Anime has been a part of me since childhood and I watched so many of them, and rarely bothered with the reviews of any, just lucky to find so many of the best that Japan has put lot of effort into, inspiring generations and our real lives.
Personally Sci-fi is the best from them and it has been and this post will be revolving more on them only. I first watched Full Metal Alchemist 2003 & grew up with DBZ. From there on I discovered Ghost in the Shell movie Which was a pinnacle of achievement for Japan and Mr Oshii, Kenji Kawai. Later the SAC and SAC 2nd GiG completely blew me away with their stunning execution and memorable characters that one can never forget, truly legendary anime. I found Production I.G to be one of the legendary studios that Japan has aside from the Ghibli.
The Psycho Pass review ---
So yeah through there I found Psycho Pass, The Season one was one of the series where I couldn't just move out and the OST, direction, character design and the story, art of perfection just like GiTS, I loved how they handled the Sybil system and every single episode had so much of cerebral experience that got me into this IP. The movie explored many facets of the society that Psycho pass universe has been set up and explores characters more. I felt it was great and the animation of course top notch from I.G, I was excited for Season 2 and how they will move ahead. Initially the characters deaths (As expected from Urobuchi from S1) was disappointing, especially Aoyanagi. And the way they handled Shimotsuki felt way rushed however the villian and the ending of Season 2 was fine as I felt it was an okay expansion of Psycho Pass universe even though the length was very short and rushed.
Sinners of System was announced I was again excited to see if they improvise and offer more depth to the characters this time since the season 2's luke warm reviews, the case 1was handled very bad and too much of exposition and predictable plot ruined it however the animation quality was top class very refreshing however the remix of the opening felt rip off and unoriginal. Case 2 was great, since as other reviews mentioned how it explores the other aspects of Japan in that age. Plus a good backstory of well developed characters, Case 3 brought us back to Kogami again and new characters it was great to see again but the way of his handling was flawed too much of introspection and unnecessary plot just to make him come back again, still okay. And again animation was superb very well handled too along with R rating justice.
SPOILERS for PP 3
I swear this is the worst expansion of Psycho pass ever possible. Here at MAL I noticed about Tow Ubukata. It's a spot on.
Characters ---
Shimotsuki suddenly became a boss, do we still remember the ending of Psycho Pass 2 and how she was basically crushed under the pressure of Sybil and want to move against Akane and in this she magically works with both. And the role of Sybil has been completely eliminated in every episode, the new Characters are forgetful.
Akane Tsunemori is an Ex Inspector ? Without any absolute explanation and hiding the plot, basically plot armor. And make us sit through so much of time for no explanation at all.
Arata is absurd, he doesn't even fit into this universe, if they are planning to put something supernatural, why don't they explore it before Psycho Pass is always about the crimes and political ideology of the Sybil system and the inspectors detective abilities, Although his character is witty, perhaps mature and more of a flawless type like Tsunemori which is only similarity I see as a consolation prize for the viewers.
Kisaragi never gets to do anything, expect to talk around and boss during their drinking sessions, and the left over bit from ep1 gets out in ep8 and yet again nothing absolutely happens. She doesn't do anything.
Kei is an immigrant from Russia who is exceptionally agile, strong and a mean approach but again as with the whole series, but cracks him apart thanks to the "immigrant" plot this season pandered with. We now know how the EP8 moves very fast vs the rest of the episodes it's hasty.
Irie's history with the slum zone is perhaps fine BUT it falls of a cliff when Enomiya gets destroyed in a whiff without any depth.
Tenma doesn't get any exploration or such, one episode of the Herkales's place where his family is working for. Herkales is just a buffed up buffoon who is running for the political seat because of genes and body, it's not just bad.
Komiya and her ultimate mcguffin AI is forgettable for that arc, governor and on top of immigrant backing with beautiful look and young. Ugh, just awfully written her character's few lines were just generic run off the mill lines. And in EP8 when she speaks up, it's worse as if suddenly she knows it all how to build the utopian Japan.
Toya Sainoji, just shown there for nothing and gets absolutely decimated, No motives behind the Bifrost's Round Robin game's other players (Congressmen wtf) for 45 min length running 8 part series.
Shion doesn't do anything at all, Kunizuka was brought for fan servicing, another beautiful and well written character to nothing, and got destroyed unceremoniously for the sake of having the hype and destroy that PP was made of by slowly eliminating all OG characters.
Kogami is relegated to fan service with SAD because of SS Movie 3 ? and the plot of bs bifrost works with clear hues but have guns and other skilled ex military personnel like that Vixen. But no relationship with Sybil.
Aume / Shinogi / Kurisu - All are very poorly written and explored just because this story hangs on a thin line of immigrats vs Japan, remember there is no Sybil here just using Sybil approved it.
Plot / Screenplay / Animation and Conlcusion ---
The screenplay was absurd and the whole plot skipping from Case 2 even how Kogami suddenly starts working with the Hanashiro without any depth of backstory of how they started investigating apart from Public Safety bureau, at-least how the Ginoza started as well from Case 1, no answers no depth.
Bifrost associates, that means so many are there but none are shown 1,2,3 and 11.. No weight to this. Plus they can pull strings anywhere for plot armoring. To make it worse SAD is formed to work with those Case 3 type Peace breakers using weapons like guns freely without consequence because they are having clear crime coefficient since they do not know what they are doing ? lol. This is the biggest flaw tbh.
They are shooting a gun damn it in the cymatic scanner rigged Japan, and killing people. It is shown that Japan is the only nation which is not fallen apart since 2 seasons and yet we got this ridiculous plot with flaw in Sybil it self. Another gigantic plot armor there for the blind spot of Sybil. It's like the story writers are blinded by what they are even writing at this point. I suspect they will say that Sybil itself has issues and Bifrost has been able to hide because of Sybil's few mentalities etc.
It feels like Amazon pressured the studio and Urobuchi working on that Obsolete anime ( pure garbage) for YouTube originals, put that inept Tow Ubukata in-charge, the director is same like Season 2 but this is worst and also again just 8 episodes. The whole Political angle of this series. What the actual hell, Western Propaganda wasn't enough in Hollywood already and now to Japan too. Just a cashgrab for the generic crime investigation instead of the excellent dystopian orwellian psycho pass sybil system.
That's very very sad, the whole PC drivel pandering this season has about the immigrants and the plot is just astoundingly retarded and shallow because of the way the detectives, inspectors go through them with the magical mcguffin arata's mental trace and other means and the involvement of Kasei is non existent when a bigger entity is there, esp considering how they were non existent for the S1 and S2, Movie, SS series.
It's shaking up the fundamentals of Psycho Pass. It just doesn't fit at all. And again where is the Sybil here ?
The whole story pacing is very very slow, I felt bored at most of times due to the way how the story (non existent) is progressed. And at finale they do move very fast which is very unnatural.
This Season 3 also has somewhat inferior animation consistency, it started good but falls off soon, complete disaster for instance if you notice how out of angle miss Shion looks like across scenes, poor handling of facial animation, ladies and body. Opening was bad, the soundtracks were reused no originality at all. However the depth of animation into world building and the physical world are excellent coming from Production IG which is good.
Production I.G should stop working with the western studios they only want to expand their portfolio and mint money by using famous IPs and ripping them apart, Japan and it's Anime culture were free from this milking especially the Psycho pass and Ghost in the Shell, Tow Ubukata ruined GITS by that Arise and now Psycho Pass too ? I didn't watch Arise due to stark differences in characters and everything, the worst is coming by Netflix another western studio ruining GITS again.
I do not know how the Movie will be now, I hope Urobuchi will be called for it and salvage what's left of it I don't have many hopes because of the "immigrant crisis" plot they shoehorned into this. I wish Production IG to stop working with these greedy agenda driven personnel and studio powerhouses, Psycho Pass has been butchered by these, all our beloved characters are being erased off slowly.
If they ruin the movie with the exposition and Tow Ubukata, I hope he doesn't get involved at all. Else I will just stop caring about this season, I will think it all ended with Psycho Pass Movie, or S2/SS case movies.
Thank you for your time.
