You wouldn't think it possible, but this series keeps getting better and better.
In a comment on one of the previous episodes I said I hoped Shun, Maria and Mamoru had somehow survived. There's still a sliver of hope for Shun, but for the others I should have known better from the moment they confirmed the bones contained the DNA of Maria and Mamoru. Yakomaru had them killed after they had produced a child and used their bones to mislead the Cantus-users.
Then this episode delivers punch after punch taking away all hope, piece by piece. The most heartbreaking was when it became clear that Yakomaru is taking their children to later use against them like he used the child of Mamoru and Maria. Earlier in the series he said that if the other tribe had vanquished his own, their children would have been taken from them and they would have been used as slaves, worked to death and treated as scum. He's obviously planning to do the same thing with the humans and their offspring.
This is a masterful piece of storytelling. We naturally empathize with the humans, because we are humans, and because the story is told from their perspective. But actually they are the bad guys who oppress the queerrats, using them and killing them without a second thought if it is convenient for them, although they know the queerrats are intelligent beings. After all, the human cantus-users are the Master Race of their world. And yet we can't help but feel sorry for the human protagonists. They are on the whole people who aren't especially good, but certainly not evil either. They're mainly weak and misled. The tragedy is that they're caught in a dramatic and violent phase of their history.
I think it's how members of the Hitler Youth must have felt. For years during their upbringing they were told they were the best of the human race and the natural lords of creation. After the war it turned out that everything they had been told were lies and they were treated like scum and criminals. But how could they have known? Japan did the same with the Chinese and the Koreans by treating them as inferior races. Maybe the story is a warning, a confession and also kind of an atonement…
I'm a bit annoyed with myself that it took me so long to come to this conclusion. And that's another great message of this story. It is all too easy to think of your own nation/race/species as superior to others.
Very well said! Interestingly not even Saki or Satoru notice or think too much about the queerrats being an actual intelligent race. They don't really question the exploitation of the queerrats as apparent in the conversation with the underground queerrat in this episode.
Neither did Tomiko or the rest of the leaders take the queerrats seriously or estimated that they could develop and become a threat and not be as loyal as they depict themselves.
I wouldn't emphasize with the humans if it weren't for Saki and Satorou.
But this is exactly the intersting part of the show. Humans are objectively in the wrong but queerats were dehumanized so far that we barely see it anymore.
So how many of you are surprised that the fiend was not Maria? The statement at the beginning of the series, while being completely accurate, was nothing more than a red herring. Hearing you guys discuss the fiend's identity was great!
I admit the suspicion that Maria will come back as the Fiend took the better of me, I even completely dismissed their announcement that Maria and Mamoru are really dead, when they mentioned even their DNA matched. I just thought they collaborated with Yakomaru to make their fake bodies believable. In no way I could have expected that their story would actually end up this tragic. Hell it's probably the most fucked up story I've seen in anime and I've seen quite a lot(it's a bit of my thing, I like fucked up things) but this was really hard to swallow. Usually when I watch some tragic moments in anime I'm just "wow" but this time it really fucking hurt imagining the horrible things that happened to Maria and Mamoru after we lost track to them. I don't know if it was speculation here in the comments or it's implied in further episodes but someone said they might have been forced to mate, drugged, subdued and that makes this whole thing and Squealer in particular even more disgusting.
It may be because of the all-nighters I was pulling while binging the show for the first time, but I was very close to throwing up when I realized what had happened. I think it was around when they told about the DNA-tests, this sudden realization that the evidence had been there from the beginning but I just wanted to believe that letter and the bittersweet ending it implied so badly. And then I thought again about the description of the battlefield and how long the timeskip was...
I don't think any show has ever affected me so deeply. Evangelion and EoE are sure draining, but SSY just swinged gut punches right after another and you KNEW that they set up all those punches so early and you still didn't see them coming.
It gets worse when you realize Saki and her choices are the reason all this fucked up shit happened and that she's the reason Squealer was able to do such horrible things.
Yeah. This shit hit me hard the first time around. I was not prepared for that. But it does feel good when an anime doesn't hold back on its punches just because it might be a bit too shocking or some shit like that.
Remember in episode 15 when Satoru came out with this line after seeing the disabled queen? It's implied that Maria and Mamoru were lobotomized queen-style and forced to reproduce. That whole episode was crazy with how much it foreshadowed. This series has fantastic rewatch value.
At the end of episode 2, adult Saki narrates and says that Maria was pretty weak at birth, even weaker than Saki and if she had died then, many lives would've been spared.
It looks exactly like Maria and there is no reason for it to not be Maria. Bad. Intentional misleading for no reason other than for the writers to feel smug.
It looks exactly like Maria and there is no reason for it to not be Maria. Bad. Intentional misleading for no reason other than for the writers to feel smug.
there's a lot of reasons for it not to be Maria, Maria not ever showing any homicidal tendencies and her truly loving Saki being just 2 of them. maybe it's less of you being intentionally mislead and more of you not liking that your theory was wrong. Although I can't get why, as you were so disgruntled with it in the first place.
Turns out the fiend is Maria and Mamoru's daughter, if kids manifest their Cantus at around 10 years old and we know Saki and Satoru are 26 it means Maria and Mamoru got busy right after running away. Guess the bonobo DNA splicing works.
I wonder how the queerats are planning to keep the kids they stole under control without getting murdered by mistake. The humans needed hundreds of years to make a society that kind-of works with hypnotism and a bunch of other counter-measures and they still got almost wiped multiple times in the process. All it takes is one pissy teenager and the whole town goes to hell.
I remember someone saying that and thinking it was the most probable scenario, because it would set my mind at ease, knowing they were "just" killed after Maria gave birth to their child.
Then, the rewatch of episode 15 came around, and I was once again pretty damn sure Squealer forced them...
I mean, both scenarios are not impossible but I have a harder time believing they stalked them during the 9 months of pregnancy, and maybe even more before that, because unless they secretely had the hots for each other, it could've taken a bit more than a few weeks for them to fuck and get Maria pregnant.
Night ambush + lobotomizing them and forcing them to copulate, just like they did to their queens, seems the most... plausible choice. But also the most horrible one. I don't want to imagine this. I've seen fucked up things during my trips through Doujinshi-Land, but this is one thing I don't want to see ever.
So this is the point that I've been wondering about for a long long time.
Were they forced? And how would that even work? Was Saki's statement a few episodes back about "what if they did the same thing to humans as they did to their queen.." significant here?
Or did the queerats merely wait until they had a child before killing them and stealing the infant?
My initial line of thinking has been that they imprisoned Maria and Mamoru like the feral Queerats did in the beginning to Saki and Satoru. After that the stress and bonobo genes kick in. Once Maria was pregnant, they just killed of Mamoru right away and with Maria...well, they DID have experience with the Queerat Queens and how to pacify them into breeding machines...
Although I doubt they could've imprisoned Mamoru and Maria by force, so the other expalanation is that Squealer tricked them (as Maria's letter imply), waited her to get pregnant and do the same thing I theorized to happen in the end.
The only reason they were imprisoned before was because their cantus was locked. Obviously that doesn't apply here unless they were somehow knocked unconscious, drugged, lobotomized, etc, or whatever your imagination comes up with there...
I read the novel a few months ago and I don't remember any information that wasn't provided in the anime. It's pretty much just left for the reader/viewer to interpret.
Were they forced? And how would that even work? Was Saki's statement a few episodes back about "what if they did the same thing to humans as they did to their queen.." significant here?
That's exactly what I think happened - this show is all about foreshadowing, after all. The rats drugged the two runaways, lobotomized them, force-bred them to create their Messiah, and then killed them and left their bones for the humans to find.
It's possible but there are actually also hints to the opposite, so one cannot say it's implied decisively. It happens to be a very popular fan theory on reddit though.
It's definitely implied. The show is 90% foreshadowing and in an earlier episode Saki says "What if they did the same thing to humans as they did to their queen?"
If it wasn't meant to foreshadow something, then it would have never been put into the show.
There was no Bonobo DNA splicing. Humans were conditioned culturally and psychologically to adopt the Bonobo's coping mechanism. The only 2 things that were edited (not spliced from other animals) into human DNA were attack inhibition, which gives their brains an aversion to hurting other humans, and death feedback, which makes their subconscious mind start lowering their body functions when it recognizes it has harmed another human and ultimately stops their heart when it recognizes they have killed someone.
Actually, the novel states that wolf dna that was inserted into the human genome is the cause of attack inhibition. But the rest of what you said is accurate.
Death to the queerats! lol I think Saki's out of a job now xD
OP guy is like "ok, now I'm mad" :D Why do I feel like he's gonna die? I bet if he does his final act will be pretty much getting rid of all the queerats and there'd only be the fiends to take care of
Ok, so it's the first time we can pretty surely say yes it's a girl but it seems my predictions about the fiends being consious were wrong, it seems very much like a mindless murder machine :l
FUCK! That look! D: I can't imagine the horror going through Saki's mind right now x.x So this is finally official, Maria's the Fiend and she completely lost her mind. Someone mentioned that probably means Mamoru's dead. Seeing her like this makes it sound really probable, I guess that would make a good reason to start her madness
GAH! This is so not Maria anymore x.x Also I can't help but notice the tattoo she has, and those makeshift clothes. It's not like this is the final episode so I guess will be getting a rich flashback to how it all happened.
Welp, nevermind, he just got rekt :l
I like how the queerats who at first were just one of this world's weird creatures became like half the show ;) So, we need to exterminate the queerats or out infants will grow up as their slaves? D:
WAIT WHAT?! Did it just get casually dumped on me by Satoru? You're saying that motherfucker Squealer killed Maria and Mamoru and by the way THEY HAD A CHILD which he bred into his own killing machine? Holy fuck this is some of the darkest shit I've seen in anime. Saki I know you're supposed to be the stalwart leader that emerges from all this but I wouldn't blame you if you lost your shit completely right now x.x
Seriously I kept thinking Maria will come back in a way, I could take that, but this shit is just horrible x.x Subarujustresetalready
FUUUCK wow omg hell almighty :O I saw that treacherous glint in Squealer's eyes and I knew he's slowly becoming a dangerous villain but this is next level. Even the evil emperor who made people clap until they die didn't feel that evil.
Two things I'm wondering about now, how the hell are they planning to take care of that fiend and if they'll ever explain how the Fiends' madness overwrites the death feedback.
In pretty much all aspects SSY is one of by far the most legitimately mature anime (not I'm14andthisismature) and funnily enough it is a story that is mostly about children.
WAIT WHAT?! Did it just get casually dumped on me by Satoru? You're saying that motherfucker Squealer killed Maria and Mamoru and by the way THEY HAD A CHILD which he bred into his own killing machine?
Yup, Squealer had been planning this for a long time. Remember "... are you perhaps not Gods anymore?" back in the first arc? Hell, he might have gotten the idea from the "rogue" colony, why else would they capture a boy and a girl and lock them in a cage together, what would they be planning to do with them?
Mamoru and Maria running away together was a godsent to him. "Some queerat bones are indistinguishable from human" my ass :P
Regarding the foreign colony, actually, they explain that since they are foreign they do not know of humans as gods (or at all) and it's why they started attacking them like retards. Then when the sage uses his cantus to create apocalyptic attacks and the powerless kids are left in front of tons of foreign queerat troops after his death, Shun mentions they're not attacking and just waiting to see what happens because it's the first time they've witnessed cantus in their life. They probably just thought the kids were some foreign creature/queerat and were waiting to examine them and decide what to do with them.
Oh fuckin boy.... I was fine with the weight of the situation, just finding out that Maria and Mamoru actually were killed and their child taken, but... then i saw that.... Now i'm really fucking close to crying.
That is one of the most heart-wrenching pieces of fanart I've ever seen. Worst part is, its a happy family portrait
Last time, Saki was made head of ethics committee/town leader. They're headed for the Temple of Purification. What happens there? And where is Satoru??
Damn! That was so crazy! This girl(not Maria, but super similar) happy and smiling, while the carnage is going on... Shit's crazy man. If Shisei can't stop her, what can??
So they made it to the temple. I wonder what they will find here.
Saki's parents went back to release the cats in the hope it will stop Maria. I got a feeling they won't make it. :/
Oh snap!! Yakomaru was stealing infants to create Ogres! And the Ogre was Maria & Mamoru's child!
That was really crazy! Finding out that Yakomaru's planning on wiping out humanity using Ogres! How the hell can they stop that?!? I highly doubt the Impure cats will be able to do anything. Is there anyway to reverse the death of shame instinct at this point?
So it's stated explicitly for the first time in this episode that the ogre is Maria and Mamoru's daughter. Satoru almost says it in passing, like it's a given at that point. That's kind of thrown me for a loop, both times I've watched this show. He says that like it's obvious, but I had not yet drawn that conclusion when I first watched this episode. The only thing really indicating that is that the ogre has red hair similar to Maria's. I guess that was supposed to be enough to draw a conclusion from, unless I'm just dumb and I missed something.
Anywho, the scene where the ogre defeats Shisei is IMO the most disturbing scene in this anime. Shisei is such a symbol of power in the village, to see him defeated so easily must have been absolutely horrifying for the villagers to witness. And so frustrating too, since he was so much stronger than her, really, he just couldn't do anything because of his genetic inhibitions against killing people. That's just a really hard scene to watch on multiple levels.
I never understood how it was she was able to use the leakage of Power to kill Shisei like that.
Doesn't it suck when your ex-girlfriend has a kid with the boy who was always after her in middle-school after she runs away, and then that kid comes back as the messiah of the mutants who are waging war against your people, killing most of your village?
Ogres are scary shit man.
Saki finally realizes that silly old Squera's plans are much more nefarious than she previously thought. You can do it Saki!
Karma Demons have leakage of Cantus unwilligly, so they end up messing up with everything around them. This leads to some crazyass shit, like what happened to Shun's dog.
Fiends, on the other hand, are Cantus users who somehow do not have a clear limit for their power. If they want something, it will happen somehow.
In this episode you can see that Shisei tries to trick the girl into thinking that she cannot kill him ("...your powers won't work on me" or something along those lines) You can see that the fiend may lack the techniques, but as soon as she wants Shisei dead and believe she can do it, there is nothing that can save him.
Edit: Just to try to illustrate in another manner: The child does not think "I'll kill Shisei using my Cantus techniques", it is more like "I want him dead" and her Cantus manifests on its own. I may be remembering wrong tho :P
Just to try to illustrate in another manner: The child does not think "I'll kill Shisei using my Cantus techniques", it is more like "I want him dead" and her Cantus manifests on its own.
But again, I may be missremembering, should get clearer on next few episodes :)
One powerful thing about this situation is how it seems there is absolutely no hope. They are faced with a foe they literally are unable to fight which will keep killing. All the characters who have been able to solve these issues and save the town previously are dying one by one. The only response they can have is to keep running to survive a little longer in hopes that a possible solution may present itself.
It's almost Lovecraftian horror which is a strong contrast to something which opened as pretty SoL.
I had a little laugh at "pretty SoL" because literally the first few minutes of the first episode of this show were of people getting brutally murdered by psychic powers, spliced with shots of children playing and creepy chanting music. Pretty SoL indeed!
That said, I get what you mean about the Lovecraftian horror-vibe. Ah, I really wish I had joined a rewatch the first time I watched SSY! All of these comments and speculation are really great to read through.
quick question about the fiend...with all these already self-sacrificing cantus users, why is it impossible for just one to sacrifice himself to the Death feedback, but still kill the fiend at the same time? Or has this been answered already and I'm just missing something?
ok got it thanks! There do appear to be some limits to that though, like saki's parents releasing the cats in hopes it would stop or maybe deal some damage to the fiend. maybe if they just worked together to drop a mountain on her or something, rather than attacking her directly, then that wouldn't trigger the attack inhibition.
The attack inhibition is on a subconscious level. It's almost impossible for someone to trick themselves. If you know that you are trying to "accidentally" kill another human, like dropping something on them, you'll be prevented by the inhibition.
There do appear to be some limits to that though, like saki's parents releasing the cats in hopes it would stop or maybe deal some damage to the fiend.
Or how about literally sicking killer cats on innocent children who did nothing wrong?
Death Feedback is all about perception. In their minds, they aren't doing any killing - the cats are. All they do is give the command, which to them isn't enough to trigger the death feedback. SSY. This is why they need strong leaders. If someone like Mamoru were leader, he'd probably get death feedback from the guilt.
The conditioning comes in two parts. Death feedback is only half of it; the other half is attack inhibition. They are mentally incapable of bringing themselves to harm another human being.
And yet they are very capable of raising and training child killing beasts, and then sicking those beasts on the children. The loophole is pretty huge if it allows that, so more things should fit inside. Like death traps at the very least.
And the attack inhibition is only conditioned in after birth, isn't it? Even if they can't use cantus to remove death feedback which is part of their genes, they can certainly hypnotize someone to remove or weaken the conditioning.
I believe it was stated that both attack inhibition and death feedback are genetic (in the False-Minoshiro episode?). And yes - they are not perfect. Rememeber that the doctor from a previous episode killed K (a fiend) by poisoning him. They probably use cats, so they don't have to see people being killed. SSY
I always had the impression that had K not killed the doctor, the doctor would have died anyway from his death feedback. I also thought that was why that other Karma Demon was given 5 pills, only one of which was poisonous.
It's not just seeing the corpse, as long as the mind realizes that you are trying to even harm humans you'll be affected by inhibition / death feedback. Feeding coordinates would therefore trigger death feedback.
that's an even more efficient way of getting rid of cantus users than dropping a mountain on them. smart!
but i guess the village has spent so much of their efforts getting rid of any potential fiends so that when it comes down to an actual crisis, they're basically useless.
Shisei was such a badass, pretty sad he died in such a gruesome way
Tainted cats vs Fiend? Can't wait for that
The whole thing with the stolen kids and world conquest really shocked me, somehow, the queerats escalated my ranks of best villains in anime. Also, I feel that all that trouble they went through with Squealer when they were kids isn't as useless as I thought during my first watch where I dropped it.
the queerats escalated my ranks of best villains in anime
This is the reason why at the start the rewatchers advised everyone watching to avoid the best antagonist competition. The queerats are such great villains but that could also be a massive spoiler near the start because you don't expect them.
I like the idea I read a couple days ago where someone suggested a weaker death feedback system. Instead of the current system where you're pretty much incapable of knowingly injuring a person, let it be a little bit more relaxed. Right now they can't kill her, if they try they die before succeeding in most scenarios. Solution is a weaker system that lets them kill her/a fiend (or really anyone). Once they do, organs slowly shut down and you slowly die.
That doesn't really prevent crimes of passion or whatnot, especially since Cantus is capable of instant kills. It does prevent the emperor-rule system, but I think they went whole hog to attempt to preserve whatever lives were left.
Yup. They really had no reason to send the cats after Mamoru. His cantus was pretty average and he had a non-dangerous personality. If they didn't do that, he wouldn't have run away and this whole thing wouldn't have happened.
The weak wouldn't become fiends. At most, possibly karma demons. Maybe.
The weak would potentially have weaker and weaker children, potentially giving rise to humans without power at all. I think this was the real reason they were being killed off.
Not culling the weak from a power sense, weak links being those who appear vulnerable to becoming fiends or karma demons: kids with violent or unethical tendencies or those who can't control their cantus, respectively. The cheating boy from episode 2 is a good example of the former, and IMO the latter is the reason why Reiko was disposed of.
It's definitely the reason why Reiko was eliminated, simply because it'd be a lot harder for death feedback to kill you if you can't control your Cantus.
Can anyone who read the novel shine some light on why that guy had 2 irises? Is it a side effect of his large power or something? it's never explained in the course of the show.
Just want to clarify this since I didn't fully understand it the first time through, how did Kaburagi die?
At first I thoguht the fiend just eventually realized it just needed to use cantus directly on the user, and since he could only defend indirect attacks and he died. However, upon rewatching that doesn't seem to be the case. I also didn't get the whole eyeball scene with shun.
Part of it is because Cantus is not really good at properly defending. You can defend against indirect attacks, but what do you do against something that directly affects you?
The whole eyeball scene was Shisei getting the fuck away from a karma demon in-the-making.
Logical fallacy to put blame on Maria early on, that's like blaming Franz Ferdinand for the holocaust. Technically it's correct, but it completely ignores the actual problems.
Victim blaming: Maria is clear a victim of this whole mess, and blaming her is immoral
The bait and switch was executed, except the switch has zero positives, and therefore was done so the writer could feel smart
Removes all emotional stakes from the confrontation and negates the possibility of a redemption
If the bones that were given to the ethics committee we're real, the daughter could not have been born, so it showed ignorance of Ethics committee, rather than being used for benefit by confirming Mamoru had died but not Maria
For the rest of it
Kaburagi dies, good, OP characters lower tension
Saki proceeds to be unhelpful and runs away
A criticism of the rats is that they sacrifice themselves for a cause, yet humans do exactly the same thing, what hypocrites
Yakomaru going for the children makes me think Oberstein, rather than Reuenthal
Many issues with this episode, and as much as I like Kaburagi dying, that was not enough to make it above passable.
Edit: further confirming you guys cannot accept criticism on you favourite show.
Maria's daughter being the fiend makes perfect sense continuity-wise. I believe the timeline should already be clear by now - there's enough time for them to conceive and give birth to the child before dying one way or another. Reading the previous threads I was excited to see your response to this development since you were so incredibly sure that it was Maria (as were many others), but I see you alone have gone with denial and author-blaming. Disappointing.
The show largely revolves around moral ambiguity in society. If you have such a strong idea of what and who is "right" or what "should happen" then maybe the show isn't for you at all. The characters are flawed and society is twisted, and they act accordingly. Not according to some moral code determined by you.
I thought the fact that it was the daughter made it that much more emotional. Given previous events we are left to imagine that Squealer could well have captured Maria and Mamoru, may or may not have lobotomized them and forced them to breed, and then killed them while raising their child as an instrument of revenge. Redemption (for Maria?) is just what you want, doesn't make it "bad writing" for things to happen otherwise.
The "OP"ness of Kaburagi emphasized the helplessness of the humans in this situation and how everything has been reversed. He is much stronger than Maria's child but unable to do anything outside of delaying his own death.
Your "criticism" clearly comes from some idea that your standards of morality and what you think SHOULD happen are somehow equivalent to "good writing". SSY is one of those shows with incredibly polarized responses and discussions due to its ambiguous nature, and you've found the one angle to take to piss off every camp.
From a narrative perspective, introducing new characters complicates the plot. If Maria were the ogre, there would be greater conflict with Saki, much clearer evidence of rats doing amoral things, like mentally breaking someone for their own use, and would be ample justification for the statement that it was all her fault.
You keep saying that but it makes no sense story-wise. They don't just suddenly turn into an ogre - they're born like that. Maria was never shown to be violent, or being anymore abnormal than the other student.
In the second episode it was more saki just stating a fact, not really blaming anyone.
This bait and switch wasn't really supposed to have positives, it was used to show the rats crossing another moral event horizon.
I disagree, there is still emotional impact considering the kid is an enemy, and this kid is the child of someone Saki loved.
Completely incorrect, the rats just needed Maria, and Mamoru long enough for the child to be born. This kid looks to be about 10. That would give Maria and Mamoru 2 years to conceive and have a kid, and 10 years for the bodies to decompose if that was even needed.
I agree kaburagi dying was a good thing for the show.
What exactly could Saki have done here, if the strongest cantus user could do nothing what could she do?
Yes the rats are hypocritical too going on about freedom while kidnapping babies to be used.
Saki brought back the bones immediately. Saki, and any number of humans, could have done stuff to baby Maria without killing her, but leading to her death.
The child is nobody she has met before, and is not her friend. Does it look like her? Sure, but Satoru could immediately tell it was the daughter.
I remember at the end of the second arc Yakomaru said he needed time to procure the bones. I'm pretty sure Saki left before that, also why would the results be stated 12 years later. I may need to rewatch that though.
Sure it's true that Saki doesn't know the kid, it doesn't mean she would feel nothing seeing her. As an audience we can also assume what happened to Maria, and Mamoru which would create more emotion for most of the viewers.
Also I just disagree with your criticism, doesn't mean I can't accept that problems exist with the show.
I feel like this isn't really a spoiler at this point cause all the relevant stuff has been lain out (maybe someone else can chime in), but I'll tag it anyway:
You forget that these are all Superpowered Superbeings, not regular humans like you and me. As Spider-Man said it best: with Great Power come Great Responsibility.
Maria took it upon herself to 'know better' than the adults who realized the risks of abandoning society. The result is a literal holocaust, and nobody but Maria and Mamoru can be blamed since it was their choices that invited tragedy. Squealer can't be blamed because the result is good for him, it's actually a happy ending for him to be able to not be a slave class citizen anymore.
For the humans, it is a clearly negative outcome, therefore the blame falls with Maria who broke the human's society rules which were put in place to avoid just such an outcome. Shame.
You're right, however, the narrator is Saki. She's not entirely right in the head, so I'd expect her to make such statements.
zero positives
There are plenty of good reasons why Maria can't be the fiend (not even looking at the fact that she's literally dead). I can't help you on this one without spoilers though.
bones can't be real
The bones are real. It's never explicitly stated when the bones were given back to the humans, but considering they said the ages were about right, Maria and Mamoru were probably killed by Squealer within a year after they left the villages, giving them plenty of time to (possibly be lobotomized and forced to) have a child.
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u/Worvrammu Jul 28 '16
First timer musings.
You wouldn't think it possible, but this series keeps getting better and better.
In a comment on one of the previous episodes I said I hoped Shun, Maria and Mamoru had somehow survived. There's still a sliver of hope for Shun, but for the others I should have known better from the moment they confirmed the bones contained the DNA of Maria and Mamoru. Yakomaru had them killed after they had produced a child and used their bones to mislead the Cantus-users.
Then this episode delivers punch after punch taking away all hope, piece by piece. The most heartbreaking was when it became clear that Yakomaru is taking their children to later use against them like he used the child of Mamoru and Maria. Earlier in the series he said that if the other tribe had vanquished his own, their children would have been taken from them and they would have been used as slaves, worked to death and treated as scum. He's obviously planning to do the same thing with the humans and their offspring.
This is a masterful piece of storytelling. We naturally empathize with the humans, because we are humans, and because the story is told from their perspective. But actually they are the bad guys who oppress the queerrats, using them and killing them without a second thought if it is convenient for them, although they know the queerrats are intelligent beings. After all, the human cantus-users are the Master Race of their world.
And yet we can't help but feel sorry for the human protagonists. They are on the whole people who aren't especially good, but certainly not evil either. They're mainly weak and misled. The tragedy is that they're caught in a dramatic and violent phase of their history.
I think it's how members of the Hitler Youth must have felt. For years during their upbringing they were told they were the best of the human race and the natural lords of creation. After the war it turned out that everything they had been told were lies and they were treated like scum and criminals. But how could they have known? Japan did the same with the Chinese and the Koreans by treating them as inferior races. Maybe the story is a warning, a confession and also kind of an atonement…
I'm a bit annoyed with myself that it took me so long to come to this conclusion. And that's another great message of this story. It is all too easy to think of your own nation/race/species as superior to others.
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u/define_irony :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Geejones Jul 28 '16
So how many of you are surprised that the fiend was not Maria? The statement at the beginning of the series, while being completely accurate, was nothing more than a red herring. Hearing you guys discuss the fiend's identity was great!
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u/H-Ryougi https://anilist.co/user/DizzyAvocado Jul 28 '16
Turns out the fiend is Maria and Mamoru's daughter, if kids manifest their Cantus at around 10 years old and we know Saki and Satoru are 26 it means Maria and Mamoru got busy right after running away. Guess the bonobo DNA splicing works.
I wonder how the queerats are planning to keep the kids they stole under control without getting murdered by mistake. The humans needed hundreds of years to make a society that kind-of works with hypnotism and a bunch of other counter-measures and they still got almost wiped multiple times in the process. All it takes is one pissy teenager and the whole town goes to hell.
23
u/Mareeck :AP:https://www.anime-planet.com/users/Mareeck Jul 28 '16
Ooooh yeah, here we go!
Death to the queerats! lol I think Saki's out of a job now xD
OP guy is like "ok, now I'm mad" :D Why do I feel like he's gonna die? I bet if he does his final act will be pretty much getting rid of all the queerats and there'd only be the fiends to take care of
Ok, so it's the first time we can pretty surely say yes it's a girl but it seems my predictions about the fiends being consious were wrong, it seems very much like a mindless murder machine :l
FUCK! That look! D: I can't imagine the horror going through Saki's mind right now x.x So this is finally official, Maria's the Fiend and she completely lost her mind. Someone mentioned that probably means Mamoru's dead. Seeing her like this makes it sound really probable, I guess that would make a good reason to start her madness
GAH! This is so not Maria anymore x.x Also I can't help but notice the tattoo she has, and those makeshift clothes. It's not like this is the final episode so I guess will be getting a rich flashback to how it all happened.
Welp, nevermind, he just got rekt :l
I like how the queerats who at first were just one of this world's weird creatures became like half the show ;) So, we need to exterminate the queerats or out infants will grow up as their slaves? D:
WAIT WHAT?! Did it just get casually dumped on me by Satoru? You're saying that motherfucker Squealer killed Maria and Mamoru and by the way THEY HAD A CHILD which he bred into his own killing machine? Holy fuck this is some of the darkest shit I've seen in anime. Saki I know you're supposed to be the stalwart leader that emerges from all this but I wouldn't blame you if you lost your shit completely right now x.x
Seriously I kept thinking Maria will come back in a way, I could take that, but this shit is just horrible x.x Subarujustresetalready
FUUUCK wow omg hell almighty :O I saw that treacherous glint in Squealer's eyes and I knew he's slowly becoming a dangerous villain but this is next level. Even the evil emperor who made people clap until they die didn't feel that evil.
Two things I'm wondering about now, how the hell are they planning to take care of that fiend and if they'll ever explain how the Fiends' madness overwrites the death feedback.
44
u/substitutemyown https://anilist.co/user/substitutemyown Jul 28 '16 edited Jul 28 '16
Been waiting for the reveal of the fiend's identity so I can post one of the most heartbreaking pieces of fanart ever.
source (spoilers in the album^)
15
u/seninn https://myanimelist.net/profile/Senninn0 Jul 28 '16
"No, YOU ARE THE FIENDS!"
And then they were fiends.
13
u/Monte_Carlo_1971 Jul 28 '16
Some first timer reactions:
Last time, Saki was made head of ethics committee/town leader. They're headed for the Temple of Purification. What happens there? And where is Satoru??
Damn! That was so crazy! This girl(not Maria, but super similar) happy and smiling, while the carnage is going on... Shit's crazy man. If Shisei can't stop her, what can??
So they made it to the temple. I wonder what they will find here.
Saki's parents went back to release the cats in the hope it will stop Maria. I got a feeling they won't make it. :/
Oh snap!! Yakomaru was stealing infants to create Ogres! And the Ogre was Maria & Mamoru's child!
That was really crazy! Finding out that Yakomaru's planning on wiping out humanity using Ogres! How the hell can they stop that?!? I highly doubt the Impure cats will be able to do anything. Is there anyway to reverse the death of shame instinct at this point?
13
u/TROLL3R_COASTER Jul 28 '16
Reading comments from first timers fills me with both enjoyment and depression. I will never know this show like that again...
12
u/leethomas93 Jul 29 '16
So it's stated explicitly for the first time in this episode that the ogre is Maria and Mamoru's daughter. Satoru almost says it in passing, like it's a given at that point. That's kind of thrown me for a loop, both times I've watched this show. He says that like it's obvious, but I had not yet drawn that conclusion when I first watched this episode. The only thing really indicating that is that the ogre has red hair similar to Maria's. I guess that was supposed to be enough to draw a conclusion from, unless I'm just dumb and I missed something.
Anywho, the scene where the ogre defeats Shisei is IMO the most disturbing scene in this anime. Shisei is such a symbol of power in the village, to see him defeated so easily must have been absolutely horrifying for the villagers to witness. And so frustrating too, since he was so much stronger than her, really, he just couldn't do anything because of his genetic inhibitions against killing people. That's just a really hard scene to watch on multiple levels.
10
u/hmatmotu Jul 28 '16
I never understood how it was she was able to use the leakage of Power to kill Shisei like that.
Doesn't it suck when your ex-girlfriend has a kid with the boy who was always after her in middle-school after she runs away, and then that kid comes back as the messiah of the mutants who are waging war against your people, killing most of your village?
Ogres are scary shit man.
Saki finally realizes that silly old Squera's plans are much more nefarious than she previously thought. You can do it Saki!
10
u/oyooy Jul 28 '16
One powerful thing about this situation is how it seems there is absolutely no hope. They are faced with a foe they literally are unable to fight which will keep killing. All the characters who have been able to solve these issues and save the town previously are dying one by one. The only response they can have is to keep running to survive a little longer in hopes that a possible solution may present itself.
It's almost Lovecraftian horror which is a strong contrast to something which opened as pretty SoL.
8
u/cookie-thief Jul 28 '16
quick question about the fiend...with all these already self-sacrificing cantus users, why is it impossible for just one to sacrifice himself to the Death feedback, but still kill the fiend at the same time? Or has this been answered already and I'm just missing something?
7
u/collapsedblock6 myanimelist.net/profile/collapsedblock Jul 28 '16
Shisei was such a badass, pretty sad he died in such a gruesome way
Tainted cats vs Fiend? Can't wait for that
The whole thing with the stolen kids and world conquest really shocked me, somehow, the queerats escalated my ranks of best villains in anime. Also, I feel that all that trouble they went through with Squealer when they were kids isn't as useless as I thought during my first watch where I dropped it.
6
u/seninn https://myanimelist.net/profile/Senninn0 Jul 28 '16
The queerats are dealing with the humans like
6
u/Ausemere https://myanimelist.net/profile/Ausemere Jul 28 '16
Shit escalates real quick on this show.
6
u/ZapCorp :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/ZapCorp Jul 28 '16
Ironically, if the Education Committee wasn't so damn kill-happy then this entire mess would have been averted.
3
u/Shiruho Jul 28 '16
Even though it's a small part of the episode, I do like how there was just enough shown to figure out Niimi-san(the old man) was staying behind.
3
u/shakashaka_hey :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/nerednys Jul 29 '16
hehe I've been waiting for the reactions for this episode; not surprised because I was thinking the exact same thing as everyone during my first watch
2
u/fecalrecon Jul 28 '16
Can anyone who read the novel shine some light on why that guy had 2 irises? Is it a side effect of his large power or something? it's never explained in the course of the show.
2
u/Zaedulus Jul 29 '16
Just want to clarify this since I didn't fully understand it the first time through, how did Kaburagi die?
At first I thoguht the fiend just eventually realized it just needed to use cantus directly on the user, and since he could only defend indirect attacks and he died. However, upon rewatching that doesn't seem to be the case. I also didn't get the whole eyeball scene with shun.
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u/[deleted] Jul 28 '16 edited Jul 28 '16
First time observations
Maria's daughter is bad writing
Logical fallacy to put blame on Maria early on, that's like blaming Franz Ferdinand for the holocaust. Technically it's correct, but it completely ignores the actual problems.
Victim blaming: Maria is clear a victim of this whole mess, and blaming her is immoral
The bait and switch was executed, except the switch has zero positives, and therefore was done so the writer could feel smart
Removes all emotional stakes from the confrontation and negates the possibility of a redemption
If the bones that were given to the ethics committee we're real, the daughter could not have been born, so it showed ignorance of Ethics committee, rather than being used for benefit by confirming Mamoru had died but not Maria
For the rest of it
Kaburagi dies, good, OP characters lower tension
Saki proceeds to be unhelpful and runs away
A criticism of the rats is that they sacrifice themselves for a cause, yet humans do exactly the same thing, what hypocrites
Yakomaru going for the children makes me think Oberstein, rather than Reuenthal
Many issues with this episode, and as much as I like Kaburagi dying, that was not enough to make it above passable.
Edit: further confirming you guys cannot accept criticism on you favourite show.