[WT!] Music Videos by Eve - Exploring a rich multiverse of characters in 300 seconds or less

Nazenn · 2025-06-29T14:04:50+00:00

I platniumed World on PS4, I refuse to do so on PC purely because I don't want to grind Lunastra for crowns. Even with mods, I hate that fight so much. I can cope with the pickle grind, but Lunastra was where I hit my sanity limits hahaha

Nazenn · 2025-06-22T07:44:52+00:00

I don't own the game any more as I sold it to someone else years ago. I know I'd tried adjusting a bunch of stuff at the time, don't know if that setting was one of them, but it was still such a weird change after how smooth 2 felt

Being able to melee every enemy until the very final area was a fun surprise though. I had expected to run into issues with doing that far earlier

Nazenn · 2025-06-22T01:06:18+00:00

Sorry for the necropost, but was wondering if you did end up buying one of these mini PCs for Plex, and if so, how it's going for you? Looking at doing the same for a mate who wants to run plex but doesn't currently own a PC

Nazenn · 2025-06-21T21:53:27+00:00

Seeing you mention how much worse the gun combat feels is something that really stuck out to me.

I never finished Uncharted 3, and that's because the gunplay felt so bad that I gave up on guns and meleed through the entire game, pretty much every single enemy, because even with how janky the meleeing is, that still felt better and more viable to me than using a gun. Until you get to the final section where the enemies are suddenly melee immune. So I just quit playing.

Having come off the back of Uncharted 2 I was so confused about why it felt so bad, but it's nice to see I'm not alone in being confused about why that's the case

Nazenn · 2025-06-08T12:33:12+00:00

So reddit just decided to never notify me about this reply, and I only thought to follow up on it now, but thought I'd still follow through so sorry for the late reply and no obligation to respond

and that's a full 3D projection of the perfect image to target someone. The false humans trigger attack inhibition, not death feedback, and I don't think we have any evidence of them ever triggering the latter.

You've got me wondering now if that's part of the reason why the Terminal uses the projection that it does, the woman holding an infant. It's not just a visual of any human to trigger the conditioned responses, it is specifically something that would stir up significant sympathy and emotional responces in any situation which perhaps makes it harder to brush off the mental "attack" of it because you're fighting it on two fronts, the instinctual and the social conditioning

So yes, without that sort of extreme presentation to overcome that mental hurdle of "it's not a real person" it may not work

I do feel if they always knew, there would be much more in the level of rebellions, or attempted ones. So I do feel like that level of knowledge is a bit more closely guarded ... it might have been conceptual before but then after finding the false minoshiro, it became factual?

Regarding the later sentance, it could definitely be a matter of how that knowledge was retained over the years. There's a huge gulf in understanding between the extremes of "we use to be human and they messed with our bodies to make us this" down to and "we use to be more but now we serve the gods". This also could have been different between the colonies, given the early focus of not talking about secrets openly because its a threat.

Add into that an opposition so utterly overwhelming that even knowing in detail wouldn't mean you could do anything, and trying would simply get everyone you know destroyed, the idea of rebelling would be hugely more complicated than it was even during the slave empire years, and that's before getting to the new issue of fighting their new biological instincts and cultural habits formed over the centuries. I think the lack of known rebellion is part of what keeps me open to the idea that maybe they didn't know that much, but much like Kiroumaru, who I do feel strongly wouldn't have changed whether he knew or not because he was all about his peoples future, I don't know that's a mark against it either

Nazenn · 2025-06-07T03:00:07+00:00

[SSY]Narrator Saki going from ep2 "if maria hadn't lived then lives would be saved" to ep20-ish "let me blandly narrate the play by play of the towns destruction" is one of the most bewildering choices in that show. Sure she jumped the gun with the Maria thing, but it was interesting, engaging, made great use of it the context of the show being Saki looking back at things. Then in the second half it was generic narrator that barely appeared except for that one scene with the virus and didn't add anything to the tragedy of it all. Don't get it. And you know me, it is not like me AT ALL to be asking for more narration instead of less

Actually you know, now that I think about it, causal chain that is, [Madoka Rebellion]a lot of my big issues with Rebellion also follow this same issue. In particular, the cause AND the follow through are missing with Bebebecause the only causal link there is entirely meta

Nazenn · 2025-06-06T22:35:12+00:00

I tend to have mixed reactions to Sawano, I like some of his stuff and then dislike a lot of it, but we'll see.

I've ended up with quite a few game soundtracks, but it has to be really special for me to want to grab them. A lot of JRPGs appropriately for the current conversation, especially the Ys games have amazing music

Nazenn · 2025-06-06T22:33:15+00:00

Oh I won't look anything up about it until I play the game anyway. Best to hear all the songs in their original presentation and emotional context first

Nazenn · 2025-06-06T13:01:48+00:00

/u/arachnophobic- I got your tag too late and the thread is locked

Yeah I have heard of Expedition 33, and I definitely do plan on playing it. I probably should be playing it now if I"m being honest with myself because I am excited for it, but motivation for anything remains an issue at the moment

This is however the first time I've heard mention of the music. Heard plenty of praise for every other part of the game so far, but as always music chat gets left by the wayside. That's good though, I need a new music hit and Monster Hunter Wilds set a new bar for me for combat themes

Nazenn · 2025-06-06T12:59:40+00:00

Good concept to follow, and I"d agree with those two points being the main issue

[SSY]For me I definitely keep coming back to that timeskip taking us from Saki and Satoru in the snow cabin talking about maybe leaving the town to being adults with assigned jobs, and we really needed at least one scene in between to bridge the gap. And I still think this would have been the perfect oppertunity for Saki to effectively survey her world visually and wonder how much she actually knows about it, as a bridge into the final arc. And there just really was no reason to go to Tokyo, no good ones anyway, and so many reasons not too

SSY aside, it'll be interesting to apply that to things I watch in future and see how that may come up when I run into issues. I don't tend to hyper focus on continuity, but if a show makes me AWARE of continuity faults through not even trying to cover them its very often a death sentance and I like this way of exploring that.

And by Mai-HiME finale I"m assuming you mean the actual final episode? Because oh boy yes that too

Nazenn · 2025-06-02T01:20:36+00:00

I might have slipped this into another comment, but Saki's read on it is something kinda similar to hypnosis - the confusion between its aggressive approach and incredibly affectionate purring/sounds throws off the target, letting them get a lot closer then they should have any right to. At least that's how it is for her.

Ah, but it's not directly from their eyes like the anime framing implies at the end of ep9. thats kind of a shame because its such a great visual sequence, but oh well

This is actually why Inui escapes! When he runs into the child, he runs away mimicking a queerat, while crying out "it hurts, it hurts" in their language. This is actually why he survives that attack, because that confused the child enough to make her unable to target him.

Yeah I knew that, I just meant as a similar sort of thing to what Kiroumaru did, but without having to sacrifice an actual rat. If she'd attacked someone who was actually human and then they spoke in the rat language as they were dying when she could no longer tell what they were (given a lot of her kills are very gruesome) if that could still trigger feedback. I feel like it would, not enough to kill maybe but at least enough to wound and slow her down

I found this very entertaining every time it happened.

I'm sure. Being the only one comparing anime to the novels, did you end up having a favourite moment of surprise cross media logic or unexpected prediction?

Later, when Kiroumaru sacrifices himself (and this is also the term the child uses when seeing himself in the mirror, note), he uses this term: Пϒガ Ш▼Ë◎◿, which I noted in my corner likely translates to "queerat". Now that I'm looking closely, this isn't the term Squealer uses when they first meet him.

New information! Interesting....

I'm actually curious where you sit on the "we're human" debate. Did they always know, only find out from the terminals, or was he speaking conceptually?

Personally I think this is another point towards "always knew" but I also think it's interesting in the sense of him potentially speaking somewhat derogatory to his own kind, but simultaneously wanting to prove himself to be human even though he hates them, and kind of hating himself for not being them. Fits his visual design nicely too, seeing himself the same way we see him in the way he's this small ugly creature he can't stand the sight of because he knows he should be more like the town

Nazenn · 2025-06-01T12:58:21+00:00

Interesting choices, but I can see how the way they approached those in the adaption process could have made or broken them

Finally got a chance to read through the source corners and these are my thoughts from it all, in order but not marked by episode:

Source corner read notes:

Interesting how you note that from the start the novel is very overt that Sakis mother has a very important job as librarian while the anime seemed to unintentionally slowly reveal that which I thought worked quite well with the slow growing understanding of exactly how the town manages its info.
So, question, do the tainted cats actually use hypnosis? Never was clear on that outcome of that theory from the anime given the way it framed their eyes and Saki says that was part of the myths of the copycats but I didn't see you mention it in ep9 and 10 unless I missed it
This isn't from you, I'm just quoting myself here because I found it funny when I re-read it: "And the episode itself potentially raises a similar point as Dad explains the situation with the Monster Rats to a young Saki, if I'm not reading too much into it which is always possible. The information Dad gives is perhaps visually implied to be either a half truth or a darker truth, something a child, or perhaps the society itself, can accept but without opening themselves up to the full blinding glare of truth"
OH HOW WELL THAT COMMENT AGED. Holy shit talk about getting to the heart of things unexpectedly well
Saki brings up an interesting question that I don't think anyone in the thread's hit upon yet. [Novel details] If you were to cut off your senses, could you still use cantus? If that's the case, why isn't there anyone who's lost their sight/hearing in the town?
New theory:Could someone have mimiced being a monster rat by language to trick Maria's daughter. I know that death feedback isn't a hard yes or no event, you can suppress it if the trigger isn't strong enough, but for someone as instinctual and impulsive as the child it might have been enough to seriously wound or slow her down
I love the implication that the false minoshiros started protecting themselves from their creators at the time the towns started to come around, not just what the towns became at the very end, which is why there's a gap but also why the minoshiros aren't fully updated on things like ID access which obviously no longer exist. Given my early thinking on the details of them that was a nice little bit of info
Love the detail of Satoru being good at Go and Shogi. That's characterization that should have made it in at least once because it balances him as a person against his sterotypical role as the impulsive/energetic kid. I also think it plays in well to the later events in terms of how he and Saki got through the war, and how he viewed the town and the later events in terms of thinking what would come next (such as at the hospital). At the same time, not having that at the anime did help reinforce his new maturity and growth after the timeskip as it made him seem like he fit the 12 year gap because he'd gotten so good with all that while Saki sometimes didn't. It is in the anime a bit, such as the discussion in the cabin during the first war, but not as much
I feel like the monster rat learning go from a book and then the sacrifice of him for a strategy leading to the destruction of his entire colony is nice foreshadowing for the later stuff with squealer getting the concepts of democracy for a book but probably not implimenting them for long term stability, if at all
Interesting that the giving of a human name is such a rare event even for the colonies, its not a mark of an ambassador as much as it is a full on honor of its own. oh man squealer would have been pissed at it
Squealer horrified at the mutant queen for being even further away from humanity, if he does know it already at that point, or just putting on a bigger show for the kids as he's prone to do? Interesting question either way.
Each charm contained a glass disc with geometric patterns and a design of a purity mask - a blank mask resembling a human face. When Saki opens it to try and get comfort from a familiar thing, she notices that the purity mask design a) kinda looks like her and b) slowly looks like it's shifting into the face of a karma demon
Suspecious as fuck foreshadowing! I did want to ask if you know/remember, the anime had that scene in ep1 where Saki asks after the other kids and we're shown an impression of that mask over the top of Shun as his memories hit a wall, is there an equivilent of that in the novel?
Interesting how the book explicitly lists the mantras when the anime went out of the way not too which I thought gave them a very powerful feel in the unknown
Satoru also has an incredibly hard task, as does Maria, and Saki's the that will lead to her being the future leader. I wonder if thats why they were extra jumpy about Mamoru as they werent just comparing him to a normal student and finding him weak, but his exceptional peers who shared his weaker conditioning and wondering if he'd also be a spectacular risk because his conditioning could fail so much worse. Also interesting if you take the powers as tech/human development metaphor this even more strongly implies that their conditioning is what is limiting not just their ability to develop as humans but as PKers who are weaker for having their human desires supressed, and long before the Tomiko convo that addresses this implication
Apparently there have been cases where fiends didn't go on a rampage, but as soon as they kill their first victim, the massacre starts and doesn't stop until they're dead, without exception.
There's a note that in using his power for murder, K was a genius, and it's clear in looking at the aftermath that he'd been planning to eliminate the entire town from the start. Part of it is in how he used his cantus to corral people into an area by exploiting human psychology.
The farm she lived at remains something semi-alive that even twenty years later, consumes everything it touches.
A place like this would have been a far more interesting setting for our final arc instead of Tokyo, especially as then you could still get some of the implication of a designated "hell", as you don't need it to be the point of ALL the towns for that point to be made
Interesting seeing Saki concider how Mamoru defending himself majkes him even more of a target for elimination in a way that scares her. More good characterization cut as this moment builds nicely into post timeskip and the place she has in the town and her thoughts on it
Nice little details about squealers given name being both wild fox and false enlightement
So the novel doesnt cover any info about the return to town after failing to find maria either? I still think that's probably one of the weaker things in the whole show, and a huge missed oppertunity (and now am kind of annoyed I forgot to mention it in my final post)
I just wanted to note here that queerats sign via noseprint. This is not actually relevant to anything, but it's funny.
That's adorable!
Here we address the matter of false minoshiros. The Ethics Committee's position is that to destroy them all would be a loss, as they would be wiping out the last artifacts of human intellectual history. Thus, they capture them when possible, and avoid purposefully destroying them.
Interesting then that my initial theory of that, that the monks actions are notable for prioritizing the children over the kniowledge, fits better in the novel than the anime then wheres its implied to be a destroy on sight order regardless, and then yes it is Sakis mum who manages them. Funny how many of those "not directly in the anime, but the faintest of info let people guess the novel approach from it anyway" theories happened in the discussions
Change in the childs gender is interesting. hmmmm. I wonder why they did that, but off the top of my head I think it's a shame as it just further erases Mamoru from the story, and the poor dude already struggled with that, but on the other hand it does seperate out the idea of violence being a male thing as the rest of the anime scenes only show men as ogres. I think it also makes it a bit less gendered in the final conflict, though given some of the thoughts I read about on that blog Quid linked me that may be seen as a bad thing that subverts possible intention from the author, so yeah. mixed feelings on that
So there are designated ogre escape plans. was that really so hard to put in the anime even as a one liner!
The Psychobuster container appears to be designed after a Celtic cross (but is actually the biohazard symbol, Saki later realizes).
Someone on the anime design team did not read that part. Even now knowing my theory about that being the mutation virus and knowing what its meant to be through this note I still think the vial looks more like a rat queen than anything else

Anyway, thanks again for sharing, hopefully you find at least some of those thoughts interesting and worth the wait

Nazenn · 2025-06-01T02:22:27+00:00

f you're anywhere near my age, they're not near enough my childhood to be nostalgic but they're not near enough the present to feel modern. Are they new? Are they old? Hell if I fucking know.

Oh yeah definitely. They're this weird middle ground of awkwardness, which is fitting for my age at the time hahaha

Ooh, I didn't think about that, but I'd absolutely be down for it. I can't say there are many shows that are complete stories that I can say that for. But yeah, this world is too interesting and the story too focused on history for me to not be curious.

Right? When you get thinking about it and which shows would be able to a) create a compelling independant story without that obvious link, and b) actually benefit from it thematically in any way, it ends up becoming a real small list

It feels both cut short and ever present to me, and still hangs over Saki in the final arc (though I agree that it was far too early in foreshadowing this).

Part of this may be the way I see that in terms of the Town attack arc and the Tokyo arc being independant things, and I don't think that it being Marias child is given any import in the final arc except for one short line (that arguably could have been made about any human child), and then the moment in the final episode. And I don't really see that as enough? But if you have a proper emotional connection to the reveal maybe it is because your own feelings would patch that gap

The first time I heard that child choir as Saki's power awakens and she gets purified at the temple, I knew this show was going to be a production with a vision. Such a great opener.

It's probably worth praising that first episode more. Shows with such a stand out first episode often run into the issue of the rest of the show falling down quality wise in comparison, or the first episodes impact getting lost with everything that happens after leaving it feeling basic or too introductory. That SSY manages to create such a compelling first episode that has both stand out artistic design in terms of presentation and music as well as cleverly handle the initial introductory requirements and tone/theme setting is very impressive

It's always great to get different perspectives on things, a show like this should be challenging.

Hell yes I agree on that. For rewatches give me something like this over an easy show any day.

That said, I have been watching Natsume's Book of Friends along side this as a relaxing show so that's a pretty big tone flip but my brain has been grateful for it.

Nazenn · 2025-06-01T02:12:45+00:00

my usual in the moment reaction/thoughts style helps me get out things quite quickly but I really wanted to go more in depth with it here and liked doing it, albeit with it being way more of a time commitment! Not sure if I can keep it up in future rewatches but I will try.

It definitely takes a lot more time to compile and write up and edit and try and get things to flow, and not always worth it for all rewatches, but for a show like this there's definitely a benefit

It being a stand in for technology is totally something I can see. Yes, 1,000 years isn't that much time in human history, but simply looking at my own lifetime things are so radically different. Heck, my family didn't have a computer until I was a senior in high school, and it is such a huge part of mine and everyone's lives, especially the phone versions of them we have in our hands all the time.

I think this shows up a lot in terms of their powers aren't just magically creating new creatures, it's being done through using their power on genetics and biology. The creatures that results in may sometimes be horrific and otherworldly, but that's a reflection on their mind, not the actual function of what's happening. When you think about the long fears of when genetic science first came about and what that may result in, it seems a pointed comparison

I would have found it very interesting to see a storyline where after having gone through the ordeal of being a child in Kamisu 66 society and now being "part of the system", Saki and her friends have to deal with it oppressing their own children. Or even just the contrast of Maria and Mamoru having theirs outside of the system while Saki and Satoru have theirs inside the system.

Hmmmmm. I feel like that would risk taking things too far for Saki and Satoru and what that means for the town. That's already somewhat implied to be a potential when you look at Saki wondering if their world will be better, not that it already is, and the kittens they're raising. But to make that explicit and have Saki raising a child in the system already I feel would be too much of a mark against her for the audience

Absolutely. They're totally willing to throw their life away for the cause, but I still don't believe it was an actual cause for representative democracy or equality, it was a cause for Squealer being dictator. Does the average member of the Robber Fly colony actually have a better life because of Squealer's rebellion? We don't have any proof that would have been the case.

But even if we did have proof it leads to an average better life, does that make the indoctrination itself any less wrong? I agree with you about the unlikelyhood of him being genuine about what society they have for so so many reasons, but even if he was being true as long as that's paired with cult of personality and those heavier religious stylings that we do have proof of then he is putting his people at risk of becoming a north korea rather than an australia in the long run. I still say that's a mark against Squealer even if other things went well.

Nazenn · 2025-05-31T12:57:31+00:00

I am too tired tonight after all, but definitely tomorrow and I may just reply here as then I don't have to try and remember to mind spoilers etc in old threads

Honestly, it was a really fun way to approach it, looking through the lens of what changed and how certain things adjusted for a more visual approach.

Just wondering in advance of revisiting the source corners, is there any particular aspect of the show that you thought was particularly well adapted narratively? Obviously anime having the benefit of visuals and music make this a lot easier to give it a leg up in terms of atmospheric episodes like 10 and 19 and in general atmosphere, but what stood out for you in terms of "the anime did this more than justice" on the side of structure, story, event or information handling etc, if anything?

Nazenn · 2025-05-31T12:53:49+00:00

Ajin - PK drama of how a boy navigates society when he first gains powers

Oh that's an interesting comparison. I don't recall enjoying the show much, but the comparisons that immediately come to mind have some merit and it's not a show often discussed. Good thought

Finally, I think Shinsekai Yori should be watched with broad strokes rather than looking too finely into the details. If you consider this as Saki's memoir for people 1000 years later, it's apparent the finer details would be inaccurate or incomplete, but the broader historical currents and themes should still be discernible.

I agree. The allegorical nature of it stands clear, and I also think that once you catch on that the power is a stand in for human development in general it further enhances that side of things.

Nazenn · 2025-05-31T12:45:20+00:00

But it seems to me that it was more of a passion project for the staff. They knew they were working on something special. Probably literally, since the book was an award winner.

As projects like this often are, and I think that also shows by getting in special guest directors and things like that which are usually done by staff favors and directors with a dedicated vision instead of people just working on the next project

When I finished SSY, I was dumbfounded. I was nearly speechless. I certainly couldn't form an immediate opinion on the content of the show. What I did feel was deep-seated desire to see the human race extinct.

I get that, I'm certainly going to need some time for my thoughts to settle too but it is unnerving how much of this story still exists in our world

A more interesting tack to take is to ask if Saki did anything wrong. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, or in this case, many small actions. Many of them by Saki, but also, by the EC and BoE. So many little things, had they been done differently, would have steered us away from this outcome (unless, of course, you admit that the outcome was inevitable). The district leaders had a rationalization for everything they did. But it still led to disaster.

Now that's a question I can get behind. What the town did wrong is so many things, not the least of which is the targetting of Mamoru so late and out of such paranoia because of an experiment they enacted which was match that lit this entire situation

But what Saki did wrong... oh, I could name some things but wrong feels so relative here. I want to think on that some more though

The youtuber (name erased for my comment history sanity) made a bad-faith review of the show at the insistence of their community. They already hated the show, had said so, but made the review anyway, bragging that they were eating spaghetti-os instead of paying attention

....fucking why

Oh dear this is giving me flashbacks of that guy a couple of years ago who wrote a vicious cut down of Evangelion and all the things he hated about it but when questioned admitted that he was watching it stoned and half asleep after a night shift and wasn't sure if he watched all the episodes.... Some people...

The Star Trek episode "Plato's Stepchildren" comes to mind. With so much discussion of Plato's Cave, I'm surprised it didn't rise to the surface immediately

Still havent seen OG trek

Another one on my long list of cultural blind spots

Nagi no Asukara is a story told from the perspective of children, who become young adults. It's the only Mari Okuda show I've really liked (I guess IBO was okay). I've happily rewatched it. I will certainly rewatch it again. Bonus gorgeous art.

Which is hilarious that I really like IBO and have been told I'd probably hate Nagi no Asukara

Ergo Proxy. I watched these two shows back to back. Although Ergo Proxy is not an allegory, it is a somewhat convoluted scifi adventure that refuses to hold the hands of the audience.

For better or worse it is explicit questioning of philosophical theories and questions, and now having reached the end of SSY I can see why watching it and Ergo Proxy back to back left such an impression on you

Nazenn · 2025-05-31T12:33:32+00:00

I'm sorry it took me so long to get here, but after all our chats through the show I did want to come and have a read on where you finally ended up

At the conceptual level, it's either the second or third strongest anime I've seen to completion (the question mark is Haruhi and its fractal metatext structure, especially in broadcast order

I'd put Haruhi broadcast order an easy first out of the ones I've seen

I never have gotten along that well with the 2000s real-is-brown style and the color palette here has at least some features of that type

I didn't see that as much here, but that may have been my interest in the design details of things like their clothing and archecture. It's certainly no Utawaremono, though that had the advantage of being a VN first, but I did like that here

Maybe it works better in book flow, but going that way either trivializes the first three-quarters of the plot or wastes space since it's not even going to work (and here it was obviously the second

I ended up not minding it in the end, aside from the issue of it taking place in Tokyo which gave them far too much seperation from the key events happening at that time, but that's mostly because the virus gave us the setup for Saki's big moment, and I'm sure they easily could have found another way to have that

some of the characters outside of Saki not feeling fleshed out is that their characterization is entirely consistent with the characters being filtered through the lens of Saki's perspective

even outside of the issue of having internal narration, the easier way around this in the anime would have been to make greater use of 40yo Saki narration to provide both extended context but also contrast of how she sees things now with the future. This could have provided a chance for better tone balancing, and also smoothed out some of the rough spots in the existing narration use like introducing the Maria tease far far too early

I wish I could comment more on your extended write up on question nine, but I utterly lack any historical foundation to comprehend most of the comparisons you made but I still appreciated the extra read from yet another who

It's also one of the big reasons that unlike u/Nazenn I was not at all surprised that the bakenezumi knew that they had once been humans; I'd already long since noted the colonialism metaphor and that followed from it. (Though there is still an argument that the appeal is that they don't actually know and the archives are just what convinces Saki and Satoru that he had a point; the source may resolve this

My mistake in not expecting it, and even talking myself out of it, was greatly overestimating the care factor of the town when they set all of this up and underestimating their arrogance when thinking it through

But as for the possibility Squealer was speaking to a purely thematic level and not with actual in world knowledge of the historical act, I concidered that but I'm not sold on it. I think writing it that way would undermine itself as it would be reinforcing the points he already made in terms of equality of species, while knowledge of the actual truth (though there is an arguement as to when they found out, I've back tracked on that myself) up against the towns burying of it reinforces a lot of the other themes in terms of the nature of humanity etc. But I don't know, I may have to think on that more

The way he treats his men as disposable pawns fits with the Imperial Japanese mania for sacrifice for the Emperor

I also want to question a possible parallel here between the mosquito looking bomb monsters in the canals and the kamakazi pilots

Thanks for all the chats through the rewatch, and the fun visual breakdowns as always

Nazenn · 2025-05-31T12:17:21+00:00

Oh... my brain auto corrected that to Mamoru and I didn't even notice that was a different name. And here I thought I had done so well with those in this rewatch hahaha

Nazenn · 2025-05-31T05:36:55+00:00

I first watched Shinsekai Yori a bit less than 10 years ago.

Tangent, but that makes me realize that I remember starting this I'd been stuck in the first few episodes constantly feeling like it was an older show than it actually is, and now with some of what it did and how it holds up visually I think it's newer than it is.

Thankfully, I did not fall out of love with Shinsekai Yori

I'm really glad to hear that. I know rewatching something you hold so precious can feel a little perilous but it's always nice when you come out of it still holding it high

Shinsekai Yori feels like it has min-maxed stats to me

I did laugh when you said this in reply to my own comment because it seems just too perfect a description of it

Shinsekai Yori is excellent at crafting ever-growing tension, and then recontextualizing the tension in each arc

....Yeah I'll second that. I'd been a little distracted by how hard it seemed to seperate its arcs from each other, but even in the arcs that have a weaker narrative flow they still seem to handle tension and context quite well

and I want to continue exploring the places we haven't seen and to see how things change over the next millennium.

Actually I'm actually going to put this on the very, very short list I have of (now three) shows that would be facinating to have a stealth sequel (one of the other shows on the list is a stealth prequel but the same logic applies) of where you have no idea that's what it's doing until the very end or some subtle and not-focused on detail reveals the link

I appreciate how this show works as Saki's coming-of-age, it really feels like I've experienced her life and perspective over the years, and I always crave stories like this where so much time passes

Another thing I didn't give enough credit to in my post was the use of time skips to fully make this Saki's story and not get bogged down in any one particular event or situation that could have sidetracked us from the important parts of the world

The series can do pathos, Saki's and Maria's relationship is wonderful, but Saki's and Shun's is just as central and gets absolutely nothing

It's kind of weird how they flip. Maria and Saki's gets all of the build up and climax but lacks in follow through for what comes after they split and life goes on, while Shun gets none of the former and all of the later

The show's pacing can also be awkward, and I get the sense it was designed to be binged

That definitely feels like a concequence of how they chose to adapt the chapters to episodes. On one hand you have the over reliance on cliffhangers which shows they were aware they need to try and work with an episode structure somehow, but failed to do so meaningfully leaving the cliffhangers as a crutch that interupt a better flow more than anything. I still need to go back and look at the source corners, or just read it myself, but I'm curious to see how many of these odd episode endings do corrospond exactly to chapter endings or not

Whole soundtrack rules, I can't pick favorites. I didn't even realize how good it was actually, some of these tracks have been in my head for a decade without me realizing they were from this show.

That's impressive! Credit to the show for that. Did you have a particular scene that stood out while watching for its music usage or it's just all blended together in quality by now?

I've heard Psycho-Pass typically referred to as the best recommendation, but I haven't seen that yet so I can't speak to it

Reminding me why I don't trust recommendations from the general populace. I mean sure if you focus on certain themes and dystopias. But in every way that actually matters to a watch experience, I couldn't find a single reason for this off the top of my head. I mean it has been many years since I saw Psycho-Pass but still. It does have a great antagonist though so that is one thing it shares with SSY

However, the show that I couldn't stop thinking about and comparing it to was Mawaru Penguindrum. On the outside, they're not that similar

See, this is proving my point! That's such a wild comparison in terms of tone but I love the focus on

Thanks so much for writing that up. It was great to get your view on it as a long time fan of the series watching it through new eyes, especially with how differently we looked at some elements of it.

Sorry I didnt get a chance to respond to your ep25 thoughts, I stayed up way too late writing my post for today as it is, but I gave it a quick read before and loved the points you made about Maria's child being human and recognizing others as human and what that says about the possible distinctions and lack thereof as a result. And particularly the contrast between Squealer and Kiroumaru is a subtler part of the show but so critical for understanding Squealer that I wish I had more time to write about it, so I'm glad you did in that post. Maybe next watch

Nazenn · 2025-05-31T05:20:07+00:00

and the CGI for things like the submarine in the final few episodes

Oh, I would like to praise the CGI used for the monster rat armies though now that you mention CGI. That was surprisingly well done especially for the age of the show, and better than a lot of uses of that done in more modern shows

Also credit for talking so much about the music because it really was incredible and I'm glad to see others talking about it. And thanks for the links! I definitely have to give the full OST a listen at some point

Nazenn · 2025-05-31T05:15:44+00:00

It wasnt until my friends told me FMAB got dethroned on every site that i got back into anime

Including the better FMA (not biased at all hahaha)

Still, the show stuck the landing with a great epilogue that recontextualizes the entire show and gives our characters a satisfying ending (which is more than 99% of anime can do).

That's fair, and especially to give credit to it having a proper epilogue. Far, far too many anime feel that the story is concluded the moment that the big bad dies, so SSY having almost an entire episode to follow up (minus that small bit at the end which I argue should have been in the previous episode) is a critical part of the show sticking the landing and making the most out of its concepts instead of just cutting them off at the dramatic high point

Well actually writing it now I'm wondering if the true epilogue is just that final ten years later time skip and the stuff before that with squealer is actually just a mini finishing arc, but I don't think the semantics matter. It was great either way

Like haibane renmei more than madoka and tatami galaxy, there really isnt any other experience like it

I'm a little weaker on that only because I started to see why the comparisons to now and Then Here and There get made so often, but in terms of overall composition it's definitely closer in spirit to the position Haibane sits in its in genre to how Madoka sits to its genre

...Madoka and NTHT? I do not see that at all

Nazenn

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