Quote:
Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo
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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I agree with everything you said. But unless I am getting it wrong, you seem to think that the world portrayed by SSY, and the people living in it, are condemned by the show and that certain doom is imminent regardless of however much they struggle. I don't agree with those inferences.
To begin with, don't you think our world is much the same? As common as buzzwords like equality, humanity, compassion etc. are, our world is no less brutal than the one presented in SSY. And the inhabitants of that world no less conditioned to turn a blind eye to the dark secrets than us. I don't really wish to talk of what message SSY seeks to impart on our world but it's a but unavoidable. Especially because I wish to contend that the reason SSY is so emotionally challenging is because it doesn't bullshit around and sugarcoat the true nature of a species struggling for survival against all the odds.
But does that mean the world is doomed? That the species isn't "worth saving"? I don't think the answer to those questions can be in the affirmative at all. The world is harsh, yes, the people in it are making do by making very very harsh concessions, yes, but why is that a bad thing? First of all, isn't that just the way things are? Who is to decide whether or not the species is worth saving and more importantly, from what and how? Should it not be inspiring, and not condemning, that these people are making do and moving on despite everything? As harsh as their world is, they still manage to build a society. You can think of this from a negative perspective and think of how it's but a meaningless struggle and an essentially pathetic one at that against certain and ever impending doom but I don't think that that interpretation is very fair, even if it is factually true. Because the very charm of life is that it exists. Simply by continuing to survive, this society is already awe-inspiring. And despite all the concessions they are forced to make, they still manage to care the best they can for their society as a whole. That's very respectable. They may indeed be fighting a pathetic struggle but it's the struggle that's their victory, not the result. As long as they continue to struggle, that certain doom that awaits in the future doesn't matter.
SSY hits very close to home but doesn't come across as misanthropic because the violence it portrays isn't mindless violence but genuine throes. Most works in fiction that try to portray the truth in the cold harsh "as it really is" form fall prey to being judgmental and presenting the follies as but the very essence of the world. SSY doesn't judge and it definitely doesn't say that negativity is the one true essense of the world and that the people in it are nothing but ignorant hypocrites. Here we have a harsh world and a feeble population essentially deluding themselves trying to survive the best they can. I am definitely not going to say they look anything but pathetic, but as cynical as I am, I am not going to condemn them for trying their best. And the show deserves major props for managing to portray their struggle without judging them.