Shinsekai Yori - 23

"The Boy's Face"

I knew this was tanking, but for it to lose so badly on a poll that it was beaten out by the likes of Amnesia... There goes my already shaky faith in humanity.

The closer we get to the end of Shinsekai Yori, the sadder I seem to get about the anime industry as a whole. I've never been one to dislike the art direction for this series, for example, despite its obviously low budget and artistic experimentalism (which bothered plenty of would-be fans); however, what does bother me is that A-1 Pictures is simultaneously working on Vividred Operation and Oreshura, two generic series that get (especially in Vividred's case) disproportionately large budgets and attention from both the studios and the fans. I don't particularly care that those series are popular, but the real issue is that those are the series which will get the focus from the industry as a whole; they're the series making the money, which means the studios care more about them, which in turn means they put more effort into them, which makes everything else look subpar in comparison. It's a vicious cycle, and for those of us who want more Shinsekai Yoris and Zetsuen no Tempests, we're stuck in the middle of a majority movement where this type of series is slowly dying out. Still, complaining about it week after week isn't going to make things better, so from now on, I'm concentrating on giving the last three episodes of this series the attention that it deserves.

First off, this was another spectacular episode, though one that simultaneously made me cry and want to rip my hair out. Artistically, this series knows exactly what it's doing, even if it has to make do with a poor budget and a condensed plot. The various hallucinations/illusions that Saki sees are always intriguing and ethereal, and they hint at something both spiritual and psychological about her state of mind. Why, for instance, is she suddenly so focused on Shun while she and the others are in the middle of what's essentially a war for human survival? The simplest answer is, of course, that in the anxiety over how things will turn out, her mind turns to something familiar and painful, though when it comes to Cantus users, other explanations are equally potent. There's a possibility that Saki's memories of Shun have been "given life" in a sense, and that they've started acting independently of her conscious thoughts. In other words, her repressed memories have begun interacting with her consciousness as an effect of her subconscious wish to see him again and remember him, thus the comment that he "lives on in her heart". I could be completely wrong, of course, but it seems more plausible to me than the idea that Shun really has come back from the dead somehow.

While that reunion is bound to be heartwrenching and cruel (regardless of conceptions of reality), there are other relationships within this episode that are not quite as satisfying to watch. For a while now, Saki and Satoru's relationship has felt flat and without any of the depth and tension that it possessed when they were children, and that is more and more evident as we head off toward the finale. The fact that Satoru was mostly ignored this time around is bad enough, but it's downright upsetting that the minor Inui has more chemistry with Saki in less than twenty minutes than Saki and Satoru have had together since they grew up. The entire time that Inui and Saki were together, I couldn't help but be worried for Satoru's safety, especially after Inui tells Saki of his suspicions about Kiroumaru's loyalty. On the one hand, I can understand the importance of the mission, but on the other, if I were Saki and I heard this, I'd be frantic to get back to Satoru to at least warn him or be by his side, sexual and romantic tensions aside. After all, Satoru is Saki's best friend and effectively the only person from her past that she has left in the world, so he's the last person I'd want accompanying a potential traitor. However, while Saki does express a moment of concern, Satoru is quickly forgotten and she and Inui continue their plan, even betraying Kiroumaru (and leaving Satoru behind) in the process.

Of course Inui sent up far too many death flags to survive this mission, and quick as a flash he's killed, leaving Saki on her own to find the Psychobuster and face the Fiend. Except that now Saki is more unsure than ever that Maria and Mamoru's child is really a Fiend in the first place, after her hallucination of Shun assures her she's mistaken about the nature of the boy. This only makes things more complicated for her, though I doubt she'll do nothing when the moment comes. Even though Saki's been a bit useless in terms of fighting and protecting herself, I don't think she's powerless or incapable of dealing with this crisis, even if it means she's on her own (assuming Satoru is unable to reach her in time for the confrontation). As Maria, Tomiko, and Saki's mother have been constantly pushing throughout the series, Saki's strength lies in her mentality; she's the type of person who cries at death and fears the unknown, but nevertheless keeps placing one foot in front of the other toward doing what must be done. "Courage is not the absence of fear, but fearing something and doing it anyway."

There's something ironic in the fact that Saki, the girl Yakomaru and the rest of the bakenezumi spared all those years ago, is the one who rests with the fate of the Cantus users in her hands. Like Tokyo, which was shaped into hell by the fears of the PK users and their subconscious Cantus leakage, so too has Saki been shaped into the last hope of humanity by the bakenezumi's moment of mercy, and the pseudo-Fiend into the destroyer of Pk-users by the adults who were paranoid enough to persecute his parents. There's a very real truth to all of this, in that humans often create their own worst enemies and problems and that they must face the consequences of doing so sooner than later. Still, Saki must first come to terms with her own subconscious in the image of Shun before she can gather the resolve to face Yakomaru and presumably destroy the child of the woman she loved.

All in all, we're headed for an epic finale, one that already has shivers running down my spine.

N.B.: Thanks to Ivan for all the wonderful screencaps!