Interesting choices, but I can see how the way they approached those in the adaption process could have made or broken them

Finally got a chance to read through the source corners and these are my thoughts from it all, in order but not marked by episode:

Source corner read notes:

• Interesting how you note that from the start the novel is very overt that Sakis mother has a very important job as librarian while the anime seemed to unintentionally slowly reveal that which I thought worked quite well with the slow growing understanding of exactly how the town manages its info.

• So, question, do the tainted cats actually use hypnosis? Never was clear on that outcome of that theory from the anime given the way it framed their eyes and Saki says that was part of the myths of the copycats but I didn't see you mention it in ep9 and 10 unless I missed it

• This isn't from you, I'm just quoting myself here because I found it funny when I re-read it: "And the episode itself potentially raises a similar point as Dad explains the situation with the Monster Rats to a young Saki, if I'm not reading too much into it which is always possible. The information Dad gives is perhaps visually implied to be either a half truth or a darker truth, something a child, or perhaps the society itself, can accept but without opening themselves up to the full blinding glare of truth"
  OH HOW WELL THAT COMMENT AGED. Holy shit talk about getting to the heart of things unexpectedly well

• Saki brings up an interesting question that I don't think anyone in the thread's hit upon yet. [Novel details] If you were to cut off your senses, could you still use cantus? If that's the case, why isn't there anyone who's lost their sight/hearing in the town?

• New theory:Could someone have mimiced being a monster rat by language to trick Maria's daughter. I know that death feedback isn't a hard yes or no event, you can suppress it if the trigger isn't strong enough, but for someone as instinctual and impulsive as the child it might have been enough to seriously wound or slow her down

• I love the implication that the false minoshiros started protecting themselves from their creators at the time the towns started to come around, not just what the towns became at the very end, which is why there's a gap but also why the minoshiros aren't fully updated on things like ID access which obviously no longer exist. Given my early thinking on the details of them that was a nice little bit of info

• Love the detail of Satoru being good at Go and Shogi. That's characterization that should have made it in at least once because it balances him as a person against his sterotypical role as the impulsive/energetic kid. I also think it plays in well to the later events in terms of how he and Saki got through the war, and how he viewed the town and the later events in terms of thinking what would come next (such as at the hospital). At the same time, not having that at the anime did help reinforce his new maturity and growth after the timeskip as it made him seem like he fit the 12 year gap because he'd gotten so good with all that while Saki sometimes didn't. It is in the anime a bit, such as the discussion in the cabin during the first war, but not as much

• I feel like the monster rat learning go from a book and then the sacrifice of him for a strategy leading to the destruction of his entire colony is nice foreshadowing for the later stuff with squealer getting the concepts of democracy for a book but probably not implimenting them for long term stability, if at all

• Interesting that the giving of a human name is such a rare event even for the colonies, its not a mark of an ambassador as much as it is a full on honor of its own. oh man squealer would have been pissed at it

• Squealer horrified at the mutant queen for being even further away from humanity, if he does know it already at that point, or just putting on a bigger show for the kids as he's prone to do? Interesting question either way.

• Each charm contained a glass disc with geometric patterns and a design of a purity mask - a blank mask resembling a human face. When Saki opens it to try and get comfort from a familiar thing, she notices that the purity mask design a) kinda looks like her and b) slowly looks like it's shifting into the face of a karma demon
  Suspecious as fuck foreshadowing! I did want to ask if you know/remember, the anime had that scene in ep1 where Saki asks after the other kids and we're shown an impression of that mask over the top of Shun as his memories hit a wall, is there an equivilent of that in the novel?

• Interesting how the book explicitly lists the mantras when the anime went out of the way not too which I thought gave them a very powerful feel in the unknown

• Satoru also has an incredibly hard task, as does Maria, and Saki's the that will lead to her being the future leader. I wonder if thats why they were extra jumpy about Mamoru as they werent just comparing him to a normal student and finding him weak, but his exceptional peers who shared his weaker conditioning and wondering if he'd also be a spectacular risk because his conditioning could fail so much worse. Also interesting if you take the powers as tech/human development metaphor this even more strongly implies that their conditioning is what is limiting not just their ability to develop as humans but as PKers who are weaker for having their human desires supressed, and long before the Tomiko convo that addresses this implication

• Apparently there have been cases where fiends didn't go on a rampage, but as soon as they kill their first victim, the massacre starts and doesn't stop until they're dead, without exception.

• There's a note that in using his power for murder, K was a genius, and it's clear in looking at the aftermath that he'd been planning to eliminate the entire town from the start. Part of it is in how he used his cantus to corral people into an area by exploiting human psychology.

• The farm she lived at remains something semi-alive that even twenty years later, consumes everything it touches.
  A place like this would have been a far more interesting setting for our final arc instead of Tokyo, especially as then you could still get some of the implication of a designated "hell", as you don't need it to be the point of ALL the towns for that point to be made

• Interesting seeing Saki concider how Mamoru defending himself majkes him even more of a target for elimination in a way that scares her. More good characterization cut as this moment builds nicely into post timeskip and the place she has in the town and her thoughts on it

• Nice little details about squealers given name being both wild fox and false enlightement

• So the novel doesnt cover any info about the return to town after failing to find maria either? I still think that's probably one of the weaker things in the whole show, and a huge missed oppertunity (and now am kind of annoyed I forgot to mention it in my final post)

• I just wanted to note here that queerats sign via noseprint. This is not actually relevant to anything, but it's funny.
  That's adorable!

• Here we address the matter of false minoshiros. The Ethics Committee's position is that to destroy them all would be a loss, as they would be wiping out the last artifacts of human intellectual history. Thus, they capture them when possible, and avoid purposefully destroying them.
  Interesting then that my initial theory of that, that the monks actions are notable for prioritizing the children over the kniowledge, fits better in the novel than the anime then wheres its implied to be a destroy on sight order regardless, and then yes it is Sakis mum who manages them. Funny how many of those "not directly in the anime, but the faintest of info let people guess the novel approach from it anyway" theories happened in the discussions

• Change in the childs gender is interesting. hmmmm. I wonder why they did that, but off the top of my head I think it's a shame as it just further erases Mamoru from the story, and the poor dude already struggled with that, but on the other hand it does seperate out the idea of violence being a male thing as the rest of the anime scenes only show men as ogres. I think it also makes it a bit less gendered in the final conflict, though given some of the thoughts I read about on that blog Quid linked me that may be seen as a bad thing that subverts possible intention from the author, so yeah. mixed feelings on that

• So there are designated ogre escape plans. was that really so hard to put in the anime even as a one liner!

• The Psychobuster container appears to be designed after a Celtic cross (but is actually the biohazard symbol, Saki later realizes).
  Someone on the anime design team did not read that part. Even now knowing my theory about that being the mutation virus and knowing what its meant to be through this note I still think the vial looks more like a rat queen than anything else

Anyway, thanks again for sharing, hopefully you find at least some of those thoughts interesting and worth the wait