Psycho-Pass (Season 1)

Anime: Psycho-Pass (Season 1)

Genre: Sci-Fi, Crime, Psychological, Thriller, Police Drama

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

General Set-Up: Akane is a new police inspector in a time where a computer system, called the Sybil System, judges criminals to determine how they should be punished. The Sybil System does more than that, it also judges who would be good at what job, who should receive therapy, and who is mentally unstable enough to be put away from society.

Characters: The best part about the show in my opinion is the criminals. Because Psycho-Pass is a crime show, there are criminals that need to be judged by the Sybil System. Instead of using the same kind of criminal again and again, this series chooses to use several types of criminals that are profiles in criminal psychology. Makashima, who is the main villain is notable for his amazing role in the show. He is like Kurtz from Heart of Darkness, sophisticated and maniacal.

 The Enforcers, as they are called in the show, do the dirty work for the police so that the police remain mentally stable. Many are former detectives that are able to think too much like a criminal and are deemed unfit for work by Sybil. Another is a high-functioning sociopath (not unlike Sherlock) who is recruited to work for the police.

Akane Tsunemori is the main character. She has just graduated from the police academy and joined the local police force. While she is naive at times, she is smart and quick to pick things up. She is the voice of reason in the show, often making it hard to relate to her. However, her character is well written and she is enjoyable to watch.

Plot: The plot is well paced, not going too fast and skipping over details and also not going too slow or dragging on and on. The enjoyability of the plot depends on how well you know classic literature, criminal psychology, developmental psychology, and the process of investigations along with the hierarchy that comes with it. The show has enough action and plot that someone without any knowledge about those things can still enjoy the heck out of it. The real use of psychology and classical literature are just the icing on the cake.

Ending: The ending is satisfying and ties up most plot ends. Enough ends were left untied that this show got a second season (which I am not reviewing right now) and a movie.  

Sound: The soundtrack has mostly songs played by electric instruments, but also has more classic sounds including several orchestral pieces and Ode to Joy. Both the openings and endings were well done, but didn’t really stand out.

This show is very hard to watch in sub. A great portion of the script is alluding to different things. The art of saying one thing and meaning another. Unless you are fluent in Japanese, even with the subtitles it can be very hard to understand what the characters mean. Because of this I would recommend the dub because it translates the Japanese thought-for-thought so that a western audience can understand it. And the dub is amazing! The voice actors blew the performance out of the water. None of the voices were annoying and all the characters sounded not only their age, but also the voices fit their personalities. The only thing that the dub doesn’t quite transfer from the Japanese is the level of politeness by certain characters, but who wants to listen to keigo for several hours straight?

Animation: The animation was smooth and well done. CGI and futuristic effects blended in next to normal animation. For the majority of the show the colors were dark enough to fit the dark themes of the show, but light enough I could still see what was going on. I didn’t like the way one of the character’s eyes were drawn, but that is a small complaint and more of a personal preference than anything.

Things to watch out for: “Gaze into the abyss, and the abyss gazed back into you.” Aside from being one of the central quotes of the show, it also personifies my warning to those who want to watch this show. This show is dark in some ways like having people be shot and so on, but the real darkness comes from the psychology used in the show. You will see the thought of those to kill and gaze into their twisted minds. You will most likely disagree with many of the characters and the Sybil System. Calling this show psychological is an understatement.

Other Media: Psycho-Pass has a second season and a movie to conclude the plot.

Where to watch it: Psycho-Pass season 1 is available on Netflix. Seasons 1 and 2 are on Hulu for free.