The small snippets from the past really pull you in when you start watching the episode. It's crazy how unnecessarily cruel stuff is. The stories the kids are asked to read during class too really keep you interested and they teach a lesson that is important for the kids to learn. On a lighter note the bit of game/competition was fun... For the most part and extremely competitive, stuff like this is usually not really interesting but shin sekai yori really does this episode well. We also get how kind hearted Saki is due to the queer rat incident, also our first introduction to them! They look kinda squishy.. great episode too!