Psycho-Pass

Justice, and the enforcement of it, has changed. In the 22nd century, Japan enforces the Sibyl System, an objective means of determining the threat level of each citizen by examining their mental state for signs of criminal intent, known as their Psycho-Pass. Inspectors uphold the law by subjugating, often with lethal force, anyone harboring the slightest ill-will; alongside them are Enforcers, jaded Inspectors that have become latent criminals, granted relative freedom in exchange for carrying out the Inspectors' dirty work.

Into this world steps Akane Tsunemori, a young woman with an honest desire to uphold justice. However, as she works alongside veteran Enforcer Shinya Kougami, she soon learns that the Sibyl System's judgments are not as perfect as her fellow Inspectors assume. With everything she has known turned on its head, Akane wrestles with the question of what justice truly is, and whether it can be upheld through the use of a system that may already be corrupt.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

An edited version of the series received a rebroadcast starting July 10, 2014. 22 episodes of the original series were combined into eleven 46-minute long episodes with some scenes being slightly extended.

Psycho-Pass aired on Fuji Television's noitaminA block. In the 2013 Newtype Anime Awards it was voted as fourth best title of the year. Its 11th episode was awarded "Best Episode" in the Noitamina 10th anniversary fan vote. It has spawned several video-game spin-offs, a novel series and a manga series as well.

Episode Videos

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Kanshikan Tsunemori Akane
Other:	All Alone With You, Psycho-Pass Movie: Providence
Sequel:	Psycho-Pass 2

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Kougami, Shinya

Main

Seki, Tomokazu
Japanese

Makishima, Shougo

Main

Sakurai, Takahiro
Japanese

Tsunemori, Akane

Main

Hanazawa, Kana
Japanese

Ginoza, Nobuchika

Supporting

Nojima, Kenji
Japanese

Kagari, Shuusei

Supporting

Ishida, Akira
Japanese

Masaoka, Tomomi

Supporting

Arimoto, Kinryuu
Japanese

Karanomori, Shion

Supporting

Sawashiro, Miyuki
Japanese

Kunizuka, Yayoi

Supporting

Itou, Shizuka
Japanese

Dominator

Supporting

Hidaka, Noriko
Japanese

Saiga, Jouji

Supporting

Yamaji, Kazuhiro
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Cook, Justin

Producer

Wada, Jouji

Producer

Kawaguchi, Tooru

Producer

Morihiro, Fumi

Assistant Producer

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Opening Theme

	1: "abnormalize" by Ling Tosite Sigure (凛として時雨) (eps 1-11)
	2: "Out of Control" by Nothing's Carved in Stone (eps 12-22)

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Ending Theme

	1: "Namae no nai Kaibutsu (名前のない怪物)" by EGOIST (eps 1-11)
	2: "All Alone With You" by EGOIST (eps 12-22)

Reviews

Mar 24, 2013

animelambie

Recommended

I feel so sorry for anybody who missed out on this anime this year because it was absolutely brilliant. Likewise, I also feel sorry for anybody who didn’t, because Urobuchi Gen ripped their hearts out.

The series is set in the near future in which it is possible to instantaneously quantify a person’s state of mind, personality, and probability of committing a crime, all recorded on an individual’s “Psycho-Pass”. When their “Crime Coefficient” index becomes too high, they are pursued and apprehended by police officers known as Inspectors, and their ‘hunting dogs’ the Enforcers; in this way, order is maintained. Unit One of the Public Safety ...

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Mar 22, 2013

frozzzen

Mixed Feelings

Urobuchi Gen certainly made name for himself during last couple seasons. Known for his dark and edgy, sometimes nihilistic approach to writing that leaves trail of bodies and broken characters, it's hard to overlook his works. His works of Fate/zero and Madoka, that definitively left impact on anime scene for better or worse, coupled with Production I.G. creative history of making Ghost in the Shell franchise, made me hope that we would get darker, more Urobuchi-like version of GitS, something I would definitively enjoy a lot. Unfortunately, it didn't take too long to me to get disillusioned that such dream wouldn't come true due to ... flawed logic and broken foundations of society that entire Psycho Pass world resides upon. Review will contain spoilers of series, so if you don't wish to be spoiled, turn away.

Psycho-Pass starts out nicely, introducing us to rookie Inspector Tsunemori Akane venturing into world of Public Safety Bureau, unit specialized for apprehending criminals and suspects judged by all seeing eye that is called Sibyl System. Under supervision of very same system, Bureau works to discover potential threats to society and solve various cases where rules of System have been broken. Hierarchy in Bureau is very clear; Inspectors, such as Akane supervise Enforcers such as Kougami Shinya, former convicts or outcasts of society that Sibyl System decided to recruit as manpower in upholding order.

Series continues in episodic way introducing us to world and some specifics in line of work of Bureau such as reliance on Enforcers' ways of solving cases; it takes a dog to hunt a dog. Another nice catch in dog-master relationship between Enforcers and Inspectors are Dominator guns, designed to target only people with high crime coefficient judged by Sibyl. That way it is ensured that dogs remain dogs and cannot rebel against System or endanger innocent people, while Inspector can always point gun towards Enforcer and pacify him due to his high crime coefficient. Psycho-Pass does a great job of introducing us to dystopian, or even utopian world, depending on interpretation, as well as people's concerns over it, both inside of Bureau and in outer world, such as when Akane's friends discuss about their concern with career that is predetermined by System.

Unfortunately, as series progresses it becomes clear that only way Psycho-Pass will hold viewer entertained is by adding body count. People we know nothing about, we care nothing about are killed by the same people we don't know/care, whose motives are vague and deluded, in horrible ways, kinda Urobuchi's trademark, but relevance of these events is practically nonexistent except perhaps explaining motives of Psycho-Pass main antagonist, Makishima Shogo and his views on current state of society. Show keeps on using shock elements, such as brutal murders, public chaos, blood and gore to keep up entertainment value. And it does its job well. On the flip side, it adds no intellectual or emotional value to story, but only pictures Sibyl System and Bureau as incompetent bunch, not being able to handle even minor riot started by bunch of renegades immune to Sibyl's judgment. Dominators, their first line of defense against chaos are worthless. Such system maintains lives of countless people across whole country and yet as very smallest problem and it becomes unsolvable until fatal damage has been dealt. But I'll get to juicy details of Sibyl being fundamentally flawed later. For now let's talk characters.

Series and Bureau have rather wealthy cast, and as such, it's not possible to fully develop every single one of them. There is more focus on our love triangle of Makishima, Akane and Kougami while rest of the cast are there merely to present view on Sibyl, or sometimes they even receive some development, but it's nothing to write home about, except Ginoza that receives some good development by the end of the series. Akane is easily best character in show and her development is well done. Transformation from rookie with shaking knees into full fledged Inspector with strength to stand for herself, being a guide to future generations of Inspectors to come is really impressive. Makishima would be so proud of how much she changed since their first meeting. Speaking of Makishima, I'm kinda iffy on him. He does represent man with strong sense of individuality, wanting to liberate people from System's *evil* control. If that's the case then what is point of enjoying watching people suffer and messing with others' lives? And on occasions he transforms from *poet* into mindless shounen antagonist wanting to kill everyone in his path. Inconsistent characterization much? What could have been great character was reduced to your random unmemorable guy. Kougami also received great deal of exposure throughout the series and his character is well built. As he degraded into state of mere hound he relies a lot on his instinct when solving cases giving series a lot of dynamics. Coupled with aggressive, if I may say rash approach in solving cases and strong believes towards his own justice rather than relying on Sibyl's judgment, he is definitively entertaining character to watch and works well as main male character overall. One character that I found to my liking despite having lack of screen time is Tomomi Masaoka. He represents the old way of thinking about detective business and due to him being unable to adapt to Sibyl he became Enforcer. High crime coefficient or not, he still remained good person despite Sibyl's tag on him and a good father. This is way to off character and have impact on viewer, (as well as Ginoza) not some nameless, faceless dolls that served no purpose in the first place.

That being said, there is one hidden gem in characters, one that deserves special mention for breaking the show. Yes, it's everyone's favorite Sibyl System itself. We can tag it as character, no? It is understandable that Sibyl wants to recruit people that they cannot judge as it would add another dimension to understanding similar type of people as well as lengthen duration of System itself. Brains don't last forever after all. But how in the world would such system came into existence in the first place? From what I see recruits and members of Sibyl are people with strong individuality, different view on world or in another words, social outcasts, people that must not exists in world by Sibyl standards. Such people, treated as junk, criminals and defects would then form a cornerstone of what is meant to watch over country and ensure that everyone is judged by same standards with fairness? Really? After all, same society treated them like trash, and now they are here to ensure those very same people live happily ever after? Did Urobuchi become too soft or what? If I were one of them I sure as hell know where I would send them to. And even if what I said is hypothetically not true, we have living recruit of the System. What did Makishima do when he was invited to join? Yeah, exactly that. Smacked Kasei, broke few bones or circuits and gtfo'd away. At this point in series I was actually hoping Makishima would join into Sibyl and work against it from the inside rather than trying one man army entire System himself. It would make sense seeing how much freedom is actually granted in system just by talking with Chief Kasei, who was his old apprentice. He could have noticed that man behind mask isn't collective mind of Sibyl but rather an individual that he actually knows and can recognize his personal traits. He could have easily seen that individuality still exists inside Sibyl and work from there, especially considering how much authority is given to you, going as far as to change Dominator readings, as seen when Ginoza was meant to shoot Kougami. Easy way to mess up entire system in eyes of common people, working from inside. But no, he decided to solo the world, and that task was pretty easy actually, considering 99% of food for country is produced on one field and he only needs to mess food production. What was purpose of this again? To make one mutation or one disease (or one Makishima) to wipe out entire food supply of a whole country? I call that sloppy writing. And how did Sibyl ever come into existence? Following the same trend – sloppy writing.

Sloppy writing aside, technical parts of the show are ok for the most part. Animation, albeit inconsistent at times does its job well by showing Psycho-Pass world as it is. Action sequences are well done, not much complains. Character designs are fitting to dark mood of series and technology is designed pretty well, especially Dominator guns. Sound is another strong point of series as all openings/endings are catchy themes with fitting lyrics to set mood of show and are also choreographed well. Sound throughout the series is good, from sound of bones breaking to musical background fitting to scenes and it's used well to improve overall atmosphere. Special award for best voice acting goes to Hanazawa Kana for voicing Akane. From her shaky starting lines all the way up to her confident self, voice acting remains great and always fitting Akane's character.

Ending of series was done very well with some things left open to interpret as seeing fit, but after dust settles all we have is another sci-fi anime that didn't use its premise well, but rather used fanservice named gorefest and Urobuchi's name to sell. If you like to see body count rising and people suffering, chances are you will end up loving Psycho-Pass a lot. Police business and individual cases are interesting, and it's fun to see how characters have to actually use brains here and there to solve cases. Action is decent throughout the whole show, and overall experience of show is pretty positive, but if you actually wanted something that can use full potential of given setting, you might be a bit disappointed in presentation. I only hope that Urobuchi becoming too mainstream won't affect his writing too much in his future works, but seeing trending of mainstream things, inside or outside anime industry, it feels like rather ominous sign. Then again, it might just be me reading into it too much...

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May 3, 2015

awerture

Not Recommended

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.

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Kougami, Shinya

Makishima, Shougo

Tsunemori, Akane

Ginoza, Nobuchika

Kagari, Shuusei

Masaoka, Tomomi

Karanomori, Shion

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