From the New World (Shin Sekai yori) – 07

Satoru uses his Cantus to burn the Ground Spider army’s nest in the forest behind them and redirects their catapulted rocks to buy him and Saki time to run. Just as Squealer suspects they’re no longer gods, they hear the horns of the Giant Hornets, the largest queerat colony, and most loyal to humans. Their leader Kiroumaru welcomes the humans, and Satoru saves him from a last-ditch blowdog attack by the enemy.

Still, Satoru still feels he and Saki are in danger, suspecting the adults will use Kiroumaru to execute them for their crimes.  They escape in the night, followed by Squealer. They reunite with Shun, Maria, and Mamoru and start rowing home, and they’re intercepted by Kiromaru’s fleet, but he simply tows them the rest of the way, out of gratitude. They bid farewell to the queerats and return to Kamisu’s 66th District, where they get a less-than-warm welcome.

If indeed all living humans get death feedback, it would preclude them killing other humans. So Satoru figures out that the “Ethics Committee” the False Minoshiro spoke of lets other parties do their dirty work. Enter the queerats: sentient, violent beasts led by slightly more civilized generals like Kiroumaru. Satoru suspects he was ordered to “take care” of the meddling kids he finds, and considering humans gods, he’s naturally inclined to obey without question.

But Kiroumaru’s sense of debt and balance overrules his obedience: just as Squealer’s colony owes the Hornets a debt, Kiromaru owes Satoru a debt for saving his life. We sweat for a moment there when his fleet appears (Game Over?!) and this series excels at building crepy tension and impending doom, but Kiroumaru turns out to not be their final executioner. The narrator, whom we suspect is an adult Saki, states ominously that while the queerat ordeal is over, her trials are only beginning.

Rating: 9 (Superior)

From the New World (Shin Sekai yori) – 04

The minoshiro-disguised library explains to the group in great detail the birth of psychokinetic or PK powers in humans, starting in the 21st century and ending in the downfall of civilization and the loss of billions of lifes, and a dark age lasting centuries in which brutal PK slave empires ruled, non-PK hunter-gatherers lived, PK bandits roamed, and scientists preserved ancient knowledge and bided their time until the empires crumbled from within.

Through genetic manipulation, education and development of rituals, and a system of rooting out potentially dangerous children, the scientists sought to create a new society free of strife, like that of bonobos. Before it can tell them more, the library is incinerated by a priest of the Temple of Purity, who seals everyone’s Cantus and escorts them to face punishment. On the way they come across a queerat tribe and eventually, the mythic blowdog.

More than half of this episode is one long infodump by the mobile library. But it works, and works well. First of all, because it’s an artificial construct, not some wise old man, the ceaseless stream of facts and figures not only makes sense, but has more dramatic impact. It talks about horrible, horrible things – things the kids had no idea humans were capable of – in such a calm, measured tone.

The visceral (and justified) reactions by Mamoru, Maria, Shun, Satoru, and Saki bring the chilling nature of this presentation home. It also helps that the history by itself is so rich and detailed. The library creature also lulls us into a kind of exposition trance, so when something finally does shut it up – a monk patrolling the woods – it’s a startling surprise.

All of a sudden these child detectives are in some serious trouble. Rijin may have referred to the library as a “mind-poisoning demon”, but we know better just by how his body reacts to the violent acts he performs: the “death feedback” fail-safe weakens his composure. We also know what the library said was true because of those cold opens of the bloody past. If the kids are sent to the temple, they won’t leave until all memory of what the library said is purged. But judging from that blowdog at the end, they may not get to that temple.

The scientists Saki & Co. are apparently the descendants of, like the monks during medieval times, preserved knowledge to create a functioning society when the time was right, but not without seriously compromising free will and even overwriting human nature. Then again, if PK were real, how else would society protect itself against a user who lost control, or lusted for power? This is exquisite, thought-provoking, dark stuff.

Rating: 9 (Superior)