It’s Spooky Season! – Day 20: Shinsekai Yori (From the New World)

There are some anime each season that I watch, enjoy, and then mostly forget about after a few months. There are many fewer anime that I watch and never stop thinking about. Shinsekai Yori (From the New World) is one such anime series. Part of why I think it’s remained so front-of-mind for me is that my experience of watching it was very intense; it was fairly late at night on a weekend when I made it to the third act of the series, and I chose to stay up until 3 or 4 in the morning to finish it. However, in despite any sleep deprivation that may have been involved, I think the truer reason why I’ve always felt a connection with the series is that it ends on such a shocking note that I would dare anyone who’s finished watching it to ever forget it.

The series takes place a thousand years in the future, after an event in which human beings evolved to have telekinetic powers. Because those powers were used to commit horrible and depraved acts of violence, in the ensuing centuries several safeguards were put in place to prevent such things from ever occurring again.

We pick up with a group of elementary school students who are at an age where their powers are beginning to manifest. Their days are spent at school learning “history” (or, at least, the history that the adult leaders want for them to learn) and practicing their new skills. But almost from the get-go there are whispers and rumblings of students going missing and never being heard from again. Children whose skills don’t pass muster are devoured by creatures lurking behind the shadows at dusk. And those whose telekinetic powers lack the control required to avoid violent urges are eventually eliminated.

Eventually those that remain from the group grow into adulthood, but are then faced with the prospect of defending their society from an uprising of “Querents,” who have joined with an entity they describe as their Messiah.

While I wouldn’t necessarily call this a horror series, it’s a dystopian science fiction story that does an incredible job of cultivating a sense of dread. The reason why this is so effective has a lot to do with its visual style that emphasizes the unknown forms of creatures like “ogres” and “karmic demons.” The setting is a blend of future and past that feels dark and mystical. And when necessary the amount of violence emphasizes the danger inherent in entities that have escaped the control of a very controlled society.

The real horror, though, is the stunning realization of just who exactly the “bad guys” are in this situation. It’s a fact that might seem obvious in one way at first, but the truth is so much more damning of this future society, and it’s likely to leave you with a lump in your stomach.

The series ends in such a way that some folks might find it frustrating – one might be hoping for broad societal change when in fact the perspective changes are more immediately limited to Saki and Satoru, who have been to hell and back only to discover that the truths underlying the society in which they grew up is built on a bed of lies. But change often starts in the hearts of a few brave people, and as dark as this series gets it also manages to end on a hopeful note in that regard.

This is one of my favorite anime series – yet another series that’s difficult to recommend to other people due to some of its content, but a series I’ll never regret having watched.

Shinsekai Yori is available to watch on Crunchyroll.