[Traece]

Since this is a hot topic right now, I want to take the time to give a more in-depth idea of my opinions and observations for Shin Sekai Yori.

Shin Sekai Yori is one of those ideas that starts out very promising. You have your indoctrinated society seemingly alone in the world coming to realize all of the lies they were raised on. What we're given is something really compelling and interesting, this idea that their society will destroy them for realizing the truth. Instead their fear of this governs them whenever it's convenient and causes turmoil. The first time around it makes sense, but then it's recycled to force an off-screen plot point later on.

What made Shin Sekai Yori interesting for me when it all started off was that idea that they were realizing the truth about their society and themselves. The psychology, and the tricks used to keep their people indoctrinated. The writer(s) created this implication that they were in a dystopia-like world and that these characters had awakened to this reality. Then this setup is discarded in favor of something different.

Spoiler for A very, very lengthy look at the major plot points of Shin Sekai Yori:

Apparently this knowledge isn't quite as secret as we viewers are made to believe (aren't we glad we have a plot device for a main character, who is really important because she has a bright future ahead of her?), and so the queerats, the grotesque slaves of this small pocket of humanity, are going to be rebellious instead. Apparently their rights have been trampled upon, and they want to enslave their queens to breed an endless supply of queerats while embracing a claim that they're democratized and desiring equal rights (all things are created equal, except the queens of course, an issue which I recall being brought up briefly a total of one times, quickly dismissed).

So for the story we went from psychological themes of indoctrination, dystopian societies, and embracing a lore related to their situation that paints a clear picture as to how it all happened. This initial idea is very promising and sensible, and creates a scenario with lots of potential. Instead they switched to this heavily-used idea of the "inferior species" rebelling against their heartless masters.

So where do the characters fit into all of this? We have our main group of adolescents, struggling to accept their new reality. Fortunately their society need not worry because they can easily erase their memories, and then bring them back to further the plot years down the road! One of the aspects of Shin Sekai Yori is timeskipping. Twice timeskips are utilized to show the growth (physically. I stress this: The growth is ONLY physical. More on this later) of the characters and how they fit into their society as they age. Before the first skip and memory wiping one of their dear friends is lost after he begins to fit into one of two categories of dangerous people. The reason for this very strictly indoctrinated society, is that these very powerful people fear psychopaths (pretty self-explanatory, yeah?), and people who subconsciously leak their special powers into the world around them and cause unintentional harm and death to those around them. Of course, their friend fits into this latter category and like the historical character exampled before him (a very interesting scene that takes advantage of this idea that everything is the way it is FOR A REASON) takes his own life in the end to prevent undue harm to the world. Again, this is one of those really great moments in Shin Sekai Yori that establishes the lore of the world through current and past events. We then skip to further along in the development of our characters, the dreaded late teens.

As teenagers, they realize that the male in their group is someone they don't actually know and that they used to have a friend who is now lost to them! Fear of their society ensues, and the male-female couple in the group decides to run off after the weak-minded male begins to fear for his life (for good reason, because they were going to kill him. If only they had succeeded...). This is all for the purpose of, yet again, encountering the queerats and their newly-democratized society. Eventually the couple is left to their own devices outside the confines of their human society after the villain convinces the main character (Saki) to let him fake their deaths (I use "convinces" very loosely here, but they don't). Again, what could possibly go wrong with Squealer, the obvious villain of the anime, being entrusted with the lives of these powerful and idiotic teenagers?

To make a long story short, a vast amount of off-screen decisions are made by Squealer elevating him to power. He starts a war, does a decent job, and then loses in the end (surprise surprise! The villain loses). Every interaction he's ever had with humans (primarily the main cast) has been an intricate series of manipulations empowering him to fight fire with fire utilizing the child of the dead teenage couple. I will admit that this was another part where SSY shined in writing, because this was a unique approach to the power gap that allowed the queerats to be subjugated in the first place. In fact, his plan goes so well that he kidnaps human infants as the war goes in his favor, but that's a matter for later.

With the major plot elements having been mentioned, we can talk main character. Saki, our female lead, is a promising young lady. She's presented as a strong-willed and cunning character, an idea that is reinforced by her friends and even the leadership of her society. Saki had unknowingly been picked to be the successor to the head of the Ethics board (the person who makes a lot of the major decisions related to this society, but isn't directly in charge of the youth because the board of education handles that). She is chosen for this role because she's smart, strong, but willing to accept that society is the way it is for a reason. In a normal anime Saki would be toted as a character with this trait, but rebel against the expectations of society in an effort to be her own person. Normally this character finds the slaying of youth capable of mass murdering other humans detestable for any reason (she initially does, but when given the reason why she begrudgingly accepts it). Evidently the society that Saki lives in knows a thing or two about personalities, because Saki is basically all the things they said she would be. In discussing SSY I've said on more than one occasion that Saki is a character who only ever makes one decision on her own that is in violation of her society, with all the rest being decisions that were made for her that she allowed because of her passive temperament. This is what really reinforces the fact that Saki's character is really more of a plot device than it is a human. Her character is consistent throughout the length of the anime, and doesn't deviate from the clearly defined expectations of her until the end. I've seen claims that Saki is a good, strong character, but people seem to ignore the fact that she's walked all over by both the humans and the queerats until her final act of the anime. She always maintains the same openness, and the same level of compassion. To make matters worse, post-story she re-embraces the idea that society should be more accepting of their youth again for no clear reason after having witnessed first-hand the horrors of their failure to harshly vet the personalities of their youth. Evidently what this society should fear is the loss of human life, and not the potential mass murderers who can destroy their entire civilization with their mind without remorse. So I suppose I was wrong about Saki. Her character does develop- in the opposite direction. She goes back to desiring a society where they're doomed to destruction, conveniently ignoring their- hell even her own past.

This is what makes Squealer's decision to kidnap infants even more questionable. He initially uses this tactic as his trump card. He preys upon the modifications that humans imposed on themselves which causes them to die if they kill other humans with their powers, and also prevents them from knowingly doing so. So what happens when Squealer raises these superpowered infants and they immediately realize that they're being raised by a completely different species that is powerless? There's only one outcome, and it involves the complete resubjugation of the queerats, and the appearance of another psychopath human that experiences no repercussions as it destroys all the life it encounters. Squealer is evidently a really cunning villain, because he managed to bring a civilization of superpowered humans who can kill things en masse with their thoughts while simultaneously failing to realize the only conclusion that can come from raising their children.

For all of my criticism, Shin Sekai Yori did do a lot of things right. Part of the quality of an anime is in its presentation, and SSY did this well. I can drone on about the numerous holes and failings in the written material, but an anime is the sum of its parts. It's still a great show to watch.

While I do think that Saki is a very flat character in development terms, I do like that she was at least flat in a way that made her accepting of the needs of this society. The fact that she was willing to acknowledge for any period of time that there was a greater good that meant the loss of human life places her high above many characters. If her character had served a greater purpose than the almighty plot, she would have been fantastic! It didn't happen though.

Squealer, too, is a very plot-device-esque character who does most of his work off screen. In the early stages of his character there was a lot of promise with him becoming more and more non-verbally skeptical of the humans, followed by him clearly manipulating them. After those initial periods, though, his character becomes an off-screen device to provide a face to the queerat rebellion, which is doomed to fail even if it succeeds.

In the end, the only people in Shin Sekai Yori who are right are the people who are running the human civilization. This makes it all the more annoying when Saki flipflops against them at the end, despite nearly being killed by the things they fought to prevent from happening. The one concession I give is that they could have been nicer to the queerats, and that is the only concession I can give.

As far as the musical and artistic presentation goes, there was a lot of great stuff here. Some really nice establishing shots are used as well as artistic ones. The background music does a decent job of setting the scenes as well. The animation isn't perfect, but it's at the level where you would expect it to be at.

The one thing that really held SSY back in my eyes is the writing. No matter how I look at it, the writing ended up contradicting its own setup in the end, and that's a pretty glaring issue. It seemed to me that the events presented in SSY made a great case for their society to stay its course for the most part, but the ending declared otherwise.

Overall, I think it's a great show. It wasn't perfect though. On a scale, for MAL purposes, I gave it an 8/10.