I’m not really enjoying the story’s current direction. I don’t really care about all the weird creatures going to war. I tuned into this show in the first place because I was fascinated by the PK society and how humanity has declined since their emergence. As I’ve said last week, the warring queerats and now frogs, moles, etc. feel like diversions from the actual story I had been promised.
Notes:
• Saki sees a vision in which a naked Shun emerges from out of nowhere. From him, a minoshiro emerges. And from that, a devil’s minoshiro emerges. What is this dream-like sequence trying to convey? Is it significant that the minoshiro emerged from Shun’s head? I ask this because just a few episodes ago, the narration had suggested that the minoshiro evolved as a result of humanity’s collective consciousness. But then a devil’s minoshiro appears at the end. I guess this series will play things too close to the chest for me to discern any substantive answers from such a cryptic scene at this point in time. Ultimately, however, does this scene in some way foreshadows the danger that will or has befallen Shun and the other two kids?
• It’s remarkable how well Saki remembered the priest’s words during her purification ritual.
• I guess you can reverse the seal on your Cantus if someone leads you through the purification process all over again, and this seems to involve having your mantra recited to you. But what is a mantra and what does it have to do with a person’s PK power? More importantly, why does each person get to know his or her mantra as if it’s some sort of bank PIN? The episode seems to imply that you cannot unseal your own powers if they’ve been locked away. Someone else will have to do it for you. If it is dangerous for PK users to turn renegade, therefore, wouldn’t it prudent not to tell them their mantras in case they can get someone to pull off Saki’s stunt?
• After Satoru regains his Cantus, the two children make their escape to find that familiar blue sky and lush, green forest. Why has the world’s aesthetics returned to normal? As I wondered last week, does the visual style have anything to do with the characters’ state of mind?
• Saki disagrees with Satoru’s plans to take the fight to the aggressive manrodents because, obviously, her powers are still sealed. Why can’t she have him unseal them for her though?
• I guess even at this young age, Satoru’s ability to manipulate his Cantus is pretty impressive. What’s not impressive, on the other hand, is the stone splitting up into cheap-looking CGI cubes.
Weak special effects, guys.
• I feel as though this episode raises more problems than it resolves. How does Satoru know where to aim his “bullets?” Is he using his PK powers to sense the queerats’ location? Furthermore, his offensive capabilities seem quite impressive. Is this something they’ve been taught? If so, it’s strange to me that a show so initially obsessed with world-building would decide not to show us scenes of the kids learning how to use their Cantus in combat. As such, I don’t think he’s been trained by anyone to fight, but then how does it come so naturally to him? Has there even been any sort of conflict within the village for Satoru to even extrapolate how one might fight with PK powers, or is this sort of aggression just “in his blood,” so to speak? How does he even know what a bullet is? Are there guns in the village?
• As Saki and Satoru make their way through the forest, they come across machines used to pump poison gas underground. The queerats are thus not as primitive as they initially seem if they can harness the power of machines. We’ve, however, hardly seen those in the village use any sort of machine. I wonder if this dichotomy will mean anything as the story progresses.
• Satoru is relentless in his pursuit of the queerats so much that Saki even fears that he may have become a different person. Is it that easy for PK users to go renegade? Something just feels unsatisfying about the whole situation. If anything, it seems to me that Satoru hasn’t been taught a proper moral code. He murders the queerats without any regard for the creatures’ suffering. He even relishes in their fear. At first glance, I’d say his upbringing is suspect, but the way the anime portrays the kid’s change in character seems to imply that all PK users are destined to turn bad unless they undergo an extremely strict education and ethological re-programming. But it’s not even as though the education preaches morality of any sort.
Rather, the parables we’ve seen thus far seem to advance two distinct ideas: self-sacrifice and, more importantly, complete obedience to authority. Again and again, we see that children are punished not for violating any sort of moral or ethical code. Instead, they are punished for not following the rules. Take the kid who cheated at the psychic soccer game, for instance. Did he disappear because he cheated, or did he disappear because he broke the rules? Saki and company got their Cantus sealed just for straying too far, but what moral or ethical law have they broken? They haven’t! They merely disobeyed the rules. With this in mind, why should Satoru care for the queerats’ existence, even if they are the aggressors? It isn’t likely that he’s been taught any rules with regards to the specific situation that he is in.
If I’m right, then how could the scientists or whoever’s in charge have been so short-sighted? Rules can only be followed as long as there are rules, but you can’t possibly invent a rule for every possible contingency. Moral codes are thus designed to help guide people through these tricky ethical dilemmas where the rules aren’t readily apparent. Anyone with the slightest modicum of sympathy would feel bad about wiping out the queerats, but Satoru clearly lacks any sort of sympathy for them.
• Unfortunately for Saki’s sake, Satoru seemingly falls prey to the “friendly” queerats’ designs to wipe out their enemies.
How would the kids not be told their mantras, when it’s part of the purification ritual? Do you propose that they hypnotize them out of their memory? With the ritual itself being a hypnosis…
Saki unsealed Satoru’s Cantus when he was sleeping, and that was without him knowing that she knew his mantra. I assume it wouldn’t work on her now that she knows the trick even if the conditions are fulfilled, much less if she has to explain the entire thing to him, including telling him her mantra.
I’m enjoying the moleslaughter, but boy, the friendly faction doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell. Their art of war sucks, their numbers are by far inferior, and so is their equipment – this isn’t army vs army, it’s army vs school gang.
Why go through the whole process at all? It doesn’t seem to purify anything. By skipping the ritual, you don’t have to tell the kids their mantras, and thus avoid the possibility that they ever unseal it.
They could’ve tried. In case you think this is a waste of time, I’d rather watch a failed attempt than see Satoru hurl rocks at generic rats anyway.
My impression was that mantras don’t have any real effect – the power is in the espers themselves, the mantra is something that they have been made to believe is significant to their Cantus usage. In other words, the entire ritual is a sham to make them believe their ability can be given and taken away.
That is what I believe as well. The whole ritual process is used as a way to condition them into believing that their powers are not inherently theirs.
I guess this is possible, but if they’re so concerned about renegade PK users, this method doesn’t seem very foolproof. It doesn’t take anything special to unseal the Cantus as long as people secretly share their mantras. In the end, I just find it too convenient how Saki managed to unseal Satoru’s powers.
hmm mixed feelings about this one.
This really feels like it’s an adaption that’s not going to be very friendly to people who haven’t read the novel. That’s not a good thing but it seems to be what we’re getting. There’s a lot they could be doing to smooth things over (including resuming the use of voice-over narration and using it to add context and framing, instead of just foreshadowing), but they aren’t. It’s a pity, I wanted to like this more than I’m really able to say I am liking it.
Yeah, what started as a promising season has slowly yielded few shows I would rewatch.
Ah well… it’s still far superior to the manga. ;-) And let’s be honest here; it’s still one of the better anime of the whole season. Maybe expectations are just too high from the start, especially considering the novel. There are a few lesser scenes, and some alteration of things by the anime – but I guess you cant’ avoid those things with an anime with limited episodes. All in all, the story is still pretty good, and the concept of the future society intriguing. That’s more than one can say of 95% of other anime this year.
I think when their Cantus gets sealed, their memory of their mantra does as well.
The only thing that bugged me was if the kids are conditioned never to hurt anyone, then wouldn’t killing all of those queerats trigger the death feedback? Even if they’re not humans, they’re still living creatures. Instead, Satoru is tired from pushing himself, but he’s mostly excited.
I’m hoping the queerat business ends soon. I miss the stories from the previous episodes, like the karma demon and the priest who made everyone clap for three days.
I guess whoever put in the death feedback didn’t care about slaughtering creatures. I mean, how would you finetune in it? What if you were just a butcher trying to make ends meat (har har)?
Can’t be. We know from the flashback that both Saki and Satoru remembered their mantras, otherwise they couldn’t have shown them to each other. Anyhow, a mantra is normally something you recite to yourself. I took it that the sealing ceremony was an attempt to set things up so that the PK powers could only be accessed by reciting a personal mantra, with the corollary that if the mantra is erased/forgotten the powers can no longer be accessed. Last episode’s priest “erased” their memory of the mantra, so they couldn’t access their PK. But he didn’t erase Saki’s memory of Satoru’s mantra, so she could “unseal” his powers again. It’s not clear that she really needed to recreate the ritual; maybe she could just have said Hey Satoru, can’t you even remember that your stupid mantra was XYZ. On the other hand, if it’s really the recreation of the ritual that is the important part rather than the content of the mantra, she could do the same for the rest of the crew and just give each of them a new mantra.
I worry that Satoru is turning into a Gouma himself as he goes overboard in applying his PK for destruction; let’s hope he can reverse course.
In episode 4, the priest got “death feedback” when he killed the queerats.
In this episode, Satoru does not.
Or was this just because the “queerats looked like humans from afar”?
It kinda bugged me. Or maybe Satoru did have death feedback in this episode, which was shown as him being tired (kinda like how the priest looked).
Okay, wait, it is annoying when I can’t say how it is due to it being vague. Heck, this episode was all odd.
Yeah, it is because the queerats looked like humans from afar that is the reason for why the monk was affected by death feedback. Satoru on the other hand, was attacking concealed queerats for the most part, and when he saw actually saw their forms, he was attacking from a closer range. Satoru seemed fatigued from my perspective, due to overuse of Cantus. But maybe he actually was suffering from death feedback. As you stated, it was hard to tell as they weren’t being clear enough.
If he attacks that large group of queerats, I think he will clearly be in danger though. From afar, some of the queerats from the back of the group might look sort of humans, which could be quite bad for Satoru considering the sort of state he is already in.
Bad adaptation.
Maybe just a bad story.