This episode earned a lot of points for me. It’s a build-up episode,but instead of being boring it actually makes very good use of its time. Most notably: the characters try to look inside the mind of the villain. Instead of heading towards the next climax they speculate what he will do next, and how his mind works. That’s not something you see often, especially with most series having villains with… rather simple motivations and plans.
Also, I’m really beginning to think that Psycho Pass is about a society that has evolved into the wrong direction. My biggest theory here was that there was a point at which the Sybil System was given too much influence, and that it transformed the society as monotone as possible, as free from outside influences as possible, and as safe as possible. What we saw in the first half were the exceptions that slipped by. I really became convinced of this when this episode revealed the crazy idea to have the entire food production of a country depend on one single type of crop. They’ve just completely eliminated variety. We’re not in a 1984 setting in which people have no privacy, but there are more and more similarities.
I think that that is one part that I would have done differently: the first half of this series was all about different psychopaths, but it did not show much about the setting: it didn’t colour the world as well as it should have, so now this series suddenly comes with details like this, this late in the series. If we had known this earlier, I think it would have made an even bigger impact.
The plot of this series really is fine, by the way. This episode again had a good balance of twists, and attention to the characters. Kagari suddenly receiving the attention of the Sybil system with her good behavior… I can buy that, and it will give her an even more interesting role in the story when she learns of what’s going on. Also: this episode stressed something. Kougami has some eerie similarities with Makishima Shougo, but Kagari does as well. Most notably with how her Psycho Pass stays the same.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)
http://0-media-cdn.foolz.us/ffuuka/board/a/image/1362/19/1362197996775.jpg. 10/10 would eat.
@gurdlo: You card you, well played, I died, I died laughing XD
OH.MY.DAYS!!! Can’t stop laughing!!!
I never thought I would see a pic of Kougami with the most ridiculous laid back smile. Its almost as if he knows what he is doing.
ahaha, love it! this is the most hilarious thing ever, I would definitely karaoke to this!
I think you mean Akane Tsunemori when you said Kagari. ^___^
Yea I think he does
Actually, part of the reason the USSR had famines was that Stalin and Molotov decided it would be more efficient to have everybody from Siberia to the desert areas use the same strain of wheat.
Didn’t work real well.
“crazy idea to have the entire food production of a country depend on one single type of crop”
Actually this is already evident in our world today. Not to the same extreme mind you, but not that far off. That crop being corn/maize. Look it up, its actually ridiculous, if you do a search like corn is in everything, you might be quite surprised.
Of course we can all point at things such as the Great Potato Famine in Ireland and laugh and say that it cannot happen now but ultimately you are correct. In asia it is probably more correct to point at rice rather than maize, and of course the whole ‘Green Revolution’ was all about providing high performance rice.
While there are many different cultivars rice is still rice and maize is still maize.
Yeah, you’re quite right.
It looks to me that Gen is using Psycho Pass to take a direct shot at current Japanese society with it’s borderline xenophobia and emphasis of collective responsibility. Whether or not he offers any answers, I guess we will see. Perhaps he’s not interested in answers, just in showing up the ugliness as to where these traits could lead.
This exactly. And it didn’t become clear just now, it has been there from the beginning or at least episode 3. In terms of plot and characters I would admit that it got more interesting later on, but setting and themes were apparent and solid right from the start.
Really liked the Foucault name drop, it actually went with the conversation and didn’t seem super forced.
Soo Funny… Very Well played – fantastic!