Psycho-Pass season 1 (Naoyoshi Shiotani & Katsuyuki Motohiro, 2012-2013)

[Mr Sausage]

DISCUSSION ENDS MONDAY, July 3rd


What we're watching::

-All 22 episodes of the first season of the anime series Psycho Pass, broadcast from October 12, 2012 – March 22, 2013.


How it works:

-Members new to the series can watch the episodes and record their thoughts and impressions as they go and comment on each other's posts to create a sense of a shared viewing experience. Old hands can comment on those posts or post their overall thoughts on the series.

-This discussion is spoiler-free. All spoilers should be spoiler tagged with a brief indication of what episodes are being discussed, eg.:

episodes 1 and 2Show

nani nani nani

The code for this is:

Code: Select all

[spoiler="episodes 1 and 2"]text[/spoiler]

[Mr Sausage]

Boosmahn was kind enough to choose this round's Anime. He's provided an introduction to the series below.

[Boosmahn]

In the near future of Psycho-Pass, everyone is assigned a "crime coefficient" from the governing Sibyl System. This coefficient doesn't measure the crimes you have committed, but rather just your likelihood to do something illegal. If that sounds too similar to Minority Report, Psycho-Pass goes further by Sibyl also measuring a person's mental stability. The first episode demonstrates pretty well how this constant surveillance is inherently flawed, and how one scan can cause someone to spiral out of control. However, Psycho-Pass' focus is less on the system and more on how individuals would act within it. It's been a few years since I've seen the series, and I'm excited to watch the Japanese version (which I assume most here will go with) for the first time.

It appears to be a lengthy series, but only the first season and sequel film (just titled Psycho-Pass: The Movie) were written by creator Gen Urobuchi, who also wrote Madoka Magica. Both Urobuchi and the chief director departed from the series after the film was released, and it is arguable the true canon ends there.

Season one has a Blu-ray, but it's known for banding issues. It appears that the Japanese version on Crunchyroll uses the home video master, instead of the broadcast version that had some quality issues toward the end, so streaming may be your best bet. Just don't watch the "extended edition," which severely hurts the pacing!

[Mr Sausage]

Episode 1Show

A Blade Runner inspired world with plenty of cyberpunk cool, and a certain amount of sleaze. A prologue sets up an as it were fated collision between a villain and anti-hero, flip sides of the same coin I'm guessing, separated by some accident that places one on the side of law and order and the other, not.

The world itself seems to be a Minority Report system, where an AI determines one's likelihood of committing a crime, and recommends solutions anywhere from mandatory therapy, to arrest, to summary execution via bodily eruption.

The episode itself is a standard cop show set up: a random crime occurs, and the main characters solve it while showing their personalities and narrating their world to us in expository dialogue. The show leans too heavily on the trope of the newbie-as-audience-surrogate who needs everything explained to her. It's improbable that a recent cadet would need absolutely everything explained to them. Some things, sure, but she seems to know as much about her world as we do. Also, another anime where the lead female looks and acts like a school girl. What is this fascination in Japanese media with very young, immature girls?

The character concept is an extension of American cop shows and movies where the cop is so wild and on the edge, they aren't so different from the criminals. Only here, it's institutionalized, with latent criminals used as police dogs to flush out other criminals. So we'll get a Riggs/Murtaugh pairing, the police dog on the edge and the young, compassionate cop forced to deal with it.

One thing I particularly enjoyed was how this world's set-up has left it unable deal with trauma, so it's forced to pathologize and criminalize it. Victims of crime are as liable to arrest and execution as the criminal. I wonder if this fascist system will become the villain in some way, or simply be the given, ie. the context for the characters and stories set inside it.

I likely won't be commenting on every individual episode. I'll probably comment on chunks, or highlight an episode here and there.

[knives]

I’m not sure if I’ll go through the whole season of this as the first episode felt like a fairly generic anime procedural like Stand Alone Complex or Witch Hunter Robin where eventually the system becomes the enemy and the hero must go on the run etc etc. if any fans of the show could say an encouraging word for it I’d greatly appreciate that.

[Mr Sausage]

Boy, I hated the second episode. It kept repeating and repeating exposition on things it had already made abundantly clear, like it thought its audience were slow, and then culminated with a scene of such cheesy melodrama I could barely stand it. This does not bode well.

[Michael Kerpan]

Well, I for one, would give the first episode at least a "high pass".

Mr. S -- amazingly enough LOTS of young Japanese women (Akane is in her early 20s) look younger than one would expect.

I would say that the value of an anime series is how the details are realized rather than what its generic category appears to be. How good are the characters and dialog, are there any interesting underlying concepts, how good is the art and animation.

Side note -- I accidentally started watching the wrong first episode (which turned out to be part of a 3 OVA series of side stories). It looked, at its start, a bit more sophisticated.

[Michael Kerpan]

Mr. S -- I have to disagree on Ep. 2. I didn't find it redundant or cheesy. I find it interesting that our heroine seems to have an intuitive sense that seems more "accurate" than the programmed tools (at least in certain circumstances).

Very interesting that clothes seem to be largely holographic. (Do people wear ANY real ones at all?) A recent series You0 (Yurei) Deco -- used a lot of the same social and environmental elements (crime prediction, to an abusive extent -- and lots of dependence of holography) -- but was more surrealistic and "fantastic".

[Mr Sausage]

That bedside apology went over the top, and there was one meal-time expository scene too many. To me, anyway.

[Michael Kerpan]

I think the "bedside apology" was an important element in establishing/developing the two characters involved. The meal-time expository scene mainly seemed to serve to put the heroine into a context outside her job setting. Not especially "essential" -- but (to me) inoffensive.

It probably is unfair to watch this show on the heels of Kaiba. It appears to be a much more "normal" sort of anime than Kaiba (and Lain). I suspect it is not the sort of thing I'm likely to ever class as a "master work" of any sort (but who knows). I'm willing to cut it some slack at this point -- and see if it rises higher as it progresses.

[Mr Sausage]

I think the "bedside apology" was an important element in establishing/developing the two characters involved. The meal-time expository scene mainly seemed to serve to put the heroine into a context outside her job setting. Not especially "essential" -- but (to me) inoffensive.

It probably is unfair to watch this show on the heels of Kaiba. It appears to be a much more "normal" sort of anime than Kaiba (and Lain). I suspect it is not the sort of thing I'm likely to ever class as a "master work" of any sort (but who knows). I'm willing to cut it some slack at this point -- and see if it rises higher as it progresses.

I agree the bedside apology is important, I just think it was over the top, with the music and impassioned shouting and such. The meal with her friends was fine; the second one with her coworker, that basically reiterated everything we'd already heard in the earlier meal and the first episode, not so much.

But I hope it doesn't sound like I'm rejecting the show out of turn. I enjoyed the first episode and am willing to see where this goes.

[Michael Kerpan]

Hah! I scarcely remember that second meal scene. So it clearly had little impact -- for good or for ill.

[Boosmahn]

Sorry for not engaging thus far, I've been exceptionally busy. I should be more active going forward.

Episode 1Show

The episode itself is a standard cop show set up: a random crime occurs, and the main characters solve it while showing their personalities and narrating their world to us in expository dialogue. The show leans too heavily on the trope of the newbie-as-audience-surrogate who needs everything explained to her. It's improbable that a recent cadet would need absolutely everything explained to them. Some things, sure, but she seems to know as much about her world as we do. Also, another anime where the lead female looks and acts like a school girl. What is this fascination in Japanese media with very young, immature girls?

Yeah, there is a good amount of exposition in the first episode, but they get through it quickly enough. Thankfully, the character dynamics are set up less directly, so it balances out somewhat.

I think so many anime and manga protagonists are young due to age demographics: high schoolers like watching shows with high schoolers in them. Psycho-Pass' audience goes a bit older than that, so that isn't quite the reason for her appearance, but it's a common one. I believe Akane is 20 as of the first episode.

I’m not sure if I’ll go through the whole season of this as the first episode felt like a fairly generic anime procedural like Stand Alone Complex or Witch Hunter Robin where eventually the system becomes the enemy and the hero must go on the run etc etc. if any fans of the show could say an encouraging word for it I’d greatly appreciate that.

It's been a few years since I've watched Psycho-Pass, so diving into specifics is difficult, but I recommend you stick with it.

(These aren't major spoilers, but I recommend only you read them...)

SpoilerShow

The show has a few of these mini-arcs before going into a more overarching narrative. And I don't want to spoil anything, but I disagree with your (very understandable) Stand Alone Complex and Witch Hunter Robin comparisons. (Admittedly, I only know of them -- I have not yet watched them.)

Boy, I hated the second episode. It kept repeating and repeating exposition on things it had already made abundantly clear, like it thought its audience were slow, and then culminated with a scene of such cheesy melodrama I could barely stand it. This does not bode well.

I don't remember any other episodes being like the second one. It's definitely important in many aspects, but I suspect the writers thought going from the first to the third episode would have been too great a jump -- and maybe they had to retread ground to fill the runtime.

It probably is unfair to watch this show on the heels of Kaiba. It appears to be a much more "normal" sort of anime than Kaiba (and Lain). I suspect it is not the sort of thing I'm likely to ever class as a "master work" of any sort (but who knows). I'm willing to cut it some slack at this point -- and see if it rises higher as it progresses.

It's quite a change! I almost picked Bakemonogatari, but there was already interest in Psycho-Pass and I thought members here would have insights about the more philosophical parts of the show. It doesn't reach masterwork status for me -- though I do find it very interesting and enjoyable.

[Mr Sausage]

Episodes 4 & 5Show

I enjoyed this VR murder mystery diptych, where popular online avatars are hijacked not only to make it look like their users are still alive, but to allow popular online characters to better match the ideas they stood for when their original users let those ideas down. This leads to one of the big themes of the episodes, the use of masks to inhabit ideas and ideals, something latent in even the offline world of this show, where appearances can be altered via holograms. The episode makes lots of heady allusions: to Nietzsche, Rousseau, Plato, game theory, etc. Unmentioned is Patricia Highsmith, but she figures here, with the villain being a Tom Ripley type, someone empty in himself and therefore able to become whoever he wants, in this case popular online characters. For the villain, online avatars are the true platonic forms, the idealization of human kind, transcending the flaws and limits of their makers.

Popular avatars are not even the sole creation of their respective users, either, but a collective social creation, as much the offspring of the social conditions of the web as those who inhabit them. Users unknowingly collaborate to create popular online characters. Online, people are the ideas of themselves, the projections of others' conceptions and ideals in a feedback loop between projection and impression. This is somewhat the case offline, but especially true in the image-based, mask-centric online world where people perform characters in personal worlds. In the world of the show, online would be a real refuge from the invasive surveillance state.

[Michael Kerpan]

My sense is that -- through Ep. 5 at least -- this series has been90 percent story-oriented. Mood and "style" seem secondary to this. The mini-stories so far have been interesting enough, however. It seems like we still have a major open end after 5...

[Mr Sausage]

The background heavy in ep. 5 is the same from the prologue to ep. 1, yeah?

[Michael Kerpan]

Finished through ep. 8, which finishes a sub-section and sets up what looks like will be a cat and mouse game between Enforcer Kogami and a criminal mastermind. 6 through 8 was pretty brutal, pretty much at the limit of what I can tolerate.

I will say that the main female character's design is not the strongest aspect of the show -- but the other characters seem to be better designed.

[Mr Sausage]

Finished through ep. 8, which finishes a sub-section and sets up what looks like will be a cat and mouse game between Enforcer Kogami and a criminal mastermind. 6 through 8 was pretty brutal, pretty much at the limit of what I can tolerate.

I will say that the main female character's design is not the strongest aspect of the show -- but the other characters seem to be better designed.

I'm now up to ep. 9 as well. Just like with Samurai Champloo, it's irksome that they play their female lead like an immature 14-year-old. Just in general the show's female characters suck. There are only three: the child, the buxom sex pot, and the ice queen. They're all cliches, and two are tertiary. The male characters are stock types, but at least allowed some complexity and opportunities to voice their thoughts, opinions, needs, and other things fully rounded humans have.

That said, the female villain of the last three episodes was interesting, and even allowed to voice outright feminist criticisms as part of her motivation--indeed criticisms that were legitimate expressions of frustration with the restrictive, patriarchal system at work in this world of the show. Made a nice complement to the interesting comments of the other villain of the lack of stress actually causing humans to regress into uselessness. So far the villains are the only ones who seem to view the system accurately.

[Michael Kerpan]

In the news today, a story that seems to overlap a bit into the territory covered in recently=watched Psycho Pass episodes: https://www.universalhub.com/2023/harva ... eepy-salem

[Boosmahn]

Just like with Samurai Champloo, it's irksome that they play their female lead like an immature 14-year-old. Just in general the show's female characters suck. There are only three: the child, the buxom sex pot, and the ice queen. They're all cliches, and two are tertiary.

Those are some valid criticisms, but I think you may change your mind after the coming episodes. Well, maybe not about the analyst, Shion Karanomori -- I'll say right now that I do not remember her getting much development.

In the news today, a story that seems to overlap a bit into the territory covered in recently=watched Psycho Pass episodes: https://www.universalhub.com/2023/harva ... eepy-salem

I don't have much to add, but the casual memos they sent alongside the money make it even worse.

[Mr Sausage]

Those are some valid criticisms, but I think you may change your mind after the coming episodes. Well, maybe not about the analyst, Shion Karanomori -- I'll say right now that I do not remember her getting much development.

I'm guessing the Ice Queen character get some development, as there was one brief scene where she comforted the grieving, guilty schoolgirl in ep. 8 that suggested she might step into the foreground more. I look forward to it--the show could use an adult female in the story.

[Michael Kerpan]

Episode 11 has left me scarred. Utterly devastating.

I think the main problem with Akane is not her "performance" (Kana Hanazawa is almost always wonderful) but her visual design -- which I feel rather undermines her character. This design is out of sync with even other female characters -- it is like it was drafted from some fluffy slice of life. I suspect if Akane had been given a more realistic design (more like that of the rest of the cast) one would perceive her character and actions differently.

[Mr Sausage]

Some of it's the writing, too. Like in ep.7(?), she sees Ko with his shirt off and has a child-like reaction of cringing embarrassment. She's written, drawn, and acted like a high schooler, no?

Looking forward to ep. 11!

[Michael Kerpan]

The character seems to be only around 21 or so. And she is painfully naïve -- which seems like it might not be as unusual in the society being depicted as it would be in ours. I really wonder how much different our reception would be if she was not visually so childlike (and not even realistically so -- unlike the other women characters around her own age -- or even the high school girls we see in eps 10 and 11). Her design is definitely a distraction

[Mr Sausage]

The character seems to be only around 21 or so. And she is painfully naïve -- which seems like it might not be as unusual in the society being depicted as it would be in ours. I really wonder how much different our reception would be if she was not visually so childlike (and not even realistically so -- unlike the other women characters around her own age -- or even the high school girls we see in eps 10 and 11). Her design is definitely a distraction

You make a good point: a lot of who we're comparing her to are the Enforcers, ie. the hardened, experienced people in a society where even moderate stress is not allowed. How can anyone be an adult when your whole society is one big helicopter parent?

But, still, how to explain the fact that every single time a coworker even says her name, she flinches, gasps, and goes through a whole "omg sempai just noticed me, what do I do?!" act? I know I would still find her childish even if her design were aged up. One of my long-standing complaints about HK action films is how often the characters act like they're immature pre-teens, especially if anything mildly sexual is implied, even tho' they're being played by Chow Yun-Fat or Donnie Yen. So while Akane's school girl design doesn't help, I don't think it's the main driving force. The writing and acting seem on par with the design.