Psycho-Pass

In short, "Psycho Pass" is a weak, pretentious and utterly misguided show. There are two main reasons for that. First - very general failure of the show in constructing a sensible futuristic vision and second - its not exactly superb writing.

At first Psycho-Pass looks like a clinical example of a generic work. It rips off "Minority Report", "Dredd" and many other SF stories. It has generic dystopian setting, generic art style, generic soundtrack - neither of these special nor particularly bad. Just not very promising. But then the basic premise of the story degenerates quickly. Decent dystopias in fiction generally should be at least marginally ... plausible and even if they are extremely bad place to live in it should be shown that they benefit at least some individuals in some way. Or at least it should be revealed gradually that they are nightmarish, nightmares being hidden behind idyllic appearances.

Ignoring that, Psycho Pass from the very beginning presents its world as pure hell on earth. It is a close relative to Nazi Germany, apartheid South Africa and Stalin's USSR. After realizing it I counted on some in-story justification which would make me believe that this world (overseen by computer algorithm called Sibil System), evil as it is, has any sense. None was provided. The citizens of this world have absolutely no reason to endure living in such place. There isn't even any privileged caste who benefits from the system and there is no overwhelming force which keeps everyone in check. Literally nothing holds the system together. In any even marginally realistic scenario it wouldn't stand a chance of going on for longer than a month without big social turmoil and bloody rebellions on a massive scale.

And it should be apparent not only from the outside perspective, to the viewer, but, inside the fictional universe, also to the characters themselves. In fact the entire cast of protagonists not only should notice on rational and political level how evil is the system they are protecting - the story gives them also every emotional, ethical and psychological reason one can think of to openly rebel. Yet they don't, they choose to back up the system instead. Which makes them automatically unconditional villains. And simultaneously complete morons, their choices and actions are so thoughtless and harmful to themselves it's almost beyond belief. It's also the reason why one loses all interest in their fate and in their fight against so called crime.

Then we meet an antagonist. For a change, he rebels against the system. By being a psychopathic murderer with a higher goal. As a result he is moron as well - many of his actions are done only for the fun of bloody carnage and are actually harmful to his ultimate plan. Although he is better and a little bit more relatable character than protagonists, still in the end the whole story is about moron villains fighting other moron villains. I simply could not care less.

All of that alone wouldn't sanction such a bad rating. But, as I mentioned, on top of that the show was really badly written. Some characters are portrayed inconsistently - our main male protagonist oscillates between an apathetic cynical criminal, hunter obsessed with only one goal and sympathetic obedient detective entirely on the whim, without any justification given by the story. Causes of his intense hatred of main antagonist are also left unexplained, as are many reasons for his actions. Similar applies to main heroine, but because she is a rookie, it's justifiable to some extent by character development. The relationships in the hierarchical environment of police force are portrayed equally incoherently - the superiors and inferiors interact with each other from scene to scene so randomly one gets the impression writers haven't thought it out at all. The show has many underdeveloped characters and plots which looked promising, were played with but were ultimately abandoned in favor of the main story. There are some twists and climaxes later on, but they are unconvincing or fail to incite any emotional reaction. The latter is actually inevitable when you have unrelatable characters. Oh, and the series' lackluster ending is a sequel hook.

The other glaring flaw of the show is its frequent violation of the "show, don't tell" rule. It spends enormous amount of time on explaining to the audience what exactly is going on, on delivering pompous speeches on philosophical topics and on quoting famous works, does it have a sense or not. "Psycho-Pass" insults the viewer with its explanations so many times that at some point it even begins to be funny.

Another problem arises every time when show tries to be insightful. The writers are trying to discuss serious issues, but everything they achieve is scratching the surface of the problem. The aforementioned pompous speeches are pretentious, shallow and often without actual content. It also looks like writers couldn't decide what exactly they want to discuss, they often raise an issue and then almost immediately forget about it.

Nevertheless I hesitate to call "Psycho Pass" a complete shit. It really tried hard to be non-trivial, mature and thoughtful. It tried so much that although I really didn't like the show I finished it anyway. Unfortunately all of its strengths lay in its potential, actual execution is a miserable failure. All what is left for the viewers is to hope that Gen Urobuchi will write some day as good story as he once did.

Once in a while, there comes along an anime that claims to go against the industry's trend. An anime that claims to be unique in a time when the market is filled mostly with indistinguishable moe clones and so on. This is a very good marketing strategy for Psycho Pass if you ask me, especially given the gorgeous artwork and an exciting concept. In addition to this, it was touted as the 'next GITS'. Needless to say, I picked this up with VERY HIGH expectations. expectations which were about to come crashing down faster than you could say 'psychopath'.


Let me commence the review ... of this miserable, god forsaken creation by explaining with the use of as few swear words as possible, the stupidity of this anime's excuse for a plot. The story is convoluted and too pretentious for its own good. In short, its sort of like the sentence which began this paragraph. As I said before, the concept is exciting, thought provoking even. So it comes as a huge disappointment that, instead of analyzing the effects of such a system on society in an unbiased manner, this anime opts to make it seem altogether evil and oppressive. Just how ludicrous the system is can be understood by watching the first episode. We see a rape victim almost killed for..well, being raped. Why would anyone shoot at an innocent rape victim? Why is being passionate about something likely to make you a criminal? Why does such an oppressive system exist in the first place? Your guess is as good as mine because these and many more questions are never answered and are left to the imagination of the viewer. Instead, the show spends several minutes every episode explaining things that are totally obvious like how people are living with a false sense of security. Its almost as if Urobuchi didn't want to touch substantial questions about the setting with a ten foot pole. He seems to have the characters engage in needlessly long conversations about everything under the sun just to avoid discussing the aforementioned questions. But I suppose the stupidity of characters deserves a paragraph of its own.

One of the biggest draws for me in GITS is the characters. So, when they said this was going to be the 'next GITS', I was expecting a cool protagonist like Kusanagi. But instead of someone competent and emotionally mature like the Major, we get Akane. She is the exact opposite of what you would expect from a half-decent police officer. Even if she's newbie, expecting us to believe that someone in her position would burst into tears on a whim is nothing short of insulting the intelligence of the viewer. The rest of the team is also inexplicably over emotional. These lunatics are like a rag-tag bunch of immature teenagers drawn from some high school drama rather than a well organized team of law keepers. Pretty much the same description applies to the antagonist, Makishima, who is apparently trying to expose the absurdity of relying on psycho passes. At least, that's what the anime wants you to believe. In actuality, he comes across as an emotionally challenged idiot who just uses people to amuse himself and cause destruction. What little character development there is occurs in sudden bursts and is the result of convenient writing than anything else. All in all, Psycho Pass fails spectacularly in this department as well.

This anime provides no food for thought to be sure. It does however, provide some awesome eye-candy. Production I.G has done an outstanding job of creating a detailed futuristic environment that fits the theme perfectly. The anime uses a wide array of colors to accurately convey the atmosphere in each scene. There are a few hiccups here and there, but these minor glitches are more than excusable given the overall visual quality. Character designs are similarly good looking. You will however come across a few shots in which characters look terrible, but these are far apart and pardonably few in number.

I wish I could sing praises about the audio as well, but there is nothing that really stands out. Sure, the voice cast delivers aurally pleasing performances and Yugo Kanno delivers some catchy tunes. But on the whole, this department seems quite lackluster compared to the visuals. It is however, by no means, sub par.

psycho Pass is an amalgam of the great and the abysmal. Unfortunately, it fails miserably in crucial areas such as plot and characters. So much so that not even the spectacular visuals can make up for it. In fact, its almost saddening that such stylistic visuals are wasted on telling a story which has neither substance nor a clear sense of direction. Characters who behave like emotionally challenged teenagers and lack any credible development only serve to mar an already horrible series. In the end, Psycho Pass doesn't do anything interesting with its unique premise and remains a frustratingly shallow experience throughout. I think I finally understand Urobuchi's nickname. He managed to butcher the series quite well.

I watched psycho-pass because it was recommended for fans of death note. A big difference between psycho-pass and death note is that psycho-pass is more sci-fi, while death note is more fantasy. However, what I liked about death note was that there was ONE fantasy element (the death note, which yes, did come with the shinigamis) that was placed in an otherwise normal and real-life-like world. I tend to like anime that show characters in a real, non-fantasy life, like Monster and Perfect Blue, and Death Note was amazing even though it had that fantasy element. However, in psycho-pass, the story is way to sci-fi ... to where things don't feel realistic at all. Also, it's just way worse. I honestly don't know how people could say it is BETTER than death note. Absolutely not.

Story - 7
Starting off strong. The story isn't that bad. The sci-fi element is actually interesting, and the first half of the series includes some thrilling and exciting situations. However, the overall story doesn't feel that special, but I think this is because the characters who drove it weren't that great. With boring protagonists and boring antagonists, any story is bound to fail.

Art - 6
It's okay, not my favorite. Don't like how some characters have big anime style eyes and others have normal looking eyes.

Sound - 5
Not comparable to Death Note AT ALL! Death Note is full of bangers! The music in psycho-pass doesn't feel as hype. There was only one track I really liked, and it's not during a hype moment at all, but during the interview with the woman and the cyborg guy.

Characters - 3
Here is where psycho-pass comes crashing down. The characters are either boring or annoying. That is NOT a good combination. Our MC basically has no actual personality traits. I don't know any of her interests outside of her job. She is just so boring and predictable.
Our MC's colleagues are mostly boring. There is maybe one or two that I actually liked, but they don't get a lot of screen time. The rest are either boring or annoyingly dramatic.
The psycho-pass team is so boring I was kinda rooting for the antagonist just because he seemed kinda chill. He is also boring, and I don't understand any of his motivations, but hey, at least he had a cool plan, which indicates he does have a brain capable of thoughts, so I rooted for him. But I knew I wouldn't care either way what happened at the end since all these characters are so lifeless.

Enjoyment - 5
Psycho-pass was fun to watch at first. The concept was interesting. It was thrilling for a bit. Some parts of episodes were good. But without good characters, an anime will fail. So since I didn't feel anything for any of these characters, and wasn't even motivated to watch season 2 to see the characters more, my enjoyment was little.

Overall - 6

Look. Psycho pass does have a great concept. And it can be fun to watch if you just need something. But do not think this will be like death note, and don't watch it if you are picking between other amazing psychological shows like Paranoia Agent, Code Geass, or Monster.

Well this anime might be one of the most pretentious and most overrated animes I have ever seen in MAL. I'm seeing people give around 7-8 in MAL just because it looks 'unique' in a special way in their own.

I'll first talk about the criteria that is centered around MAL before I get to the juicy parts.

This anime was undoubtedly one of the better animes around the season it spawned upon, but lost its promise half way throughout the TV show.

Story 5/10
I don't want to be such a critical guy here, but this anime is really dull in terms of story and deliverance. ... It shoots out random quotes from Pascal, Nietze, and other philosphers and tries to explain them to the viewer as if creativity was not allowed. There are no hidden metaphors or any room for interpretation in this pretentious story. Most of the quotes they say are random and show no intelligence whatsoever because most of the characters in this anime are uncharismatic mental retards with the crappiest dialouge you will hear in an anime when you get to the raw meat and bones of it. Story revolves around those uncharismatic quote throwing retards. You begin to not care about the story at times because the characters are boring and there are couple asspulls you will begin to see.

Art 8/10
The art is one of the highlights in this anime as they are fluid and well done with some decent character designs that has a striking resemblance to death note. It's has good art thanks to its production value.

Sound 8/10
As a fan of Supercell I am very biased here. But the songs in the anime itself goes well with the atmosphere in general, but none are memorable.

Character 4/10
This anime is supposedly a 'story based' animation, but its characters lack depth and interest. Almost none of the characters actually go through character development and they are forgettable and dull at the same time. Its main villian is supposedly an intelligent person, but in reality he is the shitty shadow of the white haired guy in Death Note(the manga). The side characters are all just there for the sake of have side characters. The only ones with some history and small depth are the hero and the heroine. But the heroine barely changes throughout the anime and puts asspulls like never before.

Enjoyment 7/10
Even though the story and characters were retarded and boring in general I still liked this sorry excuse of a pretentious anime that wasn't created by shaft(get it?). I throughly enjoyed this anime to the brim because it's just dead beat entertainment.

Overall 4/10
Just because this is a 4/10 anime does not mean it's a shitty one. You can throughly enjoy animes like these and have the false idea that this anime is a 'deep' anime if you just watch it for the animation and sound.

Watch it on a rainy day, but if not. Never watch this.

We live in a society...

God, just. This show. I wanted to like it. I was so pumped. I watched Parasyte, Future Diary, ERASED... I saved Psycho-Pass for last with the expectation that it would be the most enjoyable. I was... so wrong.

In a few words, wasted potential. The best episode is the first episode. The characters are bland and one-dimensional, the sound direction is questionable at best most the time... the pacing is so bad.

It's so fake deep and pretentious. So unnecessarily wordy while saying absolutely nothing. So predictable. So boring. ... I've watched some seriously crappy anime, but I couldn't get through the middle and later episodes without split screen or my phone out. Disappointing, through and through. It feels like we're all so desperate for some deep, meaningful, dark psychological anime that we're prone to getting excited by the bare minimum.

It's always nice to see an anime that tries to stand out from the rest and try something new. Even if anime tries to explore things that movies and books have done already and did it better I think there's some value how old ideas can be executed in the new media. That's one of the reasons I've stuck with Psycho-Pass and finished it despite it being, for the most part a dumpster fire.

I'll address the main problem I had with PP first and foremost - it's pointless. Psycho-Pass feels more like Urobuchi jacking himself off for being incredibly smart by mentioning all the ... books and philosophers he heard of and utilizing their ideas and concept for his half-assed sci-fi setting. It's almost insulting how shallow the show is while trying so hard to seem complex, it serves as just another example of how mentioning and contextualizing elements of the story using other fiction and philosophy doesn't mean you're actually doing anything meaningful with it, just throwing out a reference.

This is the whole anime. Urobuchi tries to tell you a story about a future society that handed the reins over to a system that's operated by an immensely intelligent system that can observe everyone's emotional state and likelihood of becoming a criminal by regularly scanning people all over the country. According to the show this made the country prosper and made people happier, don't expect to see how it actually changed society cause show don't tell is also a criminal activity in the world of Psycho-Pass from what I understand. All the effects and implications of Sibyl system are mostly fed to you through hamfisted exposition while depiction of the society is only done in few select moments that regularly contradict the show itself. Skip next paragraph if you don't want spoilers.

For example near the end of the show there's a riot arc where a bunch of people get helmets that copy CC and PP of other people within a certain radius. First time it's used the masked man comes into a room with two people, he kills a man and starts approaching a woman who is terrified. Next time he appears he starts murdering and raping a woman in the middle of the street while everyone is watching with stone cold faced. The show tells you that this happened because people living under Sibyl can't see something like this happening so they didn't know how to react. Not only is it inconsistent within the episode itself, it also contradicts the arc with a school girl early on where you could see people being disgusted of looking at sculptures made out of cut up corpses. Not that at any other point of the show there was any hint of people forgetting what basic empathy is cause they don't expect to see a murderer.

To continue on from where I left off, there's a point in the show where a character explains to you an idea that makes no goddamn sense to begin with and that idea is that people don't really need to use any security measures or protect themselves now cause Sibyl makes sure that everyone around you is a good, honest citizen. It doesn't make sense cause the system doesn't ensure crimes don't happen, it just warns them in advance. Considering how a lot of early episodes center around crimes where the potential criminal actually commits the crime it's pretty damn difficult to believe that people somehow became unaware of violence or became so trusting that they don't even need locks anymore. But whatever man, it serves to make a hamfisted commentary about how the reliance on technology doing everything for them turns people into docile fools. This happens a lot in Psycho-Pass and it never becomes less infuriating.

There's more to say about how the heavy handed and shallow the narrative of Psycho-Pass is but if I bothered to write everything out this would probably be one of the longest reviews I'd write. The point I wanted to get across is that there's no subtlety whatsoever to PP and Urobuchi will willingly overlook anything he wrote prior just to bludgeon you to death with some really awkward and forced drama.

It's a shame cause some of the core ideas in the show are decent and could've been interesting if were handled by a more talented writer. Main plot is also a lot stronger than thematic elements of the show and I wish the things surrounding it were done better. Makishima is a rather irredeemable villain, he manipulates others with his charisma into committing atrocious crimes while furthering his own goal but he's still someone you can sympathize with or understand because he's motivated by values that most people will likely hold dear themselves.
What contributes to making the conflict interesting is that people chasing him are also the ones who are regularly exposed to flaws and shortcomings of Sibyl and to some extent their own griefs can coincide with things Makishima wishes to fix. However the writing is a damn mess so nothing really comes of anything.

While Makishima is mostly interesting, it's hard to say this about the rest of the cast except for Kougami. Kou actually has a fairly fleshed out background, motivation and internal struggle that plays into the plot. Akane is a wet a sponge that gets a bit drier over the course of the show but her main role is just being the special character straight out of some shonen manga cause she's one of the few people that can exercise her free will and make decisions based on her values without being marked as a criminal cause she "believes in the values of being a detective and can both accept and forgive the society" yeah, nah. Ginoza is also a plank of wood until the show is basically over because of some events that made him into a strict by the books guy, I guess, it's mostly an assumption cause PP tells you a thing happens and you're left to interpret the character's reaction to it but there's no linear connection between the two and his reasoning is up to the viewer to fill in. Not a terrible flaw but it doesn't make him a good character either. Next in line is William Dafoe who's mostly just a good old hard boiled detective. Everyone else doesn't even deserve a mention, especially the one enforcer woman they wrote who says almost nothing in the entire show and even after getting a whole episode dedicated to her had nothing going on.

When it comes to art and animation PP is not that strong either. Character designs are serviceable but overall bland and tasteless, doesn't help that they're drawn terribly half the time. There are some really well animated bits sprinkled throughout the show but nothing good enough to make sakuga a stand out point. All the backgrounds are mediocre digital paintings. There's also a severe lack of style to visual direction of the show all the way from colors to designs. There's nothing from it that stuck with me for any reason other than looking terrible cause when it's not bad it's absolutely average.

Overall I can't recommend it to anyone because I personally didn't find any real value in Psycho-Pass.

Psycho-pass, more like Psycho-ass, am I right? This show is pretty bad tbh like it thinks it's smarter than it is but really it's just a bunch of farts. The MC has a big forehead which scared me for a bit, but eventually, I got used to it. People like to say this has one of the best anime villains of all time, but the villain is literally just a doggy poo poo version of Johan from Monster. Ahh, Johan, Aw man I really wanna rewatch Monster now, what a GOATED anime. It seems this anime was inspired by Ghost in the Shell, but it ... seems it forgot the PICKLES!! And by pickles i mean good writing, cause holy shit I was bored at times, I really wanted to continue watching The Shield. Aw, The Shield, one of the best TV series of all time and the best series finale I've ever seen. Michael Chickleas as Vic Mackey is such a stellar performance. OMFG I'm just realizing this anime is so bad it's just making me realize actually good shows and movies. This is the same dude who wrote fate/zero, I watched one season of that and it was aight; some weird sus stuff there tho. So in conclusion, psycho-pass, more like psycho-trash. GOT EM

I heard a lot of good things about Psycho-Pass before finally getting to it, so that definitely might've influenced how I went about watching the show. Nonetheless, I really didn't expect it to be... this much of a disappointment. I first got hooked into watching anime for the intellectually stimulating social commentary that many anime had to offer. I still genuinely get excited whenever I come across something that could end up being one of those shows for me, even if my tastes have since shifted to the moe side of the spectrum. Psycho-Pass did not meet those standards I have for a riveting anime ... that offers substantially thought-provoking social commentary.

To succinctly summarize my experience watching Psycho-Pass, what I expected was a story about a futuristic society that currently faces a moral dilemma due to a leap in their technological progress. Instead, what I received was a society that had regressed to have such a deteriorated understanding of human nature that the average citizen’s moral compass was less developed than our average kindergartener. Where I expected to find stimulating discourse on the structure of law and society, I got a pity party of morons who forgot what it feels like to think for themselves. While these things may sound similar, the show puts too much of a focus on HOW each of the characters fall in their caste created by the Sibyl System, and in my opinion doesn’t explore nearly enough WHY that should be the case. The weight of this completely overlooked potential and the insignificance of what the show decided to pursue instead is why Psycho-Pass is a mediocre show at best for me.

In all of my reviews, I always try to fit in a joke or some type of reference that’s thematically appropriate for the show in question, so I’ll be organizing this review by narrating over how this show’s own Psycho-Pass crime coefficient increased as I watched! I’m also fairly confident I can address all of my points without directly spoiling plot points in the show, so yay, spoiler free review.

crime coefficient: 0 -> 29, not a target for enforcement

The first issue I have with Psycho-Pass is the first episode. Or more like, the lack of impact that the first episode had. While some bad shows may have amazing first episodes, I have yet to encounter a show that I truly enjoyed that didn’t have a first episode that left a positive impact. Psycho-Pass’s first episode gave a run-of-the-mill introduction to the setting of a futuristic society ruled by cymatic scans and crime coefficients. The episode was all-in-all rather boring and uneventful, betting everything on how well the setting of the show is able to interest the viewer. Speaking of the setting…

crime coefficient: 29 -> 294, enforcement mode Paralyzer

A show like Psycho-Pass that tells its story with its setting must have a believable atmosphere that draws in and interests the viewer. Now exactly how convincing is a setting where, for the sake of civil order, people are not allowed to choose their own futures and are even incarcerated for having the latent psychological trends loosely associated with criminal activity, yet they can choose to spread carcinogens for other people to breathe by smoking cigarettes? Yes, I know it’s small. Yes, I know it’s nitpicky. But we’re going to talk about it. This early on was already my breaking point for the show, and I knew everything after this was gonna be downhill. Like, what kind of anime are you trying create, if you can’t even maintain a setting that has believable qualities that are consistent with itself? There are absolutely no explanations for this. This society of hyper-vigilance, where machines issue the death penalty to people based on neurological readings instead of actual behavior, but suuuuure smoking carcinogens and letting everyone else breathe it? Perfectly fiiiiine. Because “tobacco use looks cool lololol; I’m a meta manslave, so why not.” And while you may argue I’m just being biased/petty, there are plenty of shows that involve main characters who smoke that I can enjoy. Cop Craft being one of them, and smoking where it’s historically and atmospherically appropriate in shows like 91 Days just makes sense. But it just doesn’t make sense here. It’s an anachronism that demonstrates how little care and thought was put into developing this show, despite how popular as it is. Another reason why I dismiss this show as mediocre.

crime coefficient: 294 -> 367, enforcement mode Lethal Eliminator

The next contribution this show has to my stress level is how slow it was. Pretty much absolutely nothing of note happens up until episode 11. What the show does up until episode 11 is purely insubstantial and it really doesn’t even further our understanding of the setting or of the relationships between the characters any more than we already understood it at episode 2. I have to conclude that this show’s pacing is awful because essentially everything starting after we gain a basic understanding of the world’s setting until the turning point in episode 11 is filler. I really don’t understand how they couldn’t just make this a run-of-the-mill 12-13 episode seasonal show if there are 9+ episodes of pointless filler. Not gonna lie, if I had been watching Psycho-Pass while it aired along with other shows, I would have just dropped it after 2-3 episodes and never picked it up again. 11 episodes is way too long for a show to get into gear. Even episode 12 right after episode 11 is just some pointless filler flashback featuring Enforcer Yayoi’s past. Yayoi didn’t get much screen time before this episode, so I’d understand the point of this episode if this served to somehow educate on us why Yayoi contributes a certain way down the storyline, but after this episode she just kinda goes back to her designated spot as professional benchwarmer. If Yayoi never meaningfully contributed to the storyline before this episode or after this episode, then there never really was a point for Yayoi herself to exist, let alone a pointless flashback episode for her which was placed right after the turning point in episode 11. It was almost as if the show threw a wrench into its own inner works to sabotage any momentum it might have picked up from the turning point in episode 11 by airing a completely irrelevant episode 12 right after that. The show’s very questionable pacing and inclusion of pointless characters like Yayoi really make me question why this is even highly praised in the first place. These are all qualities of sloppily put together productions.

crime coefficient: 367 -> 451, enforcement mode Destroy Decomposer

The characters in Psycho-Pass sure are a piece of work. Not only are they extremely cliché and boring by themselves, when they come together they create an even more unpleasant viewing experience than they could when separate. I had previously mentioned how most of episodes 2-10 are pointless filler, because it can all effectively be summarized as overpowered behavioral profiler and violent hunting dog Kogami Shinya completely carries everyone else’s incompetent ass and lets the naïve little girl of a protagonist Akane Tsunemori play pretend-police-officer. Kogami is way too convenient of a deus-ex-machina who pretty much single-handedly does all the work of the entire team for the first half of the show, which is an awful foil for Akane because it really highlights how useless she is. She’s pretty much a bystander that’s merely a police officer only in title. I really question why she was chosen as the protagonist, because it’s her fault the show’s lens is tainted by her privileged perspective of being blessed by the Sibyl System and never enduring a single day of hardship in her entire life. Everything in her life has been handed to her on a silver platter because of whatever aptitude exam she managed to score top percentile in and because of her conveniently clean Psycho-Pass. Characters like Kogami keep on praising her talents and uniqueness or whatever, while all I see is them dragging around and doing all the work for this sad cardboard cutout excuse of a main character. This type of interaction would really make a lot more sense if this was a satirical comment on protagonists in anime, like it is in Yuru Yuri or KonoSuba, but I don’t see the “comedy” tag under Psycho-Pass. Watching Akane really reminded me of Sieg from Fate/Apocrypha, except it thematically made more sense for Apocrypha to have a blank slate for a main character. While in Psycho-Pass the entire show felt so awkward because the protagonist didn’t have an ounce of ambition due to being so ditzy and privileged that it felt like she was just being dragged around episodically by random plot points. Towards the end of the show, she seems to grow a spine for herself, but this transition was much too sudden and only shallowly explained at best to even be considered remotely believable. Even the show itself off-handedly acknowledges how useless she is, because once she was forced to step up her game since Kogami wasn’t there to carry her anymore, the other team members all commented if she was feeling okay due to how differently she was acting (because she was actually being useful for a change). The other characters weren’t much different, as Gino is pretty much a self-righteous prick with a stick up his ass for the entire show until the very end where rather than character growth he’s merely forced to come to terms with something due to the nature of how the show ended. Masaoka is just your resident “I’m a boomer,” and we already discussed how important Yayoi was. The one saving grace for the characters of this show was Makishima Shogo as the villain, but even then most of his ideological reasoning for opposing the Sibyl System is sidelined in favor of him acting as the evil counterpart for Kogami. I feel like there was a lot of wasted potential in a more ideological battle like of that which took place between N and the protagonist in Pokemon Black and White.

In conclusion, Psycho-Pass was a complete letdown for me. The setting of this show had so much potential to work with, but it seemed to be oblivious of all of that and chose to walk the path of a half-assed production that really doesn’t have any strong points in particular. To give credit where it is due, Makishima Shogo was a very well-done character, but honestly he was the only well-done character such that more than half the time he was the one I was cheering for instead of the protagonists. The music is very catchy, both the soundtrack and the OPs/EDs. The animation is rather impressive; the show especially does a good job of capturing the tense atmosphere of pursuing a suspect in the darkness, with many shots framed by the plentiful obstacles there are for the suspect to hide behind in the foreground. However, in terms of storytelling, the show really comes off as a tactless and hastily thrown together production. Everything Psycho-Pass has to offer comes off as so shallow that it’s easily beaten out by alternatives with similar motifs. Criminal Minds offers a better deep dive into the behavior of criminal psychopaths through the eyes of law enforcement agents pursuing them, Gatchaman Crowds offers a much more involved and thoughtful discourse on social structure, and Babylon offers more academic insight on the relationship between law and society. Even big reveals like the true nature of the Sibyl System merely serves as raw shock factor and actually serves to further diminish the ideological dilemma of the show, making the moral problem a lot more clean-cut than we originally were aware of. This brings me to what I think is Psycho-Pass’s fatal flaw: the entire show lacks depth on multiple levels. None of the characters are given enough breadth for them to feel like any more than cardboard cutouts, the illusion of immersing in this fictional world as a viewer is short-lived and shallow, and regardless of the random philosophical and ideological elements tossed around and teased by the show, the climax boils down your generic fist fight that lacks any narrative weight. In this sense, I think Psycho-Pass bears a lot of similarity to the first season of Attack on Titan. Both are rather unrefined shows that carried ton of hype during their airtime, but further scrutiny will pick apart the shows for what they really are: predictable and robotic interactions between shallow characters who are following a plot that really doesn’t go anywhere or tell the viewer anything even at the very end.

Crime coefficient is 451. This anime is a target for enforcement action. Target’s Threat Judgement has been updated. Enforcement mode is Destroy Decomposer.

Another Urobuchi's masterpiece. This show, superficially, looks like a good anime, but it isn't for many reasons that I'm gonna tell you right now:

1) The Sibyl System logic is retarded. It's like playing Grand Thef Auto, if the scanners of the system saw you, you are a criminal, if you change your identity, mental state or it didn't see you, you are a saint; also if you kill without remorse. This system is supposed to be perfect and be everywhere, however, there are a lot of blind spots; many of them, in places that are great potential to have latent criminals like companies or high ... schools. There are also anarchists inside the city. With this I tell you everything. If people get mad with this fact, the system will treat them as a criminals. There are more examples, but I consider that this is enough to prove my point.

2) The main and secondary cast are bad characterized. Starting with Kogami, this show is supposed to be a detective show, but the cases are solved in 1 or 2 episodes and it's always because the detective instincts of him, in other words, because he read the script before every episode. There's no mystery or tension for that reason. With the advance of the episodes, this issue becomes more evident. Makishima is a very fun case, he's constantly saying than the secondary villains and people in the city are useless because their lack of the originality, however, he's constanly quoting random philosophers, in other words, nothing that comes out of his mouth is original. Akane is basically a plot device inside the story, her personality changes are forced, she doesn't take decision for her own (the history or other people does) and the enforces can't do anything if she's not their companion. The secondary are cannon fodder and plot devices to keep alive the main protagonists (literally).

3) There are several plot holes. In order to avoid spoilers, I can tell you that many of them are thanks to the 'perfect' Sibyl System. This plot holes are more evident in the sequel, where it is identified that many issues of that seasson could be solved quickly with the tools or events showed in this one.

4) The conclusion. Nothing is really solved. The show put in the beginning that the Sibyl System is perfect, after that, they try to show that it is actually bad and needs to be eliminated, however, the main protagonist didn't do nothing with this fact. It's obvious that they kept the system alive in order to makes sequels.

The good points of the anime were the action scenes, the animation and the sountrack and some specific not-action scenes. In conclusion, I think this show must have been a style about substance because Urobuchi showed us again that he's terrible making substance and writing plots.

Irredeemable. On the flip side, I will say I showed the point of no return to my friend, who was like "Wow, that actually seems really interesting." I just really didn't like Akane and the beliefs that played out.

And that's really what this anime will hinge on: do you like Akane, or no? If you don't, for the love of God do not watch this anime. For any/all posts that say "But Shinya Kougami is cool/interesting" - it's not worth it; Akane is definitely a driving factor in the story.

I will say the plot definitely has interesting twists and moments, but it'll really hinge on ... how much you like that kind of futuristic society. Do you like it/find it interesting, or does it vex you? If you've ever searched in vain trying to find movies about real freedom and independence, then you probably won't be satisfied with everything that plays out in this anime.

If you like it, watch it; it'll be a piece of work that is constructed and it's put together decently. But if you don't like it, then don't watch it. If you start finding yourself more than slightly dissatisfied, I would drop it.

Psycho-Pass takes place in the future, wherein Japan has become a closed country, and entirely self-sufficient, and as a police show, the main focus of it is on how the justice system has changed. In the show, everyone is assigned a 'Psycho-Pass', which in essence, determines one's likelihood of committing crime, and if someone's pass reaches too high a level, they become 'Enforcers', whose job is to assist the regular police, and of course, after a certain point they will be sent to forced counselling to lower it (a rehabilitation-centred prison, all things considered), or be killed. The main character of the show is Akane, ... a young woman who has recently joined the police and is basically a female Shinji Ikari, but over time, does become a better officer.
One thing I can most certainly commend the show for is its worldbuilding, perhaps some of the best in any futuristic show I can think of right now, it's all very seamlessly done. Many people seem to greatly praise its OST, and while I can't say I disliked it (barring one character having Beethoven's 9th symphony as a motif, just what was the point of that?), I can't praise it either. Still, unfortunately for the show, this is really where my praise ends. Bog-standard OST (appropriate for the setting at least, I'll give it that) and good worldbuilding, but that's all I can say in praise of it. My biggest gripe is the story. Police in the show are issued handguns that scan a person's Crime Coefficient (same thing as the Psycho-Pass really) and is set accordingly, ranging from the weapon not being able to be fired at the target in question, incapacitating them, or killing them. However, issues arrive when a group of criminals arise who are able to bypass the Coefficient, able to kill people on the street, but not have it rise above zero. Now, the first issue I had with this is just how poorly planned and inconceivable it was. First of all, a gun that has to spend a few seconds scanning a person to determine if it can be fired or not seems like very poor design, and only effective against unarmed criminals. No 'traditional' firearms are ever used by the police, which just doesn't make any sense to me. Once they were well aware of this, it'd make sense to just get a BHP and shoot them easy, but no, they are entirely reliant on their ineffective blasters that are probably running Windows Vista. Even if non-laser firearms had completely stopped production in favour of more advanced ones, I cannot believe that ones that don't do this sort of scan wouldn't exist for military purposes.
Bit of a digression, but I'll get back on subject. In the first few episodes, it honestly is not that bad. Not spectacular by any means, but it's like one of those old noir police dramas, and all things considered a decent show, even if Akane isn't compelling, nor are her generically "jaded" colleagues. But there's a significant drop in quality from about the 4th episode onwards, when it begins the aforementioned arc about people bypassing the Crime Coefficient. I think if it were some episodic show which it gave the appearance of being early on, it'd be very solid, but that isn't what happens. They give you this sub-par arc, and stay with it until the end of the show. Due to the presence of these criminals bypassing the Coefficient, chaos does ensue, and it does get considerably worse, and if there's one thing I can give the show praise for in regards to the story, it was just like watching the news. Tons of stuff is happening, and it keeps getting worse, but I don't care. I don't really feel on the edge of my seat with each further climax making it tougher and tougher for the police, and *thrilled* to see justice prevail, as you should in a thriller. Decent premise maybe, but it went on too long, and was very poorly executed. In one of the closing episodes, Akane does encounter some forbidden knowledge, which I think in the writer's mind was meant to be an "Well shit that's pretty fucked up man" moment, especially with her Shinji-esque shouting and crying in protest at what she deemed to be wrong, but it didn't really feel impactful at all. One meaningless scene, preceded by hundreds like it, and followed by plenty more.

Got to say, really wasn't happy about this show. Some good moments here and there, but there are far more bad ones, and I couldn't recommend sitting through the whole thing with anyone, and I would've dropped it quite early on myself if not for the fact that a friend forced me to watch it, the bugger.

Decent show. Something I'm not really into though. I saw the multiple seasons and I dont want to get deeply into this animes especially if I'm not really enjoying it I dropped it around the online virtual reality arc where they have to solve a mystery about a popular persons death. I dropped it around ther because I didint really enjoy the series and noticed it had many seasons and I didint feel like getting into a long series right now Decent show. Something I'm not really into though. I saw the multiple seasons and I dont want to get deeply into this animes ... especially if I'm not really enjoying it I dropped it around the online virtual reality arc where they have to solve a mystery about a popular persons death. I dropped it around ther because I didint really enjoy the series and noticed it had many seasons and I didint feel like getting into a long series right now