Still a better love story than Twilight?
Plot summary: Two years have passed, and the group seems to have grown apart. At first, Shun and Satoru are a couple, which seemingly drives a jealous Saki into Maria’s arms. The guys, however, eventually break up. Meanwhile, Kaburagi Shisei, apparently the most powerful Cantus user around, pays a visit to the kids’ classroom, but he reacts negatively to Shun. Later, Saki meets Shun at sunset, and he confesses to her that he’ll have to go away for “rehabilitation.” Also, they won’t likely ever see each other again.
Notes:
• Satoru and Shun are a thing now? Hm. In fact, we seem to see mostly (all?) same-sex couples in the background:
I wonder why though. Is this just a quirk of the narrative to set it apart from our present-day society, or is Shinsekai Yori aiming to make a larger point? Also, y’know how in most anime series, characters are too shy to even hold hands? Well, we certainly don’t have that problem here; PDA seems to be rampant. But of course, we’ve been told that people in this society will mimic bonobo monkeys whenever they feel stressed out. I guess it’s natural to assume that those awkward teenage years are pretty stressful…
• The PK education is starting to ramp up; the kids are no longer merely performing simple tricks like levitation (don’t tell that to Maria, though). We see Saki attempt to mend a broken bottle, but she screws up and the entire thing crumbles into fine dust. We also see Shun attempt to nurse an egg using his powers alone. The teacher seems to imply that his exercise is the hardest. What seems clear from this scene is that the kids are taught to do things that usually appear nurturing or healing in nature. Even Maria’s simple levitation trick seems pretty offensively inert. How, then, did Satoru display such an aptitude for battle in the previous two episodes? Where did he learn to fight?
• The characters’ voices have all changed subtly, and it’ll take some getting used to on my part.
• That dog’s face is hilarious:
• Y’know, before I ever watched a single episode of this series, I heard some rumblings about NTR rearing its ugly head at some point in the story. At first, I thought this meant Satoru would steal Saki away from Shun or something, but woo boy, am I wrong!
• But here’s the thing…. when it’s a boy and a girl, the characters usually act way too coy around each other. Yeah yeah, in Asian cultures, romance is totally embarrassing and dokidoki — I get that. Whenever I see same-sex couples in anime, however, the raunchiness factor gets dialed up in a major way, and it really makes me take pause and wonder. We all (okay, most of us) want equal representation for both heterosexual and homosexual couples, but it feels as though anime sometimes exploits homosexual pairings to push the envelope when it otherwise wouldn’t. Oh, you’ll get the rare series where the boy and the girl actually have sex, but like I’ve said above, heterosexual couples are usually too afraid to even hold hands! Why such disparate portrayals?
• I still don’t know much about Mamoru other than that he scares easily.
• Dear mother, who art in heaven…
…the way the screenshot above is framed makes me laugh.
• Well, Saki’s being rather cruel to Mamoru. If she knows that he likes Maria, why is she rubbing it in? Is it because the other two guys are being inconsiderate of her feelings?
• Speaking of which, how come everyone gets a different exercise anyway? You’d think most of the class would be working on mastering one ability before moving onto the next.
• Saki: “Shun was a genius expected to eventually inherit Kaburagi Shisei’s mantle.” Really? I knew he was the most talented of the group, but I never got the impression from the previous episodes that he was some sort of PK Einstein or anything.
• You sort of see the space around them distort when (the?) Kaburagi Shisei approaches Shun. I wonder if the latter’s powers are “leaking.” After all, the story makes a big deal out of the idea of Cantus ever clashing. The results are apparently disastrous. Maybe something’s gone wrong with Shun’s ability to control his Cantus.
• The animation quality in this episode is really, really subpar.
I guess A-1 Pictures is too busy making sure Kirito’s spiky hair is being animated just right to worry about how Shinsekai Yori looks.
• Okay, I see why Mamoru doesn’t say much. He seems kind of slow: “This feels so nostalgic! We’ve been kind of apart recently.” Bro, can you not sense the seriousness of the situation?
• Did Saki hallucinate the creepy eye emerging from the cracked egg, or did Shun’s PK powers somehow corrupt the creature inside? His words would seem to imply that his mind is suffering from some sort of affliction: “Sick… well… I don’t know how to explain it. It’s not my body that’s sick.”
• According to Shun, the adults know about the incident from two years ago. He speculates, however, that they’ve simply decided to delay the punishment. I don’t know… there just isn’t much to say. There’s not much subtext here. The story’s simply withholding key plot information until later, and, as always, an episode has to end on somewhat of a cliffhanger. I mean, I could wonder why the kids’ punishment is being delayed. I could also wonder why something’s gone wrong with Shun.
The derpy animation literally rears its ugly head again.
But for both these mysteries, we’ll find out the answers soon enough. As such, speculating no longer seems all that fun. Well, I’ve never been a fan of plot speculation anyway.
A1 has been so busy lately, I can understand why the animation wasn’t at its best here because they maybe saving it for heavier/more action-packed type episodes. Still I hope this gets fixed in the BD release. Anyways I really enjoyed this episode and hope they answer more questions next week. :)
MAL went into a meltdown over this episode, Oddly enough, Animesuki didn’t. Still, this is one of the calmest and most rational analysis of this episode so far. Well done, and it’s refreshing compared to the shilling from other quarters.
What is there to freak out about?
About the homosexual only thing I found this on TVtrope
“Everyone is Bi: According to the library, everyone bangs everyone for stress relief. Like Bonobos.
There does seem to be some kind of social rules and/or further genetic restrictions in place. Sexual drive of juveniles seems to only activate in situations of extreme stress, for example, and homosexuality is considered to be the norm for adolescents, while the grown-ups appear to follow the traditional heterosexual life-partner approach.”
“We all (okay, most of us) want equal representation for both heterosexual and homosexual couples, but it feels as though anime sometimes exploits homosexual pairings to push the envelope when it otherwise wouldn’t.”
While I think the explicitveness of their actions were to pander to viewers while screamign “we provocative now!”, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxD comment above made me realize that a society where teenagers are more prone to homosexual behavior and only move into heterosexual ones when adults might be the objective of the scientists that put that in their genes: with teenagers more into homesexual behavior, that drastically decreases (if not eliminates, note that i didn’t see any heterosexual couples at all) the chances of teen pregnancies.
…or maybe they just wanted the shock factor and I’m overthinking it.
(btw, are you going to stop your weekly roundup? I wanted to know what you thought of K’s current development)
I know ethology is the big thing, but how would the scientists make sure that the teenagers “switch” over to heterosexuality once they reach adulthood? In fact, how do we even know that the adults are mostly heterosexuals? We’ve only met… I think Saki’s parents and a couple teachers?
I probably should’ve named the feature “Biweekly roundup,” but anyway, I’ll probably end up doing one in a couple days.
Everyone in Shinsekai Yori is a bisexual from what I’ve heard from people who read the novel
Oh yeah and that it was usual that people would build heterosexual relationships when they became adults
Oh and third comment in a row now but just had to address this from what Lirael said
” (if not eliminates, note that i didn’t see any heterosexual couples at all) ”
In their society it’s forbidden for a non-adult to have a heterosexual relationship
This seems like an important rule that the anime adaptation should’ve made explicit.
*SPOILER*
I think it will be explained when/after Saki and Satoru have sex
Based on the novel spoilers I read
“In their society it’s forbidden for a non-adult to have a heterosexual relationship”
That completely changes my thoughts on Saki this episode: I thought she was being overly cruel to Mamoru by suggesting he go find someone when it’s clear he’d be happy if she only dropped Maria, who she didn’t even like that way. With this information it’s clear she was trying to help somehow since even if she did break off they wouldn’t be together.
“with teenagers more into homesexual behavior, that drastically decreases (if not eliminates, note that i didn’t see any heterosexual couples at all) the chances of teen pregnancies.”
Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to just give the teenagers a comprehensive safe-sex education? Bi/homosexuals still have to worry about STD’s, so they would need it anyways.
Hmm, I can’t be the only person who thought this episode was quite awkward from the QUALITY animation to the character’s actions. I hope next episode will explain more getting tired of cliffhangers.
I don’t see any reason to think this.
“How, then, did Satoru display such an aptitude for battle in the previous two episodes? Where did he learn to fight?”
I was under the impression that those weird psychic soccer games the kids were all playing would’ve taught them about battle tactics – they were pretty violent, at least. XD
You wrote “We all (okay, most of us) want equal representation for both heterosexual and homosexual couples,”
What do you mean by “equal representation”? If you mean that we want homosexual couples to be treated with the same respect that heterosexual couples are, then yes, I agree with that. Like yourself, perhaps, I find it a bit disconcerting how anime seems to equate homosexuality with much higher sex drive in general. I mean, a healthy homosexual relationship shouldn’t look *that* much different than a healthy heterosexual one (in the ways that you succinctly pointed out).
But if by “equal representation”, you mean we want a 50/50 breakdown between homosexual couples and heterosexual couples (for every example of one you get in fiction you get one of the other), I honestly don’t think most people care about that. Actually, given that homosexuals are probably around 5% or so of the population, I’d find this 50/50 breakdown to be immersion breakdown in some fictional settings (Shin Sekai Yori’s not being one of them though).
Anyway, pretty good episode review here. I agree with you about the derpy animation, but I also find this anime to be pretty fascinating overall.
Do you honestly think that’s what I meant? Do you think I would want equal numbers representation for black people in anime too?
“Actually, given that homosexuals are probably around 5% or so of the population, I’d find this 50/50 breakdown to be immersion breakdown”
What exactly are you implying with this? If we’re talking about a setting where homosexuality is discouraged, or where the majority of a town’s population is bi/homosexual, I would agree.
But if we’re talking about the cast of one or two dozen characters, having half of them be bi/homosexual isn’t far-fetched at all.
The novel of shinsekai-yori is very good, the animation isn’t. :)