Šinsekai jori

When I was still in high school, we had a biology class on evolution. The teacher explained that humans and chimps share a surprising ninety-eight percent of their DNA. Some species of primates supposedly have a propensity for possessiveness and violence encoded in their DNA, and therefore so do we. To prove her point, she showed us a documentary about chimpanzees, which showed fights over territory plus disputes between males over females and others. Interestingly, she mentioned that there are also Bonobo chimpanzees who are not aggressive at all. These chimps hardly ever fight among themselves and solve their disagreements with sex. In the same way, they also strengthen relationships within their community and the family, and this behavior is associated with fear and other stimuli. The professor made an interesting point at the time that if we were genetically closer to Bonobo chimpanzees than to other representatives of the primate/ape species, humanity would live a much healthier and more peaceful life without wars and other tensions. Already back then I thought that such an idea was interesting. However, it is not very realistic from a practical point of view, and I do not think such a society could successfully thrive and gain a privileged position among other species. I remembered these moments exactly from my school days while watching this anime series, and I must say that I enjoyed the storyline and how the theme of the "ideal society" is presented in this show and the other interesting issues raised by this show. It was slightly disturbing at times, and the crazy and incomprehensible change, thanks to the time jump, that came in the eighth episode, when I could not stop rolling my eyes at what all had changed out of shot, off-screen, will especially be remembered for a long time. I could not award this anime series a full score because even though I understood that they were different from normal kids, I often had quite a big problem with the characters' behavior. Even though this show is very rich and also very clever and hilarious, at times, I was extremely surprised, shocked, and in denial about the characters' logic, so I had issues enjoying it properly. The quality of the concept of this show makes it worth the five stars, in my opinion. However, since my ratings are mostly subjective, I am only awarding this 8/10. (23.02.2015)