‘Psycho-Pass’ series review
By Adam Tatelman, Staff Writer
4/5
Imagine being labeled a criminal without having committed any crime. We’re talking Orwellian thoughtcrime. Enter Psycho-Pass, Production I.G. and director Katsuyuki Motohiro’s homage to Ghost in the Shell anddystopian sci-fi in general.
In 2113, the Sybil System sees all—it’s a supercomputer that measures the emotional state of every citizen and assesses the likelihood that he or she will ever commit a crime. Sybil measures your Criminal Coefficient Index through citywide centralized surveillance. If it exceeds a certain level, you are branded a Latent Criminal, regardless of your actions. Your employment opportunities disappear, you cannot marry, and you’ll probably be sent to a mental hospital. If your index rises high enough, Sybil reports you to the Public Safety Bureau (PSB), which has Enforcers who dispense lethal justice.
The show begins with Akane Tsunemori, a rookie Inspector on the PSB whose job is to keep the Enforcers on a leash. They are Latent Criminals, after all. The only reason they aren’t being “rehabilitated” is because they can think like the people they’re employed to catch. Someone’s got to keep them in line, and Akane does her best to bring an instinctive and human judgment to the cases Sybil wants to make black and white.
There are a lot of stock characters in the main cast, since this is a police procedural at its core. You’ll recognize Akane as the rookie who wants to believe in the system and Shinya Kogami as the obsessed investigator bent on revenge for his ex-partner’s death. There’s also Nobuchika Ginoza, the uptight commissioner type, and Tomomi Masaoka, the mentor veteran cop who’s getting too old for the job.
Unfortunately, even when they get an episode of their own, most characters fail to shine. Yayoi Kunizuka, a rocker who’s certified as an artist by the Sybil System, ends up in rehabilitation for her friendship with an illegal artist who has a secret agenda. Her subsequent decision to join the PSB still seems a little contrived to me. And poor Shusei Kagari, labeled a Latent Criminal at the age of five. What does that do to a person? We’ll never find out because we don’t get a look at his life before he joined the PSB.
Psycho-Pass’greatest weakness is its characters, partly because of the enormous amount of time dedicated to building the world they live in. For instance, holographic technology is freely available to the masses, who use it for simple conveniences like clothing and furniture instead of entertainment.
The concept is well-executed and Psycho-Pass’ setting works from every angle, exploring art, relationships, investigation, factory slavery, robo-ethics, and citizen revolt, all through the watchful eye of Sybil. The first half of the show mostly exists to set up all the details of this false utopia so the second half can mercilessly deconstruct it and the instinctual apathy it creates. There’s some excellent action, and the dub is stellar work, even with the absence of any big-name actor performances. I just hope season two can bring a little more drama to the proceedings.
