The Library reveals much of the past, which will alter the kids future.
What They Say:
As the library continues to explain the history of the world, a danger looms in the background.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the core group of characters out on their trip into the wilderness, they had a good bit of fun and some decent exploration as they sailed, camped and just talked. Their exploration had them coming across something completely unexpected though when they found the library, a strange looking animal that contains immense amounts of information about the world. But it’s information that it can only give up to registered users and those users need some form of identification. At least until the kids start talking about how they can tear it apart in order to understand it, and then the Library is fare more open with its information sharing. It’s amusing, but it’s not really played for laughs which definitely helps the moment.
The beginning of this episode serves as a large info dump, but a very useful one as the Library details how the world ended starting in 2011 with formal proof of psychic powers. The revelation began as slow spread of the abilities across the world and that just set everything into chaos over time until full out war happened. The end result was a world where two percent of humanity remained and it splintered into several different factions for some five hundred years of the Dark Ages. Different groups rose and fell, some with powers, some bandits, some just controlled powerless people. The background is really intriguing and paints a fascinating period of time, but it also shows us the reactions of these kids who can’t believe people killed each other and that so much tragedy had happened. It impacts them in a huge way, from disbelief to anger and to action as they start to understand how their own society was born.
The structure of this society is really engaging as we get more and more of its background in coming up with a way to ensure that a society of people with the ability to decimate everyone would be passive enough never to do so. A lot of different approaches were looked at and the end results used some particular genetic modification that we’ve seen play out but not understand previously. There’s a lot of information borne out of this, answers so close and within reach that as it gets ever closer, things turn even more dangerous as they’re discovered and the Library is burned to a crisp through the Power. Things are kind of mollified through their dialogue with the guardian monk they come across, but not so much that they can just go free.
The price they pay for what they learned is certainly brutal as their Power is sealed and burned away, making you wonder just what kind of position a monk like this has in the world. He takes on a protective role with them but mostly because he has to return them to the temple to be dealt with. Curiously, the journey does not go smoothly and there’s an array of Monster Rats that are starting to attack them, unlike the ones we saw before. These are just vicious and angry, itnent on causing problems. There’s an odd flow to it but some real beauty to the sequences as well as the monk uses his powers. But there are larger hints within the actions as well, both with the Library and the Monster Rats that leaves you wondering what the real truth of all of this is.
In Summary:
From The New World may provide a big info dump here but it really is all very useful stuff. There still a part of me that wishes it was mixed in during the first episode in some way, but the reveal here for the characters themselves is definitely a big part of the payoff. Discovering some of the core truths of their world and just how dangerous it is. The past exposed is brutal and ugly but the present is just as bad in many ways with how it deals with those that may be a problem. The show has a lot going for it, but it’s one that takes time to really get rolling. It’s also a show that has not had me really latching onto the characters themselves. They’ve not really made themselves stand out as real individuals. I’m hopeful now that they may shift away from the docile side to something more proactive could be what the show needs.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: FUNimation
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
