A Perfect World - Psycho-Pass Review

It is always nice to imagine a world without crime in which everyone lives in peace and security. Of course, the ways of achieving such a world are often unseemly despite philosophers best efforts. Psycho-Pass is a show which takes a crack at that perfect society while at the same time pointing out the negatives of placing human beings within systems. It got its run in lat 2012 and concluded in March of last year as one of the most popular and highly rated shows of that season. Stories about justice and its ambiguity have always interested me so it wasn't hard to sell me on the show's premise. Without further ado lets get to it.

Psycho-Pass takes place during an unspecified date in the near future where society is run by the Sibyl System. This system can instantaneously measure and quantify a person's state of mind and personality. In other words, the system judges whether a person has a criminal mentality. This measurement is used to preemptively take out criminals before they can commit a crime. Because of the system, society lives in peace. The story picks up with Akane Tsunemori, a young woman who has just started work as an Inspector with the MWSPD, the main unit of law enforcement. Along with Nobuchika Ginoza, her partner Inspector, she helps lead the Enforcers, those who have criminal mentalities but instead help the police solve crimes. Tsunemori quickly becomes attached to one of them, Shinya Kogami, and the plot proceeds from there. Also, the plot brings them into conflict with Shougo Makashima, an extremely dangerous criminal who can change his criminal mentality at will. The story moves rather slowly at the beginning as that time is used for Tsunemori to find out more about the Enforcers as well as giving the viewer an idea of what exactly society is like. She soon finds that the system isn't perfect and whether it is truly objective is up for debate. The motivations of the criminals are also quite interesting as the show provides some interesting philosophy on the criminal mentality as well.

Despite its rather small cast, Psycho-Pass struggles to makes its characters interesting

 Some of the criminals have noble intentions with what they are doing but find their criminal mentality rising into dangerous territory. Even when society assigns a value to something and is able to quantify it, the system fails to account for human will. Its very Kantian and the characters very frequently delve into the works of many famous philosophers which is a treat for anyone who has studied that field. The plot makes you think long after you've finished watching the show. Whether its about how exactly we can mitigate crime or how we can achieve a "perfect" society. It has been awhile since an anime has really made me think in the way Psycho-Pass did. The story also seems to be a commentary on how technology has become more and more prominent in our lives as well as the contentment that people seem to have about deferring to it. It represents the danger of entrusting so much to technology and how complacent it makes people. For example, because of the existence of the Sibyl System a crime could be committed in public and many people just stand around and watch because they don't believe that crime even exists in society.  It is a very dark concept and one that Psycho-Pass pulls it off very well.

Psycho-Pass does not have a very large cast which one would think would put an imperative on making each character deep and interesting. It is successful with the former but not so much the latter. There is plenty of backstory to had especially with each of the Enforcers who have each been through a horrendous amount of grief before the show even starts. Psycho-Pass is much more interested in fleshing out the Akane/Kogami relationship more that anything else, though Inspecter Ginoza and Masaoka probably comes close. While the relationship between Akane and Kogami is interesting, because debates about justice are always awesome, the rest of the characters feel very left out. Their jobs are more to spit out exposition or just deliver the lines that make you think rather than experience much development. Of the seven main members of the cast, four get solid screetime and most of that time is filled up by Akane and Kogami, whose relationship moves a little too quickly to make sense in actuality. The character I liked the most was Kagari, one of the Enforcers because he supplied the little bits of humor that the show has. However, his screentime was very much limited by those other four characters. At first, Akane seemed like the wide eyed and idealist protagonist who populates about 85% of anime. While I was frustrated with her character, the more the series went on the more I started to understand why her character is actually perfect. An anime like this that frequently vacations in grey areas needs an incorruptible and idealist hero. She reminded me a lot of Utena from Revolutionary Girl Utena in that sense. The gem of the characters however is the villain Makashima who is terrifying most of the time he's on screen. His calm demeanor makes it even more chilling when he manipulates people into become murderers or the stoic way he commits crimes himself. His status as an outlier in the system makes his personality especially threatening. For a main character though, I was very disappointed with Kogami. He's a total badass and his action scenes are some of the show's best however he's such a bland and uninteresting character that I couldn't really get behind him. The other character mostly fall into standard anime tropes; Ginoza is the strict and unfair boss, Masaoka is the father figure, and Kunizuka is the mysterious girl of the group. Psycho-Pass encourages you to immerse yourself within the world not so much within the characters, even so its hard to ignore the mostly lackluster cast.

Akane and Kogami doing their investigation thing

Psycho-Pass looks great and sounds great. The visuals were stunning, not so much the the character designs but rather the look and feel of the world. This is most noticeable in the interfaces of the technology that people use. Everything is slick and placed into holographic screens. People can change their clothing at will, the police use very cool guns called Dominators, and my screen was always filled with detailed images of a futuristic city. Psycho-Pass does a fantastic job setting up its environments and really immersing you within this near future world. The soundtrack was also highly enjoyable with two strong opening songs and a strong ending song courtesy of Egoist. I won't go as far as saying its was as enjoyable as the music in Kill la Kill but I found myself enjoying it more often than not.

Psycho-Pass is a highly enjoyable anime but I struggle to say that its exactly fun to watch. It's something that will make you think and by the time the later episodes come around it requires you to be highly attentive in order to get the full enjoyment out of it. Even so, I definitely recommend watching it because it is able to handle some very deep, dark, and philosophical elements and pull them off very well. If you're looking for a show that will make you think and maybe even raise your criminal mentality a bit, this is it.

My Score: 4/5