Okay so there are things I like, and there are things I don't like from this episode, so I think I am going to try and list them all because still.
So... was the problem at the end that Kamui was plural? Was the whole problem? Really? I mean, for real, I know that plurality is really unknown in society right now, but DID is already listed as a mental condition and it has been since some time ago, so this is no excuse.
That Sybil was built without this taken into account shows a really big flaw in this shows writing, it shows that it tries to be something but it is not smart as it wants to be. The fact that the only way for the writers to make a plural person was to create a whole accident and join together a bunch of corpses together is either a way to make things more grotesque or just really closed thinking, and probably even fetishization of plurality on itself.
Even when there was a collective psycho pass, Sybil was able to destroy the get rid of the people that were clouding their judgement, so it makes the point that it was trying to make all along entirely useless, what is so terrible about determine the psycho pass of a collective hivemind of interconnected brains or a group of people if you still can determine who has to be killed and who can stay?
I also don't like the fact that Kamui as a plural system was the main villian, and the whole showing the people as thier body spoke was just pretty cringe, making plural people the villian is such an overused plurality trope that I just don't find it interesting anymore. I get that the idea of having more than one people in one body is interesting to explore even if you are not a system, even if you do not have DID, because identity is really really complicated and we haven't figured it how it works yet, but the thing is that making the plural system the villian is just plain lame, and this whole dramatic effect put on as all the people that talked through the Kamui system is just cringe, you are just mystifying the topic at hand even more when you could treat it as just another trait of the character or simply not villian it at all, because you know, there are people on this day today that live like this every day.
I could advocate for the show and say that it doesn't matter if Kamui system is a killer, since most parties in the anime are evil, Sybil also has deep and huge flaws and they are basically serial killers with an unclear criteria, just as seen in episode 4 of this season, but the thing is that I feel the show still favorites Sybil more, considering Kamui met the same fate as Makishima Shougo, killed by an agent.
And talking about Makishima Shougo, I do remember thinking he had antisocial personality disorder or some sort of empathy disorder at first (if he doesn't could be considered my fault for misinterpreting is character or the writers for not properly writing it as such, if it is me, I take the blame) so now with Kamui on the line I feel that this show has a very difficult obstacle to overcome with its premise, Psycho Pass is a mental thing, so dealing with mental conditions and even identity topics like in Kamui's case is something that should be done really carefully, but it is clear as day with this season that the show missed really hard on what it wanted to say.
I feel not all arcs have to be the same length, but something like Kamui's backstory and character should have explored a lot lot deeper than what it did here, so I just feel this season was cut short and most of what it said was summarized so heavily, as a scifi and psychological thriller Psycho Pass right now is not really of a standout between the rest of works in the genre, although in its defense I haven't seen anybody done plurality well yet.
Now for the things that I liked...
Well, I liked how they acknowledged the fact that Sybil was thinking in getting Akane in their group, since you know, her psycho pass is always clean so it would make sense to consider she is also asymptomatic in some way or form. I like treating Sybil as some sort of godhood, I like the crisis Mika was going through and how she delt with her emotional damage, that conversation she had with Tougane Sakuya was really a good, about how he had to kill him to stay clear and how Sakuya said that he and his mother are no more than slaves to Sybil, and calling Mika the new slave, because in a way, that's what they are, they have to either do something to control their Psycho Pass or live in the shadows for being criminally latent, you could say we are all slaves to some sort of system in form of another, and exploring it on itself is really neat. Sybil isn't mind-controlling people per se, but it is forcing people to act in a certain way to stay clear, so it could count as mind controlling in some form or another, I think this is the best chance the anime has to succeed in their next arcs.
In ideas and setting I could rate this a 8/10, because it has good ideas, but all execution and plot falls flat, so sadly I am going to rate this a 5/10 rate now. |