Shin Sekai Yori - General Discussion

[Triple_R]

The thing with PKing is that there's not necessarily any strict power limit for it.

Saying that someone is a PKer is like saying that someone is a magus - It basically explains the source of his/her power, but it doesn't speak to the extent of it.

The most elite PKers in this world might wield a degree of power on par with Magneto (since we already have one X-Men reference on this thread ). Once superpowers reach that level, there really isn't anything Earth governments can do about it, short of dropping nukes, perhaps...

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

there really isn't anything Earth governments can do about it, short of dropping nukes, perhaps...

In Age of Apocalypse, I believe they tried that. It failed.

[Random32]

Originally Posted by Arya

I'm wondering about that too, following these hints the death feedback is triggered by the will of hurting humans and not actually by hurting them. That means that if you believe you are hurting a human the disease will be triggered.
Now, since the priest should know quite everything, he should know if the queerats are humans or not, so why did he feel sick as he felt after killing the library device? This kinda goes against the queerats being humans, or better, the priest death feedback effect isn't an evidence anymore.
Or it simply shows how the priest felt guilty even if he was fulfilling his duty (and even knowing that neither the library or the queerats were humans). It is slightly different from just believing it, but the former case wouldn't fit very well with the priest reaction, the latter instead would fit and, as a "side effect", it would involve your personal ethic. I mean, hurting humans is something wrong that should trigger the disease, hurting non human beings shouldn't. But depending on how you feel hurting non human beings could trigger the disease anyways. Not a big difference, but narrative wise it would be a nice way given to us to judge the character's natures.

He felt sick after killing the library since it displayed human form I think. I don't think it operates on what you know, it operates on what you think.
-So for the bakenezumi, the priest knows that they are human. He tries his best to tell himself that they aren't (he wiped out an entire army and suffered relatively little ill effects), but isn't completely successful (still suffers a fair bit).
-So for the library, the priest knows that it isn't human, but the fact that it looked like a human was enough for him to subconsciously think it was for a second, thus hurting him A LOT compared to what his mass murder did.

With Shinsekai Yori, we're seeing a combination of attempts that all seem to have gone pretty badly.

So far I would say it has gone fairly well. It has survived numerous generations without breaking down. If everything goes according to plan, Saki and friends gets completely eliminated from existence like Reiko and life moves on as normal for everyone else.

Of course things won't go on as normal since, it would make for a shitty story that way, and the preview obviously shows that an event will seriously screw up society's plans.

[mechalord]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

Their upbringing is carefully controlled, yes. But I don't think they could avoid genetic mutation if they reproduced naturally. In order to preserve their genetic modifications and prevent their power to evolve unpredictably (like it did in the past) they would have to resort to cloning or some carefully monitored in vitro fertilization.



Again, they didn't said it failed. They said it wasn't enough, which is not the same. Besides Saki's reaction when the library mentioned this "sexual play" stuff was pretty telling.

The group acted like a bunch of prudes that had just heard some graphic account of sex.

As for Saki... I got the feeling that she couldn't fathom that people could be like that with each other but then sort of understood the temptation and understood she had such sexual feelings suppressed. The whole point to the embrace was that they hugged all the time but couldn't see how people could go further. The group seemed like they didn't want to hear the dirty story.

The whole fire ritual... she sort of looked like she was getting off on it, she's going through puberty until she had it repressed through hypnosis.


From my perspective, it seems like society pays close attention to kids once they reach puberty and the make sure to make them comply to a strict system. Saki had her "psychic period" and her parents acted to reassure her, calm her down... she then went to the priest for that ritual.


One interesting thing about this is that there seem to be no documented telepaths. Past espers tended to gravitate to sex, violence, crime, rape, cruelty, etc.

Could reading minds and feeling what other people feel give Saki an edge? She does seem like she wants to understand the rodent humanoids.

[Kazu-kun]

^ We're going in circles. Let's just agree to disagree.

[mechalord]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

^ We're going in circles. Let's just agree to disagree.

We can agree to disagree.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by mechalord

The group acted like a bunch of prudes that had just heard some graphic account of sex.

Dude, their kids.

As in, actual kids. Not teenagers that are on the borderline between childhood and adulthood.

The first time a kid learns about sex tends to be a pretty eye-opening experience. Yes, modern kids may brush it off easily when they learn about it in school, but that's usually because they already learned about it elsewhere (on the internet, or in a movie they watched). And there's no "elsewhere" for Saki and friends. This may well be their first time learning about sex (or if not, it's the first time they know of due to suppressed memories...).

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

This may well be their first time learning about sex (or if not, it's the first time they know of due to suppressed memories...).

Makes me wonder how they even knew some of the words, like rape. Where would they have even learned what the word means to have such a reaction that we saw Saki have?

[Archon_Wing]

Dang, that exposition bot took up wayyyy too much time. It was not the most subtle of devices.

Anyhow, aside from that, this was a great episode. That monk provided some level of entertainment though as with the rest of the series his intrests remind a secret. We do know the children are in deep shit though, as they who know too much often will have bad things taken with them. They can't go back, even with the best assurance.

So one thing I really like about this show is the atmosphere of paranoia. It slowly built during the episode and cut off just at the right time. This gives a degree of anxiety that I would say is done better than many a horror film attempts to do. It doesn't help that they realize that their inner thoughts of violence are being suppressed and having the truth revealed makes them afraid of themselves, as well as those around them. This will not end well.

We are in a society that has protected itself by witholding information and surpressed the feelings of the masses. Every attempt has been made to water down sex and violence to avoid the small chance of someone getting too loose. Unfortunately, humans just don't work that way and once a crack is found, we have people that aren't equipped to deal with the things they encounter.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by GDB

Makes me wonder how they even knew some of the words, like rape. Where would they have even learned what the word means to have such a reaction that we saw Saki have?

Good question.

I have a couple ideas.

1) Maybe the novel has the library machine actually describe in lurid detail what "rape" entails, and the anime skipped over that (for obvious reasons ).

2) Maybe it's using a Japanese term that's a bit broader than "rape", but can mean the same thing, and the kids know that term. Maybe it's using the Japanese equivalent of "violated", for example. Maybe the kids kind of went "He violated people? What does that even mean?!"

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by GDB

Makes me wonder how they even knew some of the words, like rape. Where would they have even learned what the word means to have such a reaction that we saw Saki have?

They probably didn't know about rape. Saki at least didn't seem to react to it. She reacted when the library mentioned murder, and started to freak out completely when it mentioned "sexual play" between people of the same gender.

[Dark Wing]

Originally Posted by GDB

Makes me wonder how they even knew some of the words, like rape. Where would they have even learned what the word means to have such a reaction that we saw Saki have?

Well lets not forget that the bio computer was also beaming images into their minds remember.

[Blonto]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

It doesn't help that they realize that their inner thoughts of violence are being suppressed

Isn't that good? I can think of very few instances where killing another person would be a good thing, especially if everyone were like this, so knowing that people used to kill eachother like they did animals should've sounded very savage to them. In a way, it's moral conditioning turned physical. You don't have to rely on others' empathy and good will to not be attacked, here an attack on another directly puts the attacker's life in danger.

[kuromitsu]

Just watched the episode... holy exposition, Batman! At least it was presented in a somewhat interesting way, but it was still a bit forced. Ah well.

Anyway, the logistics of changing the DNS of any widespread species to such great effect is baffling. (I know I probably shouldn't think too deeply about it...) Perhaps they only did it in the specific territory where Saki & Co. live?

Also, poor little library thing, I hope it wasn't destroyed. :/ (And is Sugita Tomokazu busy this season or what? ) Btw, I think after this it's more or less clear what happened to the people without PK (and perhaps what happens to the children who are "removed" from society...).

And there was some pretty nice animation work with that hurricane thing.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

2) Maybe it's using a Japanese term that's a bit broader than "rape", but can mean the same thing, and the kids know that term. Maybe it's using the Japanese equivalent of "violated", for example. Maybe the kids kind of went "He violated people? What does that even mean?!"

Actually, that's more or less the case. The word the library used can mean both "phyical assault" in general and "rape" - the context makes it obvious that it's talking about rape, but perhaps the sexual nature of the assault didn't register with the kids and they were just shocked at the idea of violence against a human being. Or maybe we're just thinking too deeply about it. ^^;;

[Blonto]

Why does everyone assume the kids don't know what sex is?

[Blaat]

Has anyone else noticed that the monk ninja can be seen at the ritual in the first episode, of course it could have been another monk ninja but it would explain why he knew so much about the kids.

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

Their upbringing is carefully controlled, yes. But I don't think they could avoid genetic mutation if they reproduced naturally. In order to preserve their genetic modifications and prevent their power to evolve unpredictably (like it did in the past) they would have to resort to cloning or some carefully monitored in vitro fertilization.

Erm no, humanity has managed to 'breed' animals and plants for specific traits since before dawn of civilization itself way before stuff like vitro fertilization even existed, cloning existed but only in certain plants. Doing it with humans would be no different, besides the morality of it all of course.

Originally Posted by mechalord

It seems the bonobo thing was an attempt to suppress the desire for violence with the distraction of casual sex and it failed.

Except it's never stated nor even hinted at that it failed quite the opposite why else show flashes of Saki being close with her mother and Maria in between Bonobo apes images? To show us that it failed? Because if that's the case than the creators failed to bring that message across to me and for many other viewers I suspect except for you and Malkuth, and Malkuth just want to see some hot hentai images to fap about just like in the manga ( )
What you're missing here is nature vs nurture, scientists realised that nurture (education, bonobo culture) by itself wasn't enough so they added genetic breaks (wolf and liver failure thing) to complete the restraint on PK humans.

[mechalord]

Originally Posted by Blaat

Has anyone else noticed that the monk ninja can be seen at the ritual in the first episode, of course it could have been another monk ninja but it would explain why he knew so much about the kids.
Erm no, humanity has managed to 'breed' animals and plants for specific traits since before dawn of civilization itself way before stuff like vitro fertilization even existed, cloning existed but only in certain plants. Doing it with humans would be no different, besides the morality of it all of course.
Except it's never stated nor even hinted at that it failed quite the opposite why else show flashes of Saki being close with her mother and Maria in between Bonobo apes images? To show us that it failed? Because if that's the case than the creators failed to bring that message across to me and for many other viewers I suspect except for you and Malkuth, and Malkuth just want to see some hot hentai images to fap about just like in the manga ( )
What you're missing here is nature vs nurture, scientists realised that nurture (education, bonobo culture) by itself wasn't enough so they added genetic breaks (wolf and liver failure thing) to complete the restraint on PK humans.

The flashes show the difference between bonobo and their wolf like bonding. Bonobos engage in casual sex with everyone, the psychics just hug and bond like wolves.

She's wondering to herself what the difference would be if people were like bonobos... if they did more than just hug.

She hugged her mom and her friend, she didn't have sex with them.

The kids don't like the dirty story of free love. They seem to be conditioned against such things.

Look at that priest. He tells them that library is corrupting their minds by filling them with ideas that their kind are a bunch of sex crazed psychopaths who have ruled over humanity with an iron fist.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by mechalord

The flashes show the difference between bonobo and their wolf like bonding. Bonobos engage in casual sex with everyone, the psychics just hug and bond like wolves.

She wouldn't freak out like she did if that was the case. I agree with Blaat, Saki saw the parallel between what the library said about "sexual play" between people of the same gender and her own "experiences" with Maria and her mother. The images weren't explicit because the show is being subtle, but the implication is crystal clear.

[mechalord]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

She wouldn't freak out like she did if that was the case. I agree with Blaat, Saki saw the parallel between what the library said about "sexual play" between people of the same gender and her own "experiences" with Maria and her mother. The images weren't explicit because the show is being subtle, but the implication is crystal clear.

Of course she would freak out to bonobo sex... she thinks it's dirty.

She was like "what's been mentally unseen can not be unseen. My eyes! My eyes!" It's like she got walked into a blue waffle shock picture.


Come on... they didn't imply she did her mom. They were differentiating between platonic and parental love/bonding versus sexual bonobo bonding. If bonobo love was commonplace, why would they freak out when it was mentioned/described?

[Shadow5YA]

Originally Posted by mechalord

Of course she would freak out to bonobo sex... she thinks it's dirty.

She was like "what's been mentally unseen can not be unseen. My eyes! My eyes!" It's like she got walked into a blue waffle shock picture.


Come on... they didn't imply she did her mom. They were differentiating between platonic and parental love/bonding versus sexual bonobo bonding. If bonobo love was commonplace, why would they freak out when it was mentioned/described?

Have you considered the possibility that they're disturbed because the body contact and public displays of affection that they thought was normal behavior was actually conditioned as a means to control them?