This anime encourages you to think inwardly, to think deep, to think about your morals, your character, and to judge what is right and wrong in whatever situation. That's all fine and dandy, and they even throw in lots of variables to complicate things and confuse you a bit. That's still okay, the anime may seem quite heavy in terms of its dark atmosphere, but so far, we're still surviving.
Story: 8/10
When we talk about the plot, most of us would think, "Wow that was amazing." But upon careful discretion we will see some key plot holes that surface. The society itself that they are living in is greatly flawed, the so-called system that seems to be flawless at the beginning, exposes itself to many loopholes as the story progress.
It is difficult to think that human society AFTER our current modern era has retrogressed in terms of intelligence, and still is surprised at the thought of a democracy/monarchy... and so on. This incoherence is further emphasized when we see the adults, which the story uses the excuse of "fear", causing them to make mistakes and result in horrible tragedies.
Unfortunately, I don't buy that. "Fear" is one thing, but as Tomiko has shown "experience" is another that probably trumps over all fear. The key conflict in this series only starts like in the last quarter of the entire series, and that is some really screwed up pacing, if you ask me.
Sure, they took a long time to develop the characters, which I would give full marks for, but it completely detracts from the plot so much. The characters grow up, they change, it's all good, but I mean cmon, within the transition periods the characters learnt absolutely nothing? Time jumps are an absolute no-no. The anime should have completely shortened the first 3 arcs of the show into maximum 6 episodes (about 1 quarter of the show).
Plot holes are generally unexplained, but well hidden. They try to cover up many things by talking about the "inhibition", "fear" and even the main characters' morals. But common sense only seems to exist within the queerats and not the Cantus users.
For example, humanity as they know it takes perfect care to ensure that the epic disaster never happens again. Not bad. But - they forget contingency plans - there is no evacuation route, there is no communication lines, there are no steps, procedures to follow in the event of an epic disaster. In short, disaster and crisis management has gone out the window. Humanity is driven to the point of extinction because, even though they managed to come back from near extinction before, they have not learned their lesson of "survivability" which includes "having a back up plan".
Another example, the source and origin of Cantus is never explained. It just seems to be this weird innate power used for crushing the weak, that stems from absolutely nothing, apparently. A huge energy source, created from this "awakening" of sorts via a mantra. So basically, everybody is a "God". Excellent. And these "Gods" would ultimately become useless because they really suck at using their powers - which they have been training their entire lives for. The anime literally shows like about less than 25 people who effectively use their Cantus in any combat or battle situation. That's pathetic and very sad.
The above two main plot holes justify my giving of the story a 8/10 instead of a 10/10. I have a lot of other plot holes that they haven't addressed - proper explanation of how the final "fiend" was "extracted" from her parents, explanation how such out-of-this-world sea monsters ever came under queerat control, explanation of why Cantus users need to use waterways when they obviously can fly, explanation of why Cantus users need boats, when they obviously can levitate above water, explanation of why Cantus users don't have planes or helicopters when they have weird-looking boat submarines already, explanation of why Cantus users are unable to escape effectively, even with the use of Cantus, explanation of why Cantus users constantly tire and run out of energy when Cantus is essentially an unlimited source of power which the anime keeps stressing on. If I were to be REALLY fair with this anime, it would deserve a 7/10, but I felt that since the anime was told "in Saki's perspective" I can concede that Saki probably would not have known all of these things (although she probably might have known some), so I did not penalize for ANY of these plot holes, when I actually should.
Honestly, if you watched the anime and DID NOT pick up any of the plot holes above, you are just not thinking enough about this anime.
Still, I give them bonus points for being able to gloss over quite a few plot holes and not have anyone notice (you probably won't notice it, but some things are unexplained and just dropped off halfway through the series after a time jump). Even the resolution at the end, though it felt good, was not complete - have they really explained everything that came together, the big plan by the queerats at the end, how did it practically take shape? - I feel there are many ways their plan could have just failed in their tracks, but the story does not bother explaining these.
It was a very good story, but not perfect.
Character: 9/10
Enough said, the character development was solid. Although the main characters' whiney nature is really annoying at times. It is btw, completely inconsistent with her "strong" yet "weak" nature. It doesn't make much sense - sometimes she breaks down and is terrified, other times she suddenly has a strong sense of conviction in spite of great danger, I mean, if you grew through your experiences to become stronger then good for you, but this girl just keeps switching from useless to useful, it just seems like it's all for the convenience of driving the plot. But still, good characters.
Art: 5/10 and Sound: 6/10
The art was confusing at times, really. All those dreams that the main character is having makes me want to puke. The Music, was meh, it hardly had any OP, though the ED was just fine. So I give it half points. Same for the art. It lacked a lot of animation and was pretty dull. Also, the background music I found really annoying for some reason, it was just that same old stretched-out melody, with action-packed music being completely village drummed out. I mean it suits the whole tone of the anime but it really bores me to death.
Enjoyment: 5/10
The pacing for the first half of the show was really slow, and really bad. And then the pacing for the latter half was very slow, then very fast, then very slow, then very fast... and so on. The story could have been driven much better if it didn't gloss over so many key moments, and it explained situations a whole lot better than just a huge narrative that bored me to death, seriously. I had to literally FORCE myself to continue watching past episode 6, and I guess it was slightly worth it. (I would have given this anime an overall score of 4 if I hadn't continued, but I promise the anime does get better towards the end, but still that's a bit too long to expect me continue. PLEASE HOOK ME IN AT EP 1, not at EP 20. cmon!)
I know this show is supposed to make you think, but I really find that narrator's voice of the main character talking in 3rd person all the time, really annoying, useless, and I find it cheating that the narrator literally gives you more clues about the story itself, than the actual visuals that I see.
Nice plot twist at the end though, though it wasn't pretty big, and was mostly predictable. I give it a bonus 1 point.
Overall : 7/10.
Watch it if you really like questioning your own beliefs and if you have a LOT of time. Also, a lot of buddhist references at the start -> it is hard to imagine a POST-MODERN era to still be holding such religious/ritualistic approaches. But okay, since it had to be about hypnosis and whatnot, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that it was merely a practice and not a belief (this is again a plot point that was never explained and just glossed over)
So be prepared to be really bored for the entire first half of the show, but after that, the characters really shine (or should I say what's left of the characters... hahahaha)
