It’s getting more and more clear what the creators wanted to show with the setting of Psycho Pass. It’s not just that they wanted to show that a society based on the Sybil System would work. That was just a method to get to what it really wanted to show: a society that has not known crime for a for a long time. And what if those people were suddenly handed the means to get away with crimes?
This once again was a very good episode. The animation for example had some very interesting shots, in which you could actually see the depth of the character-designs. This is quite hard to do in HD, but this episode was full of those scenes here.
I also really like Makishima’s long dialogues as he explores the flaws of the Sybil system and talks with others about it. On top of recommending a few good books (quite good to see so many interesting references here to compare this setting with), I like his conviction to see what lies at the center of the Sybil system, and I can understand why people want to follow him. I don’t often have that with nameless goons from an evil organization (yeah, the main villain may be a psychopath for wanting to destroy the world, but who in their right mind is going to follow them?).
What surprises me: how little police there is in this city. I mean, the engineers behind the Sybil System made a number of really big mistakes. Security through obscurity is another one: it is the belief that as long as you don’t tell anyone what your system looks like. That works fine, until someone actually finds this out. The police has been decimated, to the point where the people in charge believed that they weren’t necessary except for the extreme cases.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)
I’m really enjoying your analyses of this series. I agree it is quite rare for the anatagonist to have reasons to cause havoc that the audience can sympathise with. Even though the core of the technology is iffy (for lack of a better word) I would say that this show is science fiction. I say so in the sense that it really is about how society lives with this ruling technology. I went off anime for a while but this series has brought me back.
We still don’t know how the Sybil system actually works, though, but that hacker’s speculations were pretty interesting. Why would you build a single central node for a complex, critical system such as Sybil, and how does it handle so much processing? I guess we’re in for some even more mind-twisting revelations behind this setting…
‘Iffy’ was used in the context of whether something like the Sybil System is achievable in the future, whether or not you can actually measure a person’s susceptibility to commit crime. In saying that I was trying to separate the show from the science fantasy genre. Anyway, you bring up really interesting questions – I agree on the whole. Interestingly, the show reminds me of Philip K. Dick’s ‘Minority Report’- the short story version where all crimes and not just murders are dealt with before they occur. The pre-cogs (only three mutants) are responsible for producing data that predicts the crimes. I can’t wait to own the box-set for this.
I totally agree, and I can see why this might have been something to bring you back after a bit away, it’s pretty unique especially these days.
On that note, it seems like it’s really been a while since we’ve gotten anything even close to this kind of science fiction and themes, probably not since the two seasons of GITS: SAC even despite the obvious differences between them (also thanks to Production I.G’s great “and distinctively theirs” scifi audio/visuals and the “character” that adds to the setting just like they pulled off with GITS).
At the end of the episode, this was my response:
“You’re gonna end it there? Please. Like I don’t already know it’s a human being floating in a tank or something.”
I could be wrong of course, but it seems to fit all the facts. After all, why else would you need a central “server”?
Good episode, esp like all the name checks since I’ve read Gibson, Dick, and I like that it highlights that there is a difference between Blade Runner and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, although, it’s been a while since I’ve read the books, so wasn’t sure what ‘difference’ he was referring to that related to Pyscho Pass
Also interesting to see that they raised the issue about e-books and paper books, and how the turning of the page, and the tactile feel of it plays importance in our… learning?