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I always had the impression that it was the adults.
spoiler
I mean, it becomes pretty clear toward the end that the kids were under heavy surveillance, even if the adults didn’t usually interfere because they wanted to see what results going light on their conditioning would have. If the cat was trying to kill Mamoru because it saw him as not properly conditioned, the adults might have stopped it because that was what he was intended to be and having the cat kill him wasn’t useful.
A note about other versions/source material: The proper source material, which is a novel, has never been officially translated as far as I know. The manga, which I think is a separate adaptation of the novel, had a reputation for leaning too heavily into the “bonobos” aspect, if you know what I mean.
From the New World spoiler
This doesn’t make sense.
From the New World spoiler
During Saki’s court hearing - the one headed by the Board of Education (BoE) - I thought it was made quite clear that they attempted to kill Mamoru. The cat should be acting on behalf of the BoE.
The way the conversation went when Tomiko joined in, it sounded as though BoE failed in their murder attempt due to circumstances outside their control.
So if the adults are responsible for saving Mamoru:
Point 2 is certainly plausible. We have already seen the Ethics committee intervened to save Saki.
It’s been, I think, four years since my last rewatch, so it’s hardly surprising that my memory is fuzzy. I made a quick check of Wikipedia in an attempt to restore some details to my sieve-like brain.
spoiler
Tomiko (or someone allied with her) seems like the most probable person to have dealt with the Tainted Cat, since she’s shown throughout not to want the children eliminated if possible. (Not that she could save Shun, but he was too obviously out of control, whille Mamoru seems to have been more of a borderline case.)