anime reviews: psycho Pass

Anime title: psycho-pass

Episodes: 22

Director: Naoyoshi Shiotani

Series composition: gen urobuchi

The series has been on watch list for too long. I just didn’t find the right time to watch it. But because of the persuasion from a friend, I did. Two words, mind-blowing.

Plot:

In the future, a new way was developed in order to valued a human stata of mind and personality. The information was computed and processed as Psycho-pass, a meter to measure wheter a man is suitable in the society or not and their destiny. The story revolves around, a group of CID officers and Enforcers who work to as the police to uphold the system, putting the people the system deemed unsuitable away from the society and  managing crime in the somewhat, perfect world.

Characters:

Main

Tsunemori akane: a newly appointed CID officer. Have to dela head first into a serious case and at the  workers. Very bright nad always have positive Psycho-pass readings.

Shinya Kogami: a latent-criminal in the eye of Sybil systems. Work as an enforcers along with tsunemori Akane and the others. Have a very good hunch over criminal analyzing. He is as good as the criminal himself.

Nobuchika Ginoza: another detective and the group. A senior to Akane, he is very keen on maintaining the hierarchy order between the detectives and the Enforcers

Shougo makishima: the anti-sybil. He is as manipulative as it can get.

All I can say is the characters design is quite usual. The newly CID,  the old, yet wise hound and the slippery criminal.

Setting:

Time setting: 2111

Place setting: future Tokyo

Society setting: the age where technologies can control every aspects of human lives and human just live their laives as deemend suitable for the by the Sybil system. It was considered the perfect world, where the crime is nearly sero and everybody have their own happiness by the path chosen for them.

Music:

Nice use of some classical pieces as BGM, even those that we can consider unfitting.

The openings was quite grasping the essence of the series and the endings are perfect answer to it.

Art style/animations:

Considering the time and place setting, I have to say the art is quite nice and suitable for the future that we imagined. Though, I sould really mention that this series is quite graphic. Yet the gore, didn’t take over the anime that make it into a horror anime.

The animation is well done in my opinion. I think the animators and director did do the animations for certain things other animators and directors wouldn’t. especially in the fight scenes.

References:

I’ve never wrote about the references in anime before but this I just cant resist.

There are quite a few writers, artists and philosophers were quoted in the series. And i am ashamed that I didn’t know nearly half of them.

The most notables ones are Shakespeare and plato. A writer and philosopher respectively. Shakespeare, well-know for his dark humour and beautiful tragedies and Plato, who philosophy made us question the meaning of life.

There are alwo a few books reference in this series, all in which philosophical and in a way questioned human wort and value.

Theme:

To me, the theme of the series is technology and humanity.

My reviews:

After watching this anime I cant help but categorize the characters into these categories.

Kami: Sybil system

Tenshi: WMPSB

Akuma: shogo makishima

Ningen: the society

Via the sybyl system, the society has become the perfect world and the perfect beings. The Tenshi help to uphold the system and the akuma wants to stir the system.

And I thought about something that is related to us all. Can human values be controlled and determine by the system that was created by human? What is the ideal human? we are valued everyday, in schools via test and exams and in workplace. But, was the value really matter to us?

I’ve always know that humans are not black and white. We are the shades of grey. Something that we perceived as right maybe is wrong in the eyes of another and vice versa. In this anime, the right to be grey was revoked by the system. You are either balck or white. Human are valued and determined whether they can be with the perfect society or not.

Deeper into the anime, I thought, was Sybil syetem really the kami of the society. Was WMPSB really the tenshi. And what is Shogo Makishima is right in a way? What is all the roles was messed up?

I value the live I have now. Yes, I made afew mistakes but that is life. Without mistakes you’ll never learnt. But, Sybil system didn’t even allow you even think about mistakes. You just have to be perfect, as directed by the system. Sucks to be in that kind of society.

Makishima seems to realize this. He realized that the value of human can be determined by the system alone. We may thought makishima as the bitter loner, isolated by the system. Even the system wanted to erase his existence. He do things to stir the system to shows that he is not affected by the systemand other people shouldn’t too. Along the way, he realized that Sybil system cant really determine human value. It was all just computation programmed. It’s just that he took the much more drastic way, befitting those writers he quoted.

In the end, no matter how perfect the system is human are better because we have judgement and we are all have shades of grey inside us.