From the New World
May 5, 2013
Story: [6.5/10]
Shinsekai Yori has an amazing start, the first 7 episodes are magical and intense, beautiful and stunning. While it's drop off point is earlier than others, it too suffers from a problem in anime where the story goes off quite quickly. The story takes several turns and so it's hard to give an overall synposis but since there isn't one provided by AP...
Shinsekai Yori is set in a small village that practices psychic abillities called Cantus, which are taught and studied by everyone who lives there. However when students who underperform or break the rules start disappearing, Saki and her group become suspicious, when they themselves become targets for removal they have no choice but to investigate why children are disappearing and who is the cause.
I need to vent my frustrations with the anime in this review but its possible people who haven't already watched it won't find it interesting to read, if so just skip this part.
The most frustrating element of this anime is how drawn out the story telling becomes after the first relatively fast-pace episodes. I wouldn't say it's slow paced but many episodes consist of nothing really happening, if anything whats happening is more likely to confuse you than teach you anything. Leaps in time which make no effort to explain anything but have so much new stuff going on that it's very easy to just give up trying to figure out whats going wrong. While there are explanations for why something is happening the HOW DID THIS HAPPEN part is ignored. I'm being vague so i'll just come out with it and say that in the first leap of time there are a few episodes dealing with yaoi/yuri relationships that weren't even hinted at before. I understand and it is explained why these relationships might be desirable but it's hard to care about them for that same reason and without knowing how they came about.
There were many characters who did not show any character development at all yet we continually went over them, even very minor characters such as Saki's parents. I found these episodes very boring to say the least.
(Queerats are humanoid creatures that are less intelligent and look like rats) The humans dealing with the Queerats also frustrated me, throughout the anime human cruelty is constantly demonstrated - to the point where if humans thought the same way in real life as in this anime, I doubt Japan would even exist as the Allies would have destroyed it or enslaved it after WW2. Yet despite this, Queerat cruelty is always emphasised and characters are horrified by it. In almost every example, the Queerat cruelty is more humane and reasonable than the Human's cruelty. I felt like I had to do justice by the Queerats by consciously acknowledging how stupid and unempathetic most of the characters were when judging the actions of Queerats. I'd like to think that this is purposefully done as it could be a smart plot point but I doubt it.
Animation [6/10]
Sometimes the scenery is quite pretty but otherwise not much to be said, I also liked the Queerats appearence although it's difficult to understand how Kiroumaru is a Queerat when he looks nothing like any of the others.
Sound: [8.5/10]
Whenever the story line was getting boring, I could always count on the OST to make dull moments seem incredibly epic. While there wasn't an OP, the EDs were fairly nice. Voice acting wasn't that great, but I can't really articulate why, their voices just got annoying after a while.
Characters: [4.5/10]
"Saki you are strong, you give up easily and you are weak-willed, you aren't phsyically strong and you are easily discouraged, however you are strong because even if you are disheartened, you will stablize quickly and move on". If we exclude suicidals and those suffering from depression, this could description could pretty much fit anyone if you want to interpret it that way. Yet Saki recieves this "compliment" like five times throughout the anime like it's some major character point, I can not understand any of these characters at all. There is nothing special about them, they don't change and their stories aren't particuarly interesting. Their perspectives are boring and they never have anything interesting to say. Every time I learn something new about them, I dislike them more. There is really nothing to say here, this for me was the weakest point in the anime as it's hard to care about any drama when you don't like the characters. After all they went through, some character development was defininetly necessary, even just for the point of realism.
Overall: [5.5/10]
I haven't made much of an effort in this review, for me there are two kinds of reviews and this was the kind where I vent my frustration. That doesn't mean that I think 5.5 is an unreasonable score because I really did dislike many elements of this anime. Although the twists throughout it are quite clever and thoughtout. For me if the OST wasn't as good as it was, I wouldn't have watched it until the end, I can't really recommend this but unlike most of my other reviews this was more my opinion than an attempt to be objective and analytyical. I think in order for you to enjoy this anime you have to be a big fan of romance and you have to be able to love and relate with the characters. I didn't find any of the romances convicing or moving and that really killed the anime for me, but if you liked some of those more... childish? Romances.. like Kimi ni Todoke or Honey and Clover then I can see you liking this anime a lot.
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@LadyJam
I genuinely believe this level of analysis can be applied to any shounen, if you believe concepts like "knowledge is power" and "humanity is the greatest threat to humanity" are deep concepts then I really question how you feel about other anime or stories in general. Clearly Shinsekai Yori is determined to make some statements by creating such an intentionally controversial society. Clearly the vast differences in its characters isn't simply for the sake of diversity. What does that say about the anime?
I'd say code geass similarly creates a controversial world and characters for the sake of making some statements, yet it's a mindless shounen loaded with fan service and big mecha battles. None of the concepts in Shinsekai Yori are particularly daring or interesting, most of the anime actually focuses on character building and slice of life interactions.
Even if you find the concepts interesting, you still need to enjoy the bulk of anime which is not really related to these concepts.
Edward Scissorhands is actually a far more daring and complicated piece than Shinsekai Yori and you can find a similarly long analysis on it if you so chose to do so. The concepts are more complicated and relevant than much of what the journalist you linked had to say and what I got from the anime. Even if it's not so decisive, Edward Scissorhands is 1 hr and 45 minutes long with some comedy and mature themes, it lacks all the childish aspects of Shinsekai Yori and remains entertaining while provocative.
I don't agree that all an anime needs to accomplish to be a masterpiece, is to have something to say. There's much more you need to do and Shinsekai Yori fails in pretty much all respects.
Predictable would be if the show ended with a revolt and a radical change in structure. But is predictability really all that bad? A good story isn't in its recognition, but in the quality of its delivery.
I could write an article about the philosophy but instead I'll just link to one that explains it better (major spoilers): https://reelrundown.com/animation/Shinsekai-Yori-An-intepretation-of-its-meaning
With so much to say for SY it's amazing that anyone can come along and call it shallow. Maybe you conveniently ignored most of the plot developments that conveyed these themes? You're trying to be funny but you're choosing to see what you want to see.
It's fine if you didn't enjoy it or didn't like the characters of the pace, but comparing it to Edward Scissor Hands is just stupid. Saying there's no substance to it is being wilfully ignorant or naive and I sure as shit hope no-one asks you for advice on whether to watch it or not, because they'd be missing out on one of the best animes this decade.
To the people explaining the homosexual relationships, I know that the anime explained why the relationships were desirable but a lot of episodes dedicated to those romances were superificial for this very reason no? I said as much in the review.
The anime tried to make us think as well as entertain us.
I did not find it entertaining, very slow paced, not much action, mystery was very predictable and the romances/characters were boring (memory loss, fear and other explanations aside). A lot of the anime was about romance and as I said, I couldn't get behind them and would only recommend the anime to those who could.
I did not find the anime philosophically interesting either, this is a 24 minute x 25 episode anime and those who defend the anime are talking about background setting and nothing of any real substance. Most of the anime was not about these themes, instead the romances, school lives, home lives and adventures of the protagonists made up most of the actual viewing experience. I was not looking for the protagonists to be heroes, however I do expect the protagonists to be interesting. My point about them being unrealistic is that the protagonists went from living a life of ignorant bliss to a horrible realisation and everything inbetween, but I did not feel that they changed at all throughout the anime. Their quirks, personalities and values remained the same throughout.
Kemono no Souja Erin is an anime which I felt had great depth in its themes as SY did but I actually enjoyed the content, we saw the main character grow over time and it really felt like being taken on a journey.
I think for some people, that the anime possessed some deeper themes in of itself makes it defensible but you could just watch a movie like Edward Scisscor Hands and get a very similar message to SY without wasting hours of your time watching complete crap to get it.
SPOILERS BELOW
Just finished the show and couldn't disagree more about how the show handled the queerats or the characters personalities. It was very explicit in showing the subjugation of the queerats was cruel and never tried to justify the humans actions towards them as sympathetic but rather prejudiced. As someone above me mentioned before the characters homosexual relations are explained by the way their society was formed using bonobos as an example. Which isn't to say their feelings weren't genuine just that they were encouraged. The complaints of their personalities not being realistic ignores how their negative emotional feelings were monitored in case of another fiend being developed. Which in turn required them to gain the ability to seem calm and collected despite their inner turmoil being hinted at multiple times in the show. Societies which restrict free speech resemble this slightly so there are real world equivalents making their actions highly realistic given their situation. They can only come across as bland if you happen to miss that detail in the plot. I don't mean that as an insult as missing details can happen to the best of us, myself included. Sorry you didn't enjoy the show but maybe a 2nd viewing or reading a synopsis might help you appreciate it more. 👍
"It's hard to grow as a person when your mind and experiences are constantly being tampered with."
Speaking from experience there, or out of your ass?
I'm not sure how the first 7 episodes got praise here. I (someone who found this anime to be extremely boring with below average storytelling) thought the first quarter of episodes were the slowest and worst part of the entire thing. My friend (who praises this anime to no end) thinks the same thing. The episodes that came just after were much better, but every major event was dragged out far too long. As for the rest of this review, it is spot on. This anime is nothing but average all around. The sound track is decent, but that's about it.
Oh yeah, one more thing. Every 'mystery' was extremely obvious. The ending was supposed to blow my mind with its revelation, but I had already reached that conclusion episodes before. Everything was way too obvious for a mystery genre.