Shin Sekai Yori - Episode 12

Must be a painful way to die...

In this week's Shin Sekai Yori, we are presented with a nice little lesson on Fiends and Karma Demons (as per UTW's translation). To put it into perspective, the two can be comparable to murderers in today's world—the former are those who kill with malicious intent (e.g. serial killers) while the latter are those who are unfortunate enough to have accidentally taken another person's life (e.g. an automobile driver involved in a serious accident). And although this might be a distasteful example to some, I found myself drawing a link between "K", the Fiend in the episode, and the killer of this past Friday's tragic shooting that occurred in Connecticut; both K and the shooter's murderous rampages were random acts of violence that arguably resulted from the lack of attention, in regards to their psychological health, that they received. Like how many are quick to blame one's Juryoku (Shin Sekai Yori) and guns (Connecticut) for the tragedy, only some realize that the problem might lie elsewhere, like in the communities' obliviousness to the killers' mental states.

But enough about real life; this is an anime blog after all. As for the second half of the episode following Satoru's grandmother's stories, the foreshadowed event of Mamoru being the next focus of conflict, via the phrase "a chain is only as strong as its weakest link", has lead to the boy's sudden disappearance. No one knows yet why he chose to run away, but I'm willing to bet that it's either because he can't face his friends anymore, fearing that they will drag him down with them if they continue to pry into their purged memories, or because he had a mental breakdown. At this rate, I expect Mamoru to be eliminated from the story in the near future, especially since Saki seems to adamantly be standing by the chain analogy.

Looking forward, the next episode should be interesting as the three once again diverge from normal, daily activities. Just like during their summer camp, I have a feeling something significant is going to happen to the group during their search for Mamoru. And as a result of that, they will probably be subject to stricter surveillance at the hands of the Ethics Committee. It might be far away at the moment, but I'm starting to wonder if everyone (except Saki) will end up dying/disappearing sooner or later.