I’ve said this before, but in general, I prefer series that might not look like 100% crisp, but have impressive animation, over crisp series that have harldy move. Of course there are a lot of exceptions to this rule, and it does entirely depend on the character-designs what really is best for a series; Chihayafuru for example really benefits from its crisp and clean animation and Shin Sekai Yori is the entire other side of the coin. I think it has a lot to do with how this is a novel adaptation and the character-designs… they are pretty simple, yet effective. In any case I do like the freedom that the animators have to bring them to life a lot.
That one wcene in which Misaki fought with that mutant. I reallly liked the animation there. It was such a unique action scene and even though it looked a bit confusing, the camera movements were really, really good there. I really hope that the creators saved some particularly impressive animation for the end of the series.
And this episode continued with the horror, and it was really good horror. It’s been a while since there has been a series which had the main character narrate bits of the story, and throughout the series she kept saying how badly things would escalate, over and over again. With this episode, I can understand why. The Queerats really have launched an all out war on the humans, even employing biological weapons by mutating their own kind.
And I must say, Yakomaru is a really good villain. This guy is smart and cunning, and for a long while throughout the series, you weren’t really sure whether he would actually be the villain. Sure there were signs, but nothing was concrete. And now he has just gone all out. In the final month Saki will take over the leadership of the humans. I really wonder what she can do against him.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)
It is hard to judge the animation on this series. Sometimes it looks very artistic, in the gloomy genre, sometimes so unprofessional it would not be accepted in a high school exam.
As for the queerats, they are taken so seriously and yet they still look like a buffoonish joke. Like invasion of the undead teddy bears or something.
Previously I thought the target of this show was pre-teens, now I suspect it is younger.
I never succeeded in watching a single episode without fast forwarding. I don’t have that much time and I have real fun things to watch.
“Previously I thought the target of this show was pre-teens, now I suspect it is younger.”
Considering the content that has been in the show throughout, I highly doubt this. The show was intended for teens.
Its probably not accurate to base the tageted demographic around character designs, as these do not always correlate. I mean there are lots of shows like say Kaiba or Strange dawn for example, where the character designs can be seen as such, but obviously there stories are not intended for a much younger audience. The important thing here is the story.
If you had big cuddly fluffly teddy bears as your characters, but the focus of the show is about rape, murder & torture, for example, you are not going to want little kids to watch it. Even if ones perception of the designs are that they are cute or cant be taken seriously.
You think Queerats are cute? Really? I think you and I have completely different parameters of beauty. They look like deformed humans. You probably think fredy crueger is beautiful, dont you?
Really? I suspect that the target here is much older than most anime. The book was pretty seriously received, so I assume that it at least was meant for adults.
The anime seems the same to me. What makes you think it’s for children? That’s not to say that a child couldn’t enjoy this show tremendously (I certainly would have), but usually things that are made specifically for children are more light hearted, or at least don’t have any sex, which this does.
Yes you are right, the content is not for children at all.
Personally I would call it simply evil, designed for persons young enough in their heart to take killer high-heeled cat-wolves or warring rat-beavers very seriously, but not literate enough yet to wonder about the moral intentions of the author.
A bit like Elfen Lied.
“killer high-heeled cat-wolves ”
Haha, I will admit, I thought this particular design was ridiculous.
I think you’re the one misanderstanding the targeted audience of the show. The “younger audience” feelings you get from the queerats and the cats is because, at that point in the story, things were told by the perspective of children, so of course this sort of things would frighten them, but that’s not supposed to frighten us. Don’t forget we spent most of this series’ air time following the events that happened in our cast’s “teenage” years. Only now we get the adult point of view. However, the overall perspective and analysis of the events is nothing childlike, since our narrator is a very much older Saki. That reveals the real targeted audience: people old enough to understand the reflections of the narrator. That’s not evil, that’s just storytelling.
I don’t consider Yakomaru to be a villain exactly. He’s basically fighting people that wish to exterminate his colony for essentially not filing paper work. Not to mention that his whole race are slaves to another species who exterminates any children that appear dangerous to a committee of really, really paranoid people. I kind of want him to win.
Sure, he’d probably end up being a dictator. But how much worse could he be than the PK masters? At least he’ll die at some point.
As I watched this episode.. I was wondering, if they can instill the death-feedback in children, and wipe memories so easily.. why can’t they remove the death-feedback? If they’ve talked about that before, I don’t remember.
Also, did it seem that Saki and Satoru’s Cantus powers particularly sucked in this episode? They couldn’t even push that wagon in the forest, and opted for the water instead, and that was awkwardly slow. Or just fly?
And then the flashbacks Saki had of Shun, made me remember how she used some impressive Cantus back then, defeating the tainted cat by herself, but now not so much. Maybe that will re-awaken?