I was still young the first time that I watched the series, and while it was sad, I didn't fully appreciate the story and its implications. The anime is based off of a novel, and it reveals the grim reality of what happens when superpowers exist in the world. This series is so dark that it blows Madoka Magicka out of the water. Heavy SPOILERS ahead.
The plot is fairly straight forward. The story is documented by Saki and is told from its narration. It describes how PsychoKinesis destroyed civilization, and was on the path to destroying humanity all together, until a group of scientists developed a system to keep humans from destroying each other. Saki's life started in the resulting society, and this society, too, suffers a crisis through karma.
This series puts a heavy emphasis on karma. Everything that happens in the story is a result of karma. Humans' failure to accept PK caused PK to attack them. PK's subjugation of humans then caused their downfall. In this story's society, PK once again subjugates humans, in an even more immoral way, which blows up in their face in this timeline. But the catalyst for this event was Saki herself. Her interactions with Group 1 and The Robber colony directly led them to their fates. This in turn, was triggered when Tomiko Asahina decided not to fully hypnotize group 1, granting them more freedom of thought, in order to foster the next generation of leaders for their village.
This series of events may have been positive or negative, because, in the end, Saki was able to stop the Robbers. The unrest was building up and was bound to explode eventually, and the results would not have been the same without Group 1. The whole series is a whole lot of "what if's". In the end, the scariest thing is that there was no resolution to the problem. Both the society and the colonies still exist, and there's no new ideas on how to improve society. The catastrophic threat from PK and "humans" alike still remain. Since it's a society closed off from the rest of the world, you're also left to wonder what happened to it, and what it could mean for the future of man kind.
I really have to praise the scientific realism of this story. While PK in itself may or may not be realistic, the depiction of the havoc superpowers can cause is far more real than most shows. You really have to consider how dangerous it is when careless use of power can destroy something just because you were unaware, as well as ramifications of subconscious use.
The plot is fairly straight forward. The story is documented by Saki and is told from its narration. It describes how PsychoKinesis destroyed civilization, and was on the path to destroying humanity all together, until a group of scientists developed a system to keep humans from destroying each other. Saki's life started in the resulting society, and this society, too, suffers a crisis through karma.
This series puts a heavy emphasis on karma. Everything that happens in the story is a result of karma. Humans' failure to accept PK caused PK to attack them. PK's subjugation of humans then caused their downfall. In this story's society, PK once again subjugates humans, in an even more immoral way, which blows up in their face in this timeline. But the catalyst for this event was Saki herself. Her interactions with Group 1 and The Robber colony directly led them to their fates. This in turn, was triggered when Tomiko Asahina decided not to fully hypnotize group 1, granting them more freedom of thought, in order to foster the next generation of leaders for their village.
This series of events may have been positive or negative, because, in the end, Saki was able to stop the Robbers. The unrest was building up and was bound to explode eventually, and the results would not have been the same without Group 1. The whole series is a whole lot of "what if's". In the end, the scariest thing is that there was no resolution to the problem. Both the society and the colonies still exist, and there's no new ideas on how to improve society. The catastrophic threat from PK and "humans" alike still remain. Since it's a society closed off from the rest of the world, you're also left to wonder what happened to it, and what it could mean for the future of man kind.
I really have to praise the scientific realism of this story. While PK in itself may or may not be realistic, the depiction of the havoc superpowers can cause is far more real than most shows. You really have to consider how dangerous it is when careless use of power can destroy something just because you were unaware, as well as ramifications of subconscious use.