Darwin Jihen (The Darwin Incident) – 03

Any time you see an adaptation of an ongoing manga you tend to wonder what the plan is. How much will it cover, and how will it choose to end? The suspense is removed with a big hit of course – there’s never any question of SpyFam or Medalist not getting a full adaptation (in time). But even though Darwin Jihen is a Manga Taishou winner, I don’t have big expectations for it commercially. It’s a seinen first of all, and doesn’t have a lot of recognizable hooks. It is being received pretty well in Japan but I’ll still be surprised if this is more than one (cour, presumably) and done adaptation.

Given that the manga is on 10 volumes already, we’re obviously not getting anywhere close to up to date without a lot of skipped material (it’s certainly in no hurry, having used 4 chapters in 3 episodes). The story has been trending up in my opinion, but the anime – even in a cour – should have enough time to get to some of the really interesting bits. That starts with the introduction of Eva, Charlie’s biological mother. She was, Dr. Fowler says, a genius chimpanzee – even writing poetry (though not Hamlet, one supposes). But Charlie’s difficult birth – she was only saved because of Gilbert’s intervention – left her brain damaged and “less intelligent than a normal chimpanzee”.

Except… Eva seems to recognize Charlie (though he’s highly skeptical). She even uses some of the letter cards in her enclosure to spell out some sort of message – though it’s not clear exactly what that is. Fowler dismisses it as random gibberish; Lucy isn’t so sure. As for Charlie he remains an emotional cipher, betraying no evidence of any feeling towards Eva. He announces that he’s bored and wants to go home, in fact. Lucy joins the Steins for dinner and Hannah makes quite a fuss over her. She asks them whether she should take up veganism – Hannah is reluctant to wade in but Gilbert has no hesitation in urging her to. Even a little – one day a week, one meal a day – is better than nothing, he says. The world is not all saints or serial killers.

If Gilbert is the face of vegan moderation, the ALA is the opposite. The end justifies the means in pretty much any scenario, and that includes killing the Steins – and Lucy – to isolate Charlie and make him more receptive to being recruited into the organization. Feyerabend thinks he’s ready to deal with Charlie, but he represents an even greater opposition than predicted. Charlie foils the attack, the cops are called, and Lucy’s mother is brought into the loop. And she makes it clear, in no uncertain terms, that the “monkey boy” is to stay the hell away from her daughter.

There’s a lot about The Darwin Incident that requires suspension of disbelief, and that includes the moral argument that it seems to be attempting to stage. But Heterosis (hybrid vigor) is certainly a real thing. Would it work with a human and a chimp, who knows. But in theory it certainly could, and all the evidence points towards Charlie being a living example of it. He’s smart at hell and as for physical traits, no human or chimpanzee could do the things he does. The interesting thing is that he also seems to have inherited a lack of overt emotions – certainly something that’s not a trait of other species in his lineage. Is that a comment about what constitutes a beneficial trait?