Writing a review about this anime is a bit difficult for me, because I can't possibly describe in words, what I felt watching this. I'm also afraid you won't understand what I'm talking about, you will have to watch this great anime yourself.
1000 years from now in Japan. Every 'human' has mantra and can use telekinesis (imagining things and then make those things happen). For example, they look at white paper and paint a motive without using paint, or break a bottle and then put the broken shards back together, without touching anything. It's all done with imagination - which is an important message during the whole anime - anything is possible if you can imagine it. (Spoilers ahead)
The story involves 6 friends, (Saki, Satoru, Maria, Mamoru, Shun, Reiko) who were born and raised in a tranquil town, Kamisu's 66th district, they go to school together and are one group. We learn quickly that the school system is pretty cruel, all the weak and dangerous kids get killed, everyone in town (students, parents, teachers) know about it and find what they do is acceptable and necessary to protect their utopian world from collapsing. It kind of reminds us how our society works and treats outcasts. No one cares about the weak ones among us, and at the same time, we are scared that somebody else could become stronger than us, and they could do us harm (terrorists). That's also an important theme in Shinsekai yori - FEAR.
We follow the kids, watch them grow and experience all the pretty and all the dangerous things of life, we learn about creatures other than humans - queerats (we find out more about them as the story goes on), and why humans now can use telekinesis also called "cursed power" or the "gods' power".
Later what everyone is afraid of happens, one of the group's weakest gets killed by impure cats (humans don't kill humans, because it would cause them to die as well, death feedback), then another one becomes a Karmic Demon, a fiend, how the residents of district 66 call people, who lose control of their telekinesis power and kill everyone that is in sight. Those demons are exactly what humans are most scared of, so the "government" decided it would be best to kill the boy and erase everyone's memories about him. The remaining 4 friends can't seem to remember what his name was, what he looked like and so on, but they know something is very fishy about this situation and want to find out the truth, which brings them into more trouble.
Now the government is after friend 4, Mamoru, and sends cats after him, but he's able to flee. The others of his group go look for him and find him. Maria decides to leave the town (that all of them started to hate) with the runaway, which later turned out to be a big mistake. Again many similarities happen between our world and theirs.
We see a lot of time skips, things seem to happen rash, I wish they would have taken some more time to explain and explore, but everything makes sense in the end, so be patient. We get very attached to the characters, after seeing them grow up with those cruel rules, and how desperate they are, because they can't find another way to deal with their dangerous supernatural powers (they don't have enough knowledge, because so much is forbidden to talk about). Technically, all of them could become Karmic Demons and erase humanity, that's why they 'the government/residents of the town' have to be careful and take care of the problem kids early on. And at the same time, it's such a cruel thing to do, simply killing your own children, because they could potentially become Karmic Demons, although they are still normal kids/average students, there's no mercy.
Big time skip - To be honest I don't want to explain what happens next, if I write more I will REALLY ruin the show for you guys. All I'm going to say is, shit gets real and the queerats history gets explained. Please give Shinsekai Yori a try, it's a show that demands all of your attention, you will be surprised by the twists, I enjoyed this much more then I expected!
The animation actually can be breathtaking at times, but at other times the characters look like scribblings, it has a funny effect though and fits well in the story. There's no opening for this anime (I don' know if I have ever seen that before) but there are two different endings. The soundtracks we hear are mostly by an orchestra or a children's choir, that give you goosebumps like crazy! Again it fits perfectly to the story, no Japanese pop music to be found here.
The characters are thankfully realistic. The girls kick ass, the parents aren't preaching, the boys make out with each other and that's perfectly normal, the government sucks, like in real life, and the queerats have balls! I was so happy that this anime didn't turn out to be one of those, that have a good plot, but terribly stereotypical acting characters! Like I said before, there are a lot of time skips so the characters grow and change after every few episodes, but that is what's so awesome about this show. This could have gone really bad, rushing through important steps of life, but Shinsekai Yori doesn't miss the important steps, no, everything you see matters, even those small things you wouldn't even dream of to be the slightest relevant, are relevant for the story, big props to the writer of the novel (in the U.S. also knowns as 'From the New World') that this anime was adapted from, Yusuke Kishi. Great message that makes you think about our society, and all the things, we could do better. It's pretty depressing actually... humans are cruel animals, but we can change. Yeah, that's my conclusion. One of the best anime of its decade.
