From the New World: Episodes 3-4

The False Minoshiro & Bloody History

Summary

The trip upriver proceeds uneventfully. Around the campfire Satoru tells everyone about how someone – who’s totally real! – saw a Balloon Dog. The others aren’t impressed – wouldn’t a dog-like creature that inflates itself like a balloon when angry pop like a balloon if it inflated too much? It gets better though – apparently this unnamed person also saw a Demon Minoshiro. Also called a False Minoshiro, you supposedly die after seeing one, but this unnamed person hasn’t (but totally will soon – positive!). Shun suggests they make strange creatures like the Balloon Dog and Demon Minoshiro their trip project. Everyone then goes night canoeing, leaving behind a pissed-off Satoru (he drew the short straw) to watch the fire. During the ride, Shun holds Saki’s hand. She doesn’t seem to mind.

The next day, Satoru suggests they go further upriver than planned, and even the rational Shun likes the idea. After reaching their destination and hiking into the forest a ways they discover an old shrine buried in the undergrowth. Suddenly, a strange, translucent creature appears, emitting a bright light that paralyzes everyone except Saki, who put on goggles when the brightness of the water’s surface bothered her. The others snap out of it after it crawls between two rocks, and none of them disagree that it was a Demon Minoshiro. Mamoru suggests that they go back, but Saki insists she can catch it, which they accomplish by using their Power to control two giant crab-creatures.

The Minoshiro paralyzes everyone again, and a goggles-wearing Saki retaliates by pulling off an antenna, causing it to suddenly talk. It demands that she stop damaging “Library” property, under which it is authorized to use its defense mechanism (the paralyzing light), but it stops when Saki threatens to pull off all its’ antenna. When they ask what it is, it identifies itself as the Tsukuba Branch of the National Diet Library. Specifically, it is a remote terminal with a storage device containing a holographic copy of the library collection. This is mostly gibberish to the kids, but Saki seems intrigued when it says they can access its data at any time.

Unfortunately, the kids can’t simply ask questions; they have to register. And that’s not happening since they aren’t 18, nor do any of them have a valid passport, drivers licence, health insurance card, or school ID. Fortunately, there’s a way to bypass that – threaten to rip it in two. Saki asks if Ogres and Karmic Demons exist, and the Minoshiro identifies them as those afflicted with Larman-Krogeus Syndrome and Hashimoto-Applebaum Syndrome, respectively. Both appeared shortly before the collapse of civilization, and the main characteristic of the latter is their ability to use psychokinesis, or PK – in layman’s terms, psychic powers.

 The existence of psychic powers was definitively proved in 2011, and this long-dormant ability began to reappear shortly afterwards, until psychics comprised 0.3% of the population. Even though they could command only a fraction of their potential they were still extremely dangerous, and without a way to curb their abilities there was no real way to stop them if they used their PK for destructive or violent ends. Anti-PK riots started, humanity splintered into factions, war broke out, the threat to PK users caused a drastic evolution of their abilities, and the world population fell to 2% of its peak level. The five hundred year period that followed is known as the Dark Ages.

During this period, four distinct groups emerged in northeast Asia. PK-users formed Slave Dynasties who ruled the non-PK majority, handfuls of non-PKs lived outside the Dynasties as hunter-gatherers, other PK-users became bandits, and a fourth group managed to preserve remnants of the technological past. The Dynasties practiced mutual non-interference and remained in power for about 600 years. The deaths of the last PK users brought about their collapse, and the fourth group stepped in to prevent the ensuing chaos from escalating.

This group recognized the need to prevent Power from being used against others and tried various methods – first education, then using psychological and personality tests to identify and pre-emptively eliminate those deemed dangerous, and third, trying to make society adopt the ways of the bonobo, a relative of the chimpanzee that resolves conflicts by having sex. None were completely effective, so at last genetic engineering was used to modify the human genome. The modifications were an aversion to attacking one’s own species, based on this tendency in wolves, and what’s called the ‘Death of Shame’, which causes a physical reaction when attacking another human and can kill you if you persist.

The kids are shocked and disturbed by all of this, and Satoru insists it could all be lies. Shun notes a discrepancy – everyone they know has Power, but the Minoshiro just said most people didn’t, so what happened to the latter? It says there are few trustworthy sources for the period between the Dark Ages and now, so it can’t answer.

Just as the Minoshiro is about to explain what Ogres are, it bursts into flames. As it burns, the image of a woman and child appears in the flames. The perpetrator is a man named Rijin, a monk from the Temple of Purification. Needless to say, the kids are in serious trouble right now – not only did they not have permission to be there, they’ve listened to a demon and broken the Tenth Platinum Law and must have their powers sealed.

Rijin tells everyone to come to the Temple with him. Saki believes their Power can be unsealed, but Satoru is convinced that won’t happen – they’ll probably just kill them. Rijin looks sick, and Shun concludes it’s because of the woman they saw in the flames – it’s the Minoshiro’s defense mechanism. He won’t die since he didn’t actually kill a human, but he’s still having a reaction.

A Monster Rat suddenly appears, larger than the ones before, and armed. Rijin kills it, but realizes from its lack of a tattoo that it’s from an invasive species. They encounter a whole group of them, and Rijin uses his Power to call down a massive cyclone, uprooting the earth and killing them all. This time Rijin looks even sicker, and Saki figures the Monster Rats were far away enough that they looked human. Then a Balloon Dog emerges from under the corpses…

Thoughts

Remember last year, when it was all over the news that a scientist in Azerbaijan had definitively proved the existence of psychic powers? I knew it wasn’t going to end well…

And really, wouldn’t the world be a much happier place if everyone would just resolve their differences by having sex? So many world conflicts that could be ended so easily...yeah, I’m not gonna take that joke any further.

Anyways, infodump ahoy! No real surprises, though; psychic powers emerged (or rather, re-emerged), some people ended up using them for evil, things got out of control, modern civilization went bye-bye, preindustrial societies rose from the ashes, and as time went on various groups who had an edge (PK, remnants of the old technology) came to power. It also came a bit too soon, at least in my opinion. It dispels a lot of the mystery the show had, which has been part of the appeal for me, and it feels like that’s being swept aside prematurely, and with revelations that aren’t at all novel. Thankfully, while the basics of what happened have been explained rather early on, it hasn’t answered every question.

For one thing, it’s unclear if the technological group that came to power after the Slave Dynasties ended fully remembers its origins or has still preserved any modern technology. It sounds like they originally managed to retain a fairly modern society, as shown by the Minoshiro requesting distinctly modern documents like a drivers’ licence to register, despite the narrator stating in episode 3 that she believes the former didn’t come into existence until after everything went to hell. If there’s any translucent…whatever the Minoshiro looks like that serve as entire libraries wandering around right now, I certainly haven’t heard of them. They even sound like they were a little more advanced in some areas since they were apparently capable of advanced genetic engineering. It could certainly explain the animals the kids saw at Saddharma Farm, and all available evidence seems to point to the Minoshiro being an artificial lifeform, not to mention that they’ve apparently tampered with the human genome itself.

But there’s been little evidence of any advanced capabilities so far. There’s been hints of modernity in their society – the school system, as I commented on before, and in these last two episodes  the kids’ clothes, while probably handmade, have a distinctly modern look to them (well, Shun kinda looks like he belongs in Sherwood Forest, but it’s not too hard to picture Satoru wearing identical-looking clothes and zipping down the sidewalk on a skateboard, and Saki’s tunic looks a lot like a hoodie), but no evidence of technology beyond a preindustrial level, or even an understanding of such. Rijin calls the Minoshiro a demon, and declares that the Monster Rats “have no place in the three worlds but for the grace of Buddha, who allows [them] to live as inhuman beasts.” The mention of Buddha gives his claim a spiritual tint, whereas, if the Minoshiro is telling the truth, the obvious explanation is genetic engineering. It’s unclear if this is Orwellian suppression of information – is he in the know and hiding things from the kids, as members of the general population, or is he also not high up enough to be aware of the truth? – or if even those in power have genuinely forgotten or no longer properly understand where their society came from.

I’ll say one thing, though – I don’t think Rijin is experiencing the Death of Shame because those Monster Rats were far away enough to look human – they are human. Not outwardly obviously, but underneath there’s still fundamentally human DNA. Hey, genetic engineering was supposedly possible in the past, and something had to happen to the mysteriously vanished Powerless majority. OK, that they’re genetically engineered rats is a more obvious and way simpler explanation, even moreso for the ones in the village, which are normal-sized rats, than these ones, which are as tall as the kids, but that’s nowhere near as disturbing as the technology group finding a more novel way to deal with the majority that doesn’t involve killing them off. Hey, if you’re trying to level the playing field, can’t duplicate whatever gives people Power artificially, and just killing of the non-Power users is too impractical, you’ve gotta do something to distance them from those who can. Obviously this is assuming a lot about the nature of Power and what the technology group knew about it; the key thing behind it is that the kids’ think Rijin is genuinely experiencing the Death of Shame after killing the Monster Rats, rather than having what’s basically a mild allergic reaction – if that’s true why would he be unless he actually was attacking humans?

To be fair, the Death of Shame does seem to be affected by perception, since Rijin had a reaction after killing the Minoshiro, supposedly because of the image of the woman that appeared when he burned it. Then again, Saki is clearly experiencing similar symptoms after attacking it earlier, when there’s no way to mistake it for a human – her reactions rather nicely parallel its description of the Death of Shame’s symptoms. It suggests some things about the way Minoshiros are created…

Of course, that’s assuming that everything the Minoshiro said is true, but if there’s one thing that genuinely holds true in fiction, it’s that disturbing truths revealed by a questionable source contain at least a grain of actual truth.

Anime Thoughts: From the New World, Episode 2

The Vanishing Children

Summary

The class reads a story. 180 years ago, there was a boy who was very intelligent. Unfortunately, he was also very proud of this, and his arrogance caused others to shun him. Since he failed to heed the lessons of his school and elders, his pride persisted and created more and more negative karma, until he was transformed into a Karmic Demon. Realizing that such a creature cannot be allowed to exist, he vanished into the lake.

The school holds its annual Carryball Tournament, which involves the students creating balls and playing pieces out of clay, which they manipulate using their Power. Saki’s group makes it to the final match, but just as their ball has almost reached the opposing goal her friend Shun is suddenly unable to move it any further, and then an opposing piece collides with their Pusher – an illegal move, shattering it and causing the ball to roll away. Even the other team seems surprised, but one boy insists it was an accident, and the teacher seems to agree, calling the match a draw. However, Saki and her friends are certain the attack was deliberate. Not only is interfering with a Pusher against the rules of the game, using one Power against another is itself dangerous and therefore illegal. The boy responsible soon vanishes. It’s implied to involve a certain not-very-nice kitty. However, no one pays his disappearance much notice and focus on planning their upcoming field trip, where each group rows up the Tone River to spend a week camping in the wilderness beyond the Sacred Barrier, independent of other groups and the school faculty.

Shortly before the trip, Saki and the gang spot two Monster Rats, sentient but otherwise normal rats used for labor purposes. They worship those with Power like gods, but they’re kept away from the children because the adults are worried about how they’ll react to those who haven’t developed their Powers yet, so none of Saki’s group has seen one before. One gets trapped in the garbage they’re trying to clean from an irrigation ditch, but Saki saves it, despite not being allowed to use her Power without permission. The two rats thank the ‘god’ for her help, and Maria makes everyone promise not to tell. Satoru recognizes a mark on the rescued one’s forehead that identifies it as a member of Stemborer Colony 619.

Thoughts

I got some Nineteen Eighty-Four vibes from this episode, what with children disappearing from the class and their names removed from the roster, and this not really being acknowledged (funny, though, that the first time this is shown it’s Satoru’s name that gets stamped, rather than Reiko’s right under it. Either that’s a goof in the subtitles or something unpleasant is in store for Satoru). Not to mention how Manabu, the boy who cheated, disappears. Remember how in Nineteen Eighty-Four Julia speculates that the Party itself may be the one dropping the rocket bombs, to keep the Proles cowed? Well, here Manabu cheats, and presumably that same evening a shape that looks like a large cat is seen following him. Not only does it suggest that the Trickster Cat does go after naughty children, but that there’s a deeper connection between it and the adults. This is a society that makes underperforming or excessively rule-breaking kids unpersons, and that makes use of modified animals – it wouldn’t surprise me if they have at least some control over a creature or spirit said to go after those who misbehave, while using it as a typical boogeyman (‘be on time for dinner or the Trickster Cat will get you!’) to hide the fact that it’s real. We already know that at least some of the adults hide things, such as Saki’s mom – this time she denies that anything happened while she was in the Unified Class, but since we know she’s keeping things from Saki, it’s easy to take what she says with a grain of salt – and the Cat showing up right after Manabu cheated is too convenient to be written off as a complete coincidence. It makes me think the teacher did know that he cheated and called a draw to avoid arousing suspicion after the latter disappears.

Still, though, people disappearing doesn’t seem to be a case of everyone having to pretend the vanished never existed so much as it not being polite to bring them up or acknowledge the disappearance. The narrator at the end freely mentions both Manabu and Reiko and is implied to be an adult Saki (through the use of “me” relative to the latter’s friends), so it’s not like everyone just forgets they exist.

Also: many people would have lived if Maria had never been born? Whatever that means should prove to be interesting…

Anime Thoughts: From the New World, Episode 1

And because I missed watching something as it comes out, I'm watching this. Actually, I'm watching it because it's the only show this season that interests me, but that just means I have two separate reasons to do so.

The Season of New Leaves

Summary

A thousand years from now, in a land protected from the dangers of the outside world by the Sacred Barrier, a girl named Saki Watanabe awakens one night as objects in her room suddenly begin to float and fly about. Her parents are overjoyed – she’s been visited by a Blessing Spirit and can now attend the Unified Class, where she will be able to develop her newly gained psychic powers. Being a late bloomer, she is reunited with her friends from her old school, Harmony Elementary, on the first day of class. They tell her she is the last student from Harmony, which is strange, since there were a bunch of other kids still there when she left…

It reminds her of the rumors that some kids don’t graduate from Harmony, they just vanish. This causes her friend Satoru to bring up various scary stories that surround the school – from gossip that there are graves in the courtyard, where students are forbidden to go, to chilling claims that the mysterious, malevolent being known as the Trickster Cat haunts the school. Saki doesn’t tell the others that she’s certain she did see it at the school. She’s also worried about a conversation she overheard shortly before the arrival of the Blessing Spirit, where he parents were obviously worried because it hadn’t come yet, and about what the Education Committee might do. Her mother insisted that she “[didn’t] want to lose any more children!” That’s news to Saki. A few days later, Reiko, the group member whose Power is the weakest, disappears.

Thoughts

Hard to say much about the actual story so far since the first episode doesn’t give us much to go on, except hints that the psychic powers everyone has may have been the cause of modern civilization, at least in Japan, going kaput! (well, judging from the way those who’d developed psychic powers in the opening scene were using them, splat! may be a better word) and that some not-very-pleasant things may happen to those who don’t develop them, or develop them too slowly or unsatisfactorily.

Still, this looks very interesting and shows lots of potential. The hints it gives are just enough to be intriguing, with suggestions there’s something sinister under the surface, and the prevalence of evening and dimly lit scenes suit the atmosphere, while the mixture of traditional-looking buildings and clothes mixed with modern touches such as the Harmony Elementary sounding somewhat like a more modern-style school, the characters’ uniforms (which come across as a mix of modern uniforms and traditional robes, especially in cropped character portraits that only show the collars), and suggestions of the survival of traditional religions, such as a reference to the Buddha, give hints that this is our world, but changed. Saki’s flashback to Saddharma Farms, which her class at Harmony visited on a field trip, mixes in a lot of these elements. It comes across as a modern-style farm, despite lacking advanced technology, while the animals such as what the students call ‘bag cows’, that red wasp-thingy, and the giant silkworm are familiar if unusual, and Saki’s comment that the Unified Class reminds her of the farm is one of those hints that something not-right is going on behind the scenes. After all, a farm is a place where animals are raised en-masse for a specific purpose, and she’s saying a school where students are being taught to use psychic powers has the same feel…

And, maybe it’s just because I watched this fairly late at night, but the Trickster Cat is pretty damn creepy. In a good way. Listening to Satoru talk about it like it’s a fireside ghost story, mixed with how Saki’s mother reacts (that jolt of surprise makes her denial an obvious ‘I know you actually saw something, but don’t want to admit that’ type of “you just imagined it”) hits the right balance between keeping it mysterious but with just enough menace to underpin the hints that there is something out there.  Seriously, that flashback where Saki was walking down the hallway, and there was some light where it turns a corner, and you see the shadow of a swishing tail…Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. Didn’t give me nightmares or make it hard to fall asleep, but that’s some great spooky atmosphere.

Yep, this is definitely looking interesting. So far, I’ve got no reason not to keep watching.

 

Anime Thoughts: Tsuritama Episodes 4-8

Now that that's all out of the way (well, minus the 'final thoughts' on Pirates, but I'm thinking of rewatching it to do that) and my motivation is improving, it's time to get back to some of the things I've neglected for too long.

Summary

Haru often gets on Yuki’s nerves and seems to pass a tipping point when he uses his water gun to make Natsuki and his dad fish together. However, Natsuki believes that he’s caused Yuki to loosen him up a bit, and the latter’s able to admit that he does care about Haru in spite of his goofball antics.

Yuki wants to get his own fishing rod but has no money, so once summer vacation begins the trio start working for Ayumi, the captain of a recreational fishing boat. Yuki proves to seriously lack sea legs at first and is ready to give up after he fails to help a customer catch a fish, but again he perseveres and begins to change now that he has friends and something he’s genuinely interested in.

When Kate* informs the boys she’ll be getting out of the hospital soon, Yuki decides to try and catch a tuna for her as a present. When they can’t find an available fishing boat after work Akira offers to let them use his. They end up fishing near an artificial reef called Akemi, which the locals avoid because another boat disappeared near it years ago, and despite Ayumi expressly forbidding it. They spot a gigantic bait ball – a cluster of small fish driven to the surface by larger prey fish underneath – and successfully catch a tuna, but then it’s abruptly several hours later and they’re further out than before. Haru suddenly goes crazy and squirts Natsuki and Yuki with his water gun. Something rises out of the sea, and when the other boys come to they’re on the shore, Akira waving a flare to get the search party’s attention. Kate is released from the hospital and the ‘welcome home’ party, at which Yuki’s tuna is served, is a big success, but Haru now insists he won’t fish again.

Everyone goes out fishing for Natsuki’s birthday, but things turn sour when he gets into an argument with his dad over the latter’s heretofore unannounced (to Natsuki) plans to diversify the family business. Another boat suddenly comes towards them – its occupants obliviously doing the Enoshima Dance – and though it narrowly misses them it causes Natsuki’s little sister Sakura to drop the bracelet she’d made for their late mother into the sea, for which she blames Natsuki and his fights with their dad. She goes missing later, but Natsuki manages to find her outside an ice cream shop they once went to with their mom, and she forgives him. Yuki, who’d tried to get Natsuki to apologize earlier, apologizes himself and admits he can’t understand how Natsuki feels since he never knew his own parents. After getting some advice from Kate, Haru decides to start fishing again, and Akira has now become part of the group.

Meanwhile, Akira has identified himself to Haru and his sister, Coco*, as a member of the alien-monitoring organization Duck and asked them what they’re doing on Earth. They explain that the five-headed dragon is a powerful member of their own species. Their kind can communicate through water, but somehow it also allows them to control humans, and the dragon is strong enough that he can even use air moisture, which could have disastrous results during rain or a storm (and there’s a typhoon headed for Japan…). They’ve come to take him back, but Akira wants them to leave him to Duck. However, when he tries to tell his superiors the siblings aren’t a threat they tell him they’re sending a combat squad to occupy the town, and take his hanging out with the other boys as proof he’s been compromised.

Thoughts

I missed watching this show, it’s fun.

The stuff about fishing is still interesting but not enough to carry the show by itself, and the story itself is evolving rather predictably (not that my track record with predictions on this blog is all that outstanding…). Between Haru and Coco’s motive, the foreshadowed crisis, and the people with power resorting to extreme measures that’ll probably just make things worse, it doesn’t offer much in the way of surprises.

Of much more interest are the characters themselves, whose arcs and development so far revolve around themes of family, friends, and personal passions, and all of the boys have to make decisions about what’s important to them. Natsuki’s estrangement from his dad finally comes to a head when the latter’s announcement that he’s changing things up in the family business gets turned into an argument about Natsuki’s future – he wanted to take over the family business, but his dad seemed to assume that was only out of a sense of obligation and was changing it in part as a way to encourage Natsuki to follow his own path. Predictably, arguing gets them nowhere and ends up hurting Sakura, but when Yuki apologizes for butting in he admits to being jealous that Natsuki has people he can argue with. It’s what helps the latter change his tack and try to be more open with his dad. It’s even implied that he may have only wanted to take over the store because it was a more predictable, safer option. When he’s fishing with the guys later on he tells them he’s decided to become a bass fishing pro, which they say will be hard, but he says the important thing is to try, which was his dad’s response when he said the latter was trying to diversify too much. Yuki in turn realizes that it’s great to have parents and siblings, but so long as you have someone who’s there for you that’s what’s really important – he decides he hasn’t told his grandmother ‘I love you’ in a while. He also learned the importance of doing things that matter to you and not giving up – he may screw up at fishing from time to time, but it’s helped him make friends, and that’s what matters. Haru, meanwhile, is shown to have a more serious side when he tries to stop fishing out of concern for what might happen to his friends if he keeps getting them involved in his mission, but once he realizes that family and friends share things and look out for each other he decides he can’t let his fears weigh him down when others have his back. Out of all of them, though, I think Akira ends up being the most interesting since his own concerns are slightly different, being related to the compatibility between doing his job and his desire to fit in with the other boys. Rather, what’s interesting is that, once he’s gotten to know them and managed to find out what’s going on at the same time, he decides there isn’t any conflict between the two, only to discover his superiors don’t feel the same way. It looks like he still has some decisions to make, especially once the others find out what he’s been doing the whole time…

So yeah, it’s still a fun show, somewhat silly (all those fishing boats and friggin’ commercial liners grounding onto the beach while everyone on board does the Enoshima Dance. I guess the dragon has nothing better to do with his time) but with likeable characters who give it a little more meat.

*It would appear that ‘Keito’ is actually supposed to be ‘Kate’ (she’s French, apparently), and ‘Koko’ is really ‘Coco’ (according to Wikipedia and the series’ Spell My Name with an S entry on TV Tropes) so I’ll be spelling them like that from now on.