My immediate impressions starting Shin Sekai Yori are of immediate and subliminal foreshadowing. While building the world of SSY, they use past mythos, wonderful animation and folklore to foreshadow the events that will befall Saki’s group and those around her. The first few episodes started off very slow but I was made aware that this was less “character-driven” and much more focused on world building, which is something that I feel is necessary unless you want something as horrible as an exposition infodumping episode reminiscent of the slow pace set forth by weakly built worlds like Aldnoah Zero and Sword Art Online, or just boring exposition episodes by… well, Sword Art Online.
I’ll be writing this review without any spoilers because I’m 100% sure I’ll ramble for 5,000 words and no one wants that. The world of SSY is beautifully built and wonderfully presented to the viewer at a reasonable pace. My anime secret santa took into consideration the fact that I seem to favor series with strongly written characters, and straight up told me that I shouldn’t expect that in this series. Strangely enough, I felt as though the most interesting characters in SSY were the queerrats but you know, that’s not the point. The weak character cast of SSY more than made up for in its rich world and powerful moral dilemmas. The proof that the world is well constructed is that the world is nowhere similar to us and yet we can see a well crafted history of the world, a well explained magical, a culture of fear and a society of discrimination in the world.
Shin Sekai Yori uses its animation to its fullest extend by carrying the narration of the story and characters to harmony with its soundtrack and story. It’s both compelling and enveloping and it is also incredibly heavy. Three days after finishing the series I’m still staying up late at night thinking about it and there are just feelings lingering on my shoulders that’ll take time to really shake off, but I don’t want them to shake off for some time. Sometimes when my eSports work slows down I really want to take the time and re-watch the series as a whole again cause I still need to experience the world more, in case there are things I missed. Definitely a 9/10 in my books, thanks for recommending me this watch Secret Santa.
An End to Sorrow 
Omg… This made me really want to rewatch Shinsekai Yori! I enjoyed the anime very much but now, I’ve forgotten most of what happened already. Will watch again once I’ve caught up with Fall anime ^^
Not gonna lie, 5k words of positivity on my recommendation, and one of my favorite anime to boot, would have blown me the hell away.
To me, SSY is a tricky thing to recommend to someone because not only is it a science fiction show but it’s the kind that feels the need to explain itself before moving its pieces as it pleases. I personally can’t see it this way, but the first sixteen episodes of SSY are notorious for being the “setup” before the real meat of the story happens in the final act. Until then, I’ve seen complaints arise about how the show seemed aimless and its pacing seemingly too out of order to mean anything good. Sometimes the show gets dropped because the haze of confusion surrounding the world’s mechanics didn’t dissipate fast enough in comparison to the viewer’s level of patience. Perhaps this person was the kind who would actually like what happens in the final act, but couldn’t stomach going through two-thirds of irrelevance. It’s not easy finding someone who actually enjoyed those first sixteen episodes, and even less hopeful once you realize you’re one of those people who go “it gets better I swear” in an attempt to justify/defend the show’s structure. So, I’m just glad this didn’t happen to be the case for you.
Thanks for the review!
Having only watched the first episode of Shin Sekai Yori I will say that it is a series that clearly dares you to follow it on its journey to the end. It seems very dedicated to the idea that there are deeper answers but if you want those answers to are going to have to work at them. That seems to have created a minor bit of effort justification in the fandom as well. But effort justification in of itself is not an indicator of quality of lack there of.It mostly just means that when people to enjoy such a show they really get into it.
I would be curious to know what the reaction of the staff at Sentai Filmworks who is working on the anime release has to say about the fans of the show. I know that Ed Chavez from Vertical said the fans of the show are very passionate about the series. That is both a benefit and the detriment to anyone putting out a work that is not an exact adaption of the version people love. It was also clear they really wanted the orignal novels and not the manga. I see them being equally critical of the anime release.
– Alain