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In terms of pure emotional impact, Shin Sekai Yori is a show with few equals. In a word, it’s ruthless – no measures are taken to soften the impact events have on the viewer. We’re seeing these children in all their most vulnerable and sympathetic, and then being forced to watch their world crumble around them. And what a world it is, too – I think the most interesting question emerging as the series reaches the half-way point is whether this society is worth saving at all, considering the price it’s paying to try and limp on into the future.
The lessons we’re taught in life are that we should search for solutions, sensible paths that benefit everyone concerned. As a result, we tend to look for them in our fiction – in our anime no less than anywhere else – but I think our conditioning leads us astray with Shin Sekai Yori. There are no solutions to the questions this series asks us – only compromises of an ever-increasingly vile and unpleasant nature. Unless I miss my guess this series isn’t a conventional drama about obstacles and overcoming them; it’s a diary telling the story of a dying society, from the perspective of someone who already knows how the story ends. What message it seeks to impart about the world we leave in is a matter of debate, but the emotional impact of the story is hard to deny. As painful as it is to watch, this is a great series.
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