Wow, that was intense. Finally the humans are at open war with Squealer’s army.
This episode did a great job of amping up the tension while developing two plot threads simultaneously: Saki’s memories of the past and the coming attack by Squealer. I loved the part where you see the person drinking from the monster around the corner, then we look back and he’s crumpled over dead.
The creepiest part of the whole episode, however, was the battle at the town square. Why are all these people cheering as they’re attacked by an army of Queerats, right after their festival has been interrupted and a bunch of the villagers have been killed? It’s like they’re watching a TV show or something.
If this were in PSYCHO PASS or some other show I could buy it. But this is Shin Sekai Yori. We’ve just finished experiencing how everyone grows up filled with terror of much of the outside world. These don’t seem like fun-loving people. Why are they laughing as their village gets razed to the ground?
It doesn’t make sense at all in light of what happens immediately after, either: the village enacts their emergency plan to stay in groups of five, and organizes the defense committee and medical squad. These people seem to have their heads on their shoulders. So what are they doing standing around laughing at the invasion of their village? It doesn’t make much sense to me.
But it did make the scene even creepier than it would have been otherwise. Maybe that was the point.
Further Thoughts
They should have studied math in school.
That priest was such a badass. What was with that woman who came out of the general’s body? Was she the manifestation of his Cantus or something? Or what makes him so powerful, perhaps? Maybe Shuu is a ghost inside Saki or something…
You came back to tell her that?
“And well, we can’t have kids since we’re both girls.”
I think this was mostly just heavy-handed foreshadowing by the screenwriter.. although I’m not really sure what this scene was supposed to be lol.
Maybe foreshadowing of Maria coming back as a man? Now that would be hilarious.
Sucks that Adoption or Surrogacy is non-existent in this future.
It is? I don’t remember them saying that. What would they do with the kids whose parents die?
Those villagers, who’re cheering for the two priests while the bakenezumis were being annihilated, gave me the creeps! And I agree, Shisei is so powerful! No wonder he’s a high rank priest (or something). One thing that bothers me though is that, Is it true that Maria and Mamoru are dead? Gawd. I don’t want that 🙁
About the woman who came out of the dead priest body, same thing happened to the false minoshiro back then. Is that what they called, death-by-shame-mechanism??
Anyway, I can’t wait for next week’s episode!
I think Maria and Mamoru are still alive, based on the allusions future Saki has made of Maria doing something terrible to the village in the future. But how did the bones match, even to their DNA? I kind of wonder if the old woman is helping Saki out on the coverup. Either that or they used their Cantus to somehow construct fake corpses.
Huh, I forgot about the false minoshiro. Very strange. Death by shame mechanism? I thought the priest died from the Queerats, not from any internal thing… but there’s definitely more going on here than what appears on the surface.
well this was my favorite episode so far and i have some speculations afterwards:
1: after ~Squera~ said,he could fake human bones i immideatly got the idea that the bouth refugees are allready dead but after all this visions of maria i start to believe that she still lives but she somehow managed to remove her bones out of her body and now she is flying without a skelleton haha
2. It’s preatty much shure, that the “giant hornets” were wiped out by kantus but we don’t know whos. my presumption is that it was the scenario as mentioned in point 1 or sine we think that the ~Querats ~ were once humans maria could have somehow managed to reactivate their kantus and was killed after that immidiatly and now we can expact the end of the world or saki becoming a fiend and erasing the half planet lol
3. (the most likely vesion) after this vision of maria talking about yuris cant have children i truly believe she and mamoru managed it somehow because where else is the point of saying something obviouse like that?
let me know what you guys think about those 3 scenarios
1. That would be hilarious. They do have Cantus powers, so maybe…
2. It seems like the priests in the village think it was caused by Cantus. I kind of wonder if it was just the poison gas though… they didn’t state any evidence that it couldn’t be poison gas. Still, it probably is Cantus since that’s what they’re hinting at. Saki seems to think it’s Maria… but why would Maria help them in their war? It doesn’t make much sense.
3. Damn I hope you’re right, that would certainly make things interesting…
2. the village has tried to kill them and killed some of her friends so maybe she wants revenge but i would dump the second scenario too, they feel not really hate towards the town
Yeah I don’t she would want revenge on the village, especially since Saki lives there. But it’s been ten years, so who can say what’s changed?
“Wow, that was intense. Finally the humans are at open war with Squealer’s army.” Actually I underestimated the village’s defense capabilities. The priest was awesome indeed. But what about that “general” who did nothing except hitting his drum and getting shot? At least, the general’s fate indicates that cantus users are not immortal. Squealer has what? a hundred thousand bakenezomi under his command. Why don’t they simply overrun the few villagers?
I also overestimated Squealer. I thought he would wait until their technology is so advanced that they could fight the villagers on equal terms and w/o recourse to a cantus user.
My guess is that Mamoru turned into a fiend and joined forces w/ Squealer. Saki then sacrifices herself for the village (death feedback!) and kills him.
the guy on the top created the force-field.
mamouru has no reason to become a fiend and like draggle said, actully they have no reason to help the queerats…
It’s been ten years though, so anything’s possible. Maybe Squealer is holding Mamoru hostage or something like that…
That priest is pretty badass, but he won’t be able to win a prolonged war against millions of Queerats by himself. If the rest of the village can fight like him, though, the Queerats are going to be in trouble…
I overestimated Squealer as well. I suppose he figured that the village was going to attack him once they learned of whatever he did to the other tribe. So he decided to make a preemptive attack. You’d think he’d have invested more resources in this attack though…