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View Poll Results: Shin Sekai Yori - Episode 23 Rating
Perfect 10 12 27.91%
9 out of 10 : Excellent 15 34.88%
8 out of 10 : Very Good 12 27.91%
7 out of 10 : Good 4 9.30%
6 out of 10 : Average 0 0%
5 out of 10 : Below Average 0 0%
4 out of 10 : Poor 0 0%
3 out of 10 : Bad 0 0%
2 out of 10 : Very Bad 0 0%
1 out of 10 : Painful 0 0%
Voters: 43. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 2013-03-09, 14:22   Link #21
ChronoReverse
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Originally Posted by ChainLegacy View Post
One wonders how the cantus users came to dominate the world when they're so vulnerable to all of these monsters who, while scary, are probably less deadly than any modern weaponry by a long shot.
I think the difference is attack versus defense.

Since they were going through the tunnels carefully and quietly, that puts a lot of limits on them

Whereas if it's a cantus user just blasting away, none of these creatures could stand against them.
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Old 2013-03-09, 14:32   Link #22
Triple_R
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Originally Posted by Kanon View Post
Saki has been so useless lately. She's almost acting like a damsel in distress now.
She's obviously traumatized. She's been going through an absolute horror story for several episodes and several days now. And it just keeps getting worse and worse for her.

So how can you blame her for losing her composure a bit? Frankly, I would find it unrealistic if she didn't crack at least a bit under the immense emotional strain and physical weariness she's been continually enduring since Yakomaru made his move.

Inui is basically a black ops soldier. I expect the man to be made of stern stuff, and he didn't disappoint. But Saki's not a soldier, and she never has been.


In any event, very intense and engaging episode again this week. Once again, my only critique is that the pacing seems a bit slow.

Since Yakomaru made his move, I feel like I'm watching a long animated movie randomly cut up into so many anime episodes. The movie itself has good pacing for a movie, but it doesn't work so well when you have to wait a week between each 20-something minute chunk.


In any event, that preview says an awful lot. Satoru's line in particular in it indicates we're in for an exciting conclusion!
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Old 2013-03-09, 14:52   Link #23
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What I find bothersome about the portrayal of Saki is that sometimes she seems reasonably powerful, like when she blows open that wall outside the laboratory, but in other cases it seems like she has no powers at all. She spent most of her time in the tunnels cringing rather than using her abilities. (One example from the last episode was her inability simply to float above that icky floor rather than walk through it. While she doesn't possess Maria's ability to fly, I believe she has shown the ability to float a small distance above the ground. And even if she couldn't do so, couldn't Satoru or Inui have managed that?) I hate to use the word "moe" here, but sometimes I feel like the writers characterize her as needing to be protected more than being a powerful actor on her own.

Not reading the letter made no sense to me, though I'm guessing it simply explains what the device is and how to use it.

Sometimes it seems like PK can do so many things that it is hardly different from magic. Did Inui recharge the device by ionizing the atmosphere around it and directing the freed electrons into it? Did he use his own body as a source of electrons? I've had the same issues with the ability to create fire at will. To me, psychokinesis can explain lifting up that stone slab or the submarine, but sometimes it seems like there is nothing it cannot do. Then again, my usual take on science-fiction anime is that is much closer to fantasy than Western stories which often rely more on "hard" science. (I had the same feelings about Noein, which is based on one interpretation of quantum theory, but the many-worlds hypothesis simply provided a rationale for a more fantastical story of universes in conflict.) Perhaps the novel has a more scientific bent than this adaptation?

Still I found this episode tense and compelling. I didn't have any issues with the pacing myself.

I'm of two minds about Kiromaru's motives. Yes, Inui clearly enunciates the reasons why he may not be trustworthy, but that conversation may turn out to be a red herring in the end.
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Old 2013-03-09, 14:57   Link #24
kuromitsu
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Originally Posted by CJ_Walker View Post
Can anyone explain the psychobuster thing in a spoiler tag? or pm? from what kuromitsu said, implied that PK was a man made thing or something.
Nobody implied anything like that, though? o_o)

FWIW it's not really the shape that is important (actually it's kind of there in the anime version, too, if you look very hard) but the letter, and that may or may not be revisited later. Again, it's not hugely important or anything, it's just adding to the story's context.

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Originally Posted by Kanon View Post
Saki has been so useless lately. She's almost acting like a damsel in distress now. Before, I could understand what Tomiko saw in her but lately I've been under the impression she made a grave mistake by picking her as her replacement. Unless I'm remembering wrong, she used to be portrayed as smarter, pragmatic and more pro-active. What happened?
She's being under severe pressure, the kind we can't even imagine? Also she's a 26 year old who has never had to deal with anything like this before. As just about everyone pointed out (well, Tomiko, Maria and her mom), yes, Saki has strength, but it doesn't manifest in her being an unflappable badass. It's her ability to go through hell and not only make it out alive, but make it out unbroken. This is what Tomiko saw in her.Even in this episode, she's scared, she cries, she's terrified, she's half-delusional, but she does what she needs to do.
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Old 2013-03-09, 15:19   Link #25
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Originally Posted by kuromitsu View Post
She's being under severe pressure, the kind we can't even imagine? Also she's a 26 year old who has never had to deal with anything like this before. As just about everyone pointed out (well, Tomiko, Maria and her mom), yes, Saki has strength, but it doesn't manifest in her being an unflappable badass. It's her ability to go through hell and not only make it out alive, but make it out unbroken. This is what Tomiko saw in her.Even in this episode, she's scared, she cries, she's terrified, she's half-delusional, but she does what she needs to do.
Eh, Tomiko told Saki in episode 12 that her Personality Index, which rates the mental stability of an individual, or their "ability to remain themselves when all takes an entirely unexpected turn," was very high, perhaps the highest in Academy history.

But of the three humans on this little journey, Saki has exhibited the least amount of mental stability. Satoru and Inui have proven to be far more stable and have exhibited better problem solving skills than Saki. She cries, bugs scare her, she cannot defend herself, the horror or things overwhelm her, and she is at constant war with her mental blocks. She doesn't have strength, she has plot armor luck.
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Old 2013-03-09, 15:27   Link #26
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Saki vents a lot.

That doesn't mean she lacks mental stability. In fact, it's often the person who refuses to ever vent that is setting himself or herself up for snapping big time when they can't keep it altogether any longer.

Saki doesn't try to hold it in and keep a "stiff upper lip" no matter what. And frankly, that's probably a big part of the reason why she has such good mental stability.

Crying over things genuinely worth crying about, and freaking out at absolutely grotesque monsters, does not mean a person lacks mental stability. Frankly, such responses are normal and healthy.

Saki is genuinely strong, and her deferring to a hardened soldier like Inui doesn't change that.
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Old 2013-03-09, 15:59   Link #27
Trajan
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Saki vents a lot.

That doesn't mean she lacks mental stability. In fact, it's often the person who refuses to ever vent that is setting himself or herself up for snapping big time when they can't keep it altogether any longer.

Saki doesn't try to hold it in and keep a "stiff upper lip" no matter what. And frankly, that's probably a big part of the reason why she has such good mental stability.

Crying over things genuinely worth crying about, and freaking out at absolutely grotesque monsters, does not mean a person lacks mental stability. Frankly, such responses are normal and healthy.

Saki is genuinely strong, and her deferring to a hardened soldier like Inui doesn't change that.
No, "mental stability" in the Shin Sekai universe is how Tomiko defined it, as "ability to remain themselves when all takes an entirely unexpected turn." Put another way, it's the ability to "keep your head when all about you are losing theirs." It is not the ability to express your emotions externally in order to make yourself feel better. That's called therapy.

Even accepting the fact that Saki is mentally stable, this mental stability is supposed to make Saki a "good leader." But I'm hard pressed to remember any instance where Saki has acted like a leader. She followed Shun and Satoru when they were younger, and now she follows Kiroumaru, Satoru, and Shun. She does what they tell her to do. She is passive and she is a follower. Hell, if you believe that a piece of Shun's soul actually exists inside her, then it isn't even Saki who realizes the akki is not an akki. She's just an empty vessel.
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Old 2013-03-09, 16:04   Link #28
mnedel
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To me the pendant looks like a stylized figurine of a queen. Maybe the psychobuster has something to do with the origin of bakenezumi.
Now i know why the author had to kill Shisei. With him around this trip would be easy as pie.

And if it’s not a problem, could someone pm me with details on psychobuster
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Old 2013-03-09, 16:24   Link #29
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Originally Posted by Trajan View Post
No, "mental stability" in the Shin Sekai universe is how Tomiko defined it, as "ability to remain themselves when all takes an entirely unexpected turn."
Yes, and Saki is remaining herself during these tough times.


Quote:
It is not the ability to express your emotions externally in order to make yourself feel better.
Wrong. That is part of it, for Saki. Saki has always been a person who wears her emotions on her sleeve. Why are people complaining about this now?

Saki cried when Shun romantically touched her hand. Saki also cried over the mere memory of that. Saki wept, and even became a bit choked up, when she received the farewell letter from Maria. Saki is an emotionally expressive person.

Satoru has always been the person that's better at looking cool, calm, and collected.


Quote:

Even accepting the fact that Saki is mentally stable, this mental stability is supposed to make Saki a "good leader."
There's different types of leadership. Leading a village during peacetime is very different from leading a military operation during an all-out war.

Tomiko recruited Saki to lead a village during peacetime. She didn't recruit Saki to successfully lead humanity through a war. In her wildest nightmares, Tomiko probably never imagined a scenario playing out like what we've seen since Yakomaru made his move.

Making good but tough administrative decisions is very different from being resourceful while playing Solid Snake in the badlands as part of a 4-man team that is humanity's last hope. Just because someone would make a good Mayor doesn't mean they'd make a good Rambo.
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Old 2013-03-09, 16:27   Link #30
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Stability isn't terribly important in "leadership". It's very important for maintaining order, a regime and passing judgement. So, for Tomiko's role, Saki would show a good mental make up for it. However, that's really "enforcement" and not "leadership". They aren't actually leading anywhere, they're just making sure they stay in one place.
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Old 2013-03-09, 16:33   Link #31
Dr. Casey
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Originally Posted by Seiji
Yes, Inui clearly enunciates the reasons why he may not be trustworthy, but that conversation may turn out to be a red herring in the end.
Aye, Inui's reasoning is sound enough, but the things he points out are still only circumstantial evidence. I'll continue to think of Kiroumaru as innocent until proven guilty.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Trajan
No, "mental stability" in the Shin Sekai universe is how Tomiko defined it, as "ability to remain themselves when all takes an entirely unexpected turn." Put another way, it's the ability to "keep your head when all about you are losing theirs." It is not the ability to express your emotions externally in order to make yourself feel better. That's called therapy.
Tomiko's wording is vague enough that one could easily think up multiple interpretations for it, I think. That quotation leaves quite a bit of wiggle room. And if f I remember right, Tomiko described Saki as being 'resilient,' which is more of a long-term strength rather than a short-term one. That isn't the type of strength that allows you to keep a cool head when traversing a cave full of horrible monsters, but the kind of long-term endurance that allows you to, say, continue living in your childhood village for more than a decade after first learning what a shady and dangerous place it is and even maintain your original feelings of fondness for it.

As for Saki's leadership potential, Triple ninja'd me and conveyed my thoughts more clearly than I could have. Saki has never been much of a warrior (whenever she was lost with Satoru, Satoru was the Queerat Exterminator while Saki mainly sat back and watched), but she would make a perfectly fine peacetime leader. She not only exhibits many traditional leadership traits, but also possesses many softer traits that are a good thing because they make her more humane than the current Board of Education's Cat-happy child killers.
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Old 2013-03-09, 16:53   Link #32
kuromitsu
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No, "mental stability" in the Shin Sekai universe is how Tomiko defined it, as "ability to remain themselves when all takes an entirely unexpected turn." Put another way, it's the ability to "keep your head when all about you are losing theirs."
Rewatch the episodes with the letters from Maria and Saki's mom, they both go out of their way to say that yes, Saki cries about stuff, she's not terribly brave, etc. but she has integrity and doesn't break. Rewatch episode 12, Tomiko stresses how important it is that her personality index barely changed even after learning the truth from the minoshiromodoki.

Also, she's 26. That's a very young age to be in this situation and carry this kind of weight. Do you think Tomiko was like she is now when she was that young? Tomiko herself says in ep 12 that she understands how Saki feels because she used to feel the same way once.

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Originally Posted by Triple_R View Post
Crying over things genuinely worth crying about, and freaking out at absolutely grotesque monsters, does not mean a person lacks mental stability. Frankly, such responses are normal and healthy.
Exactly. And it's not like Saki keeps wailing and complaining and she's unreasonably scared shitless, her reactions are perfectly normal for someone in this situation. Over the last couple of days Saki has witnessed first-hand the massacre of her people, the destruction of her home, she's on a mission to kill her best friend's young son, she's in this terrifying place with bizarre and deadly monsters, she's carrying a weapon of terrible power, she's lost Inui, she has no idea if Satoru is safe or even alive, she's mentally and physically exhausted, all but lost in a hellish place, and still she keeps going.

Sure, Inui is badass, but he's basically given up on his life and refers to himself a ghost, an empty shell that's driven only by the desire for revenge. Saki has lost so much, has suffered so much trauma, and right now she also has to deal with the reopening of an old wound that never fully healed, and she's still holding herself together. What is this if not integrity and stability, the sign of a good leader?

(And then there's also the fact that it's not like she would have to lead alone... Tomiko had a staff, there was also the Education Committee with Hiromi et al, there was the library, the Mayor, etc.)
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Old 2013-03-09, 17:09   Link #33
ChainLegacy
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He seems to have implanted his thoughts into Saki before his physical body died so I don't think that was actually him, he doesn't have a body I'd guess. Likely he's just making her hallucinate. Whether or not his thoughts are just thoughts or his complete consciousness remains to be seen.
Oh, okay. That would make sense, but I got thrown off because suddenly he is appearing as an adult whereas he was in that teenager masked form when explaining how he's part of her soul.
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Old 2013-03-09, 18:15   Link #34
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Sometimes it seems like PK can do so many things that it is hardly different from magic.
Actually, that's how I interpreted episode 4. Some scientist from Azerbaijan proved magic exists in a controlled experiment, and as a side effect the number of magicians exploded (dunno how). But, yes, I'd say that Shin Sakai Yori would interpret any magic (shamans, prophets and co.) as PK occurance.

I'm not sure how that works (or if anyone in-world even knows); the SF cynic in me expects yet another bastardisation of the quantum "observer effect". It's the ultimate SF blackbox, these days.
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Old 2013-03-09, 18:24   Link #35
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That ending and that preview. What. Looks like they're throwing another curveball.

As I thought, directing Cantus leakage and fear at the outside the Holy Barrier creates scary stuff. I pretty much expected it to create nightmare type creatures that are the bane of humans. Thankfully, it doesn't lead to human extinction machines. Yet. Maybe.
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Old 2013-03-09, 18:51   Link #36
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Originally Posted by Triple_R View Post
She's obviously traumatized. She's been going through an absolute horror story for several episodes and several days now. And it just keeps getting worse and worse for her.

So how can you blame her for losing her composure a bit? Frankly, I would find it unrealistic if she didn't crack at least a bit under the immense emotional strain and physical weariness she's been continually enduring since Yakomaru made his move.
You're correct, she reacts like any normal girl would, and that's precisely the problem.I was under the impression Saki was supposed to be special. She is the future leader of the village, and seeing a leader act like she does (complaining about freaking bugs while she's on a mission to save humanity) is quite worrisome.

The bigger problem is that her characterization is inconsistent. She has been put in a very stressful situation when she was just a kid (powerless and stranded in hostile territory with only Satoru by her side, a predicament not unlike the one she is in currently), and yet she managed to remain fairly composed and power through it. In fact, it was thanks to her they survived. Her inner strength and her resourcefulness impressed me a lot. The Saki from back is nowhere to be seen. She's been helpless throughout this entire arc, and in this episode more than ever. I cringed when she didn't move an inch and simply screamed when the giant caterpillar was about to eat her. She actually has her cantus this time, why can't she at least try to defend herself? I can't help but feel the young Saki would have performed better.

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Inui is basically a black ops soldier. I expect the man to be made of stern stuff, and he didn't disappoint. But Saki's not a soldier, and she never has been.
What about Satoru? He's just a scientist, and he's been holding up far better than Saki. If not for him, she would have been long dead. The only reason she's made it this far is her plot armor, not her own strength. I expected better from her.
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Old 2013-03-09, 19:00   Link #37
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I know at least part of the reason Saki is so scared is to channel her mood & reactions to the viewer ... but ... she just seems so helpless

I was expecting that she'd grow into something more useful than a medium for Shun's past wisdom. I hope she can overcome her fears and do something useful at the end ..

Inui was surprisingly awesome after his fatalistic talk & that last scene with him was quite gripping. It was also well foreshadowed by the first "giant centipede" attack, where they made you wonder if he was dead or not.
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Old 2013-03-09, 19:10   Link #38
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If Saki had a history of weakness...well, the show probably wouldn't be as engaging as it has been, but while she hasn't been superwoman, she's been remarkably strong in the travails she and her friends have been through as children.

Adult Saki on the other hand seems to be bordering on hysteria/delusions, as if reality is so unbearable she has to escape into some fantasy where she can let herself be caught between her two crushes.

The show seems to be aiming Saki towards finding a method that doesn't involve killing Maria's child. Which, I guess is fine, but the problem with nearly every literary device that concentrates on saving individuals as a feel good story reaffirming what wonderful people we all are for caring about that individual's plight, is ignoring the price paid when viewed at large scale.

With presumably 1-3 episodes left, I'm not really sure how this is all going to be resolved, because the pacing in the adult arc has been glacially slow.

I'm all for Saki doing a Princess Lei to Squealer's Jabba, but Saki managing to show some backbone and focus on...oh....reality before the show is over would be something I could settle for.

Edit: For all my gripes over this arc, I still think this is one of the three best shows of the last two seasons, and if the ending isn't all sunflowers and rainbows, it'll probably stay there, despite adult Saki.
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Old 2013-03-09, 19:33   Link #39
Shadow5YA
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You're correct, she reacts like any normal girl would, and that's precisely the problem.I was under the impression Saki was supposed to be special. She is the future leader of the village, and seeing a leader act like she does (complaining about freaking bugs while she's on a mission to save humanity) is quite worrisome.

The bigger problem is that her characterization is inconsistent. She has been put in a very stressful situation when she was just a kid (powerless and stranded in hostile territory with only Satoru by her side, a predicament not unlike the one she is in currently), and yet she managed to remain fairly composed and power through it. In fact, it was thanks to her they survived. Her inner strength and her resourcefulness impressed me a lot. The Saki from back is nowhere to be seen. She's been helpless throughout this entire arc, and in this episode more than ever. I cringed when she didn't move an inch and simply screamed when the giant caterpillar was about to eat her. She actually has her cantus this time, why can't she at least try to defend herself? I can't help but feel the young Saki would have performed better.



What about Satoru? He's just a scientist, and he's been holding up far better than Saki. If not for him, she would have been long dead. The only reason she's made it this far is her plot armor, not her own strength. I expected better from her.
I'm not quite sure what you're expecting from Saki. Do you expect her to be Batman with a master plan or something? Her character is not meant to be praised. Saki complimented Inui on being a survivor like Tomiko complimented her, and he even said that it wasn't skill but luck that kept him from being killed.
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Old 2013-03-09, 20:30   Link #40
Guardian Enzo
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The problem I have with Saki's behavior is that she's repeatedly shown as being more traumatized and hesitant than pretty much every male colleague she travels with. Whether those reactions are "normal" or not, it's irritating - and she hasn't always been that way.

And yes, please drop the ED. It was a bad idea to begin with, but seeing it pop up the way things are happening now is borderline travesty.
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