At its worst, Shinsekai Yori is dreadfully boring and confounding, and at its best, it is tense and even chilling. It engages with some pretty serious political and moral themes and handles them quite nicely. However, I consider the act of judging anime on these themes alone to be one of anime watcher’s most misplaced biases. A show needs to do more than just put themes in writing to make them come alive to the audience. And a show cannot sacrifice too much just to get these themes realized in a certain way. This is where Shinsekai Yori falters. What does this show do to engage the viewers before the final act? It certainly tries, but to me, it certainly falls short.
My personal bias on this show, and shows like these, is that I just don’t love dystopian psychological thrillers. I think they pose a lot of interesting questions and scenarios for the audience to unpack, but so does a book (more concisely and explicitly at that). Whether the topic at hand is best set as a story or as a study is entirely debatable, but I tend to think that there is so much potential content (and biases that must come with any satisfying plot resolution) that it is best to just have it in writing. Though, to be fair, Shinsekai Yori fleshes out its content well and addresses its biases perfectly.
[Pros and Cons]
[+] One of the better ‘villains’ in recent memory.
[+] A strong final act that definitely keeps the audience guessing. Just how deep does the rabbit hole go?
[+] Neat use of time skips. Regardless of the quality of the plot in each interval, the skips themselves are at least functional and effective.
[+] Diverse art style, which can lead to some very inventive presentation.
[+] Sound design is good. Sound tracks initially leave a huge impression, though they begin to get a little repetitive and lose their impact.
[=] When art is ‘standard’, which is most of the time, the presentation is only average.
[-] Voice acting, while maybe more realistic, should definitely be livelier.
[---] Sacrifices far too much enjoyment in the first two acts.
[---] Characters are boring and completely lack distinct personalities.
[---] Character design has so many problems.
[Character Design Matters]
Shinsekai Yori has a problem with its characters, from every angle. But I want to talk about the problems that the characters have from a design perspective. I think that the character design is in fact so poor that it, on its own, makes the characters worse than they ought to be.
Firstly, all the characters look the same. They have the same facial structure, they have the same pale complexion, they have the same style of mouth and eyes, they have the same outfits, they have similar voice acting. Sure, this is maybe more realistic, but that isn’t really the point of anime. One of anime’s greatest strengths as a genre is that it is allowed to do things that normal live-action film cannot – it can more freely design its visual attributes to better fit the challenges that these visual attributes must face. Characters are simply better if they have more distinguishing features. It allows audience members to attach their thoughts to each characters visual presentation. Or they allow our characters to communicate their unique attributes visually, rather than verbally. When the characters are so similar, what can the audience anchor themselves to?
Secondly, the specific design attributes chosen limit the expression that these characters can evoke. Small mouth, small eyes, and neatly contained hair make it difficult for the characters to communicate their ideas visually. This is important. Anime isn’t all about writing, and making the most of anime means putting thought into each channel of communication that it offers. In this series, the range of emotion that the characters can visually evoke is very small. This gives the characters themselves fewer tools to work with, and ultimately gives them less ‘oomph’. We want oomph!
I think it is very telling that my favorite characters of the show, Kiroumaru and Squeera, aren’t human at all. They have unique presentations. Kiroumaru specifically does work with his mouth alone to visually communicate his thoughts. And again, even among the human characters, my favorite is Shisei, who wears a mask.
[A Big Finish, but a Small Ramp]
How much is too much? Shinsekai Yori sacrifices so much just to have a solid ending. The first act is just… so boring. It is very difficult to keep track of where the characters are, why they continue to do what they are doing, and what the point of it all is. Oh, and it just isn’t fun to watch. These episodes are necessary, to some degree, but it would be nice if they weren’t just a whirlwind of locations and poor ‘action’ scenes. The second act is focused more on the characters, which could be good… if the characters were any good. I don’t really care for any of them. At this point, it feels like all the characters are going to have similar fates, and we are just waiting for Saki’s turn. This never comes to fruition, and the audience is left hanging again.
I think that, for the sake of the plot feeling thrilling the final act, it makes sense for the first two acts to be pretty empty. There needs to be enough information and loose ends so that when the pieces are put together, the result is actually unexpected. However, while this period must have some sort of setup involved, it doesn’t mean that it has to be boring. For instance, good humor or action can be applied in these areas to make them much less burdensome yet still low in plot content. Hell, even just having a more engaging, tentative plot line could hold interest too. But I think that sacrificing like 16 episodes of content just to get a strong finish is a pretty poor choice. I guess maybe if the ending were, like, the greatest thing since sliced bread. Then it would be OK. But it isn't. So it's not.
[Rating]
Story: 5
Art: 6
Sound: 7
Character: 2
Enjoyment/Overall: 5
