Rush in the Wastelands: The Importance of Gold in "I Am Carrying Gold from The Post-Apocalyptic World" Manga

For the uninitiated, “I Am Carrying Gold from The Post-Apocalyptic World” is a fantasy story about a man who has the unlikely ability to travel through time. Nothing is particularly strange here, as the same idea has been used extensively in many sci-fi films and novels. What makes the manga a little bit different is the character’s motivation for doing so. In the present is today’s modern world, whereas the future is a post-apocalyptic one full of zombies, human cannibals, and an abundance of gold.

He begins as an underdog in current society; just an ordinary man with nothing much going on in his life. Once he acquires the ability to travel to the future and visit the post-apocalyptic realm, he sees that gold does no good to anybody there. He has this idea of taking the resources from a place where they hold no value to a world filled with people who worship wealth.

Much of the story happens in the post-apocalyptic ruins, but he goes back and forth to accumulate gold and fortune. Every trip to the future is full of challenges because he has to deal with hordes of zombies and the worst of human survivors. The entire narrative can be easily summarized with the following points:

– The main character moves up in the world pretty quickly, for he finds a seemingly endless supply of gold that’s inaccessible to anybody else.

– He is no longer a poor man.

– An ex-girlfriend suddenly rushes back to him because he is rich.

– Every trip to the future and back is a precious lesson of survival. He learns martial arts so that he can defend himself better.

– Some trips last longer than others. To ensure survival, it is necessary to carry weapons and supplies.

It is not the best story in the world, but far from being the worst either.

Gold Matters

But enough about the synopsis; we’re here to talk about the importance of the gold itself and try to make sense of the premise.

Many survival scenarios place great value on precious metals like gold and silver. However, you must remember that the actual worth of those things depends entirely on the situation. Gold is valued as currency in the character’s present-day world, but it has no practical use whatsoever in the post-apocalyptic one.

As a tangible object, currency itself also has very little use. For example, a $100 bill – on its own – is basically just a piece of paper. You can use it to make notes or a paper plane. It is only worth something because there’s an authority who places value on the bill. The market determines how useful or powerful the bill is. Let’s say a shopkeeper says you can trade a single $100 bill for a box of ammunition; at the same time, in another store, you are allowed to exchange the ammunition for a massive pile of paper. In the character’s real world, he can probably get $100 for a gram of gold.

Things are different in the post-apocalyptic realm. Everybody is starving to death, and no one has enough authority to tell everyone else that they can use gold or money as currency. The only things that hold value are directly useful items like food. A group of survivors can trick another by trading a piece of gold bar for a pair of combat boots and a gas mask. Now that the other party is in possession of gold, can they trade it for other usable goods? To make it happen, there needs to be an established market. The entire premise of the manga relies on the idea that the post-apocalyptic world is all about survival and basic sustenance. The economy is nothing.

Too Much Gold

One of the main reasons that gold holds such value in today’s society is its relative rarity. If everybody has a stockpile of gold in their drawers, the value of the precious metal diminishes to a considerable extent. Logic dictates that our hero can take future gold, but he needs to be very careful about the quantity. Of course, it is unlikely that he will be able to carry every gram of gold from the future back to the present day. The value may diminish a little bit, but in general, he will still be a very wealthy person indeed.

We think that as far as fantasy is concerned, “I Am Carrying Gold From The Post-Apocalyptic World” is not too far-fetched with the premise. As long as the post-apocalyptic world in the story is completely different from the present-time situation, worthless gold is a plausible outcome. Bread, ammunition, weapons, and goggles are probably much more valuable.

Other Things You Might Want to Know

What makes gold a good currency?

Gold is durable, fungible, portable, recognizable, homogenous, and finite.

When exactly is currency useful?

At the most basic level, currency is useful only when you have a surplus of something. In a society where the total amount of food being produced is not enough to feed everyone, trading does not help. Also, it is only useful when people generally agree on its specific value.