Shinsekai Yori - 19

"Darkness"

I will never watch Shinsekai at 3 AM without turning the lights on again.

It's been a while since I can claim to have watched something that intense, mostly because I'm terrible at dealing with suspense and usually avoid it like the plague. The fact that we all knew it was only a matter of time until a Fiend showed up made it no less scary when it actually did appear. I would even argue that the inevitability of its introduction and the buildup to this moment only helped to increase the tension, but there are all sorts of little details here that made the Fiend so much more terrifying than he would have been otherwise.

I am convinced that this Fiend is either Maria and Mamoru's child or somehow related to them in some way. There's something off between what we know about Fiends and what this fiend is actually doing, and I have to wonder if that discrepancy doesn't arise from the fact that this is a "special case", so to speak. For example, the Fiend K from Tomiko's memory destroyed almost on instinct; he was only sane enough to visit the doctor and even then no one knew when he would snap. Yet this new Fiend seems to be working in collaboration with the bakenezumi and even stops to tie people up rather than kill them outright. The obvious question, of course, is why? Why would someone driven to extreme paranoia (as Raman-Klogius is supposed to do) work in tandem with the bakenezumi? Has Yakomaru found a way to control the Fiend to his liking, or is this Fiend simply a very different entity from those like K? If this is Maria and Mamoru's child, born and raised away from the hypnotism and watchful eye of the adults, then perhaps his genetic death feedback isn't strong enough to stop him even if he hasn't fully realized into a true Fiend. It's possible that the violent tendencies were easier to draw out from a child without this extra reinforcement, especially if Yakomaru really has captured a False Minoshiro and gained some sort of knowledge on the subject.

Regardless, at the moment all that matters to Saki, Satoru, and their makeshift group is that there very likely is a Fiend on the loose, and that they're the immediate ones in danger. In some ways, I think this episode proves something that I've been thinking about in regards to this series all along; Cantus gives these people a false sense of security, almost like we in our modern societies feel that nothing bad is likely to happen to us. Even when there's evidence to the contrary, these people are conditioned to think that they are the top predators in the food chain, and I'm strongly reminded of Tomiko's words back in episode twelve, "What else is there to fear but Fiends and Karma Demons?" In a sense, they're more afraid of their own kind, of themselves, than they ever were of the bakenezumi even after those deaths, including the ones by the Fiend, were orchestrated by a bakenezumi rather than a PK user. This arrogance is what leads to the deaths of the foolish men in the group other than Satoru, who knows better. The power of Cantus has installed these humans with an extreme case of god-like hubris, and that is never a good thing.

I don't think we're due for a change of pace anytime soon; clearly Kishi's work has reached its intended climax, and it's been a nearly overwhelming ride to get to this point. Saki and Satoru have been through hell to reach this moment in their lives, and I don't think it's an understatement to say either that they may just be witness to the destruction of the PK societies as they know it, or that they'll have to metaphorically kill a piece of themselves to overcome the crisis. This is a strikingly bleak work, but it's among the finest anime I've had the pleasure to watch in a very long time. The effect on the emotions of the viewer is raw and visceral, and I felt as if the blood froze in my veins when Saki and Satoru realized that the Fiend had followed them quietly on the extra boat. Clearly, we're dealing with more than just a Fiend, and somehow that's a hell of a lot scarier than it should be.

N.B.: Thanks to my good friend Ivan for the screenshots! You're a lifesaver!