shinsekai yori
Mar. 11th, 2022 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miltokkiokay so im feeling a little insane now that i almost got my soul sucked up by writing an essay so i sort of took a day off to rest from acads and everything. i did not camp at the library. i did not socialise. i stayed in my cave and played a lil genshin and binge-watched shinsekai yori.
shinsekai yori (from the new world) is an anime released about ten years ago, but is set a 1000 years into the future. the future doesn't look all technologically advanced or anything, rather it looks like time regressed. and yet, you can tell the difference in era in the minute details.
setting
the entire story is focused on japan a thousand years into the future, but mentions quite a bit about the state of mankind. the human population has dwindled to about 2% of what it is in our current time, and there have been many political upheavals causing a change in societal structure.
somehow, the setting is influenced by many important themes that i will soon mention, and i can't help but feel like the plot is a metaphor for certain aspects of human behaviour. it's a psychological anime after all.
apparently, humans lived normally until certain people realised the dormant power residing in their minds. humans have a "power" which is psychokinesis or PK as they eventually refer to it as. This power awoke in some humans - a small percentage, and it started to destabilise society. a boy, presumably high school aged, uses his ability to commit a bunch of crimes and murders, and that causes society to split. The normal humans fight against those with PK and of course those with PK win. so society splits into factions:
eventually, after 500 years of war and bloodshed, society is founded on a fragile string by the education-driven PK humans. and that's where our main characters come into play:
what goes on?
society is run by two major committees. the ethics committee are the general overseers and leaders, and the education committee is in charge of the children and their training with PK.
while it all seems harmless, the education the children receive is really just a close monitoring by the committee to root out possible dangers to society. they test the childrens' mental stability and personality index through activities (which are really just experiments but the kids don't know that). in actual fact, the adults are afraid of the children, because it's the younger ones that plunged society into a mess with their power. i feel like this is a reference to the more fragile minds of children in comparison to adults irl, reflecting what could happen when they're burdened with something too heavy for their mental health to deal with.
there are two types of dangerous PK humans, and they are the ogres and the karmic demons.
ogres have a subconscious that is full of dangerous and cruel thoughts and emotions. they are not able to control that subconscious with reason and so their thoughts are immediately translated by their actions without them thinking. they become killing machines.
karmic demons are like regular people, but usually more intelligent. all humans leak power naturally but in minimal amounts. karmic demons leak so much that it mutates the environment around them. they usually eradicate themselves after realising what they're becoming. it's really so sad.
in fear of reintroducing such people in society, the education committee have special mutant cats that assassinate the children they are wary of. they also use techiniques such as hypnosis and suggestions to manipulate the children from the age they enter elementary school, brainwashing them into believing their ideals e.g. they don't know that humans can kill humans, they believe society is perfect and that they should aspire to maintain it the way it is, that they should fear the world outside the barrier of their society etc. the ethics committee have also destroyed all the physical books to prevent the new generations from learning about history. whenever the childrens' friends or even siblings vanish suddenly, no one questions it, because their memories of those children become altered. i really tried not to cry.
the plot really starts when the main characters learn the truth from a mutated creature called a false minoshiro - a creature that archives library books in itself, releasing information once it's been asked to.
there's so much more i want to say but i don't want to give spoilers T__T the characters are lovely and so are their relationships. so much detail went into characterisation, plot, animation, themes, without being too much. it's great!!!
shinsekai yori (from the new world) is an anime released about ten years ago, but is set a 1000 years into the future. the future doesn't look all technologically advanced or anything, rather it looks like time regressed. and yet, you can tell the difference in era in the minute details.
setting
the entire story is focused on japan a thousand years into the future, but mentions quite a bit about the state of mankind. the human population has dwindled to about 2% of what it is in our current time, and there have been many political upheavals causing a change in societal structure.
somehow, the setting is influenced by many important themes that i will soon mention, and i can't help but feel like the plot is a metaphor for certain aspects of human behaviour. it's a psychological anime after all.
apparently, humans lived normally until certain people realised the dormant power residing in their minds. humans have a "power" which is psychokinesis or PK as they eventually refer to it as. This power awoke in some humans - a small percentage, and it started to destabilise society. a boy, presumably high school aged, uses his ability to commit a bunch of crimes and murders, and that causes society to split. The normal humans fight against those with PK and of course those with PK win. so society splits into factions:
- the one where non-PK humans are slaves to PK humans
- the one where PK humans use their power for bandit like behaviour
- the one where PK humans isolate themselves and focus on technology and education
eventually, after 500 years of war and bloodshed, society is founded on a fragile string by the education-driven PK humans. and that's where our main characters come into play:
what goes on?
society is run by two major committees. the ethics committee are the general overseers and leaders, and the education committee is in charge of the children and their training with PK.
while it all seems harmless, the education the children receive is really just a close monitoring by the committee to root out possible dangers to society. they test the childrens' mental stability and personality index through activities (which are really just experiments but the kids don't know that). in actual fact, the adults are afraid of the children, because it's the younger ones that plunged society into a mess with their power. i feel like this is a reference to the more fragile minds of children in comparison to adults irl, reflecting what could happen when they're burdened with something too heavy for their mental health to deal with.
there are two types of dangerous PK humans, and they are the ogres and the karmic demons.
ogres have a subconscious that is full of dangerous and cruel thoughts and emotions. they are not able to control that subconscious with reason and so their thoughts are immediately translated by their actions without them thinking. they become killing machines.
karmic demons are like regular people, but usually more intelligent. all humans leak power naturally but in minimal amounts. karmic demons leak so much that it mutates the environment around them. they usually eradicate themselves after realising what they're becoming. it's really so sad.
in fear of reintroducing such people in society, the education committee have special mutant cats that assassinate the children they are wary of. they also use techiniques such as hypnosis and suggestions to manipulate the children from the age they enter elementary school, brainwashing them into believing their ideals e.g. they don't know that humans can kill humans, they believe society is perfect and that they should aspire to maintain it the way it is, that they should fear the world outside the barrier of their society etc. the ethics committee have also destroyed all the physical books to prevent the new generations from learning about history. whenever the childrens' friends or even siblings vanish suddenly, no one questions it, because their memories of those children become altered. i really tried not to cry.
the plot really starts when the main characters learn the truth from a mutated creature called a false minoshiro - a creature that archives library books in itself, releasing information once it's been asked to.
there's so much more i want to say but i don't want to give spoilers T__T the characters are lovely and so are their relationships. so much detail went into characterisation, plot, animation, themes, without being too much. it's great!!!
