After an unknown apocalypse ravaged Earth many centuries ago, humans and even nature entirely abandoned it, leaving the planet to be a barren wasteland surrounded by the Ruins of the Modern Age. Humans are no longer dominating the planet and they are instead replaced by Talking Animals or humanoid machines who behave on a human level.
But for a certain human girl within the 7th District that is not the case. Despite the city being in a state of decay, the girl stays optimistic, in spite of her being often treated as lowly by the non-human inhabitants. Her main goal is simple: to spread flowers by working as a florist. Accompanied by her mechanical older brother, her heart-filled story in this Cyberpunk tale starts here.
Flower Girl in Dystopia (頽廃の花売り Taihai no Hanauri) is a Seinen Slice of Life manga created by Miki Usami on 2017 before it was completed in 2019 with only one volume and 125 chapters. After the manga's success three years later, it was followed up by Taisho Kitan Majo (The Feared Witch of Taisho) in July 2022.
Also compare and contrast Taisho Kitan Majo, which also deals with themes of Fantastic Racism, but with subtle differences. While Flower Girl in Dystopia is a Persecution Flip, After the End story where non-humans are bigoted towards humans in the future, Taisho Kitan Majo is a Period Piece story taking place in Japan's Taisho Era in the past where humans on both cultures hate witches.
Flower Girl Tropes
- After the End: The story takes place over an unknown period of time after an apocalypse destroyed it completely.
- Ambiguous Situation: The fate of the flower girl's brother. It is unknown what happened to him after Chapter 119, despite surviving the battle outside unscathed. Chapter 121 shows that he's presumably dead, half a year later, when the flower girl looks at the flowers, with the horned man saying that he's watching her from the sky (heaven).
- Apocalypse How: Class 4. Humans are no longer existing and nature is, as is, gone forever until Chapter 120 where flowers grow outside of the city. Humans are no longer the dominant species on the planet and are replaced by non-humans. While the true extent of the apocalypse is not clear, it is clear from one of the dialogues by the man in the diving suit in Chapter 25 that humans drove the natural environment to extinction when he claimed that they were the ones who "persecuted" them (non-humans) so that they have to wear a gas mask to simply survive.
- Berserk Button: Making derogatory remarks towards the girl just because she's a human would drive the Guardian, her older brother, to immediate anger. Both the man in a diving suit and the rat man learned a hard lesson over this.
- Big Brother Instinct: The Guardian, the girl's older brother, deeply cares for her who goes so far in protecting her against false accusations from other non-humans about humans within the District.
- Fantastic Racism: All over the place towards the human girl, where some others even tried to cast her out of the city for just being human. It gets Played With when the man in a diving suit rebutted how humans persecuted them that they cannot survive without wearing a mask.
- Gaia's Lament: Every traces of natural environment in this post-apocalyptic world were a thing in the past and non-existent at its worst. Until Chapter 120 where there is a resurgence of flowers growing far beyond the city.
- Humans Are Not the Dominant Species: Taken to a Logical Extreme where not only the human race are gone for good, but the human girl is the only human left on this world. It's clear how humans drove Earth to extinction and got screwed over by the consequences that many non-humans have faced and attempted to put the blame onto the human girl, the last living human, despite the fact that the old humans and not her were more responsible.
- Irony: Discrimination against humans is often perpetrated by most non-humans in this world. Cue her older brother, the non-human, mechanical Guardian, who protects her against other non-humans in the city.
- Last Fertile Region: Throughout the manga there hasn't been a stretch of nature to be seen except for the floral shop that the girl works with the rabbit woman. At the end of Chapter 120, flowers start to grow outside of 7th District five months later.
- Last of Her Kind: Being in a world where humans are no longer the ruling species, the flower girl is the last flesh-and-blood human to be seen in the story.
- Never Trust a Title: The title of the manga has nothing to do with themes of Dystopia at all. In fact, not once there has been a topic about it that was mentioned in any of its chapters.
- Ruins of the Modern Age: Due to manga taking place After the End, ancient ruins are left to expose from the elements. One such place, the 7th District, is situated in the ruins of a Japanese city, heavily implying to be in Japan, if the volume's cover art isn't obvious enough.
- Token Human: The Flower Girl is the only human seen in the story.
