Shin Sekai Yori - Episode 19 Discussion / Poll

[pinoscotto]

Originally Posted by AvatarST

Honestly I'm kinda wondering how it works.

If the kid is a fiend devoid of sanity, how come he didn't slaughter any queerats? And if he's not turned into a fiend, wouldn't he get death feedback?

Maybe there's something I'm missing, I don't know.

As for rooting for the extinction of this society, I don't see how that is even remotely productive. Ignorance/fear shouldn't be punished by death. It's a tragic situation no matter how you look at it; the PK society was rotten and their own destruction was a matter of time, but I don't see how the death of people can be something desirable or something that brings anyone joy. Just my two cents.

And it's not as if Yakomaru is exactly righteous either (in fact he's arguably the worst of all), so it's not like it'd be rooting for justice...

in fact i don't think he is a fiend, it's just that his death feedback doesn't work (we don't know why, i imagine squealer has a role in it), however the villagers will problably name him like this becouse they don't know any other reasons why a human could or would kill other humans

[sikvod00]

Do you any of you think the the queer rats can "gain" PK abilities, or is it something you can only be born with? If it is a possibility, I wonder if that's actually Yakomaru's final goal in order to be "equals" with humans. The only thing that could worsen the current situation is if a creep like Yakomaru had those powers of his own...

[Guardian Enzo]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I have to concur with what a lot of people here are saying about the extremely effective horror and suspense of this episode. I particularly liked the one-shot characters for this episode. The cautious but cowardly guy, the courageous but reckless guy, the guy who said "All of us must split up if either of us is to have a chance at all!", the girl who was totally dedicated to the surviving members of her group and later acted as heroically as Saki and Satoru did... All of them really played their parts well, and believably.

With this episode, SSY is an early favorite for Horror Anime of 2013 for me.


Why do you think Saki should be held responsible for all of this death?

If this Karmic Demon is the biological offspring of Maria as I think we all suspect, then he ultimately arose due to Maria's decisions - Either Maria's decision to run away from the village, or Maria's decision to have children (it's possible that Maria was forced to give birth to him, of course).

Saki never forced Maria to run away. Quite the contrary - Saki hated the idea of Maria running away, and tried to locate her even after she received Maria's letter.

If anything this puts me in mind of Shiki in terms of effective horror, though it's more elegant and subtle in the way it weaves us into the story. The best horror of recent vintage IMO is Another - I think people forget how great it was at scaring before it jumped the shark, because it jumped so hard.

If indeed Maria is the mother of the fiend (and Mamoru the father, which oddly never seems to get mentioned) rather than "blaming" Maria or Saki, it seems to me it would be the fault of the village elders who decided to murder Mamoru in the first place, thus causing he and Maria to flee. Like almost everything else that's happened this would be humanity being hoist by its own petard - all of the disasters befalling them (including the engineering of the queerats as a slave race) are coming home to roost now.

[Kirarakim]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

The best horror of recent vintage IMO is Another - I think people forget how great it was at scaring before it jumped the shark, because it jumped so hard.

I thought Another was too over the top in the shock value and gore aspect almost from the beginning.

I mean don't get me wrong there were definitely aspect of the series I enjoyed before it jumped the shark and it created some very good atmosphere at times but I think this series is on a whole other league when it comes to really effective horror.

[NoemiChan]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

The best horror of recent vintage IMO is Another - I think people forget how great it was at scaring before it jumped the shark, because it jumped so hard.

True.

What made Another stood over the recent horror anime I've was the mood. The creepy school, with the creepy classmates and the creepy "WTF happened 15 years ago?!" mystery

[Guardian Enzo]

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

I thought Another was too over the top in the shock value and gore aspect almost from the beginning.

I mean don't get me wrong there were definitely aspect of the series I enjoyed before it jumped the shark and it created some very good atmosphere at times but I think this series is on a whole other league when it comes to really effective horror.

I agree this is a way better overall series, and I don't want to hijack this into an "Another" debate. But there was zero gore at all in the first few eps of Another, and up until the final arc it was at a relative minimum - it was as much a suspense thriller as convention horror. IMO of course.

Originally Posted by Kanon

The child could be as old as twelve if he was born soon after Maria and Mamoru left the village. He should be old enough to become a monster, especially when raised by someone such as Yakomaru.

I certainly wondered about this. Though we obviously haven't seen an actual calendar it seems as if 12 years have passed, roughly. Even if Mamoru and Maria conceived a child immediately after we left them, it would still be barely 11 years old - not too young for puberty, but pretty darn precocious.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

If anything this puts me in mind of Shiki in terms of effective horror, though it's more elegant and subtle in the way it weaves us into the story. The best horror of recent vintage IMO is Another - I think people forget how great it was at scaring before it jumped the shark, because it jumped so hard.

For what it's worth, I agree with you on Another. The first 10 episodes were excellent horror. Still, even at its best, I don't think Another was quite as good as this episode of SSY was. This episode of SSY was just totally gripping and intense to me.

If indeed Maria is the mother of the fiend (and Mamoru the father, which oddly never seems to get mentioned) rather than "blaming" Maria or Saki, it seems to me it would be the fault of the village elders who decided to murder Mamoru in the first place, thus causing he and Maria to flee. Like almost everything else that's happened this would be humanity being hoist by its own petard - all of the disasters befalling them (including the engineering of the queerats as a slave race) are coming home to roost now.

I agree. It's just that I can understand why Saki would blame Maria before blaming herself. Really, Maria doesn't deserve much blame either.

I know some folks probably won't like me writing this, but I honestly think Saki blaming Maria might be, in part, a case of a scorned lover lashing out a bit.

[Rosalena]

I feel as if I've complained a lot about the music in this show so I'm happy to announce that it was used very effectively this week. I literally had shivers during the fire scene it. Saki's facial expressions and the beautiful animation certainly helped, but it was the music that really got to me. Well done!

Also, I noticed in this episode how well they've handled the development of Saki and Satoru. Following a character from childhood to adulthood can be difficult for even the most experienced writer. It's common for a writer to get one stage accurate but not the other; portraying both convincingly is very difficult. For this reason I was struck by how believable Saki and Satoru are as adults. They are just as believable at their current stage of life as they were as children. I don't feel that their adolescent stage was handled quite as well as the other two, but getting two of the three right isn't half bad

[Grey]

I remember thinking it was totally badass if Maria actually travelled "half the world away" like the one episode's text. But I guess she was much too close. Darned show, killing two of the best characters. And Mamoru.

I remember when I thought the society was pretty iffy. But then they revealed just how much of the world had died after PKers appeared. And then how one akki could wipe out everyone in the area. So I can't really blame them too much.

Happy Ending, go! You can do it, SSY!

[Repelsteeltju]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

For what it's worth, I agree with you on Another. The first 10 episodes were excellent horror. Still, even at its best, I don't think Another was quite as good as this episode of SSY was. This episode of SSY was just totally gripping and intense to me.

Saying that the fist few episodes weren't gore-y is one thing but stating that the fist ten episodes were excellent horror is a wholly different ball game. Even the first few episodes were silly as fuck with the random doll close-ups. Sure it was good at making the most mundane things ever tense but if the jack-in-the-box doesn't come out of the box when the cello starts playing and the singing saw starts wobbling the first three times you sorta stop expecting it to. Heck, even Scary Movie did the horror thing better than Another. And despite the titel it doesn't even strive to be scary.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Repelsteeltju

Saying that the fist few episodes weren't gore-y is one thing but stating that the fist ten episodes were excellent horror is a wholly different ball game. Even the first few episodes were silly as fuck with the random doll close-ups. Sure it was good at making the most mundane things ever tense but if the jack-in-the-box doesn't come out of the box when the cello starts playing and the singing saw starts wobbling the first three times you sorta stop expecting it to.

Honestly, the random doll close-ups neither bothered me nor particularly creeped me out (after the first episode anyway). I didn't consider them a big benefit to the show, but I honestly think that Another's biggest detractors made too big a deal out of them.

Another's visuals and BGM and characters were all very effective at setting a disturbing horror mood, imo. Not quite on the level of this episode of SSY, but still pretty good by anime's standards for horror.

[creb]

Originally Posted by sikvod00

Do you any of you think the the queer rats can "gain" PK abilities, or is it something you can only be born with? If it is a possibility, I wonder if that's actually Yakomaru's final goal in order to be "equals" with humans. The only thing that could worsen the current situation is if a creep like Yakomaru had those powers of his own...

While I don't think that's the direction the story is going, as a fanfic perspective-keeping in mind that we know nothing about the genetics involved between humans and the mutant rats, it certainly wouldn't be out of character for Yakomaru with his imperfect knowledge likely gained from the "library" to have enslaved Maria, lobotomized her into passivity, and then run experiments in cross-species fertilization in an attempt to make human-rat hybrids.

Even putting the fanfic ideas aside, I certainly think there's a high possibility that Maria was lobotomized, because I just don't see her having given birth to a child that becomes a pet killer for the rats on her own free will (and the revelatory scenes with the lobotomized queen would have more literary purpose).

Which does sort of beg the question of why the presumably child isn't killing the rats. Unless the child has been "lobotomized" as well.

[Solace]

Originally Posted by creb

While I don't think that's the direction the story is going, as a fanfic perspective-keeping in mind that we know nothing about the genetics involved between humans and the mutant rats, it certainly wouldn't be out of character for Yakomaru with his imperfect knowledge likely gained from the "library" to have enslaved Maria, lobotomized her into passivity, and then run experiments in cross-species fertilization in an attempt to make human-rat hybrids.

Even putting the fanfic ideas aside, I certainly think there's a high possibility that Maria was lobotomized, because I just don't see her having given birth to a child that becomes a pet killer for the rats on her own free will (and the revelatory scenes with the lobotomized queen would have more literary purpose).

Which does sort of beg the question of why the presumably child isn't killing the rats. Unless the child has been "lobotomized" as well.

Consider this scenario:

1. Bonobo gene kicks in during high stress. I'd say their escape qualifies.
2. Pregnancy happens.
3. Months later, Mamoru is still sick and/or Maria is starting to show.
4. They come across Queerats. By this point we know that Yakomaru has been in power for a while, so it's possible they are offered shelter under one of his colonies.
5. Using the knowledge of the false minoshiro, Yakomaru devises a plan to use the child as a weapon.
6. Mamoru is killed soon after, or just after the child dies. Maria either dies during birth, or just after.
7. From then on, the child is raised as "one of them". This isn't unusual in human history, for another species to take a human child and raise it as their own. Said child adopts the behaviors of the animal, and "rehabilitating" them to be human again is extremely difficult if not impossible.
8. Who knows how the child was raised after that, but the results demonstrate themselves.

If this scenario were true, it also explains why the bones matched records. Assume they were found after about a year. That's plenty of time for the bones to be stripped of flesh and made to look damaged by any means you desire.

Keep in mind that the feedback probably only works assuming that the user believes they are human, and the user assigns human like traits to a non-human entity. But, if this child has been raised without any exposure to humans, how would he know what he is? I doubt Yakomaru did anything but fill the kids head with junk. Or taking it out. If they were using spears and lobotomy years ago, and are now using guns and chemical warfare, what about medical science?

Plus, the society had ways of handling powers in young children. You certainly don't want one to have a tantrum and kill someone for not giving them candy, so it's probably wiser to "turn it off" until they reach a more mature age. Like they did with the kids in the village. But this kid never had that.

[BBOvenGuy]

Originally Posted by GenjiChan

About the next preview... so the village got destroyed?

That image immediately made me think of Hiroshima. Look up some of the old US military footage from shortly after the bombing and you'll see what I mean. And it sounded like the dialogue under the image was referring back to when Tomiko told Saki about nuclear weapons. Maybe the image really is supposed to be Hiroshima, and it shows up when Saki is remembering what Tomiko told her before.

On another note, I find myself wondering why the humans never came up with some way of "jamming" a fiend's Cantus - some way to "disarm" the fiend without inflicting pain or death. Because with no ability to fight back, they're just a bunch of sitting ducks.

[creb]

Originally Posted by Solace

Consider this scenario:

1. Bonobo gene kicks in during high stress. I'd say their escape qualifies.
2. Pregnancy happens.
3. Months later, Mamoru is still sick and/or Maria is starting to show.
4. They come across Queerats. By this point we know that Yakomaru has been in power for a while, so it's possible they are offered shelter under one of his colonies.
5. Using the knowledge of the false minoshiro, Yakomaru devises a plan to use the child as a weapon.
6. Mamoru is killed soon after, or just after the child dies. Maria either dies during birth, or just after.
7. From then on, the child is raised as "one of them". This isn't unusual in human history, for another species to take a human child and raise it as their own. Said child adopts the behaviors of the animal, and "rehabilitating" them to be human again is extremely difficult if not impossible.
8. Who knows how the child was raised after that, but the results demonstrate themselves.

If this scenario were true, it also explains why the bones matched records. Assume they were found after about a year. That's plenty of time for the bones to be stripped of flesh and made to look damaged by any means you desire.

Keep in mind that the feedback probably only works assuming that the user believes they are human, and the user assigns human like traits to a non-human entity. But, if this child has been raised without any exposure to humans, how would he know what he is? I doubt Yakomaru did anything but fill the kids head with junk. Or taking it out. If they were using spears and lobotomy years ago, and are now using guns and chemical warfare, what about medical science?

Plus, the society had ways of handling powers in young children. You certainly don't want one to have a tantrum and kill someone for not giving them candy, so it's probably wiser to "turn it off" until they reach a more mature age. Like they did with the kids in the village. But this kid never had that.

That all actually sounds very plausible.

[kuromitsu]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

I certainly wondered about this. Though we obviously haven't seen an actual calendar it seems as if 12 years have passed, roughly.

Er, we know that exactly 12 years have passed. Maria and Mamoru disappeared when the kids were all 14. Now Saki and Satoru are 26.

[Repelsteeltju]

Originally Posted by Solace

Consider this scenario:

1. Bonobo gene kicks in during high stress. I'd say their escape qualifies.
2. Pregnancy happens.
3. Months later, Mamoru is still sick and/or Maria is starting to show.
4. They come across Queerats. By this point we know that Yakomaru has been in power for a while, so it's possible they are offered shelter under one of his colonies.
5. Using the knowledge of the false minoshiro, Yakomaru devises a plan to use the child as a weapon.
6. Mamoru is killed soon after, or just after the child dies. Maria either dies during birth, or just after.
7. From then on, the child is raised as "one of them". This isn't unusual in human history, for another species to take a human child and raise it as their own. Said child adopts the behaviors of the animal, and "rehabilitating" them to be human again is extremely difficult if not impossible.
8. Who knows how the child was raised after that, but the results demonstrate themselves.

If this scenario were true, it also explains why the bones matched records. Assume they were found after about a year. That's plenty of time for the bones to be stripped of flesh and made to look damaged by any means you desire.

Keep in mind that the feedback probably only works assuming that the user believes they are human, and the user assigns human like traits to a non-human entity. But, if this child has been raised without any exposure to humans, how would he know what he is? I doubt Yakomaru did anything but fill the kids head with junk. Or taking it out. If they were using spears and lobotomy years ago, and are now using guns and chemical warfare, what about medical science?

Plus, the society had ways of handling powers in young children. You certainly don't want one to have a tantrum and kill someone for not giving them candy, so it's probably wiser to "turn it off" until they reach a more mature age. Like they did with the kids in the village. But this kid never had that.

What I like about this scenario is that Yakomaru isn't necessarily a coldblooded Maria and Mamoru killer in it. And the decision to attack the village was made way later in the game than in the running theries. Or based on Maria's views on the village (which would make Saki's: 'if only Maria had never been born' comment in the narration sensible).

[Hitenma]

I have a question regarding the death feedback.
Is it a natural aspect of their power (i.e. everyone has this when they are born) or a result of the hypnotism?
If it's the latter then obviously the child doesn't have it.

And how the heck did the squeerats train him anyway?
If they just let him figure out himself I'm sure a lot of things have been blown up in the process

[-Sho-]

Always funny to see the olds acting dumber , weaker etc.... than the youngs. Even the doc was shitty.
Maybe Shisei will be able to stop the evil kid.

[pinoscotto]

Originally Posted by Hitenma

I have a question regarding the death feedback.
Is it a natural aspect of their power (i.e. everyone has this when they are born) or a result of the hypnotism?
If it's the latter then obviously the child doesn't have it.

And how the heck did the squeerats train him anyway?
If they just let him figure out himself I'm sure a lot of things have been blown up in the process

the minoshiro said it was genetic, but reinforced by hypnotism, education ecc.