The first of the various short stories from CSM mangaka Tatsuki Fujimoto. This short story’s foundation is based on the Japanese pun 庭にはニ羽ニワトリがいた (niwa niwa niwa niwatori ga ita) which means the follow: First ‘niwa’ means ‘yard’, second one is a combination of two particles marking the location/topic, third ‘niwa’ is a counter for birds and specifying two and the last is the first part of the word for ‘chicken’, which is written in katakana to emphasize that they’re not really chickens.
So most of this story is very original, just using that pun. Though it is a very well-written short story. As humans in society eat cows, lambs, fish, and pigs without too much of a thought. Imagine if there was a race that took over the human population and would just eat humans. Very much the thought of imagining you were put in the position of these animals.
This is where we have both Yuuto and Ami. 2 humans disguised as chickens. It makes you wonder, would those animals that we eat pretend to be cats or dogs if they realized we would be appalled if another human ate those animals? The really curious part is Youhei because he gives food to these two but is curious enough to learn what chickens are and realizes they are humans. Though it is safe to assume that he figured out they were not chickens awhile ago. After all, given that he helped other humans to survive. More than likely he figured they’d be safer near school for now. Of course, looking at that, it was a mistake. As the transfer student was willing to eat chickens. Youhei can be considered the closest to what we have as vegans. Granted, how much he could do feels a bit hopeless in this setting.
Though the brilliant part of this short story is how it gets you to think about this setting and what you would do. The interesting part is that is what Yuuto did. As Yuuto is an alien, he ate Ami’s friends. When she mentioned what if humans tried to eat the aliens if they could. So he played around with that thought. Through time he grew so attached to Ami that he swore to protect her. Even if scaring her was also a way to protect her. A good number of vegans become one simply because they adore animals and want to protect them. Of course humans became extinct because here the aliens have no control. Simple an outstanding short story to start this series of 8 episodes.
