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This paper explores the link between Japan’s persistent fertility decline and the affective aftermath of normalized disasters, as mediated through popular culture. Using affect theory, Perrow’s concept of “normal accidents,” Massumi’s notions of the “affective fact” and ontopower, and cultural analysis, we argue that anime, manga, and post-disaster narratives shape emotional dispositions that undermine reproductive optimism. Popular culture acts as an affective infrastructure, habituating youth to survivalist thinking and detachment from long-term intimacy or family planning. Ontopower highlights how governance operates preemptively on potential futures, cultivating a background mood of inevitability that renders reproduction emotionally incoherent. This approach supplements demographic and structural explanations by foregrounding how crisis-saturated media reshape reproductive subjectivities. The findings suggest broader implications for societies facing compound crises, such as climate change, precarity, and geopolitical instability.1