Something very interesting is going on with the animation of this series: its style keeps changing. The special scenes in this episode again looked entirely different from what they looked like in the previous two episodes. This episode also showed the actual animation for the ED for this series, and it looks absolutely gorgeous. What this shows is that the producers are putting a tight leash on the normal scenes, yet they’re giving the animators a lot of freedom to do what they like for the special scenes. Now that everything finished airing, I really can say for certain that this is the show with the best visual direction of the season.
What also makes this show stand out really much is its creature design. It’s been ages since I encountered something like that as good as how it’s done here. They’re deeply rooted in the folklore of this series, and they’re also really creative, yet believable, and really varied. They range from small bees to giant tentacled slugs that speak about technology, and these dogs with tiny heads. Usually when a show does this, it’s based on some sort of existing religion or background. This show just went and created its own.
That slug by the way gave a very surprising twist to this plot. So far technology has seemed to be quite absent, and yet it talked as if it was the most normal thing in the world. This show asked a ton of questions, like what was it doing there and why was it concerned with environmentalist issues?
Rating: 5/8 (Great)
The hell are you talking about? The slug was clearly stated to be the protector of a holographic ‘library’ since all printed media has been destroyed by man and time. Hence why it was asking for her to cease damaging the library since she found a way past it’s hypnotic defense and was attacking it.
Huh, it was? I must be tired….
yeah, it did almost immediately after Saki’s threat
From the New World is way ahead of competition .. it’s shaping up to be one of my top fav series .. the new short story (which again was animated in a new unique style .. and it’s now clear this is intentional) was a blast to watch despite how short it was .. and the part with the biological AI library was just creepy .. i got Ghibli’s Princess Mononoke Forest God level of creepiness here (which if you don’t know is quite high on the creepiness-o-meter) XD
As for the weird slug-like creature, i’m surprised its willing to co-operate and answer the kids questions even after what Saki did to it .. it seems like the hypnotizing flash was just a defensive measure to protect itself not attack back those who attack it (i’m just considering the rumors about those who meet it and then die shortly after .. guess this is the work other humans who don’t want anyone knowing about this library), actually if it answers the kids questions and suspicions the whole facade the adults worked so hard to build is going to fall apart and the children will finally find the truth about what happened to the world.
And i’m already seeing the romance between Saki and Shun building up.
surprisingly the AniDB.net site has artwork for the grown up versions of the main characters (as they have different voice actors), there are few things we can deduce from that, but i’ll leave it to your imagination.
well its description of itself is more or less an interface to a database meant to be accessible. When was the last time you computer said no to you
If it’s someone else’s computer it will surely say NO to me (either because it’s passworded or has an AI that only allows authorized users to use it) .. that computer doesn’t belong to the kids, and it’s supposed to house petabytes of info and data that can be easily misused if they fall in the wrong hands(if that data was meant for public use the library it houses won’t need to be an elusive/hard to find artificial life-form that has a powerful defensive mechanism against any humans who approach it ..and remember it used the technique on the kids the first time they found it before Saki even noticed she could fight back .. meaning this thing actually wanted to avoid contact with the kids altogether).
When was the last time your library ran from you to hide between rocks after dazing you with flashes of hypnotic light.
Psgels do you watch this raw?
This was amazing episode, I really find this show to come off the as one of the best this season, I love the animation style, the premise and the characters so far, the atmosphere and the music all are top notch so far.
Im really excited because I think this anime will get in my top 10 easy. Plus there’s a second season so I don’t have to stress about it ending anytime soon.
There’s a second season confirmed already? Wow!
Such a good episode, good to see a freedom for the animator ( still not sure how much, but it good start)
All the straightforward slice-of-life going on, while the show is hiding deep, dark secrets on the periphery, has given these episodes a nice unsettling feeling, especially where the strange creatures are concerned.
The Slug is the first instance of the kids coming face-to-face with one of those secrets – having ventured further than perhaps the adults would have wanted – and are now poised to get some answers from it.
And all because Saki just happened to be wearing shades that made her immune to the hypnosis. We imagine had she not been wearing them, confronting it to the extent they did wouldn’t have been possible, and they’d have stayed in the dark.
The prologues are kind of non sequitor-ish at the moment, but we’re definitely looking forward to if and how they ultimately connect with the “present day” of Saki & Co.
This show reminds me somewhat of “The Satanic Mill” aka “Krabat” by Otfried Preussler, especially the school aspect of it and the children disappearances.
This show, from the start, seemed really good and promising.
However, it’s taking to long to build up into something, and that makes me feel like the most exciting part of each episode is just the begining.
But this can easily be made up for with a good development
What really bothers me though is the lack of character development.
There isn’t any, and it doesen’t seem like they’re going to do anything about it….
this show is good, but i dont see the “ahead competition” I put this show five or six in the list. In the three or two first chapters, I see better code breaker, magi, Setsuen, Psycho Pass and Kamisama. But I dont
negate the interesting promise here, is only that the other shows for me in the beggining are more interestings.
See, that is the interesting thing about anime. Out of all those shows you mentioned, only Psycho Pass has the potential to be more interesting in my eyes at the moment.
I’m really interested in the setting of this anime and what all these secrets are. It has caught my attention no doubt about that. I only hope it doesn’t disappoint in the end.
Concerning the characters: In the last two episodes I could easily either avoid their anoying banter or accept it as children-being-children. However, this episode really went too far. The obnoxious kid really got on my nerves this time, to the point that I couldn’t focus on the themes or setting nearly as much. I also felt that with this episode the pacing of this series has been set rather slow, which normally I enjoy, but for the predictable dialog between these kids. The one positive sprouting from this is of where it can go in the future. This will definitely be a show in which I rewatch the first act in a marathon.
You mention the creature design, and I totally agree with your opinion. They really are fantastic yet seem in the right place within the setting. I also didn’t mind at all the simple – very simple – explanation towards their existence as evolving with the human unconscious. It fits within the scope From the New World.