Shin Sekai Yori (From the New World) - Episode 15

Saki has been joined by Satoru in their mission to retrieve and bring back Mari and Mamoru with the promise that no harm will come to them - as you might expect, tracking them down could well prove to be decidedly more difficult than it seems on paper.

For starters, the missing pair seem to have done a particularly good job of covering their tracks since Satoru and Saki left them behind, meaning that their former hideout is nowhere to be found and, thanks to Mari's ability, they've left not so much as a footprint behind.  In lieu of any other information as to their whereabouts, Saki decides that they need to seek out Squnk, the Monster Rat who saved Mamoru in the first place.

Their attempts to make it to Squnk's home sees a freak accident lead the pair to the home of another old friend, Squera, the subject of Saki and Satoru's adventures from several years previously.  However, it seems that much has changed in Squera's world since those events, with the merger of a number of Monster Rat colonies building a massive populace, while the resulting group has seemingly embraced human politics, construction and more in the intervening period, although not all of it seems entirely ethical to our shocked humans.  There also seems to be a warmongering streak in this new colony, as they waste no time in coercing Satoru into attacking Squnk's colony as a show of power despite Saki and Satoru's peaceful goal - a goal which seems further than ever from being fulfilled, incidentally.

So ends another fascinating episode of Shin Sekai Yori, which seems to have so much that it wants to say of late that it's always difficult to know where to start.  The obvious focus of this particular instalment however is the Giant Hornet colony, in terms of both their behaviour and progression since we last saw this group of Monster Rats and how that progress is viewed by Saki and Satoru; an interesting mix of horror and disbelief which swings between the valid and the prejudicially insular.  You could spend hours deconstructing the human's view of the Monster Rats, and the Monster Rats view of the world and how to build their society, but that's not what this 'blog is all about - all I will say is that it's the kind of fare that is keeping me well and truly hooked to this show as it continues to impress me more and more after that wobbly start.