Whilst the anime series is handling it with a proper heavy mood, the yuri inclined manga is making a joke of it – Shinsekai Yori is portraying the disappearance of one of its side-characters as a whimsical gag.
For those unfamiliar with this series’ origin, Shinsekai Yori begins as a standard novel – the novel is a respected work, with quite a thought-provoking premise and tale. Based on the novel, Japan’s largest publishing firm, Kodansha, decided to create an exploitive pocket stuffer of a manga under the same name, which simply features excess and brazen yuri antics. It’s essentially a mockery of the original novel, and the anime is, thankfully, based on that novel – not the manga series, which as one can see below, isn’t even taking itself too seriously.
Oct 5, 2012 @ 13:46 CDT
More like Shinsekai Yuri if you ask me.
Oct 5, 2012 @ 13:53 CDT
Accurate.
Oct 5, 2012 @ 14:38 CDT
Valid point.
Dec 23, 2012 @ 10:57 CDT
i was so disappointed with the first page of the manga, that i searched over the net info, and thankfully, it lead me here ;p thank you to accurately give those points out…. i abandonned the manga, and i will finish this amazing anime ;p
Jan 25, 2013 @ 2:21 CDT
Well, the yuri part wasn’t all too bad on itself. Especially if you’re into that. ;-p But really, it’s a mixed point one can make; in some respects, the sexual themed scenes in the manga was being portrayed more explicitly AND faithfully than in the anime. Because, let’s not forget that in the novel, there are some rather explicit sex-scenes too, which the anime rather goes over…easily, in number as well as in detail. That said, it isn’t all yuri neither, like in the manga; all sorts and genres comes into play – but sometimes very explicitly too, as said. I think the over-abundance of particularly yuri in the manga is simply due to catering to the targeted audience, while in the anime, it is less and less explicit, but more diversified.
Of course, where the anime is clearly superior, is in telling the context where and why those scenes happen, which is pretty important, because it’s not hentai, after all. It does a far better job in telling the story too, and in depicting the appropriate mood. And since the story is a major part of the whole thing, describing in essence the workings of a future society with some post-apocalyptic or at least existential aspects, it’s what should be rightfully concentrated on.
I just wanted to point out one shouldn’t complain too much about the explicit sex-scenes in the manga, because there were a lot of them in the novel too, while in that respect, the anime was rather subdued. Nevertheless, the conclusion that the anime is a tenfold better than the manga is and remains warranted.