Well, what started as a massive disappointment was able to somewhat redeem itself towards the end, thankfully, only to completely collapse yet again. I think it's hard to debate that at least the first half of the highly anticipated Psycho Pass 2 was a complete and utter failure; I referred to it as criminal, unbelievable, sickening and disgusting. An absolute butchering. Psycho Pass 2 was on pace to be the biggest disappointment I’ve ever had in my entire anime watching career, and still might be. Of course, I expected there to be some serious growing pains with the staff of this anime considering the mass exodus it had experienced since last time, with a massive number of previous team members leaving after the first season (including lead writer Gen Urobuchi). NOTHING, however, prepared me for THIS. The plot is clumsy and shallow, the characters are shadows of their original selves (or gone entirely), and the animation is laughably directed and significantly downgraded. This is the definition of a bad sequel. Ladies and Gentleman: Psycho Pass 2:
Synopsis: After learning “the truth”, Inspector Akane Tsunemori continues to try to maintain peace in her nameless utopian society, where a new threat has emerged: A man named Kamui threatens to tear down the Sibyl System once and for all and expose it for what it truly is by turning peace and order into complete chaos.
While I normally start a review by discussing the plot, I’m just going to get right to meat of the primary reason why Psycho Pass 2 is had such a different feel to the first which resulted in its inferiority: The characters. The original cast of Psycho Pass was loaded with memorable characters, such as Kougami, Makishima, Ginoza, Akane, and more. This was a legitimately interesting cast because all of them were treated with the time and attention necessary to properly flesh them out. Each had a personality, each had motivations, and each one added a lot the show. However, everything that the original did right, the sequel does very wrong. This anime fails not only to build upon the pieces it had in place, but it supremely fails to show us who any of the new characters are. Until very late. Psycho Pass 2 bombards us with a slew of new faces who we know nothing about, and doesn't cares to let us know who the hell those faces are until it's too late to give the time and attention necessary to make them good characters. This makes the way they think, why they think that way, what their motivations are, their identities, or anything else that we would need to know about a good character all feel half-assed. They feel completely soulless. Hell, the show doesn’t even have the courtesy to give some of them any personalities at all beyond the most basic stereotypes in anime! Now I know what you’re thinking: At least we still have Akane, Ginoza, and Kogami to fall back on, right? Hahaha… Wrong.
Shinya Kougami? Gone. He’s not even in the sequel at all for reasons I can’t even begin to fathom. However, to be honest, I wish Akane and Ginoza weren’t in the show either, because then at least I wouldn’t have to witness them be butchered right before my eyes. Akane Tsunemori, one my favorite female characters in anime, has been reduced to the most boring and uninteresting excuse for a thriller protagonist I’ve seen in my entire life (until very late, I suppose). She has been completely disconnected from the audience. She no longer shows any emotion what so ever and has a personality comparable to a ham sandwich. I know that she was supposed to become a colder character because of her development in the first season, but she has become so distant from the viewers that we simply have no clue what is even going through her head anymore, making it impossible to relate to her. Remember the intriguing inner monologues we got from her in season one that made her really likable and sympathizable? Gone. The only inner monologues she gets this time are plot related and exist only to spew exposition or explain plot events. Not ONCE does the show touch on her inner conflict and how she can’t decide what to make of the Sibbyl System! Let me repeat that using more clear phrasing: THE MOST VITAL ASPECT TO BOTH THE PLOT AND CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT FROM THE FIRST SEASON IS GONE ENTIRELY. But hey, even worse than that is what the show does with Ginoza, or rather, what they fail to do with him. One of the most dynamic characters in the original might as well not be in this one at all; he has done nothing. Said nothing. Contributed nothing. If he didn’t exist at all, nothing about the show would be even remotely different. The character chemistry between all of the characters in season one? Gone as well. Ginoza and Akane both NEVER have a SINGLE conversation that’s not related to the plot or exposition; not a SINGLE one! Coming off the awesome chemistry between Akane and Kougami, as well as others, this is an unfathomable downgrade. How are we suppose to emotionally connect with anything that happens in the show is we know NOTHING about what the characters are thinking or feeling (again, until very late)? If the characters don’t care, neither does the audience. That’s story telling 101, and as far as we are concerned, the characters don’t care.
Oh hoho, but I’m STILL not done ripping this cast of characters new one. That’s right: THREE paragraphs dedicated to characters alone. That’s a new record. The one thing I haven’t talked about yet is the antagonist: Kamui. Stepping in for Shougo Makishima, one of the most compelling antagonists in recent memory, he had big shoes to fill. If you’re picking up on the trend that’s occurring here, you can probably guess that he doesn’t even come close to filling them. For more than half of the show, we don’t have the slightest clue who he is, what his motivations are, or even what his end goal is. This is literally the complete opposite of what we are used to; Makishima had clearly defined motivations and goals, making the show a matter of questioning whether or not he was justified. With Kamui, he's just a mystery box until all of his ideals and goals are spunrg upon like some sort of asspull. I don't think it's debatable that the method they used in season 1 was far, far superior. Kamui comes across for quite awhile as just a bad guy wrecking havoc for reasons that we can only guess, and for a show that is supposed to be about grey morality, that's not okay. Even though his motivations and goals are eventually reveled, nothing can change the fact that he was a blatantly awful antagonist for the majority of the anime. When it comes to characters, Psycho Pass 2 stands firmly as a major fuck up.
The plot has also seen a massive downgrade from what we are used to, as the once heart-throbbing thriller feels like nothing but a collection of random violence for the purposes of shock factor in the form of a perpetual attempt for the show to 1-up itself with each passing episode until the final stretch, all under the narrative of a carbon copy of season 1's exact same plotline. While the original Psycho Pass had a lot of time dedicated to world building and character development, the sequel says fuck all that, let’s blow shit up. We see tons of blood, guts, and gore go flying across the screen, this time in quantities exponentially higher than what we ever saw in season one. The problem? …Nobody cares. I find myself unable to give a damn about anything that’s happening on screen, simply because the people dying are a bunch of nobodies. When someone dies in an anime, it’s supposed to be a big deal! It’s supposed to drive the plot forward and seriously affect the characters! Here? Massive numbers of people dying is an every episode occurrence. It’s not shocking anymore, it’s not entertaining anymore, it’s not moving the plot forward, it’s not developing the characters, so WHY IS IT HAPPENING?! Granted, the show eventually does manage to cut this crap out and actually get to the point, but it just feels like too little too late. Honestly, it's almost so jarring when the show gets to the point that it doesn't even feel natural; it comes completely out of left field. This is especially a problem because season 2 tried to shift from a character driven show to a plot driven one, and when a plot driven show has a terrible plot, it can only devolve into a trainwreck. If you can stick it out, you are rewarded with a very solid series of episodes that actually touches upon character motivations and the morality of Sibbyl, y'know, what the ENTIRE show should have focussed on in the first place.
The last thing I have left to talk about is the animation. The original Psycho Pass had some of the most incredible animation I had seen in my entire life; certainly in my top 3 all time favorite uses of animation. With that in mind, you can imagine my surprise when Psycho Pass 2’s animation looked not better, not the same, but worse. Significantly worse. While it still looks GOOD, I suppose, it’s nowhere near what is used to be, which was GREAT. Whoever the new art director is for this show seriously fucked up. The first thing wrong with the animation is the drastic change in color pallet; it hardly looks like the same show anymore! The original show used a mix of bright blues/whites and blacks for the environments to create a beautiful contrast and really give off the aura of a futuristic, utopian society; it worked beautifully. The second season, on the other hand, is all over the damn place. Sometimes it uses reds and oranges (for some reason), sometimes it uses the old blues, sometimes it uses something completely different. There is no consistency what so ever! The sky will be one color is one shot, and then a completely different color in the next one. There is no attention to detail what so ever! The backgrounds, once bursting at the seams with objects and completely filled out, are now completely barren. It feels rushed, lazy, and passionless. In fact, the shot composition in general is absolutely terrible. So many poor decisions have been made about the angles, lighting, and settings that I couldn’t count them if I tried. Again, the animation is still good compared to other anime, but it is a shadow of its original self.
Well, there's no question that Psycho Pass 2 did not live up to the original. While I may have called this a travesty or a worse-case scenario at some point, it does manage to significantly improve. If you were a fan of season 1, I won't particularly recommend or NOT recommend watch the sequel; it's up to you. Just make sure you go in with low expectations. This anime could have been so much more, but we got we got I suppose. Such is life.
