Anime: Psycho-Pass

Psycho-Pass is an effort at Production I.G to keep their skills sharp when making scy-fy shows. They've done quite a lot of non-typical productions these last few years, so its somewhat refreshing to see them really returning to what they do best. What happens here, however, is that Psycho-Pass is far more shounen and far more flashy than most previous works by the studio in this genre. Does this mean Psycho-Pass is bad? Not exactly, but it means you know what to expect the moment it starts.

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Art & Animation
Production I.G always do a decent job and has proved to be more flexible in terms of what they can do in the last few years. Psycho-pass is a scy-fy show in the likes of Ghost in the Shell, but the shounen factor is much bigger and thus the art style is slightly changed to meet the expectations. You have a bunch of bishounen guys, like the secretive black-haired protagonist, the stylish guy in eyeglasses, the typical Sephiroth-inspired villain with white hair and serene looking eyes, the typical girl with short hair and a somewhat sad eye, etc. It's a varied cast, but exactly the thing you can expect when you make a show that is a shounen that tries to lure a bit of the female audience. This happened in Gundam 00, Code Geass, Terra-e, and many other shounen shows.

The animation, however, has somewhat the typical work quality from the studio. The action scenes are quite robotic and somewhat very far one from another, but the sharpness of the art and the decent use of bright and dark colors makes up and guarantee a show that is top quality in its production values.

Sound
It's hard to make a scy-fy without changing the sound style. Psycho-Pass has exactly what every other scy-fy show had. The techno beats, the more frenetic and chaotic opening and, the robotic background music, and everything else you may think of hearing from a show like this is here maybe except for a more dramatic ending. Psycho-Pass has a very decent voice-acting job, with a mature work, a decent degree of yelling for a shounen show, rare annoying voices and a good combination of voice and sound effects. It's hard to judge the sound direction in general, as it is quite good but at the same time it feels as if it could have far more impact in the show.

Story
Psycho-Pass is a scy-fy tale about a society ruled by one big computer. Nothing new, heh? Well, this computer regulate crimes by calculating a "Crime Factor" in each of the citizens. This factor is mainly bound to stress, and when someone's factor passes a certain limit he is treated as a criminal. To enforce the law, the system uses of a police-force with pistols called "Dominators", these big guns are the eyes of the system and judge if the target is supposed to be stunned for treatment or killed outright. From there on, Tsunemori Akane, a new police inspector, starts her journey in the bureau and learns about all the issues and benefits caused by such a harsh and dubious system.

1. Another big computer boss...
   I remember Terra e..., released in the far age of the 70's or something like that. There we had the one-big-computer ruling society across the galaxy. I'm pretty sure this concept came from other sources, and perhaps is one of the most overused starting point of modern scy-fy stories. It can be inspiring, but here in Psycho-Pass is quite absurd how things became. The "peace" brought by the computer doesn't match the simple fact that criminals still exist everywhere, they just had a tougher time getting by. People live as if they'll never suffer harm. The system simply striped its citizen their natural perception of danger, something that is quite impossible. At a single point in the show they look like a simple dumb mob while a girl is beaten to death right in the middle of a plaza, and at many times you may question if their behavior really matches the tons of criminal activity we see in the first set of episodes.
   
   Besides that the entire show is quite shadowy to explain how the society embraced such a bizarre dictatorship by one big computer, it's hard to imagine something like that happening without a hassle or hundreds of rebellions. That worsen when you understand that only Japan is using this system and has isolated itself from the world. This approach of ignoring the rest of the world and some very bizarre revelations by the late half make it even harder to understand how this system could be approved by society in the first place.
   
   Nice shocking moments
   Although the show uses a very typical idea and move on with mostly typical outcomes, there are some really nice moments starting at the second half. There's a single death that is quite nicely shown, making you feel the show can be far more mature than simply a shounen with blood. After that a few other moments make the overall experience a lot better. Unlike most shounens that use of such shocking moments, Psycho-Pass is never absurd or flashy when resorting to this. It also boost a decent kind of open ending, one of the few different but smart endings I've seen these last years.
   
   Unecessary stuff
   Watching bad guys exploding, those long and stupid dialogues so the detective can finally say how he uncovered something obvious and a few other small issues make the show short of reaching a higher standard. These overused tools could make way for a more direct approach or their time could be used to show other things, like what's happening in the higher ranks of society or how the world sees this isolated Japan. Anyway, it uses a bunch of stuff that is clearly only to grab a bit more of audience and fanboys.

Character
Being an attempt to recreate Ghost in the Shell, Psycho-Pass miss the mark largely when it come to its cast. This happens simple because they are all somewhat young and teen to be a true police force. The only "old" guy acts like the typical carefree man who sometimes gives advice, so it means you're stuck with an elite force group that is composed by a dumb girl, a typical protagonist, the angry guy with glasses, the femme fatale who never speaks, and the comedy relief. Fortunately, in the end of the show some of these characters finally surpasses their problems and mature quite quickly, but its hard not to feel this development was completely forced.

1. It's all the system's fault
   While they have interesting past stories and are nice to look at, their personalities and actions are quite random. The femme fatale was a teen who played guitar and suddenly she is brough to the squad. The comedy relief is... whatever, he is the guy who talks funny. There are those who were detectives but then became latent criminals and then moved on as being detectives. What? Yes, they just come from random places and they all end up with big sparkling guns that pulverize foes. Oh, and they're all quite good at it, even the guitar-girl. The show makes up for this varied cast by simple saying "the Sybil System decided", so it's somehow forcing to give a cast with the character style the author wished, which is quite sad as the scenario had far too much power to create sharp heroes.
   
   Dumb girl with no action
   Akane is your typical dumb girl that is in truth a very smart and knowledgeable person. She's perhaps the weak point of the show altogether, as she, with her weak will, could easily get killed anywhere in the world where there is crime. Her allies are all bad-asses angry latent criminals with twisted minds, but she is a cute little thing that can't even hit a foe in the face or wish for someone's death. Is that really what a police force is about? She doesn't fit with such behavior, and while she slowly grows a little, she still inject the show with moments of "holy shit, shoot him already! it's the x-nth time you've got the chance!".

Value
Psycho-Pass is an attempt to make Ghost in the Shell less mature and more fast-paced, pleasing the current audience we have. It means it goes all shounen, although this time we lack the ecchi and all the sexualism that sadly plagued recent hits. Although it's not superb, Psycho-Pass manage to be a better mix than most of other shows, balacing the typical cast admist the interesting but overused setting by using nice shocking moments and bringing a bit of development to the cast. It's good to see a show that is not fully dumb, and today this by itself is a huge plus.

Enjoyment
Psycho-Pass is fun. It's shocking moments manage to bring the show back to its feet when you think it'll go downhill, the detective-like sequences, although not exactly enigmatic, are decent and attractive, and finally the shounen cast has its share to make the show less annoying because of their slighlty abover-average personalities. Fans of shounens and action in general may be pleased with Psycho-Pass, but those really expecting a Ghost in the Shell will only find a teen show without any of the seriousness and maturity you'd expect. However, give Psycho-Pass a chance and you may as well be pleased by some of its interesting moments.

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Comments
It took a while for me to watch this. The start with the "these two guys knew they were destined to clash" was so cliche and stupid it drove me away, especially after seeing a gif with a criminal being exploded like a baloon by the show's weapon. However, as I gave the show a better chance I was kind of surprised by its nice mix of shounen stuff with a setting that had a good potential. It never left me in awe and, in fact, left me bored for a few episodes during the first half, but it slowly became a bit more addicting and granted a decent second half with more interesting and important events. I was pleased to watch it despite not exactly finding it that good, and in these days that by itself is a proof to me that the show deserves a bit of credit.

it's interesting to me how very differently people can assess the same show. i see comparisons here with ghost in the shell (GitS), and being as i just watched that again, it's particularly easy for me to make comparisons as well -- but mine turn out in favour of "psycho-pass" instead of ye olde classic.

Art & Animation: generally good art. all the characters are easily distinguishable. there is a slight inconsistency between the look of most (younger) characters and masaoka who looks like he's from another series altogether, one with more realistic than bishounen men. there are lots of small details that help establish the setting. the overall look of the show is dark (dystopias always need to be dark, eh?), but lush and intricate; very watchable, and i will rewatch the show just for the visuals. the animation is great; crisp characters, smooth integration of 3D components, everything flows well. if all anime came up to this standard, i'd be ecstatic. it's better than GitS, but that could be expected being as it is from the same studio, and comes years later.

Sound: voice acting is very competent; seki tomokazu , sakurai takahiro, masutano yasanori, nojima kenji, hanazawa kana, oh yeah. loaded with talent and professionalism. OP and ED are interesting and grew on me, so much so that i didn't like it when they changed, but even the changed ones seem to be specifically written for the show; very nice. BGM is supportive of the atmosphere of the show and hardly ever gets in the way. though i would like it if the anime industry as a whole declared a moratorium on "ode to joy". seriously, guys, it's a beautiful piece of music and yes, it soars, but it's been overdone in west and east alike so much so that it is a cliche now.

Story: this contains the achilles heel of psycho-pass. it's very ambitious, maybe too much so, and it falls short on delivering much of its promise. my main problem lies with the antagonist makishima. as a dystopia the world of psycho-pass is believable enough (i have to close my eyes at some gaping holes in the backstory and plot, but what else is new in anime), and this world surely could use a good antagonist to wake society up to the dangers it seems to mostly be blind to. however, makishima isn't just well-educated and highly intelligent, but his own flaws are beyond fatal, and worse than what this society does to its people, which makes him not an anti-hero for whom i can cheer, but a psychopath i want to fail (nice pun there, by the way; inspired titling because both the psycho pass and the psychopath are on trial in this story). i think that one could have presented the trichotomy of order vs justice vs chaos without quite as much butchery on the side of chaos, though grabbing us by the guts is certainly the fastest way to get there. i gather that's urobuchi's trademark. *sigh*. well, i'll seek out his other work anyway even if i have to wade through extra gore.

the story may not be ground-breaking, but it is original. its most original piece is the great reveal about what is behind the "sibyl system", and alas this is the second main problem i have with the story. for any dystopia to work in the sense of making me think seriously about it, i need to a) see how it could conceivably happen, and b) whether there is a true dilemma between its benefits for humans and its flaws. i can see b) in this case, but i can't see a), not as presented. it's too ingeniously experimental in a way, and because this society operates by increased parametrization of individuals i see no way it could ever be instituted (i don't want to spoil the show, but you'll see what i mean when you hit that big reveal). i'd love to try this in a computer simulation.

i also think we needed to see more of the non-criminal aspects of society to really value the dilemma tsunemori is faced with. we get glimpses of it, but IMO the show would have been stronger if it had shown us more of everyday life for normal citizens. the first half of the show is stronger than the second, when it starts forcussing too much on hunting down makishima -- but makishima is not really the primary problem for this society, so that focus felt all wrong to me.

still, there is a lot to think about here, because it touches on a number of issues we all should think about -- what tradeoffs should a society be willing to make in order to keep its citizens safe? how much does safety come at a loss of creativity and growth? and any series that does that deserves a gold star in my book, even if it falls short in the attempt. i am sure some will find it pretentious, but i love all the literary allusions, though i think the show would have been stronger if it had done more with them than have makishima engage in quotation banter. but maybe it's enough to make people check out the references? i don't know just how much philosophy education one can possibly pack into 22 episodes while still keeping it action-packed and interesting. anyway, major homage to philip k dick, how could i not love this?

even though there are problems, i also like the plot development and execution. the show looks at first purely episodic, but it turns out not to the the case at all, and we get constantly fed small bits of information that add up later -- i enjoy that sort of build-up. i like how we slowly wake up to the issues right along with tsunemori, who starts out as a young, bright-eyed, naive rookie who has no clue what awaits her (though my criticism here would be that i wonder what the hell they teach at police academy that she is THIS naive about the job). there are many small reveals, all interesting.

Characters: very mixed. we get a lot of character development for tsunemori, some for ginoza, some for kougami, but everyone else gets short shrift. i expected more, especially after we got an entire episode about enforcer kunizuka, but then that information doesn't really get used. i WANTED more about the other members of the team. what we do get for tsunemori pleases me a lot; she starts out as an overly naive do-gooder, but that doesn't last, and it becomes clear very quickly that she's competent and doesn't shy away from difficult situations. if you are sensitive to the often hinky portrayal of women in anime, this is a good, strong, nuanced female character. she is so good that it carries the show. oh, and in comparison with GitS, she's not forced into a ridiculous fan service costume, yay.

Value: well worth it for my money; i'll be buying it. i'll also watch it again, and probably more than once. as to it falling short of what it could have been, it's better to try and fail than not to try at all, and most anime plows the same dried-up ground over and over, so this does stand out above the crowd for me.

Enjoyment: this is a weird category in which to rank a dystopian show. it didn't leave me feeling warm and fuzzy, of course. it grabbed my attention and didn't let it go -- i am glad i waited with watching it until i could marathon it, or the waiting for the next show would have driven me batty. i liked the lesbian relationship thrown in as a perfectly casual thing; no big deal made of it. i like that there is no romance between the main characters, though they care about each other. the attention to small detail made the setting really come to life -- the small CSI bots; the holo emitters for clothing and decor, the chatrooms. i enjoyed the show overall more than GitS. i am recommending it to my friends. i would discuss it to death with other people if i only had the time. yeah, i enjoyed it.

There is this concept that just having a good idea is not enough. Apparently, you also need to properly execute it.
Psycho Pass has a decent idea. It's authors could not handle the execution.
Now is it a good or a bad thing?

Video:
By far the show's strongest suit. An impressive array of locales, characters that definitely look alive, crisp action. Not many shows operate on that level of visual exellence.
It even has a couple of scenes that will stay with you for the rest of your life on the merit of pure visual expression. For me it was the shotgun combat scene and the main antagonist's first personal on-screen kill.
While there are not enough of those scenes to merit the show a 10/10, a 9/10 is well deserved.

Sound:
Sound is the show's second strongest suit. it is a bit weaker than video, because the authors simply chose to deliver more artistic content through sight than through hearing, but it is still very professionally done, with nothing much going against it and a lot going for it.
As an example, off the top of my head, there was a scene where the actual sound of electric lamps actually played into the mood. You can find similar attention to sound in pretty much every episode.
That's the extent to which the creators of the show thought about the use of sound and made said use in the show itself.

The only way to do better is to elevate an anime sound to an art form. Psycho-Pass simply doesn't do that. There are catchy OP and ED songs and there is some good background music that punctuates the ups and downs of the character's situations, but all of these serve to merely carry you along to the next scene, they don't carry any real meaning in themselves. Music in Psycho Pass, as it so often does in a lot of shows, plays a second fiddle to visuals. It is executed well enough professionally to warrant an 8/10, but it lacks inspiration to go above that.

Story:
Story of Psycho Pass could warrant a 10. But it didn't, because the authors couldn't really grasp it's real complexity and ended up going for easy mode that they could understand.
From the onset, Psycho Pass positions itself as a story about true depths of relationship between humanity and various systems that it creates. It seemed to really aim itself at the three-way conflict between human desire for homeosthatic happiness (represented by Sybill), human desire for development and change (represented by Makishima) and simple everyday human life which has a bit of both (represented by the policemen).
The show establishes this conflict, evaluates it from a lot of different sides and completes the escalation at a high note during the first 11 episodes.

However, at some point, the show's story began assuming a bit too much about how much the audience is on board with the whole thing. The story's culmination required the viewers to really appreciate both the sheer extent of robotisation of the show's society and the full extent of reliance of larger populace on Sybill. But the thing is, by that point all we really seen are criminals who are easily subverting robots and definitely are not reliant on Sybill in any way. In other words, a lot of examples of the contrary. As a result, the big developments that were supposed to give the show a "Wow shit was real before, but now it's just DAMN" effect instead began to feel forced and jarring.

Granted, there were episodes which were supposed to tie us into this. Specifically, the robotic factory arc and the high school girl arc were supposed to give us some idea of what's to come. However, the show was too preoccupied with local conflicts between futuristic policemen and futuristic criminals to really explore the higher level concepts.

So, when these higher level concepts arrive in the scene in full force, along with villains operating a relevant higher conceptual levels, it all becomes too much of a stretch for most viewers. This stretch then proceeds to annihilate the show's suspension of disbelief. The guy that was intended to come across as a sort of fallen messiah instead works as yet another villain overpowered for author's purposes. The quotes from big-name RL books that were supposed to be enlightening and inspiring just come across as showing off. From there, the whole experience proceeds to fall apart like a poorly built card house. To the point where some of the more jumpy reviewers begin arguing that hey, that's all it really was.

And you know, maybe they are right. Because the story of this show is ultimately unfinished. The ultimate villain of the show, ineffectual and unbelieavable as it is, remains in power. The true conflict behind the story of this show remains unresolved. And the only thing the show's protagonist is able to say in the end is "hey, maybe someone else will come along and off you one day". Weak.

The show's story was worth of 10/10 for about the first half of it. And is barely scraping together a 2/10 for the second half. That leaves us at 6/10.

Characters:
Alive enough to not be cliches, and presented in a solid manner, characters were obviously intended by the show's authors to be the main focus of the viewer's enjoyment. After all, they abandoned the big social conflict in favour of conflict between two characters.
The authors, however, forgot one simple thing. Development.
Well, maybe this thing is not so simple, since anime authors keep forgetting about it all the time :D. But well, it is a simple enough thing to understand.

In order to develop, a character needs to face a situation where his skills are insufficient, feel the pressure to improve, improve, overcome said situation and come out a different and better human being.
Characters of Psycho Pass, however, are either overpowered beasts that have near-invincible skills that don't need improvement at all (with their fights against similar beasts decided on luck or plotdevice), or get killed off the instant they lose (and thus no chance to develop at all), or are simply largely irrelevant and existing only for exposition and eye candy (and thus don't even get to show off their stuff). The only exception is the female protagonist, that actually does some improvement, but ultimately not enough for the main conflict, which renders her whole story quite ineffectual.
Oh, and another exception is her boss, who actually goes through some great development in the end... Only it happens in the timeskip off-screen :(.

Ultimately the situation here is the same as with the story. Characters are decent for the first half and then largely slide off in the second half as the authors lose their grip on things. Except characters are hit harder because they weren't all that amazing to begin with. 5/10.

Value:
It is easy to think of shows like that as having negative value. Specifically, they convince people that it's not use tackling the real big issues, 'cause you are not going to be able to handle them in a convincing manner.
However, this show did succeed in getting a couple of my friends into anime :D. So it's not all that bad.
Ultimately, the first half is a fairly complete work in it's own right and is definitely worth a rewatch somewhere down the line. So i'll leave it at 5/10.

Enjoyment:
And finally i can stop being objective and just pound you with my personal point of view.

I ENJOYED it. I enjoyed it even as i saw it fail. I enjoyed thinking about why it failed. I enjoyed discussing it with people. I still enjoy seeing nubs calling other people that agree with them on that show smart and people who don't agree with that on that show stupid. For a short while, where Psycho Pass went, stuff came alive.

It is definitely an enjoyable show, whether you enjoy loving it or enjoy hating it. That's the power of high level ideas, really. You just need to get them out there, however poorly executed, and stuff suddenly begins to move.
Certainly there are shows that i enjoyed more, but not by much. And it's definitely added to my private list of awesome anime recommendations :) 8/10.

Art & Animation: Psycho-pass has overall great art, but a few flaws still exist. My main complaint is a certain inconsistency in the character art. Tsunemori's eyes are too huge compared to the eyes of other characters (especially Masaoka) and Kagari's facial expressions look like something you'd expect in a shounen series rather than a gritty cyberpunk show.
In a few episodes in the latter half of the show, the quality drops noticable but other than that the art is consistently good.

Sound: When I first wrote my preview after the first episode I had this as my worst score and thought of the opening and ending as unimpressive. I have to take that back, because both openings and endings grew on me after a while.
The overall soundtrack is still not outstanding but not bad either and manages to support the overall atmosphere of the series.
The voice actors did a good job with the male voice actors being slightly better than the female ones.

Story: A lot of people compare this show to the movie Minority Report and I can see where they are coming from. Both are set in the future and both have a special police force send after possible future criminals. The systems themselves have quite a lot of differences. Whereas in Minority Report crimes were predicted by a small group of psychics, in Psycho-Pass the mental health of all citizens is monitored and, in case a certain value rises above hundred, flagged as potential criminals.
The special "police" force in Psycho-pass itself consists mostly of such potential criminals (presumedly to keep policemen from being mentally scarred by killing a person) with a few actual policemen as squad leaders.
The story begins with rookie Tsunemori Akane's first case as a member of this squad. She is introduced as the best of her class at the police academy, which seems to mean nothing, either because they don't teach anything good there or because the work of the special forces is so much of a secret that they didn't tell them anything, which means that she has to be thaught everything from the beginning. Her first case is supposed to be simple; find a man who was flagged as a potential criminal and stun him with the special gun the members of special forces are given. But it turns out to be far more dangerous than expected...

While the story itself isn't groundbreaking or new in any way, I like some of the ideas they worked into the story, such as having an extremist version of a typical dystopian protagonist as the big bad.

Characters: A very mixed category. While the male characters received thoroughly good characterization, the female characters except for the female lead feel very bland. This goes to the level that when one of the female members of the team actually gets her own episode, it feels more like a filler episode because she doesn't get more important to the story afterwards anyway.

On the other hand the two main characters and the big bad have an interesting kind of chemistry, expanding the classical battle of "order vs. chaos" to "order vs. justice vs. chaos" with the female lead representing order at the cost of justice, the male lead justice beyond order and chaos and the big bad chaos.

Value: While not being groundbreaking in any way, Psycho-pass is still a good dystopian science-fiction anime with a good athmosphere and setting. It is not a must-watch but a good series for fans of the genre and - thanks to not being to heavy on the social criticism - a good starting point for people who haven't seen any similar series yet. Due to it's uncomplicated story however, the rewatch value is fairly small.

Enjoyment: Psycho-pass does have it's weaknesses. However the weaknesses are not too big and don't stop it from being a very enjoyable series. It has a simple story with some good ideas, a great atmosphere and mostly likeable characters.

THE STAFF
- Animated by Production I.G. a studio which does wonders when it comes to science fiction but has otherwise a very hard time to make characters who don’t act like robots. And indeed, all the characters have cartoony personalities, that is simplistic and over the top. They are closer to plot devices than real people; a thing that makes them very hard to be likable.
- The show is also airing on the NoitanimA slot, which has middle aged women as its target audience. They usually create decent romances but when it comes to science fiction they fail miserably every single time. And guess what, this show is science fiction.
- I have nothing to say about the directors, who are people with very little experience in anime shows and no significant results. They are overshadowed by the writer anyway, who is Uroboshi Gen, famous for stories full of weird concepts and shock factor (Madoka Magica, Fate/Zero, Saya no Uta). I personally don’t like his style, since he presents things superficially and with cop-out solutions.

PRODUCTION VALUES
Very good, especially in building up atmosphere at how the futuristic setting is supposed to make its denizens feel. The character designs in particular are drawn by the maker of Hitman Reborn, so expect a lot of cool factor and black suits. Aesthetically though it has hiccups, such as the soundtrack being rather passable, the heroine having WAY too big eyes, everybody talking like they need to explain something on every step of the way, and above all, everything having double standards that contradict and support both ends of the spectrum all the time.

The presentation of the setting has interesting sci-fi ideas that are affiliated with the morality of the show. Most appearances in this futuristic society are based on holograms. People can dress with “fake” exterior looks, such as appearing to have any clothes try like, or look as internet avatars, and even mask themselves as other people. Even crude machinery and old furniture can be masked to look like cute mascots or luxury hotels. All that are done so the citizens can feel tranquillity all the time. It is an interesting story generator, as it messes around with how external looks can be very different from what you really are inside.

What is rather distasteful is how the show makes dozens of tributes to other dystopian works of fiction. Every 5 minutes you get a reference to some book or movie or writer that is supposed to make everything mature, when in reality it makes it derivative and pretentious. It’s as if it steals quotes from famous people and doesn’t even try to hide it, instead of trying to be itself.

CAST
Basically, this show is an attempt to create a second Ghost in the Shell, where every dialogue is supposed to address some really heavy existentialism issues, but the result is definitely weaker and sillier. The GitS cast was all mature and cynical, while the Psycho-pass one is a bunch of psychopaths and girl scouts, too emotional or acting in a way that is highly unfit to their age or line of work.

There is no room for the characters to be anything more than caricatures for the same reason. The criminal cases are stand-alones, so they leave no room to develop a character or theme before they are thrown to the side. You are not supposed to get a clear answer to the moral questions, or even a rightful catharsis to the characters. You are supposed to feel shocked with all that and start thinking yourself where will all that lead. Meaning, it’s the usual Uroboshi style of mentioning something but never elaborating, as means to get an emotional and mental reaction. It’s just cheap and leaves no room for characterization. And it is not even presented so well, since eventually there are several plot holes in the core rules of the show.

CONCEPT
The setting is the future, when technology can now measure a person’s stress levels as means to estimate if it’s unstable and violent. Basically you get this numeric scale, if you pass the safety limit you need medical treatment, and if you refuse it or get to danger zones, they send people after you to capture or kill you. The police are using such people with high numbers in their missions, as means to fight fire with fire. And said people are armed with specially designed guns that measure the target and decide the proper course of action. It sure has some very interesting themes regarding morality in it. Here are some I have pinpointed.
- Is it ok to treat someone as a criminal without having committed a crime, just because his “soul” reads negative?
- Is it ok to shoot at people just because you are ordered to?
- Won’t a criminal be pushed into doing far more violent actions if he is told he can’t be treated as a citizen anymore?
- Is it ok to treat other people in an inhumane way, as long as you manage to keep your head cool?
- Does life have any significance if it’s devoid of pain and suffering?

And that is pretty much all there is to it. It addresses all its themes in a superficial and pretentious way. Although it does manage to make you wonder a lot about them, it is otherwise not doing anything besides scratching the surface and trying to scare you with gore and mystery.

The setting is dystopian, so nothing is really rosy in it. The society depicted in the show is messed up and the security system is all full of loop holes and things that make no sense. Basically, you see lots of neat stuff regarding “how they work” but very little regarding “why they are as such”. And that is why I never liked Uroboshi’s plot-driven/shock factor overflow stories. Everything may sound nice on paper and shinny on screen but when you try to analyze them, they are all confusing and contradictory. They are never elaborated past the obvious, since as soon as one case is over, so are its themes. I especially don’t like how he never gives free will to his characters and strives mostly to manipulate the emotions of the superficial viewers instead of elaborating upon his concepts. The result is a show full of annoyance and derp moments for not having characters with an actual opinion of the world they are living in. What follows is an analysis of all the interesting stuff you can find in this show and how they fare when analyzed.

1) Concept: The police are using criminals to capture other criminals. They don’t want the police officers to experience too much stress that will raise them to dangerous levels. But it’s ok to use those that have already crossed the limit, since there is no salvation for them. Technically, the police is fighting fire with fire by letting someone else to lit the fuse, not risking to think or act like those that it tries to lock away.
Analysis: That is a bit silly of course, since the criminals are unstable to be considered trustworthy, forced like slaves to capture others like them. Plus it is stressful to have police officers LOOKING at these atrocious crimes, even if they don’t need to personally press the trigger against the criminals. In fact some of them end up becoming criminals because of that. One could say that the present police force is not any better, as many police officers are corrupt or become too violent because of their jobs, and there are many cases where they use criminals in order to uncover and arrest other criminals. The investigators of the show are not a better variant, just a different one.

2) Concept: New police officers are completely oblivious to what they are supposed to do. They don’t even know how to hold a gun.
Analysis: A rookie that doesn’t even know the fundamentals is bound to cause more trouble than help in a job that required a lot of cunningness and readiness. But that is the thing with the society of the series; it doesn’t really prepare you for violence since it keeps its citizens in complete bliss, as means to protect their sanity. Most of them don’t even recognize a crime even when they see it happening. Police officers are just observers; it is the criminal executioners who are supposed to do all the work, like profiling each case or shooting. The police officers are of course still exposed to violence and death but supposed they are kept safe if they do close to nothing. In fact, even when they need to shoot, they first need to get authorization from the computer that controls their society. This way they don’t even need to feel stress for if the criminal deserves to be shot or even killed. They obey without having to worry about making the wrong decision. Even so, there are cases where the computer made mistakes in its evaluation; thus even the whole concept of a computer helping you becomes pointless. It is not better to our system, just different.

3) Concept: The educational system of such a society is useless outside of academics and theoretical knowledge. It is hard to be so advanced in the first place, if its citizens are incapable of doing anything after they graduate.
Analysis: Machines are supposed to do all the actual labour and dangerous parts in any profession, leaving the human factor as an observer who just presses buttons. This is why everybody acts in a very simple way, like they are mentally challenged. It is not better to our system, just different. This is even used in a smart way for narrative purposes, as the heroine is so oblivious; the others need to explain the tiniest detail to her. Indirectly this expands to the audience and thus we get a sort of excused infodump about everything that is going on.

4) Concept: The heroine decided to be a police officer even when she could have become anything else she liked. Her mental stability, combined with her will to help her society and learn more about how it works fundamentally made her the ideal candidate.
Analysis: Well, that is sort of weak, since she literally acts like a scared girl scout amongst ruthless murderers and rapists. We never get any more reasoning than “Well I want to help my society so I might as well expose myself to violence and death.” In our society, nobody would agree to that if he wasn’t in for the money or the action. The nihilistic way of life in the series just leaves this to be sort of like deciding to become a criminal hunter instead of a florist just because your brain can take the heat. Where is the motivation in that? Nowhere.

Now if you ask me, is there really something wrong in this sort of a concept, when to the most part it is so well presented and excused to the most part? Well, the most basic problem it has is the same most dystopian stories have. Instead of being presented as a society that is different to our own but still viable, it is presented as a fake paradise that ends up being worse than our own. They are presented as if their systems of government are pure evil or amoral to the point they become hated from the average person of today. The ones that manage to get over this snag are those that manage to excuse themselves as being grey (not good or evil) or at least trying to maintain their control even after their usage is over (clinging to the past out of fear of change). Anime like Ghost in the Shell and Shinsekai Yori manage to succeed at that, Psycho-pass doesn’t; it feels so evil and non-viable it becomes loathed very fast. Especially after they reveal what the Sybil system really is and how it works; it is making you think the leaders of this society are all devilish paedophiles who drink the blood of the dead and kick puppies when bored. And then they expect you to believe it is a system that works purely on rationality and that it was established with little to no problem. This also becomes evident when you realize how each case the characters face is a crime based on the weaknesses of the system. It is constantly showing us how it DOESN’T work, instead of how it helps its people to live a happy life when it works. It is a sort of a farce, unreal and impossible to appreciate as an alternative lifestyle. They are telling you to hate it on every step of the way and thus make you lose interest in thinking about its possible beneficial aspects.

- Episode 1: If someone is branded as an incurable latent criminal, then he is almost forced into committing actual crimes, since that is the only thing his society will expect from him to do, instead of trying to make use of his talents. Many would rather die than accept to spend a life in isolation, constantly drugged, or working as hounds of other criminals.

- Episodes 3 & 14: The system’s refusal to teach its citizens the concept of crime leads to them not recognizing it or even knowing how to react to it. Some will be literally torturing a weaker person than themselves as means of entertainment or stress relief, and won’t even know that what they are doing is wrong. Others will be looking at a person being beaten to death in the middle of the street and will be unable to understand if they are supposed to call the police or try to stop the crime. And in effect, they are helpless if they are ever the victims of a crime, since nobody will know how to help them.

- Episodes 1, 3, & 15: The victims of any crime are usually not treated with care but as criminals themselves. The terror, or pain, or hopelessness, will usually increase their crime rates to dangerous levels, turning them to latent criminals or even actual criminals for things that they never intended. The system treats you nicely only as long as your mental health is ok; if you snap you will be branded as a scum of society for the rest of your life, even if you didn’t cause the initial snapping.

- Episodes 3, 4, & 11: The only way for you to be branded as a criminal is to have a high crime potential score. That indirectly means that you can say or do any horrible things you like, as long as it doesn’t show on specs. If you don’t know that what you are doing is a crime or believe that what you are doing is right, then you are not a criminal. For example if a group of people torture an innocent co-worker just for the sake of steaming out their stress from work, this is not a crime. But if said co-worker fights back in desperation, then he will be arrested and treated as a criminal for crossing the line. Something which of course wouldn’t have happened if he wasn’t mistreated in the first place. There are no means to punish those who indirectly push others to the danger zone, or even to excuse the victims of misuse and don’t place them on the same level as other criminals.

- Episodes 3, 6, 10 & 15: There are supposed to be scanners and droids in every street of the city, measuring the population for possible high crime rates. Yet there is actually very little monitoring done, to the point it is extremely easy to do a crime and move around unnoticed. For a system that is based on making everything measurable and controllable, it is doing a very crappy job. In effect, it doesn’t really matter what kind of a system of justice this show has; it all comes down to failing for not having complete surveillance of the city. Just imagine how much better it would be if every person had a GPS implant in his body or there were scanners in every house. And yes, it would happen without anyone complaining about personal life; since they are all midless sheep who believe everything they are told. They agreed to create a society where they are treated as morons, they will agree to have no personal space too. The funny part is that the same studio had created Loups=Garous back in 2010, which had the EXACT surveillance system I describe and also shared many similarities regarding a highly monitored world ruled by assholes.

- Episode 6 has a murderer that is killing someone every few days. Nothing is leaked to the population, since this way it keeps everyone happy in his bliss, while people continue to get murdered. So once again, the system is trying to work by not working.

- Episodes 6 & 10: They pretty much tell us how too much safety and bliss turns life meaningless and the only way to feel alive is to start killing others for the excitement. So much for a peaceful way of living.

- Episode 11: There is a man whose crime levels are low no matter what he does. He is supposed to judge the system and even to seek its destruction but in effect he is one big asspull, since he can do anything he likes by magically not being subjected to the universal laws of the show. He is supposed to be the cruel but true voice of reason in the show but it is kind of pointless to hear “drugs are bad” from someone who is immune to a mountain of dope. It’s like that asshole Touma in Toaru Majitsu no Index, who has the liberty to throw around morality speeches and hoard all the chicks, just because he is the only one who can cancel out any superpower. No shit smarty pants, I can too challenge the universe if I can defy gravity or friction. Also, despite the attempt to make all cases to have a connection thanks to this ringleader, they still are pointless in the longrun. You see, he wants to destroy the status quo by handing over helmets to average civilians that trick crime score scouters. If that was his plan, then he didn’t need those one-episode villains to begin with. Or skip that; he just needed to go to the food refinery and blow it up. Any reason he didn’t do that since episode 1? Of course and there is; you wouldn’t be bombarded with shallow morality and pretentious quoting ala Uroboshi style if the characters in this show weren’t plot devises and had common sense.

- Episode 17: The Sybil system is run by amoral assholes with a God complex. Because what better candidates can there be for monitoring humanity than those who don’t consider themselves human anymore? It makes no sense as you can easily realize. How can you understand the needs of everyday people if you consider yourself a superior being who has no qualms to kill a few thousand for management issues? It’s like telling a nuclear physicist to become a manager of a football team.

Another grip I have with the show is how they are using those fancy guns. It is pretty clear from the numeric value what they have to do instead of waiting several seconds for the computer in the guns to explain the obvious and unlock the safety trigger. If the criminal is running away or is attacking them, this proves highly impractical and problematic. Of course, the truth is the criminals mysteriously stand still for several minutes while the gun is talking, so there is still plenty of time to shoot them. This lazy cop-out solution to the above problem kind of ruins the whole point of the gun talking in the first place and in turn trashes the plausibility of the whole series.

And why must the gun blow up its targets like that? A simple bullet would be more than enough to stop those criminals. Ok, some of them are beyond salvation and need to be disposed of with the most direct way possible. Some others may be wearing armours or be cyborgs that need extra firepower to be sure they die in one shot. But don’t tell me it is a lot healthier for the spectators’ mentality to see people turning to ground beef just like that. Looks like it is gore for the sake of gore, thrown there purely as shock factor. And that in a setting that is LITERALLY against shocking its population.

As the show goes on, you keep realizing more things that are wrong with it, such as the investigators doing some spying-around for suspicious-looking people in each case, instead of just scanning them all for high crime levels, thus saving precious time and lives. Or the population acting completely different in some episodes, like they don’t recognize violence when they see it in the middle of the street but otherwise are used to bullying, or being in touch with online anti-government teams, or watch a lot of violent videos on the net. There are many scenes where someone gets shot or a fire breaks out and everybody is very aware of the danger and runs away panicked. That shouldn’t be happening if they were truly ignorant to danger as they want us to believe. There is even a scene where thousands of people went to get helmets with the purpose to kill others and that didn’t show in any street scanner. The show is full of plot holes and inconsistencies such as these.

And let’s not forget the ending. Or the lack of it. If you expect some sort of resolution to all this mess, stop hoping; for the finale is as simple and expected as it can get without anything really going anywhere. There is no end result to all the fuss you went through all these episodes, no retribution, no catharsis, and no point. All you see is the characters shovelling one pretentious monologue after another in the typical Uroboshi style; shock for the sake of shock.

LEGACY
In all, it is a nice time-spender that may even make you think of a few things but it plays out in a very superficial way compared to older works like SE Lain or Ergo Proxy. Not bad but far from great. Uroboshi is good at creating interesting concepts and manipulating your emotions but he is otherwise a hax. Good concept, shitty presentation, the idiots will love it, the smart ones will forget it in a week.

And now for some excused scorings.