First impressions: Shin Sekai Yori

So, I just saw first episode of Shin Sekai Yori (From the New World) and was completely blown away! But let's start from the beginning.

Anime opens up with what I presume is modern day Japan and some strange killings. Although anime teases us with few quick shots of killers, one is shown in full view. Looks like a kid or a teen at best to me. So far we aren't given any info regarding those killings. Real story begins one thousand years later. So far it seems like Saki is going to be protagonist of this story. The whole episode was more or less centered around her. Especially the whole situation at her home. Some suspicious things were already mentioned (like the fact that Saki is the last one to graduate from her previous school with no mention to what happens to whose who never graduate, Satoru's scary tales of graves inside academy, CopyCats & etc) but Saki's mom saying that she doesn't want to lose any more children, sent a chill down my spine. This means that Saki had older brothers/sisters! They may have never been accepted to academy or maybe just like poor Reiko (voiced by Yui Horie!) they weren't good enough at their studies. And here come both CopyCats (called Tainted Cats by adults) and Board of Education. As far as I understand Board of Education send CopyCats to remove untalented children. This brings another topic - powers. Apparently everyone have some sort of powers. They can draw on sand with their minds and they can move some objects just by looking at them.
Also, pretty much like in book The Giver (Siuntėjas in Lithuanian) everything is being controlled by someone. I already mentioned the Board of Education but now I will mention other things. First is some sort of boundary. According to classes children take, demons and fiends live there. Then there are temple (there children must leave all their Earthly desires) and sound which says that it's time to go home.

Since I  really enjoyed the first episode, I will continue watching Shin Sekai Yori even if that means that I won't be able to watch some other fall 2012 anime. And I'm going to leave you with two cute shots of Maria. By the way, after seeing previews I thought that she's not going to survive long. But official website shows her artwork as 14 years old (now everyone is 12). I'm relieved. ^^

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