New Anime Series! Shin Sekai Yori episode 1

Hello there my lovely readers! It is I, the one who cleans houses and tries to blog anime at the same time. XD Doing my best to catch up but it is hard to do when a towel bandit lives in my house. They don't steal the towels but instead leave them all over the place. HMMM! It is a real mystery who could be doing this.

Crossing this line will be bad won't it?

But I did get some blogging done today folks! Shin Sekai Yori episode 1 is ready to go! Spoilers for kids going to school and painting without brushes!

Sounding like The Village! X___X

Episode Summary: In what appears modern day Tokyo people are going about there every day lives. Several hung over looking teenager make their way through crowds…and people turn into little splats of blood on the ground. Fast forward or backwards and several kids are playing in a dark field talking about winning a contest or something. Maneuver through some crazy terminology all the kids slowly become “adults” through a weird purification ceremony. Soon Saki is the only one left who has not been visited by the adult spirit and she worries a cat spirit will come and get her. One night everything in her room is thrown around and she is frightened. But her parents who rush in explain that the spirit has arrived. Saki is taken to a serious looking temple and an equally serious looking priest. He talks a bit about how this is a great sign and says other words that are confusing. Saki enters the ceremony where she has to concentrate her use of gravity on the flames. Once she is able to do so she puts…her ability into a doll and it is thrown in the fire. She cries a bit but all the adults around her declare this a good thing. The ceremony means that Saki can move up and go to the school all her friends are already attending. Everyone greets her warmly even if there is a bit of teasing about her being the last one in their group to arrive. At the school kids are grouped in teams of 6 and practice their skills that way. Since Saki and her group are 5 another girl Reiko is in their group.

Most dramatic period ever.

Maria, one of the friends, reads a story about a man who went beyond the lines of the village and was attacked by an angry spirit. When the man went back to the village he realizes he didn’t outrun the spirit and cut the bridge he and the spirit were on to protect everyone else. After this story the kids are tested on their various “abilities”, with Reiko being the weak link every time. Saki tries to defend the girl but it is obvious their group will never win if she remains on the team. The core group of 5 decide to go out somewhere without Reiko as it would freak her out. While walking the group talks about various rumors and scary stories, like how Satoru thinks there is a graveyard at the school. Saki mentions disappearing kids and how a cat like creature comes for them. After their adventure Saki returns home and thinks to herself on how these might not be rumors. Before Saki was visited by the adult spirit….she overheard her parents talking about how worried they were that Saki hadn’t become an adult. The father talks about how there are various organizations at work and there is nothing he could do. The mother cried about how she didn’t want to lose any more kids. Thus Saki became worried about not becoming an adult and had her freak outs. But now she wonders why her parents were acting like that. She picks at her food and questions why they were scared. Her parents lie to her so Saki goes off to bed upset. Later the kids learn that Reiko disappeared from school that day. THE END.

So teenagers ARE evil?

X_____X My tiny little mind is exploded into bits and pieces all over the room. And since I spent a good chunk of the day cleaning my house that doesn’t make me very happy. Maybe I should train my cat to be more helpful around the house.

You know....the piece of paper....

I was going to watch episode 1 and 2 back to back because I am curious on WHAT the heck is going on…but then I thought HEY maybe someone would be super helpful and answer any questions I pose in this post. Maybe episode 2 would explain them too but this way I can watch it with some knowledge in my head. Of course that puts me at risk for spoilers…NO SPOILERS! XD

And then things got confusing.

I guess the main thing I am confused about is that Saki, the person who seems like the main character, went through some kind of ritual and I THOUGHT she lost her powers during said ritual. Like up until adulthood kids have free reign of their powers but once they get older something…something will start punishing them if they keep these powers. That is why it is important to get the visit from the adult spirit because if you get left behind you die. Maybe kids are even encouraged to use their powers to work it up to a powerful level. That the spirit only comes if you are powerful. But after the innocence of childhood is gone Santa comes and bashes people’s skulls in if they continue to use the gift.

Maybe the word gravity means something different...

Despite the confusing language going on I thought I understood that much. Thought it was a bit weird that the spirit was a bit violent with its arrival but maybe that is the warning. That okay you are too powerful. Then the elaborate ceremony takes place and all is well. I haven’t mentioned it yet but some of the art is really beautiful in this show. The design of the characters is on the simple side but the buildings and the landscape is really detailed. So yes very elaborate ceremony indeed. Saki sat there and put her powers into a doll that was then cast into the fire. Saki starts crying as she can’t use her powers anymore. So silly me I thought that meant Saki…didn’t have powers anymore.

Explanation please.

Then she gets to the school and everyone is using powers. Do you see my confusion?! They call it gravity before the ceremony and mostly refer to it as abilities AFTER the ceremony. At one point I thought Saki was going to put her powers IN an object to better control said powers but then the bleeding piece of paper was tossed into the fire. So….I guess getting rid of powers before there are out of control teenagers isn’t happening. And then I am confused.

So is this a different power or something?

Since we didn’t see much of life around the village before Saki lost her powers it is hard to tell what their powers looked like. But Saki was able to move the fire during the ceremony. Her crying I thought was a hint that the powers were gone. But then they were moving around cards at school and imprinting pictures onto blank canvases. Was I wrong to assume the powers were gone or did they get rid of a “bad” power and they are practicing a safe, acceptable power?

Those used to be people.

Either way the whole situation is creepy. Especially given the knowledge the viewer has. Tokyo was going about its business when suddenly young people were walking around exploding people. Moreso than my brain. So really we viewers know what can happen if kids get older and develop their powers. Or at least that is what seems to happen. So I assume that the adults know about this history and are trying to keep it from happening again. But maybe something else is happening, good powers verses bad powers and I am just slow. I wonder how many adults know about this secret though. I would question what the cat spirit is but this is episode 1 and I find that confusion acceptable. Maybe it is natures warning that the kid is getting too powerful thus they can do the ceremony and put all their “bad” powers into the doll.

Psht I bet she will get better soon....

The kids besides Saki sorta all ran together in my head except Reiko. And of course she is the one who disappeared so go me! Not that there is anything wrong with having one character stand out above the rest. We needed to see this ceremony process and it would be boring to be the first one right? Wow I just thought about how sad and lonely that would be. Hopefully it wasn’t a big gap between kid 1 and kid 2. I wonder why they have to be separated though. Or were they? I assumed they were but maybe they just went to school and she was worried at home. I don’t know.

Well I hope there are more kids in the village. X___X

In any event Maria seems to be the mature girl in the group. There might be some slightly jealously among her and Saki as there was a look given. Satoru seems to be the group teaser. He might go a little too far with his teasing but it is probably in good fun. Shun seems to be the one who is good at everything and the one everyone counts on. Surely he shall snap under the pressure. And Mamoru…well he is just happy to be there. And happy that Reiko was added to their group because that meant he got to live to fight another day.

No shadow cats for me please.

The story that was read in class and the rumors the kids were talking about are obviously true and will come into the plot sooner rather than later. Especially now that a kid they know has disappeared. Rumors and stories are fun until they apply to you. Then it is like oh crap. Where WERE the kids going when they were leaving Reiko behind? Because…I don’t know what the big deal was. Probably doesn’t matter that much. Just an excuse for the kids to talk as a group and get Saki thinking.

Plastic smiling faces scare me.

That is how the episode ends, with Saki being shown she is not the happy go lucky fun girl she appears to be. The reason why she was so freaked out about this cat ghost issue was her parents were worried about it. They tried to lie to her, that they were late bloomers too but Saki knows the truth. Much of what the father said went over my head because it involved organizations not yet mentioned in the show. Saki probably didn’t understand them either. But mom and her the kids are missing and this needs to stop? Yeah. So now that Saki is an adult she is pissed at her parents lying. Or maybe that is because she is a teenager…XD

Might be time to find a new school then.

So…yeah. Slightly confused on what is going on. Powers all over the place. Also I am glad that I watched two different sneak peaks to this series or else I would disappointed. The Tokyo scenes were really brief and in one sneak peak they were prominently featured. But going by the synopsis we should have expected as much. Will watch episode two when I am less confused. XD