The narrator compares life in Japan to a doll display, where the emperor, court ladies, and musicians are all on display at the top of the pyramid. The dolls at the lower levels are just like the emperor and empress, but they're made with high-tech equipment. The narrator says it's safer to keep the doll displays shut than to take the time to know about the higher levels in the world. For example, he says, the inventor of the doll display has created a doll with a "homely girlfriend" . This is a guy with a wife who is "rather homely" , and the narrator says that this is a sign that the doll maker is a homelier guy than his own wife. He says the dolls are like this because the top tier of society has the dolls that go out and "buy shnen jumps on their own" while the bottom tier has "cut humans look down on other humans who're just one millimeter below themselves . He's in despair over the fact that society always looks down on someone who's even lower than himself .