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Not much to add except to reiterate that this was an emotionally devastating episode. Seeing what was coming did nothing to lessen the impact. Also, after the massive controversy surrounding Yamauchi Shigeyasu's work on episode 5 it's interesting to see relatively positive reaction this time. I actually liked that episode, but his style definitely worked even better here.
When discussing the strengths of this episode, it would be criminal not to call out Komori Shigeo’s soundtrack – which has been superb from the beginning but was more front-and-center this week – and the work of Murase Ayumu and Taneda Risa as Shun and Saki. These are two relatively unknown and very young seiyuu, but they’ve been doing a fine job – Taneda-san since the premiere – and both were spot-on here. The only two human voices in the episode, they had to carry the entire enterprise emotionally and they did, with Murase perfectly capturing Shun’s not quite successful attempt to feel detachment about what was happening to him and Taneda Saki’s abject and utterly bereft heartbreak as she watched it.
As to the revelations that Shun shared with Saki before he died, all I can say is that it all makes sense given what we’ve seen thus far. Effectively, this is a world where mankind – some of it, anyway – has seen its unconscious attain the power to manifest actions without the “filter” of the conscious, and directly impact the world around itself. It’s a nightmare scenario, and Shun’s iceberg analogy was spot-on – in the human mind, the conscious is only a tiny percentage of the brain’s activity.
Shun’s rampaging cantus has already caused the destruction of his village (kudos to those who called that – I didn’t) and his karma demon condition – “Hashimoto-Appelbaum Syndrome” apparently has no cure. That seems symbolic for the society as a whole – whatever caused the barrier that held the subconscious in-check to break, everything that’s being done now seems a “lesser of two evils” choice – the last twitching of a dying civilization trying to stave off the descent into savage chaos for as long as possible, knowing it’s a battle they’ll eventually lose. Shin Sekai Yori has been a tragedy right from the very beginning, but – as is often the case – the tragedy of the larger story becomes much more powerful when we see it played out in the fate of individuals, especially children like Saki and Shun.
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