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From the New World (TV).


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Stealth00



Joined: 18 Feb 2013
Posts: 65
PostPosted: Mon Apr 15, 2013 8:41 am Reply with quote
I find it extremely interesting that so many people sided with the rats. One of the prevailing reasons is that they find the future human society so inhumane to their own children & the rats.

The rats want to commit genocide out of fear that humans may wipe out their colonies. This is the exact same motivation people use to cull potential problem kids. Except while fiends have arisen, we aren't given any concrete examples of rat societies being wiped out. The best we have to go on is what Kiroumaru says in ep24, which may or may not be 100% correctly translated; he says it has happened already for unexplained reasons. Was he talking in the past tense or alluding to a "what if" in the actual Japanese? If it's happened, what were said reasons? We'll never know.

The rats also have a habit of warring among each other, and keeping slaves. Squeeler's colony has violated their queens' rights "for the greater good." They are not enlightened beings by any means.

tldr; seems like people judge the humans because they don't live up to our standards of what humanity should be, but they do it because they put their species first. The rats are doing the exact same thing.
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supercreep



Joined: 11 Dec 2011
Posts: 526
PostPosted: Mon Apr 15, 2013 9:34 am Reply with quote
I don't necessarily agree. Obviously he took it much too far, but Squeeler had reached a breaking point. He knew very well that his people were basically slaves and at the mercy of humans. That's ripe territory for a revolution of some kind. At the end when he yells out that he's human, he's laughed at, but he's technically correct. What he did was obviously wrong, but why it happened is very important. His justification is not entirely without merit. When that court erupts in laughter I think it's pretty clear that monster rats have no chance at equality.

What was done to the humans without power is understandable at a point, but that doesn't make it morally right. The practical subjugation of a quarter a species is not right. It's easy to side with the monster rats because they have a sympathetic cause regardless of how they went about it.
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Galap
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Joined: 07 Apr 2012
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 15, 2013 4:22 pm Reply with quote
Stealth00 wrote:
Seems like people judge the humans because they don't live up to our standards of what humanity should be, but they do it because they put their species first. The rats are doing the exact same thing.


I've written about this before, but part of what makes this show so interesting for me is the fact that it challenges your preconceptions about morality, instead of simply confirming them. It doesn't really take such a strong stance, either.

I personally side with the humans more, because I think they're attempting to become something that I think we should. They aren't entirely successful, and it will take more time for them to get there, but they seem to be on the right event path, and are farther down it than the rats.
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Stealth00



Joined: 18 Feb 2013
Posts: 65
PostPosted: Fri Apr 19, 2013 2:15 am Reply with quote
supercreep wrote:
I don't necessarily agree. Obviously he took it much too far, but Squeeler had reached a breaking point. He knew very well that his people were basically slaves and at the mercy of humans. That's ripe territory for a revolution of some kind. At the end when he yells out that he's human, he's laughed at, but he's technically correct. What he did was obviously wrong, but why it happened is very important. His justification is not entirely without merit. When that court erupts in laughter I think it's pretty clear that monster rats have no chance at equality.

What was done to the humans without power is understandable at a point, but that doesn't make it morally right. The practical subjugation of a quarter a species is not right. It's easy to side with the monster rats because they have a sympathetic cause regardless of how they went about it.


I don't see how Squeeler reached a "breaking point." I don't recall him being debased or mistreated. At no point in the show do I remember his colony being treated poorly. They weren't even used as forced labor, he asked for them to be able to do jobs for the humans which were all offered to the Giant Hornet colony.

He saw firsthand the ease of which humans killed invading queerats and was terrified of that power being directed at him or his colony, which is understandable.

The current living humans aren't responsible for this situation. They didn't engineer it, and very few, if any (at the time of the revolution's onset), even know of the monster rat's ancestry. Why should they be punished for what their predecessors did? What's done is done. Even if they gave the rats equality, this is not protection against an uprising. Remember, Kiroumaru wanted to obliterate the humans, not because of species inequality, but because they were a potential threat.

Galap wrote:

I've written about this before, but part of what makes this show so interesting for me is the fact that it challenges your preconceptions about morality, instead of simply confirming them. It doesn't really take such a strong stance, either.

I personally side with the humans more, because I think they're attempting to become something that I think we should. They aren't entirely successful, and it will take more time for them to get there, but they seem to be on the right event path, and are farther down it than the rats.


I appreciate that the show doesn't make any value judgments, and there is no black and white. There are simply people (and rats) doing what they think is necessary to survive, and living with the consequences.

The rats don't really even seem interested in taking the path of self betterment. What happened to all the Ground Spider slaves, were they freed as equals? What about the dissenters who didn't wish to lobotomize the Queen? Squeeler certainly didn't have any qualms wiping out most of the Giant Hornets.
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 19, 2013 3:05 am Reply with quote
Stealth00 wrote:
Remember, Kiroumaru wanted to obliterate the humans, not because of species inequality, but because they were a potential threat.


That's not what he said. He said that he was afraid that though he was currently trusted by the humans the circumstances might change in the future and his colony might be destroyed. Therefore he wanted something to ensure his survival, a trump card if you will. So yes, humans were a potential threat, but because of the species inequality and the human's supposed harsh reign, not despite them.
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Akito Kinomoto



Joined: 24 Dec 2010
Posts: 48
Location: Pretentious University
PostPosted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:19 pm Reply with quote
Despite the high bar to entry and the characters not standing out as much as the rest of the show, Shin Sekai Yori still turned out to be very good. More thoughts below...
---
An anime where the characters are born with supernatural abilities would be science fiction. An anime that follows the characters at crucial points in their lives would be a coming of age story. An anime that parallels society at the past and present would be social commentary. And an anime with all these traits would be Shin Sekai Yori.

As a coming of age story, it shows a believable mix of the highs and lows that come with childhood, adolescence, and adulthood but only shows the character’s emotions as they are. This neutrality toward the characters lends itself to the show’s social commentary on privilege, race, and sexuality because the lack of demonization or pedestal placing on their reactions to the society around them offers different viewpoints without saying who’s right or wrong. And in their society are the supernatural abilities everyone has adding an element of science fiction. Making a good story from the science fiction, coming of age, and social commentary genres is difficult separately but Shin Sekai Yori uses a needle of neutrality to weave these threads into a near flawless shape.

But although it’s an excellent mix of content, Shin Sekai Yori does not easily surrender its value. It answers all its questions but often leaves more questions than answers. This story structure mimics the way the characters gradually learn about the world around them. And it is that replica of their perspectives that can make Shin Sekai Yori difficult to watch; it requires commitment not everyone will have.

The characters themselves are very well fleshed out and provide a feel for why they act the way they do. They each feel like real (supernatural) people. Unfortunately their development doesn’t match their characterization. The lack of change works for Saki given her eventual place in the story but the lack of change on Maria, Mamoru, and Shun raises the question of how much the events around them are affecting them. But it’s Satoru who steals the show as he gradually develops into someone that could be mistaken for another character. That said, Shin Sekai Yori’s characters are overall well-written though some are better standouts than others.

The show’s world itself looks as bleak as many of its mysteries. The best way to describe Shin Sekai Yori’s visuals is a subdued color palette for a bleak feeling punctuated by lively color splashes that ironically don’t have a different mood. The latter in particular is where the visuals stand out, as they’re always experimental but always purposeful. Using a sharp contrast of black and white, for example, to show the teetering between sanity and insanity for one character compared to the shades of grey everyone else’s minds are in. Or a certain weapon that’s as psychedelically colorful as it is deadly.

Audio-wise, the soundtrack is scarce, subtle, but highly effective. Very often the score is less like music and more like ambience that voices the show’s atmosphere rather than giving the show a voice. The show has no opening sequence in the traditional sense but the music during the early part of each episode is more haunting than words can describe.

This anime’s flaws are few and far between. But the high bar to entry may warrant a raise or drop in score depending on your patience. The characters don’t standout as much as the show’s story or audiovisuals but they in themselves are still –good- characters. Shin Sekai Yori might be a difficult anime to watch and it’s not the best one but don’t be discouraged from trying it anyway; this saga From The New World is still very good.
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lesterf1020
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Joined: 29 Apr 2008
Posts: 292
Location: Trinidad and Tobago
PostPosted: Sat Jun 29, 2013 7:34 am Reply with quote
Shin Sekai Yori belongs to that category of shows that I would have liked had they simply changed the protagonist. If they kept everything the same and simply changed the protagonist from Saki and her crew to Squealer then this would have been one of my favorite shows. Aside from intellectual curiosity I never cared for Saki and her crew and by extension what happened to their world. They were largely clueless cogs in the system stumbling around in the dark whereas Squealer was out to remake the world. It was Squealer's story with all the moral quagmires involved and his eventual fate that got my attention. All Saki and her crew accomplished was to preserve and maintain a system that had caused everyone pain, suffering death and kick the matter of fixing the system down the road for a future generation to deal with, maybe.
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HaruhiToy



Joined: 15 Apr 2008
Posts: 4118
PostPosted: Sat Jun 29, 2013 12:04 pm Reply with quote
Stealth00 wrote:
I don't see how Squeeler reached a "breaking point." I don't recall him being debased or mistreated. At no point in the show do I remember his colony being treated poorly. They weren't even used as forced labor, he asked for them to be able to do jobs for the humans which were all offered to the Giant Hornet colony.

Wow. That paragraph reads exactly like one you could read from a pre-Civil War southern U.S. senator. You can still find lots of white people around who will insist that the blacks actually had it pretty good back then and many of them actually came to love their masters. So many good things were done for them.
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TsunaReborn!



Joined: 08 Sep 2012
Posts: 4713
Location: Cheltenham UK
PostPosted: Sat Jun 29, 2013 5:58 pm Reply with quote
This series could have been up there with some of my favourite series of all time but I felt like the show lost its direction half way through. I felt like the story should have focused more on Saki trying to find out the truth about the village's secrets; why their memories had been blocked and trying to remember Shun. Shin Sekai Yori was trying to tell too much in a to short a time and the last few episodes were tying up too many loose ends. I must say Saki remembering who Shun was so disappointing as she spent all that time trying to remember his face and it seemed like she could pretty much care less once that happened as she was too tied up with Squealer.

I feel that the series would have been better having two arcs, the first being the Characters aged between 12-14 discovering the truths and history of their people (including the disappearance of Shun and them regaining their memories of him) and the second based on the monster rats and the war that unfolded in their 20's.

that being said, I did really enjoy the series but it's story telling could have been more focused... in my opinion.
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 14084
Location: currently stalking my waifu
PostPosted: Sat Jun 29, 2013 6:08 pm Reply with quote
HaruhiToy wrote:
Wow. That paragraph reads exactly like one you could read from a pre-Civil War southern U.S. senator. You can still find lots of white people around who will insist that the blacks actually had it pretty good back then and many of them actually came to love their masters. So many good things were done for them.


The problem with the queerats is that we were told that they were oppressed but we never actually saw this happening. We never saw queerats being exterminated over the hint of rebellion like Squealer and Kiromaru claimed, we only saw Saki being kind to them. We never saw how dastardly and evil the queens were, only how pathetic they were after being lobotomised. It is interesting that the ones who were the most horrible towards queerats were other queerats, fighting amongst one another and the victors enslaving the survivors. Perhaps if we had seen their plight, seen how the humans were cruel towards them, then maybe more viewers would have felt sympathy for them.
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yuna49



Joined: 27 Aug 2008
Posts: 3804
PostPosted: Sat Jun 29, 2013 7:37 pm Reply with quote
dtm42 wrote:
The problem with the queerats is that we were told that they were oppressed but we never actually saw this happening.

I remember thinking there was a decent chance the entire story about oppression was made up by Squealer to gain sympathy from Saki and friends. Don't hold me to this interpretation, though. I haven't watched the show since it first aired, and my recollection may be faulty.
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 14084
Location: currently stalking my waifu
PostPosted: Sat Jun 29, 2013 8:15 pm Reply with quote
^
Kiroumaru said that he also feared the humans would kill his clan one day over the smallest of reasons, which is why he led an expedition to Tokyo to find a weapon. Since Squealer's story was corroborated, I don't think there's any doubt that many queerats genuinely believed the humans to be oppressive.
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Galap
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 29, 2013 8:19 pm Reply with quote
What seemed to be the case in the show was that the oppression was greatly exaggerated by the rats, and overly downplayed by the humans.

Either way, Squeara didn't really want to make things better: he just wanted to reverse the roles.
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gsilver



Joined: 04 Nov 2007
Posts: 611
PostPosted: Sun Jun 30, 2013 8:29 am Reply with quote
Uh... I'm pretty sure that the humans decide to wipe out a colony because it had gone to war with another, but didn't submit the correct paperwork to the humans.

Also, we saw Saki and company tare open a rat's nest, kill the guards, and torture one of them on suspicion of... providing a safe haven for their friends.

So, no. The humans are nowhere near as whitewashed as you guys are acting.
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MaxSouth



Joined: 11 Oct 2008
Posts: 1363
PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2013 12:32 pm Reply with quote
The first half of the series: I would almost rate it as "masterpiece" because I could not reasonably tell where the story, the video, the audio could be any better than they were. (Of course, nothing is really perfect, so I used "almost" in the sentence.)

The biggest issue of the second half was heroine, which was advertised as strong (mentally, not physically), but it was so hard to buy, watching her episode after episode:
1) frozen with opened mouth again and again over issues that should normally impress only once,
2) dropping things from her hands for various reasons,
3) hallucinating,
4) useless petty talks that totally do not fit into situation,
5) scared of every little thing,
6) wasting the time on delusional talks,
7) exposing weird priorities,
8) cries over and over again in moments when there is no time for that, which is not quite believable since most people in tragic circumstances go emotionally numb very quickly, after the first big shock, and do not return to crying any more.

I know they said that she is strong despite all that, but I wonder on what basis the old, old, old, old woman chose her as successor? Others around this heroine exposed at least no less mental strength, as well as better judgement and composure; plus, no less or better mental abilities.


Also, among other issues:
1) It is not explained how the rats killed human girl and the boy after the girl gave the birth to the child. It does not seem likely to happen, it must have been some ingenious plan by rats;
2) heroes went to abandoned Tokyo to find weapon of *mass* destruction (or, rather mass killing), captured before it was used by Americans. How in the world new humans thought it would help them if all of them, including the "Fiend", would die?
3) hero boy that was still alive at the end was previously shown being mostly interested in other boys, a number of them. So it is strange that he eventually decided to marry his friend, a girl, and breed with her. Not that such scenario is impossible as sexuality sometimes more fluent than another times, but still.

___________________________________________________________

The other anime that I liked almost completely in the first half and like less in the second, is Blast of Tempest. But the difference in likeness is much less in this case as characters there behave more believably -- spoiler[except for the killed girl who did not really have to kill herself as she perfectly could have lived to the time when the Tree of Genesis would arise and kill it herself, wielding her own Tree of Exodus. Authors forgot about this possibility -- if they did not, this would be clever anime all around. But they did not explain why the girl would not be able to do all of hit herself].
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