Category: Psycho Pass

Now this was an excellent episode here from Psycho Pass. At this point I really like what this show is doing: create thought-provoking cases of morders in which no side really is right. It aims to show these moral dilemmas.

It’s not exactly a murder mystery: in this episode it quite quickly became clear that the bullied worker was the one who murdered the three people, but instead what stood out was how it was delivered. The portrayal of this facility was great, and the creators got a particularly good voice actor for the boss of this facility.

The main character also stood out here: the previous two episodes showed him as this level-headed guy, but this episode portrayed a very dangerous side of him that enjoys the thrill and action of crime fighting. It also showed that the female lead is going to have to keep every single one of the characters in check, because all of them have their issues, mixed in with their good points.

Also, the opening for this series is really good. A quick look at the staff for this series reveals why: Sayo Yamamoto, the director of Michiko e Hatchin and Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna. She often gets jobs to do OPs, and they always really shine with their style and execution, and this is no different. She really should do another series again.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Here is a note to you fansubbers out there. Or anyone else who writes, basically: when using abbreviations, it’s very important to make sure that everyone knows what these abbreviations mean. Explaining them once won’t suffice: people will forget that, and your text will just look like gibberish. “Yes, the ADX needs to use XAW in order to XET so that the PSE can LRX”. That just isn’t nice to read, and even if you happen to know the abbreviations, if you don’t know them by heart you’ll end up spending a few seconds trying to think of it. Precious attention that you should be focusing on other things. That’s why I try to avoid abbreviations as much as possible, unless I know that everyone fully knows what I’m talking about. Sword Art Online’s SAO is a good example of this, though let me know if you were unfamiliar with that one.

Anyway, Psycho Pass: I was looking forward to this one thanks to a very clever marketing campaign: they didn’t announce what this show was about at all, until about a month before it was set to air, really piquing my interest since it’s especially rare for a Noitamina series to do that. It kept delivering cryptic hints, bit by bit, until it was revealed that Urobuchi Gen would write it, the director of Tokyo Marble Chocolate would direct it, and that it would be about a dystopia in which people are judged by computers.

Now, about the actual show: this second episode was definitely not the best second episode of the season, but it has got a really solid first episode as a base. You can pretty much see this second episoe as the proper start of this series, where it’s carefully explained what this show is about, and we can get a bit of a feeling of the characters. There is definitely something deep going on here and this episode was definitely just about the surface.

One word about the animation: I do have a bit of a problem with the late trend of hiring really famous character designers to do your characters, and nothing else. The problem with that is that the character designers don’t really think in terms of practical designs: they just do their job of showing some eye-catching designs, without really thinking about how well they can be animated. Psycho Pass has some clear troubles with htis, and the character designs aren’t even that good. You can see that the creators here have trouble animating them. Jojo’s Bizarre adventure has this problem as well this season, but that managed to solve itself with its direction, though Psycho Pass doesn’t have that. The award for best character designs of the season… I’d give that one to Kamisama Hajimemashita: creative and detailed yet simple and easy to keep consistent, yet dynamic.
Rating: 4.5/8 (Good)