From the New World

From the New World
Name
Kanji	新世界より
Rōmaji	Shin Sekai Yori
Series Information
Genre	Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction, Drama, Action, Romance, Shoujo Ai, Shounen Ai, Supernatural (Ecchi & Yuri - Manga Exclusive )
Writer	Yusuke Kishi

From the New World (新世界より, Shin Sekai Yori) is a Japanese novel by Yusuke Kishi, originally published in 2008 by Kodansha. It received the 29th Nihon SF Taisho Award. The novel has received a manga adaptation in Kodansha's Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine, which began serialization in May 2012, and an anime television series adaptation by A-1 Pictures, which aired in Japan between September 2012 and March 2013. The manga series has been licensed by Vertical Inc and the anime by Sentai Filmworks in North America.

Plot

The story is set in Japan a millennium from now. Five children - Saki, Satoru, Maria, Mamoru and Shun - have been born and raised in a tranquil town that can be described as a utopia overflowing with water and green foliage. The world is ruled by people who have the "cursed power" or the "gods' power" of telekinesis, (呪力 jyuryoku). After a certain incident, Saki and the others come to realize the true nature of their world. Before long, they learn everything, including the bloody history that brought humanity to this state. The five throw themselves into life-threatening adventure and fight to protect friends and a world on the brink of collapse.

Anime

Episode 1

People around a certain boy suddenly start exploding. 500 years later, there is a myth about a boy sealing off a bridge to prevent demons from invading his village, sacrificing himself in the process.

The story takes place 1,000 years later. Watanabe Saki meets with Mushin at his temple. He performs a ritual on Saki.

Saki goes to school with her friends, being trained in magic such as telekinesis. At home, she thinks about a conversation between her parents that she overheard: they once lost a child before Saki, and were worried that Saki would be next as Saki saw the Cat.

Amano Reiko's name is stamped.

Episode 2

500 years before the start of the story, a coronation takes place. The event turned ominous when it was announced that the first 100 civilians who stopped clapping would be selected as sacrifices.
180 years before the start of the story, there was a genuis with a dark side to him. He was twisted and become a demon, and departed from this world.

Saki's group particitates in a sport competition. They have good chances of winning, but the opposing team seems to have cheated, resulting in a draw. However, it is later pointed out that there is a much more serious matter behind the incident: one of them violated the taboo of applying their own cantus on top of someone else's, which can result in a space warp which is extremely dangerous.

Katayama Manabu's name is stamped.

The school go on a trip to camp on Tone river.

Saki's group encounters queerats, creatures known to worship people with cantus, but can't be trusted and thus children are taught to stay away from them. Seeing one of them fall into the river, Saki tries to save it against her friends' wishes.

Amano Reiko, the girl who disappeared and Katayama Manabu, the boy who cheated, their names are eventually forgotten.

If Maria didn't exist, the number of people who disappeared might have been lower.

Episode 3

430 years before the start of the story, the castle is raided with the intention of assassinating the emperor.

Saki's group encounters akuma Minoshiro and try to catch it. They succeed, but the creature reveals itself to be more of a machine, a living library.

Episode 4

When the group asks to access the database, Minoshiro initially claims it's only available for people over 18. But when they threaten to open it up, it gives in. It tells them that the first case of registered psychokinesis was in 2011. The number of people capable of psychokinesis rapidly increased, up to 0.3% of the population. Teenager A, upon discovering his powers, forcefully opened doors and raped 19 sleeping girls and killed 17 of them. Many such cases appeared, and war broke out. The population was reduced to only 2%. All of this happened 500 years before the start of the story. In North East, 4 groups ruled.

- Slave Empire, ruled by PK politicians.

- Tribes that wished to be free from Slave.

- Bandit gangs that used PK to rob, steal and kill.

- Scientists that wanted to preserve ancient knowledge.

19 generations of the Slave Empire lasted around 600 years. After they fell, the world was rebuilt by the scholars. The scholars's teaching method focused on weeding out "problematic" individuals. They relate to bonobo's way of life: when stress reaches a critical point, they have sex to relieve it, thus the society is peaceful. Children are also manipulated to "hurt" themselves upon committing atrocious acts against their own kind. Before the creature can answer any more questions about Fiends and Karma Demons, it is burned down by a monk named Rijin. He claims they have committed taboos, and thus their cantus has to be sealed. As Rijin leads them back, they are attacked by unmarked queerats, prompting Rijn to suspect that the queerats want to invade. He kills the queerats but is in great pain.

Episode 5

Rijin dies trying to protect the children. The group splits to escape from queerats, with Satoru pairing with Saki. They have an intimate moment before escaping from the queerats' base. They are saved by Squealer, a queerat that can speak. He brings them back to the queen, who treat them as honored guests. When Squealer mistakenly burns down the tent and reveals her hidden form, she tries to kill him before sparing him at Saki's behest. Squealer begs them to help fending off the enemies. When they attack, Satoru kills them.

Episode 6

Saki manages to undo Satoru's binding thanks to her having seen his ablity before, returning his cantus. Reveling in his powers, Satoru performs impressive feats, turning the queerats on each other. Saki starts to have doubts about the queerats' intention.

Episode 7

Squealer acts loyal, but the moment Satoru shows exhaustion from using cantus too much, it starts to show signs of betrayal. They are led to Kiromaru, but Satoru doubts Kiromaru will act in their best interest, and they escape with Squealer. Regrouping with the other children, they try to leave on boats, but Kiromaru follows them with ships to help them leave. The group start to view Kiromaru and Squealer in a better light.

Episode 8

Two years have passed, and the group are now 14 years old. They develop intimate relationship with each others, Saki is shocked to see Shun and Satoru making out. Mamoru develops unrequited affection for Maria while she is intimate with Saki. Shun breaks up with Satoru, and the latter soon finds new skinship in a new boy named Rei. The strongest esper Kaburagi Shisei visits the class. Satoru impresses him, but when he lays his eyes on Shun, he immediately leaves, prompting Shun to grin ominously. The teacher Endo hurriedly chase out the students, and Shun drops the egg. When it breaks, Saki believes she sees an eyeball within. Shun tells Maria that he seems to have a condition, and will stop going to school. He reveals his theory: the adults already knew about what happened to them two years ago, they just posponed the punishment and watched over them for some reason. He warned her to beware of the Nekodamashi, and gave her his collar.

Episode 9

Shun has disappeared for four days, and the group is determined to find him. They find the village Shun is from, is now under blockade. After an unfruitful search, Saki comes home. Her parents break the news to her: Shun and his entire family are missing. They tell her to learn to forget, and express the fear of losing a child for the second time. Saki recalls the time she learned about the meaning of her name: "Ki" meaning "the youngest child". She suddenly remembers her older sister "Yoshimi". Maria comes to her, revealing what she and Mamoru learned: Endo and two other people intend to do something bad to Shun. Under the rainy night, Saki leaves home to do her own investigation.

Episode 10

Sakis is bit in the neck, but thanks to wearing the collar, she manages to turn the tables. The story about the genius with a dark side is repeated. Saki meets Shu, who tries to explain to her the situation with the little time he has. The human mind consists of the conscious and the sub-conscious. Actions are the products of conscious. But cantus is the product of sub-conscious, which is extremely difficult to control. Espers subconsciously activate their cantus and change their surrounding environments without knowing. The strange creatures like minoshiro, tiger crabs are all creations of cantus. Cantus is constantly leaking out of Shun, causing all things around him to be altered. Shun begs her to leave, knowing that if he loses focus, she will be harmed just as his family was. Shun confesses his love for her before releasing her.

Episode 11

Everyone's memory has been altered to forget about Shun including Saki, but she still vaguely senses that something is wrong. Shun is replaced by a new boy named Ryo. Saki senses something is wrong, and grows to believe Ryo was not the friend she spent her time with in the past. Saki manages to convince her friends that their memory has been tampered with. Maria soothes Saki and kisses her.

Episode 12

Saki is recruited by Tokimo. After the summer trip, all of them received tests to check for aptitude. She reveals that while she didn't plan for the whole thing, she took the opportunity. She tells the story of boy K, a Fiend. The method to eliminate potential Fiends evolves over time. Kutegawa Izumi, a Karma Demon.

Episode 13

Mamoru disappears. The three find him, having been saved by the queerat Saki helped two years ago. Mamoru and Maria confirm that Mamoru's removal has been plotted.

Episode 14

Masayo questions Saki. Tomiko takes Saki away and explains the situation to her. Tomiko is 267 years old. She encountered her first Fiend 245 years ago. She orders Saki to bring Mamoru and Maria back, in return she will guarantee their lives.

Episode 15

Satoru meets with Saki, and together they look for their friends. They run into Squealer who now goes by the name Yakomaru. Saki is horrified to witness the queen now reduced to a mindless breeder. Satoru suspects that queerats are trying to replace humans. Squealers start a war.

Episode 16

Maria left a letter for Saki. They have run away. Maria encourages Saki to stay because the village needs her. She questions if this is how a society should be, especially when it can't hold a candle to the past. Deep down, adults are afraid of children. Just because of small, vague "hints" that a child is bad, they will not hesitate to remove them. Squealer agrees to falsely report that they are both dead.

In her dream, Saki sees a faceless boy telling her not to aid Maria's escape, and that Maria needs to die.

Episode 17

Sakis is now 26 years old, who is responsible for taking care of moles. Queerats now have to apply to wage a war. Yakomaru and Kiromaru are both summoned for questioning. The war involves guns, shields, and even opium. Kiromaru emerges victorious.

Episode 18

Shisei suspects that there was cantus involved. Refusing to sit still and wait , they start a coup.

Episode 19

Queerats stage an ambush, but are found out and eliminated. They encounter a Fiend. Satoru believes it is behind the whole war.

Episode 20

With the Fiend hot on their tail, Saki and Satoru create a mirror to hide their tracks as they escape. Tomiko commands an evacuation.

Episode 21

The Fiend attacks. Satoru questions a queerat about their motive. The queerat answers that they want to usurp humans for enslaving them, before killing itself. Mamoru and Maria's child is the Fiend. Yakomaru kidnaps human children so that ten years later they can become his own army of Fiends.

Episode 22

Kiromaru is revealed to still be alive. In the letter Saki's mom sent her, the existence of the anti-esper weapon - Psychobuster is revealed. Kiromaru accompany them in a submarine to retrieve the weapon.

Episode 23

Cantus leak from people transform Tokyo into hideous forms. Inui sacrifices himself. Saki sees Shun.

Episode 24

Saki regroups with Kiromaru and Satoru. They try to appeal to the Fiend's humanity by making it look into the mirror, but fails. Having no choice, Satoru throws the Psychobuster at the Fiend. Not wanting Satoru to sacrifice himself, Saki blasts the Psychobuster away, but also saves the Fiend in the process. Kiromaru reveals the reason he went to Tokyo to obtain a weapon capable of usurping humans, afraid of what the future has in store for them.

Episode 25

Saki suspects that the Fiend's kindred is queerats, Kiromaru willingly sacrifices himself to trigger it, killing the Fiend. She and Satoru questions Yakomaru. He claims that the life of queerats is even worse than slaves, their life and death all depends on the whims of humans, even though they are on the same level of intellect, the only difference is that humans can use cantus. He sees Kiromaru as someone who rejected change. Saki demands he apologize to the innocent people he killed, but Yakomaru denies the name given to him by the village - going back to his name Squealer, tells her to apologize to the queerats first. In the aftermath, many people are dead, including Saki's parents.

In court, Squealer declares himself human. He is subjected to suffering never seen before. Saki works to stop the eradication of all queerats, including Kiromaru's queen. Saki questions the meaning of the names between human and queerats in Japanese and English. Satoru confirms her suspision: queerats are human-based. Espers can rule over powerless humans. But powerless humans don't have inhibitions in them that can stop them from killing others. As such, powerless humans were degraded to animal form so as to maintain the hierachy.

Saki meets Squealer, who has most likely lost all motor functions and reduced to a glob of pulsing flesh. She reminices the day they met, and suspects that it was him who reported their escape to Kiromaru. She puts him out of his misery, and intends to defend herself by claiming that she does it out of hatred so as to avoid punishment. She now believes there are things more important than rules.

Satoru and Saki marry. Ten years later, the pregnant Saki asks her husband if humans can change for the better. Satoru assures her that they can, and they hope for a good future. Sakis reminices her childhood, with her friends.

Novel

The novel From the New World was written by the Japanese author Yusuke Kishi and published by Kodansha. Its original publication was on January 23, 2008, in two volumes. On August 7, 2009, it was re-released as a single volume under the Kodansha Novels imprint and again on January 14, 2011, as three volumes under the Kodansha Bunko imprint.

• See also: List of Novel Chapters & Novel Translations

First Novel Cover Second Novel Cover Third Novel Cover

Manga

A manga adaption of the novel, drawn by Tōru Oikawa, is serialized in Kodansha's Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine. The first chapter was published in the June 2012 issue on May 9, 2012. Additionally, the series has been released in five tankōbon volumes under the Shōnen Magazine Comics imprint between October 9, 2012, and December 9, 2013. A sixth volume is scheduled to be released on April 9, 2014. In 2013 the series was licensed in English by Vertical Inc, who released the first three volumes between November 12, 2013, and March 4, 2014. The fourth volume is scheduled to be released on May 13, 2014.

• See also: Volumes and Chapters

Anime

An anime adaptation by A-1 Pictures aired between September 2012 and March 2013. It has been licensed by Sentai Filmworks in North America. The anime does not have an opening theme but theme songs that are played during the closing credits. "Wareta Ringo" (割れたリンゴ, lit. Broken Apple) by Risa Taneda was used for episode 1 through 16, and was replaced by "Yuki ni Saku Hana" (雪に咲く花, lit. The Flower Blooming in Snow) by Kana Hanazawa starting in episode 17.

• See also: List of Episodes

Merchandise

Main article: Merchandise

External Links

• Anime Official Website (Japanese)
• From the New World (Anime) at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia