Shin Sekai Yori 20 — Falling Slowly

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I’m pissed at Shin Sekai Yori right now. Pissed that this episode had to end!

In a way, this episode was even scarier than the previous one. That was largely due to the fact that it took place during the day. Saki’s looking over a field of sunflowers. The sky is blue, the birds are chirping. They’ve escaped from the Fiend. Everything is hunky-dory. Explosions go off in the distance, signalling the deaths of hundreds of villagers. Saki keeps on chatting.

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I want to compliment one thing in particular about the scene design: the use of the first person perspective. When the fiend is driving by on the boat, Saki is hiding in the grass, and we see what she sees. The fiend is present only out of the corner of her eye, through the grass— we can’t really see what he’s doing. We can only hear his silence. Then Saki closes her eyes, and we can’t see anything of the fiend for one terrifyingly long moment.

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We get the same choice of perspective after the squid ink explosion, when Saki is tumbling through the sky. We get the first person perspective again, as the world tumbles around Saki. Then her eyes focus on the sun, which transforms into the moon, and a guy with a mask appears… ok I have no clue what happened, but it was beautiful… then Saki returns, the world starts spinning again, and Saki crashes into the sunflower field.

Further Thoughts

Now Saki has taken over as the leader. Things are only going to get more interesting.

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Wow. They took a lot of damage.

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I’m a bit confused. Saki said that this monster was a new type of Queerat. I thought only the rats were Queerats, but I guess it’s any monster?

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Which leads to the question: who is really in charge? Is Squealer using the fiend? Or is the fiend using Squealer? The invention of these new species lead me to suspect the latter.

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Yup. I’m glad they finally realized this.

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The boat and the way they’re sitting in it make it look like a coffin. Fitting.

17 thoughts on “Shin Sekai Yori 20 — Falling Slowly

  1. -“…and a guy with a mask appears…” this was shun from a preview episode 😉 mybe you need to rewatch this^^

    Q: WHO THE HELL IS THIS BOY WITH SHUNS HAIRCUT/COLOR ?? (it’s not him, he had green eys 😉 )

    To the show as such: in the last 2-3 episode i had the feeling that they were weaker as usual, because there were somehow less content and nothing really new. i am also confused about the people because they are acting like full re****; no strategy, no aim, just dying…. looking forward to see hopefully something more original in the next episode :-/

    1. I realize it was Shun, but I have no idea why he was there or what was going on. I assume it was all in Saki’s head.

      No content? What are you talking about? The village just got destroyed… pretty sure that’s the biggest thing that’s happened so far.

      1. i mean this is kind of stupid when this people getting killed by queerats without defending themselfs. in the first episodes shun fought allowen hundrets of them and the adults can’t even stop an arrow. None of the adultes (site carecters) has used his cantus yet, like they were simple peole…. there is no really battle as you expected, when the queerats have attacted. there are only scenes where the humans die

        1. Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, the people are getting destroyed. It makes sense though: the humans just assumed their cantus made them invincible, and they were very, very wrong. They’re getting killed before they have a chance to use their cantus, since they’re fighting giant explosions and guerrila fighters shooting them from behind. It is frustrating how woefully incompetent they are though. Aside from that priest two episodes ago, we haven’t seen a single adult do something all that useful.

          I’m curious what will happen when the other human villages learn of what’s happened.

      1. It kind of pissed me off. In the original novel, when they’re on the boat, the whole reason why Saki say she wants to remember Shun is because she’s in love with Satoru and wants to be with him but she can’t until she’ll remember Shun because she doesn’t want that Shun’s faceless ghost will hunt her forever and she want to sort her feelings for him. And Satoru tell her he feel the same way. That he loves her but he can’t move on and be with her until he’ll remember Shun. And that is why they’re both determined to stay alive. They want to remember him and then to get a happy ending with each other, and they make a promise to each other that they will.

        1. Hm. I was sort of guessing that was the case, especially with the way Satoru said he wanted to know his name so he could know what he truly felt (or something to that effect) and the way they were lying beside each other. I kind of like how the TV version added some ambiguity to the scene.

          1. I’m sure a lot of fangirls who waited to hear that declaration of love between the two of them for a long time will disagree with you 😛

          2. I’m sure they will. 🙂 As someone who has fangirled myself on occasion, the most satisfying shippings are the ones where they don’t resolve everything too quickly. There’s nothing as boring as a successful romance.

          3. I’m not bothered by how they cut out the confession but more by how… well… emotionally distant Satoru and Saki seemed throughout the whole thing. After throwing Satoru aside to save him, Saki went about her business like it was nothing, not even bothering to spare a thought for him, seemingly. It just didn’t seem all that consistent. And they didn’t even mention poor Mamoru when they were going on about Maria and Shun!

            Doesn’t matter, though. I still want to make love to this show.

          4. @Frog: Yeah, I thought it was weird how Saki totally forgot about Satoru after the explosion as well. It’s not even emotional distance so much as just completely forgetting about him. Very odd.

  2. “Wow. They took a lot of damage.” I wonder how the village is still in existence even though a few of the “ink queerrats” managed to blow themselves up inside the place! Btw, these creatures seem to me rather as a new type of “blowdog” than “queerrat”.

    “The invention of these new species lead me to suspect the latter.” Why is that? I’m still betting on Squealer. As far as I understood, fiends are sort of psychopaths. I guess a fiend is incredibly powerful but easily manipulated as his mind is darkened by anger or rage. Squealer, on the other hand, is the one who plays the greater game, as far as I understand.

    1. I think a new type of blowdog would be the proper term as well, but at one point Saki said they were new Queerats which is what confused me. Maybe it is just a poor translation. I think parts of the village still survived because it is quite spread out. My impression is that the school and the monk’s temple are not in the areas people live. If I recall correctly there are a number of neighborhoods where people live, perhaps only some were destroyed.

      Squealer is clever, I agree. But I think the fiend had to have invented those blowdogs, no? That shows a good deal of intelligence to come up with a creature like that. Even more so to command them. I kind of doubt those huge monsters would listen to Squealer when he told them to kill themselves.

      1. If Squealer’s people are resourceful enough to convert their Queens into living birth machines or to construct guns why shouldn’t they be able to learn how to create a new type of blowdog, as well? The theory that Squealer captured a false Minoshiro or learned about human technology some other way still seems plausible to me. But then again, I doubt that the fiend just accidentally happens to appear at this very moment.
        I’m not entirely sure what triggers the blowdogs to blow themselves up. Perhaps the ink Queerats work like landmines and are automatically triggered once someone comes near them (as Saki and Mamoru w/ their boat)?

        1. I don’t know, I think hooking up a creatures to a machine is much easier than inventing an entirely new lifeform. The only way to do that is with genetic engineering (I’m pretty sure they aren’t at that stage yet) or to use cancer. I think he caught a false Minoshiro too, but even with that knowledge he couldn’t immediately do everything the humans of the past could. They need time to build up their infrastructure.

          I thought the ink exploded because the blowdogs shoot fire into it.

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