Psycho-pass

[kargarus]

Originally Posted by Reat

The understanding of psychology in this anime is pretty lacking. People don't become more likely to commit crimes because they've been the victims of one, in fact it has the opposite effect. Those with a strong sense of justice, when faced with injustice, gain a greater resolve, not less. If anything, being raped would case post-traumatic stress disorder and androphobia. And how does the desire to commit suicide by self-immolation translate to a lethal threat? Someone did not think these things through...

But the gore was nice, so I'm sure it'll be popular.

Originally Posted by Itoukaiji01

^ Or is that a part of the shows premise? We don't know exactly what is being measured when they are identifying criminal latency. For all we know all the things you just pointed out are going to be exposed as flaws of this system. We don't know enough about this world yet to make any of the assumptions you are. There is no doubt that the system they are using is flawed. Maybe the desire to commit suicide is read the same as the desire to commit violence against others. There are still a lot of possibilities of what could really be going on in this society. Maybe AI that is responsible for reading people doesn't do what people think it does and instead is just being used as a means for control of the population. We've seen one very small scenario play out in this town so far.

I think Itoukaiji01 is right on here. The way its framed; its obvious that there is something inherently wrong with the system, and if it provokes us in the way it has Reat then the question is, well why? What happened? How did it become like this? Is it right or wrong? And that's essentially (and hopefully) the direction the show's headed, basically part of the premise. Whether it succeeds in addressing these issues or exploring them in interesting ways or not...

Originally Posted by valondar

Whether or not the series can address that with any subtelty is an open question (possibly not, going for a rape victim and EXPLODING BODY PARTS does seem a bit cheap and sensationalistic), but it's definitely portraying a vaguely dystopian crime system.

This lack of subtlety may work against the show. But if you're not using fanservice or moe to sell a show then gore may have to suffice. Opposite ends of the spectrum? Maybe....

[Reat]

^^ I guess it comes down to: will the show dissect these issues as part of the experience, or does it sweep them under the rug? You can't really tell from just the one episode, and sometimes you watch the whole series waiting for it to happen only to be disappointed when it's ignored or done poorly (No. 6 comes to mind).

[LinkSword]

A pretty neat start for this show, in my opinion.

A fucked up system, moral ambiguity, good ambiance and just enough explicitness not to feel neither heroically clichéd nor over-the-top/exploitative.

By clichéd in this case I mean the typical anime scenario where the police forces arrive at the scene just in time and the victim is retrieved with no physical or mental damage whatsoever (other than perhaps a good scare). The criminal having given the victim a thrash and then getting it on with her made the whole scenario more believable, serious... compelling to watch.

As for the moral part, there's many things to question about the system and its criteria and how the people are supposed to react to it. For once, I actually liked the naïve approach of the rookie girl to the capture issue, as it is indeed messed up to give a victim the treatment of a criminal just because what she's experienced is seriously affecting her mental health. A traumatic experience shouldn't equal criminalistic potential. Anyhow, I think the girl was in the right in this case, as opposed to all those other anime where you can see this kind of character simply covering for an actual criminal only due to their preference to do things more... Ethically? Orderly? Stupidly?

One thing I didn't appreciate was how whimsical the gun authorization thingy became near the end. Allegedly, by the time the system acknowledge an individual as someone who must be eliminated, that decision may not be turned back, as that target is deemed unable to succeed in rehabilitation (whatever their rehab means here). Then, merely a few seconds after getting to the ''Elimination Required'' state of mind (just for being scared out of her wits and showing a threatening attitude, mind you), Akane gets her to calm down and the elimination order is immediately revoked - which gets me to think this system is way too impulsive in taking decisions, and not very rational at that.

Thinking well about it, that may just be another risk of letting an AI handle things that should be best done by humans with common sense. Like this, it's all just programming, statistics, instantaneity and numbers on a person's psyche to govern over life and death. Sure, this avoids many of the possibilities of crimes being committed, but it's still too overbearing for the people subject to it. The limits of this Psycho-Pass' influence have not been well determined yet, but can you imagine if you were deemed a criminal for every criminal-like spur/thought you had? We all kind of have them every now and then, to a bigger or smaller extent. With a system like that I can easily picture this criminal from episode 1 becoming crazy.

Mm, maybe I'll write more impressions later. Anyway, I'll be looking forward to how this show will progress. It might be very good (4/5) or just mediocre (2.5-3/5) - that's the range of possibilities I'm picturing in my mind. Then again, though, I was just reminded the writer is Urobuchi Gen, so I'm veering towards an optimistic mindset to say the least.

[roriconfan]

Originally Posted by valondar

I actually didn't know who was, so I went and looked it up. Gen Urobuchi

I meant sensation through violence is his style

Originally Posted by kargarus

But if you're not using fanservice or moe to sell a show then gore may have to suffice.

How about none of the above and just do what Shinsekai Yori did?

[valondar]

Originally Posted by LinkSword

Anyhow, I think the girl was in the right in this case, as opposed to all those other anime where you can see this kind of character simply covering for an actual criminal only due to their preference to do things more... Ethically? Orderly? Stupidly?

That's true. Quite often in anime a series can stack the argument against the more 'moral' character by having them take a stand that seems dangerous or nonsensical, thus implicitly validating the more amoral character's approach. Here we had the exact reverse of that.

Originally Posted by roriconfan

I meant sensation through violence is his style

That is fair, although if memory serves Madoka implied its more graphic momenets of violence then it actually showed it.

How about none of the above and just do what Shinsekai Yori did?

I'd like there to be more anime without naked pandering (and From the New World is indeed awesome), but given the choice I'm more comfortable with gratuituous gore than say emotionally damaged infantilized girls who need their issues resolved with the healing power of a penis... which is a personal preference and admittedly a bit of an over-simplifcation re: moe.

[Verified]

^ gatdamn you always confusing me with your words bruh. Make an idiots translation in a spoiler or something XD That would actually be hilarious ;) you should totally do it.

Interesting first episode. A little bit of Minority Report mixed with "something," probably simply anime, lol. Had a bit of deja vu in the opening scene with Cowboy Bebop, but that's just cause I knew nothing at that point. At any rate, will definitely follow this one.

[johnpaulIII]

I really enjoyed the first episode of this one, it also made me remember of ghost in the shell a bit. The guns made me remember of gantz.

[valondar]

Originally Posted by Verified

^ gatdamn you always confusing me with your words bruh.

Apologies. Really don't intend to, and to be honest, I rarely have anything that intelligent or interesting to say - just a weakness for big words.

Basically? Fair few anime have good guys who say we should do something really stupid so the bad guys get to be badass when they get to do something that makes more sense. And thus prove how badass those emo badasses are.

This episode let us be appalled by everyone except for the one good person who was the only person who seeemed to be behaving fairly.

Interesting first episode. A little bit of Minority Report

Exactly! I knew there was something I forgot to say. The implications of how this crime process works - convicting people of the potential to commit crimes - just reeks of Minority Report's Pre-Crime unit.

[Damias]

Episode 2

A decent episode, get to explore the futuristic setting and their technological advancements and pretty much some resolves from Akane. :)

[kargarus]

Episode 2.

I thought this was an excellent episode. After last week’s action oriented fest, this episode’s focus on the characters, particularly Akane plus some additional world building was pretty engaging.

Through the dialogue with her friends and her conversation with Kagari we obtained a clearer idea of her background. How she came to be an Inspector also illuminated the world of Psycho-pass for us somewhat.

Most interesting I thought was that the Sibyl system basically ‘quantifies’ a person. With this it essentially delineates a person’s path (ie A grade Akane, her C grade friends and latent at a young age Kagari).

I thought her conversation with Kagari was particularly interesting. The point that her questioning of her purpose resembles ‘old humanity’ (when we actually could decide things for ourselves before Sibyl came to run our lives) I think is probably a main idea which will be explored over the duration of the series. Kagari’s annoyance at the end of the conversation also highlights this – why did she ‘choose’ this career when other options were available. Meanwhile he had no say in his path whatsoever.

The internal conflict of the lack of control over one’s choices, I think would be a likely factor in the increase of mental stress and hence latent criminality. The system created its own problems.

Akane’s conversation with Kogami at the end the episode was also interesting. His admission that even after reflecting upon it, he wouldn’t have responded differently to the incident, I think is further demonstration of the problems of the Sibyl system; ie the effects its controls has on a person, how its warped people's minds and decisions.

There was also an indication that something more is up with Kogami, some unfortunate incident occurred in his past (probably related to the first scene in episode 1).

Top stuff, enjoyed this episode.