I surmise that some people might have read the title and rightfully thought “what the fuck is that supposed to mean”. Let’s dive into that. In case you’re under a rock, SPY X FAMILY is the current anime that everyone’s talking about this season. It features a lovely cast of main characters who come together to form a fake family under the guise of using said family to achieve their individual goals. However, as time passes they grow closer and closer and the lines get blurred. Now as with many things in anime you have to be careful or you’ll start thinking “god damn I’m a lonely virgin, WHEN am I gonna get off my ass and find me a family?”. Cause I have to admit this show makes it seem rewarding as fuck. And that’s it. That’s the Japanese government’s propaganda at work.

Okay okay I’m half-joking. Two-thirds joking. I’m merely pointing out the somewhat suspicious correlation that this anime is airing at a time when Japan’s age crisis is becoming worse than ever. I was worried I was a bit late on this topic, but thankfully a few mere days ago Elon Musk reignited the issue with a Tweet declaring that “At risk of stating the obvious, unless something changes to cause the birth rate to exceed the death rate, Japan will eventually cease to exist. This would be a great loss for the world”. To contextualize, are the Japanese at risk of suddenly disappearing overnight because they all got too old and the country immediately dies and we lose our anime forever? Uh, well no. But they are facing a huge problem in that they have the oldest population in the world and there aren’t enough young people being born to keep up and fill jobs in the economy. 

2021 was the worst year for Japan in a while, reporting a staggering drop of 644,000 people (the largest in its recorded history). You see in the past years the country implemented a relaxed visa system that allowed for a large amount of foreign workers to come in and help ease the labor shortage. However, that was abruptly put on pause when the pandemic outbreak occurred, and left the country with this huge dropoff. I should clarify it was already facing a declining population for the last several years, but these and other measures helped to slow that decline’s impact in the workforce, and then COVID said ay fuck off how about the worst decline in history in this fine year of 2021? That’ll teach ya.

Oh. Maybe this IS old news. Really old.

Now once upon a time I heard jokes about romance anime being basically “please fall in love and fuck more” propaganda. People jested that the government would give subsidies to studios that produced such content. As far as I know, that shit is 100% comedy. I tried giving a few searches to see if I could find any evidence of that actually happening, but obviously I didn’t know what exactly to type in Google because it couldn’t quite figure out what I was trying to say. While I personally don’t know if anime truly has much impact on fertility rates in a country, I suspect that the government must see SPY X FAMILY and think “if it will encourage these fucks to get busy, god bless it”. Unfortunately, anime isn’t going to solve some of the commonly cited issues as to why men are remaining virgins, such as job stress and commitment. But alas, exploring the questionable Japanese work culture and its associated suicides will have to be saved for another day.

Maybe if you'd stop making these hot ass characters I'd go outside for once. But please don't.

Either way, I know two things are true. I’m gonna keep watching anime, and probably not find anyone anytime soon baby, so I guess I’m the Japanese government’s worst nightmare. Are you watching SPY X FAMILY this season? Do you think the government supports romance/family anime like this behind closed doors? Or know a story of it happening…uh, in front of open doors that I simply missed? Do you see the issue becoming severe over time? Put on your mask, enter the ballroom, save the princess, and escape without revealing your identity in the comments below!