Saturday, July 26, 2014

AniManga: Shin Sekai Yori (From The New World)


 Shin Sekai Yori (From The New World) is a blend of science fiction, horror, and deep insight into the mind of humanity. The story takes place a thousand years in the future. It follows a group of kids who learn some forbidden knowledge about their utopian society.  Six children—Saki, Satoru, Maria, Mamoru, Shun, and Reiko—born and raised in a town, named  Kamisu's 66th district, learn about a plot to wage war against humanity and try to stop it.

In the not to distant future, science proves the existence of PK (Psychokinesis). Once people with PK started appearing around the globe there was a scramble by governments to weaponize the ability. Within 100 years people with PK over powered the humans and controlled society. After a few hundred more years, humans without PK waged war against the PK users. This resulted in all out nuclear warfare which almost destroyed the earth.

From the ashes humanity rebuilt. Top global minds decided that disabling PK users from being able to harm or kill other humans was the solution. They believed genetic modification was the only solution to protect mankind from violence ever occurring again. If someone with PK tried to hurt another human, they would suffer "The death of shame."  This would begin with symptoms of mild discomfort ending in death. In every case where a PK user kills someone the result is death by heart attack. 

With these new restrictions placed on on PK users mankind secretly decided  to develop a way to identify people with abilities from normal humans. Then they genetically cross-bred all PK user humans with the Naked Mole Rat and forced them into servitude. This knowledge and all information related to that part of human history was hidden away and stored as forbidden knowledge.

Since PK users couldn't hurt other users without suffering, they used these hybrid (Mole) humans to carry out their warfare and assassinations. They also created mutant cats that could hunt down children who couldn't control their abilities. Kids who couldn't control their PK were called Ogres and were the most feared. 

The story takes place two hundred years after the last ogre appeared. The hybrid humans learn what happened from a living library and once again wage war on the PK users. The result is one action packed anime that I highly recommend watching