My goal in writing this review is convincing you to watch this anime, I believe it is something everyone should see. I do not however want you to know anything about it beforehand.
This is unfortunately an unsolvable problem since you are reading this in order to find out what sort of story this is. Despite it being a futile effort I want to give you one last chance to watch this without any prior knowledge of the story or the setting.
If you keep reading from this point you probably won't be any the wiser but I hope I can still spark some interest.
The story takes place 1000 years in the future. Mankind has evolved and now has psychic abilities. The protagonist is a young girl and this is the story of her youth or rather her upbringing.
I don't want to give away any details in the story but if I were to describe it in broad strokes I'd say that it makes you question your ethics by blurring the line of what it is to be human. I'd also say that by the end of it you will need to seriously question how you judge people. I don't know how to explain it properly but the reason I say so is that at multiple points in the story I would be surprised just because I was judging a scenario based on how it looked rather than just what was happening. Basically the book & cover thing on another level. I have a really hard time putting this thought into words, sorry.
Nothing I have said so far would make the average person want to watch this anime but the appeal of it is in the morals it questions and the "feels" you get through watching it.
In my pathetic attempt to describe this anime I have realized that I'm really just trying to describe an atmosphere so I guess that if you are looking for an immersive story look no further.
Everything contributes to the eerie atmosphere, the soundtrack is great although at some point in the middle of the series you will probably be a bit tired of the most used songs.
The animation is in my opinion outstanding it fits the story perfectly and since I am not the sort of person who can watch something just because it looks pretty I won't say more than that it looks pretty and I don't see any room for improvement really. There have however been complaints of fluctuating production quality, that is as far as I'm concerned nitpicking. I atleast did not notice any change in the production value of either the story or the art through the series.
The character development is in my opinion rather unique for reasons I won't disclose. However it is also pretty typical so there really isn't much to say about it.
Finally I'd like to stress that this is a whole story - you do not drop something like this halfway through, it may have two or three slow episodes somewhere but that is no excuse.
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If you only looked at my ratings you won't read this but I'd like you to know that I have a minor pet peeve with the presentation of one character and that at some point I remembered being tired of some of the soundtrack which is why those two get a 9 instead of 10. I couldn't give it a 10 for enjoyment because of how fucking scary the world is and I'm not a psychopath who enjoys suffering.
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tl;dr
Don't read the review, watch the anime. That is all.