The series all began with a intriguing scene of the current society being taken over by humans who have the ability of Cantus, a superior power that makes the users the top of the human rankings, and followed by the world, hundreds of years later, where Cantus users are everywhere and schools are created to educate the young on their controlling of their own Cantus and preventing them from learning the evil ways of misusing such power.
From the start, it all seemed to be a normal school-life kind of thing for Group 1, which had initially made up of Saki, Satoru, Shun, Mamoru and Maria and it revolves around the time they spent in their school while they were still 12 years old. The plot slowly darkens when the group discovers the Fake Minoshiro which was actually a portable digital library, consisting of records of the ancient civilisation, which refers to the current time we are living in now. At that point in time, what I had expected the series to cover, was the truth about the world before them and how the Cantus users have managed to take over the world and in what means they had done so. Truthfully speaking, what I believe have led to the victory of the Cantus users was indeed full of bloodshed as shown in the opening scenes of the series where Cantus users are seen killing off humans in the ancient civilisation. It was then up to Saki and the rest of the group to perhaps starting to learn about the past and maybe induce certain changes in the society.
Soon after the group returns from their own field camp and encounters with Queerats and Death Feedback, where they learn that fellow humans cannot kill each other with Cantus and the 1st time skip began to when they were 14 years old. And that was the time where the most twists happen in the story, with the introduction of the Fiends and the lost of more than half of group 1. There was always the possibility of having someone who misuses the power of Cantus, but little did I expect that there was actually a more defined term for it, namely the "Fiend", who indiscriminately kills off anyone it sees in its path, and is hence no longer able to think rationally. It was after the first appearance of the fiend that the Death Feedback policy came into place to prevent mutual killings of humans and the tight education level of the children.
Things started becoming serious when Shun realises that he is starting to become a Karma Demon, another type of categorisation for humans who can no longer control their own Cantus and it mutates things around them, as their Cantus leaks out uncontrollably. And that was the time that Saki lost Shun. Following Shun's lost, Mamoru started to feel targeted as his existence seems to be denied by the higher ups and decides to run away, leading the others to search for him and ultimately, Maria stayed with Mamoru while Saki and Satoru left to find a way for Mamoru to return to the town but that was when Maria and Mamoru bid farewell to the them, and it's goodbye forever.
Another timeskip follows slowly afterwards and Saki and Satoru are now 26 years old. What came as the climax of this arc was the rebellion of the Queerats against the humans. Without Cantus powers, it would seem impossible for the Queerats to win the war, but with the power of a Fiend that they control, countless humans fall in face of the fiend which Saki despairingly discovers that it was the child of Maria and Mamoru and that they both have been lied to by Yakomaru, a Queerat that was supposed to help in their escape but had instead took hold of their child and raised it into a Fiend. And ultimately the Fiend wasn't actually one, but was instead seeing itself as a Queerat instead of a human and by killing Kiroumaru, it triggers the Death Feedback inside and it was finally defeated, leading to the end of the Queerat's rebellion and the final truth of the whole world that they were living in.
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Looking back at the series as a whole, I guess this is the first series that I have seen going through so much of a time skip. From when they were 12, to 14, to 26 and lastly to 36 years old. I guess that's one of the factors that brought forward the interesting element of the show as it hints the long progression of the world that Saki and the rest are living in. What I believe had made this show most unique was how nicely the different pieces of the story, throughout the years, have fitted so well with most parts of the arcs and of course the ending itself.
Considering the first flashback during the appearance of a possible Cantus user that sides with Yakomaru and its colony, the elders have suspected that the helpers might have been someone who is out of control of the Committee itself and have suspected Maria and Mamoru to have been helping the Queerats. But Tomiko declared that she is able to confirm the death of the duo as bones that have the same resemblance and DNA have been found in the area where Yakomaru had previously promised Saki that it would provide bones of similar structure to conceal the fact that Maria and Mamoru are indeed alive, or so it seems.
The fact about matching DNA was indeed disturbing, and it also took a large impact on Saki who now had guessed that perhaps the duo are really killed by Yakomaru and that he was really planning something huge behind everyone's back. Now the suspicions are clear but with instances where a child with red hair starting to appear near the end of the arc where Maria and Mamoru had left the group, it became rather predictive that the Cantus user that had helped Yakomaru could have been their child all along.
The fact about that didn't quite come into light until Saki actually seen the child with her own eyes. The long red hair, blue eyes and the face shape of that of Mamoru's, it was an uncanny resemblance to the two and is now classified as a fiend and is to be eliminated before it manages to kill off the other humans left in the world. At that moment, you could feel the despair that Saki had felt, where she had two of her best friends being betrayed by Yakomaru and their child have now been raised as a monster to help in the Queerat's rebellion.
Up to the end of the final arc, there were 2 major plot twist that left a rather deep impression of the series. The first being that the child was not actually a fiend at all. What I had believed was that by being raised by the Queerats and not humans, it was either not given the opportunity to be genetically coded with Death Feedback or that the lack of human education in school actually will result in a outbreak of Cantus power but not necessarily referring to a fiend. Saki fortunately happened to guess the existence of the child correctly, that it was just a normal human who just happens to see humans as enemies as it sees itself as a Queerat and not a human. The theory of Death Feedback was also tested in the final confrontation where Kiroumaru dies under the fiend's Cantus in which it suffers the feedback and dies as well.
Honestly, seeing your best friend's child die in front of you isn't a heroic scene or a scene that one could be proud off, even after the danger in finally eliminated.
It was really bitter to see the flashbacks of Maria and Mamoru after their child has been killed by Death Feedback. Really sad to see the fate of the whole family destroyed by Squealer itself.
What comes as the final twist of the story, and also the final pieces of the story being put together, was the fact that the Queerats are indeed humans as well. I was really surprised and shocked after hearing that twist in the story as I really didn't expect it to come so literally. It was indeed true that Yakomaru, or Squealer, had told the humans that their species are humans as well but I took that sentence as a declaration from Squealer that their intelligience are of equal level as humans and they want to be treated of as an equal human. Little did I know that was a literal meaning and I kinda guessed it after Satoru told Saki that he had went to check on the Queerat's DNA structure. It was then that I finally saw the final truth of this New World that the people has been living in.
With the Cantus users having Death Feedback, it seems like a passive thing that would have already occurred in the past and thus Cantus users cannot kill fellow humans but humans without the power is able to kill the Cantus users. Thus in order to show their superiority, they decided to alter the genes of the humans so much that they become Queerats and although their DNA structure still remains similar to humans, their genetics have changed so much that the Cantus users no longer suffer Death Feedback from killing the Queerats.
Now that is some final twist that the plot has been holding on to all this while. Back when they were 12 years old when they discovered the portable library device, it was unable to answer to them why some people who didn't have Cantus mysteriously disappear without records with Death Feedback being active. What remains still controversial is how indeed does Squealer and Kiroumaru actually had worked together in the past? Saki had realised that while they were running away from the other Queerats when they met with Squealer, it has been reporting their position to Kiroumaru all along. Which makes me puzzled, did Squealer and Kiroumaru actually wanted to overthrow the human race at that time, or is it just Squealer making the major planning in wanting to be on good terms with Saki and the rest before he could realise his master plan and Kiroumaru had just been under his lead in wanting to protect his colony in case some humans decide to go insane and wipe out other colonies of the Queerats. Another issue was about Squealer's knowledge of himself and the Queerats. How does he know that much even though he was not taught all these things, just where did he get his knowledge from? What I guess would be another Minoshiro like the one Saki and the rest had, which most probably taught him about crafting weapons of the ancient civilisation like muskets and bombs and it could have just told Squealer about their true form of existence.
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