The world this show builds doesn't reveal itself until you're already lost in it. By episode five you realize the entire premise is a lie, and everything kind and gentle about Kamisu 66 exists to hide something that will hollow you out when you finally understand it. The show never rushes, it lets you love these children first, then systematically dismantles every assumption you made about their world, their society, and what humanity owes itself to survive. This is a character study dressed as sci-fi, and it trusts you to sit with ugliness that has no easy answer.

Twelve-year-old Saki Watanabe awakens to her psychokinetic powers and joins Sage Academy, a school for psychics in the isolated town of Kamisu 66. Reunited with her friends Satoru, Maria, Mamoru and Shun, she settles into life in what seems to be a utopia. But nothing here is quite ordinary. More than a thousand years after psychic abilities first appeared, human society keeps a fragile peace by shutting itself off and living under complex rules. Saki starts to wonder what happens to those who never awaken, a weaker classmate disappears, and rumors spread of Tainted Cats that snatch children. An encounter with the mole-like Monster Rats, who revere psychics as gods, only raises more questions. As the friends search for answers, they come to see that their seemingly perfect world hides a violent past. What begins as a coming-of-age story turns into a dark psychological mystery about the truth behind their society.