Dystopia created not by tyrants, but as an attempt to keep the last remains of humanity from going extinct. The burden of greater power. Is greater good a reason to trample on personal freedom of individuals? How much can perceived evil or good change into good or evil depending on the point of view? What does it mean to be a human? Shinsekai yori is a heavily philosophical work that ask those questions and more. Well, not asking directly of course, that would be too on the noose. It would be more accurate to say that the story makes you question these questions yourself. With twovolumes, the novel delivers more plot than some others struggle with volume count in dozens. There are no fillers, the storytelling gets to the point and there isn’t unnecessarily heavy infodumping, but an exploration of the workings of the world together with the protagonist.

Beyond the philosophical qualities, it is precisely the characters that are the strength of Shinsekai yori. The growth and more importantly, the depth, especially for the antagonists. Here comes in play the switching between/explaining clashing points of view that for the first time you experience the story makes for a great experience as the plot plays around with how you feel about certain characters before delivering its twists. Twists that you didn’t see coming, but makes sense in retrospective and enhance the story points – the best kind of twists.

That said, I imagine most of you have already seen the anime before even opening the database entry for the novel. What are the differences? None really story-wise, except perhaps for some scenes being described more explicitly, and that I felt the introduction to the story was handled better as it took shorter time to get the ball rolling. But while this won’t give you extra new content if you’re already familiar with the anime, it can still serve as a nice memory refresh if you’ve seen the anime a while ago and this way can deliver a nice reading experience too, as it would for someone experiencing the story for a first time.