meat consumption because a group of them decided that they should be ''noble'' and ignore millions of years of omnivorous evolution just so they feel better about themselves.
I have no ethical qualms about eating people if they consent and I don't contribute to their death (in)directly (although I still have no desire to do so), if anything I'd be more worried about the ethics of harming my family if the tabloids ran a hit piece on me for doing so.
I'm not asking you to treat all lives as equal, I'm asking you to be a consistent level of selfish.
For example, eating a turkey sandwich (over a vegan alternative like falafel or tofu) is >1000x more selfish than littering, do you litter? probably not. probably because you consider it a dick move, and although it'd be more convenient to not find a trash bin before discarding you go through the trouble because you don't believe it's ok to be that selfish. but then you go and be >1000x more selfish maybe 3 times a day, give or take a couple, based on your meal choices. That's the heart of the problem imo. The only axiom in ethics is to not be hypocritical imo, and to me I cannot process such behaviour as anything but hypocritical.
I don't think killing a turkey being a few thousand times more significant than littering is ridiculous levels of empathy. And besides, if someone asked whether you'd rather when forced to choose kill a healthy dog or litter 10k times you'd probably choose litter option I assume, so I'm not asking you to gain more empathy for non human animals in general, just extend it to far more species of animals. if you don't want to include bees or fish I'll still consider it a massive upgrade.
besides, you don't have to think it's x1000 more selfish than littering to stop, just x10 should be enough surely? and surely you can't call that ridiculous levels of empathy? it's just x10 littering...
> It's not possible to truly deeply care about a bunch of things that don't personally affect you, mental fatigue and all.
I've manage to be vegan, nearly a decade now, what's your theory behind my mental fatigue being barely touched? I'm far more mentally fatigued by my job or housemates or Joe Rogan loving brother than trying to be ethically consistent.
> If a war breaks out in some country and the gov is massacring civilians, many people would not like that, but if then, the next day, another war breaks out in another country, and then a bombing happens in your own country, you'll care more about the bombing.
sure, but if I discovered I was part of either problem I'd stop being part of the problem as far as reasonably doable, the bombing in my own country wouldn't make me start going back to contributing to those massacres.
> Mentally tiring yourself out over billions of animals dying for food, plus the countless other things that happen, is not a rational way to live to me.
I don't consider it tiring, we're expending roughly equal mental energy on the topic and when the convo is over we'll both go back to expending almost none. Every day you're vegan you need less mental energy to be vegan, avoiding non vegan products is so automatic at this point I do it without failure when blackout drunk, or at least the one time I've ever been blackout drunk.
> Littering has a more direct impact on the people around you than the meat industry.
objectively not true, we all pay extra taxes to subsidise meat, we all have to deal with the additional GHGs the meat industry produces, we all have to deal with the dirty water and dirty air. surely you've driven past one that stinks so strongly you want to gag at least once in your life?
and again, it's hypocritical to care more about a stray dog than a pig, if you truly have no empathy for any animal and only care about pets being hurt because of the human owner suffering not the pet itself then fair enough, but otherwise it's hypocritical to value a stray dog more than a livestock pig, yet a vast majority of people do, do you?
Dumping a massive amount of trash would have much bigger negative impact than killing a healthy dog. If I was forced to make such weird choice, I'd kill the dog to avoid the littering.
Either way, the vegan lifestyle is only something someone living in a wealthy nation can afford, and modern pharmaceuticals help you a lot with such unbalanced nutrition. Google luck convincing poor people not to eat meat because ''poor animals.'' ''Boycotting'' corporations by refusing to consume any animal product is useless. Wanna do something meaningful? Become a scientist and work on lab grown food tech, the sooner we can 3D print food while maintaining texture and flavor, the sooner the evil meat industry falls. Anything other than directly addressing the root is just the laziest lowest denominator, only done for psychological masturbatory purposes to regain a slight bit of control and feel a bit less powerless against a powerful foe. You're never gonna convince most of the planet to abandon meat for ''ethics.''
You being able to not eat meat doesn't means other can, there is tons of people that have to stop it because it was basically killing them and some of them have gone to a other extreme of eating only meat, which will also kill them, because their vegan period created a unbalance in their diet philosophy.
Also speaking about how you can be a vegan when you likely take tons of complement and pill, yeah the only thing that prove it's that is not the natural diet of humans.
You are vegans good for you but trying to do morals on people because they are not and claiming is the natural way human should feed, oh my god.
If the argument was "people eat too much meat" i would have agree because yes people do eat too much meat in their diet compared to what they should.
Even primate have omnivorous tendancy at different degree, Chimp specially are one of the species known to actively hunt prey instead of being just opportunistic meat eater.
The only hypocrite i see here is you, with incredibly falacious argument.
I don't even know why i am losing time speaking to extremist vegan like you that think they have a imaginary highground that doesn't exist is like speaking to a brick wall.
obligate carnivores need meat, that's why there's a separate term for them different to omnivores that explicitly do not need meat. in practice in nature it's difficult for most omnivores to get some nutrients but we're not in nature, we have the internet and we have B12 too cheap to meter.
and regardless of what a dictionary says, we have a real world you can find countless examples proving humans do not need meat. people who have been vegan for 50+ years, one as many as 90. and it's a relatively new movement with almost no members in the 1920s when that 90 year streak started.
I can't predict the future, maybe my health will rapidly deteriorate because of my veganism, but right now I'm in great shape (both literally and my health) "despite" being vegan nearing a decade. what specific nutrients do you reckon I'm running on reserves for? iron? I donated platelets every 2 weeks for a year without failing an iron check. I take B12 daily, probably 3x more than I need. Etc.
But the NHS and WHO and many other reputable orgs have stated that a well planned vegan diet is healthy for all stages of life including pregnancy and infancy. some might say that it's worse because it needs to be well planned, newsflash to those folks, so does a non vegan diet, obese people apart from rare exceptions aren't healthy, and they're common as muck. vegans are probably less likely to be malnourished because they actually check they're getting enough nutrients.
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I never once said that veganism is natural, stop straw manning people just because you can't win an argument honestly
Considering his response to the whole “Would you kill a mouse infected with a deadly virus?” thing from last episode was “Yes, I would. And I would kill you if you were the one infected” gives me the impression that he doesn’t mind violence as long as is in self-defense or there not other option left to take
Now imagine it is legal, but at some point demand starts to immensely outgrow the supply. People who tried it and grew to like it a lot don't really have access to it anymore.
We are apples.
I for one welcome our new Overlord, please don't eat me Charlie!
And while I said in my comment on the first episode's thread that Charlie's "coldly" practical attitude with equating humans and animals etc, I have to wonder where he picked it up? Doesn't seem like his parents would have raised him like that? Or is that just something he's come up himself?
Eh... I'm currently not feeling this series, I can't lie. I'll keep watching for now, considering the manga is hyped, but the first two episodes haven't lived up to the rep. Perhaps it is just building up...
It's also shown or mentioned quite a few times though out the episode about how the TV and social media impacts the view of the public on vegans, before you call it random just take a look around and how people get brainwashed into hating other people by a certain TV Channel and a social media owner billionaire.
I'm curious about what your personal hopes were for Darwin Incident. Something more grounded maybe?
Lucy conversation with him ….OMG
EVA is ALIVE 😭
Anya seiyuu as Charlie….jaw dropping
Wonder if Charlie's able to "speak" chimpanzee with Eva especially considering he's been raised as a human.
We have no way of knowing what animals think exactly in our real world. Maybe they can't do everything we do, maybe they CAN. Who knows.
Regardless, we need to rise and rebel against society's wrongful genocides! Germs and viruses have just as many right as humans, and yet people callously murder our brethren with soap and hand gel-!
**whispers into ear**
I mean animals! I meant to say animals! (Not bacteria)
That doesn't mean they can't communicate, obv they do communicate but language as far as we know is a purely human concept and all the attempts at getting non human primates to communicate using any human language have failed.
For more info I'd highly recommend watching those video on the topic https://youtu.be/e7wFotDKEF4?si=JhaAjVh95uHBRY9q
At most they can realise using certain signs causes humans to react in ways they may want but that's not anything more than for example dogs can do.
Sure it's a interesting question in term of philosophy but not as a argument because the reason it's simple, it's not a question of human being superior or anything it's a question of morality and ethics, feeling, it doesn't feel right to eat another human.
Sure cannibalism exist in wildlife in a lot of species but that because animals doesn't have ethics or morality simple as this, lot of time the animal also have a additional motive other than eating like for the Lions killing the baby or young of a previous alpha to make the female fertile again.
Also yes even for human ethics and morality exist because of how the world today work but if tomorrow WW3 begin and the world end up in state were the wildlife laws would take back the throne you can be sure that cannabalism would be back on the menu, it's happened throught human history or even just during crash were people had no other choide to survive, hell even during the time of our ancestor and similar species like neanderthal archeologist found a lot of trace of cannibalism, it's actually terrifying.
But in today society and culture in all country if you ask to the vast majority of people they would be digusted just by that idea of eating a human, lot of people would even consider that only psychopath would do this outside of a extreme situation.
To a lower scale it doesn't apply only to human, animal also are not treated equaly a lot of people are digusted at the idea of country were cat and dog are eated while they eat bunny, insect are considered a disgusting thing to eat, in India cow are sacred and i am sure there is Indian disgusted at people who eat cow.
I think Charlie's argument is meant to go too far though. He's our new edgy Overlord and master (according to what the story seems to be telling us).
I really like the central idea and the animation, but the choice of vegan terrorists as the antagonists is just uh...it's just not working for me. There are so many groups or ideas for groups that to go with "radical vegans" as the antagonist...just seems so weird to settle on them. Maybe the story that come about will require this angle but so far I am not convinced.
I also get that Charlie might be a bit inhuman in his thought processes...But there would have been about a hundred different comments or answers he could have replied with that wouldn't have just served to antagonize everyone else. Like the fact that vegan terrorists are...I dunno...giant hypocrites for starters?
I also know we are living in an alternative reality, because given the amount of school shootings and other regular tragedies I have trouble seeing Midwestern high schoolers actually caring much sadly about a bombing in NYC in real life
Charlie's argument is quite human though. The only difference in his argument just happens to classify Homo Sapiens as the "have-nots" (that doesn't change the argument though). Only reason that we qualify ourselves as the "haves" is because we don't want to be the ones getting killed or enslaved XD.
Humans aren't superior.
Vegans aren't different from non-Vegans.
Terrorists don't represent any group of people.
I am not Vegan and I don't think this is commentating on Vegans. This anime is an edgy piece of fiction with fun drama, but it doesn't seem to be very grounded at all.
That guy who spoke with Lucy eyes are so creepy. I am worried that ALA will use her as a way to get Charlie once they've gotten closer.
I do like how excited Charlie's parents were about him making a human friend and she's already met them, including his biological mother. I didn't think we'd see her just yet.
I wonder if they'll use her, or use them both, or 'convince' them...
Lucy is already witnessing humans opposing Charlie, and I imagine things are gonna get worse and worse, the more terrorism happen...
If all humans turn against Charlie, will they really need to USE her/them, or can they simply present themselves as "the only option for them", the only one they can turn to?
>she's already met them, including his biological mother.
Meeting, the parents, it's getting pretty serious!
[](#urbansmile)
they didn't even learn debate 101 smh, they really couldn't find a way to express why humans are different than animals?
I dunno if the cops outright attacked Charlie ten years ago, but I definitely suspect they somehow provoked him. There are lost of ways to show hostility without an explicit attack.
Counterarguments would say chimpanzees, similar to humans, show a proclivity for gratuitous violence, this Charlie's darker instincts could've flared at that moment especially if his conscious mind was not as developed. Had this been the case though, I don't believe he would've stopped with just beating them until they stopped being threats.
Good on Lucy for immediately informing the pertinent parties of the sus individual. Considering typical anime tropes I was totally expecting her to keep it to herself until it was too late. I wonder if it's just a difference in writing habits or if the author specifically considered this is something a westerner would've done differently compared to a Japanese person.
Might be hard to see through the "subbed" episode, but how does the culture in the story make you mistake it for an American work? Just curious. I'm ignorant and curious to see what references and American tropes are being used here.
Or is it because the story canonically takes place in the US?
I thought there was some Boondocks stuff going miles over my head in Darwin.
So it IS just an anime as I had initially assumed it to be.
Also the whole "We can't even say Merry Christmas anymore because woke" thing is not something that the average Japanese person would even know about.
All this time I just assumed it was originally a manga. I always get ahead of myself.
I wonder why so many people are assuming that this manga is somehow "American".
People aren’t saying the series was made by an American, they are just saying it has a very American identity due to all the things I listed above.
I'd be willing to bet that this mangaka is as knowledgeable about the US as the average American is about Japan.
It's the most American-English sounding Japanese *while still being otherwise natural Japanese*. Messes with my head.
Dumb highschoolers are allowed to exist.
This anime takes things to extreme levels by introducing a Humanzee fiction character who bridges the gap between eco terrorist extremists who think they are doing things 'for animals that can't advocate for themselves' and the types of people like the blonde kid who made the "can't say Merry Christmas" comment, and had lots of things to say about how people favor foreigners/illegals over actual American citizens.
I find it fascinating not preachy. In fact, this is so far gone from 'preachy' compared to games like Yasuke's Assassin's Creed, or any number of WOKE recent AAA Video Game titles that have come out recently where politics and propaganda and identity politics and etc. etc. etc. are shoved in people's faces without any sort of entertainment value attached whatsoever. At least Darwin Jihen is fun to watch thus far as of EP2.
It turns out pretty much any manga I found interesting that made the shortlist of the Manga Taishō award was some of the best manga I've read, so I'll be continuing to watch this because it'll probably be at least be an interesting watch.
Is this a Billy Bat reference? That phrase feels out of the left field.
I wonder if they have more references coming, I mean they're already using names as references (Lucy the first human - though she isn't, anymore -, Eva the mom, etc..!)
The debate is nice, sure, but I'm still motivated by the rule of cool, where Charlie is what is seemingly a superior being.
He basically makes humans look like the inferior and helpless animals relative to HIM. So the "Humanzee" is sort of like a greater than thou angelic race.
I'm not trying to sound racist or naive here, I just think this is a cool fictional premise. Why do we humans think ourselves such hot stuff? Cuz we don't have competition :3
EDIT: I wanna see action! Love Charlie's character (and character design!).
(Well one side is a bit worse than the other, but you get the point!)
I wonder if they *will* take a more precise stance toward the end of the series, or try to stay neutral.
And it is a very good question why humans are different from animals. Because we can speak? In the end it is just good old anthropocentrism that keeps us believing we are special, because we are able to articulate that.
As for why there are still people who eat humans, for some it’s because of their religion and funeral rites, like some tribes in Papua New Guinea, many people who practice eating the dead end up with Kuru. For others though, it’s because of curiosity and the rush of acting upon social taboo, and while even they still risk getting kuru, it’s not as common due to it still being a rare disease that requires someone to be infected.
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I like how they make Charlie a smart person, but with an extra twist in his arguments. Eating humans sounds insane at first, but considering that general human dietary ethics is basically "eat everything but your own species", it makes actually sense for a non-human sentient to see it that way.
I really do hope the obviously very political subjects do not result in online discussions derailing into unnecessary debates about wokeness or supposed wokeness etc.
And Lucy the (formerly) first human ancestor!
>Eating humans sounds insane at first, but considering that general human dietary ethics is basically "eat everything but your own species", it makes actually sense for a non-human sentient to see it that way.
That's Charlie's stance on everything, it was the same in episode 1 when he said he would kill humans if they had a disease and all!
It's obvious when you think about it, but to humans, humans are special, but to every other species, humans are just 1 more species, they're no different.
>I really do hope the obviously very political subjects do not result in online discussions derailing into unnecessary debates about wokeness or supposed wokeness etc.
I'm afraid it already has hah. (What's funny is that the way it's presented, I feel like both sides will think it's "against them")
yeah, you nailed it, that was pretty much also my impression. Especially with how Charlie is presented to have an opinion, but apparently being largely "unpolitical" about it.
Though, if the story is able to somewhat criticize both sides, I would in fact see it as a success for the writing.
I feel like these high school kids are idiots. Or am I the only one that researched why we don't eat people in high school? We get kuru, which is when a protein folds incorrectly and turns our brain in to swiss cheese. Same reason as mad cow disease and why we don't feed cow to cows. It's not bacterial or viral, you can't cook it out.
There is a real reason why we are not all cannibals. And I'd like to point out that there is literal history of cannibalism being accepted in some cultures and with those cultures suffering from kuru.
The fact that these kids were caught off guard and couldn't answer except with human exceptionalism I find...lame...
Terrorist attacks never really help bring people to you side, so this operation they have going on must have some other goal.
Poor Charlie is catching strays thanks to this, it really doesn´t pay off to be different, I guess.
Did the ALA leader really have to be an Obama look-a-like?
That's just a fact of life. The fact that no vegan terrorist group has been crazy/emboldened enough to try to force their veganism on the rest of the world is the reason why it hasn't already happened yet.
They would have to bomb not only countless restaurants (I doubt even all the steakhouses would be enough to convince all meat-serving other restaurants to pull meat-based dishes from their menus, as steakhouses are already a somewhat niche small percentage/minority of overall restaurants), but grocery stores, factories, etc. en masse.
The fact that it hasn't happened I'm sure isn't due to no one adhering to the ideology which would support such a campaign. It's more due to the fact that no one, let alone the minority within their community who would support such, has the material resources, finances, logistics, etc. to execute such a massive operation nationwide or globally.
> If terrorists in real life started bombing all the major steak houses in the world, people WILL stop eating meat.
That would not be the outcome. We know this because,
> The fact that no vegan terrorist group has been crazy/emboldened enough to try to force their veganism on the rest of the world is the reason why it hasn't already happened yet.
The ALA is based on a real group that actually did things like this.
I mean, people in the real world commit terrorism for a reason!
One specific event won't change the mind of people, but they seem to have more in mind (more attacks, and then Charlie... )
OP is a banger though.
I am enjoying the show though. I'm unsure of the author's personal politics, if they are vegan or not, but I think it's a unique premise. You don't really see vegans get mentioned in media too often, especially without being the butt end of a joke.
I hope this show gets its audience to think more about what they consume.
There is no real world analogue to the ALA. The Animal Liberation Front is explicitly non violent. The only real violent vegan organization was the Animal Rights Militia but they don't seem to exist anymore and even when they were active I'm not sure if they ever actually killed anyone. I don't say that to excuse the actions of the ARM, I definitely oppose violence but I just want to make clear that nothing like what is happening in this show is actually part of Vegan activism.
How many lines are on the chimp's face versus how many are on Charlie's
PROTECT CHARLIE AT ALL COST
\~Some guy, The Darwin Incident