Back once more into that dark place. I pretty much already knew this was going to be a painful experience based on my first attempted viewing, but this anime life isn’t all rainbows and sunshine. The show ended up being just as bad as I remembered, and its second half only became even worse, doubling down on its violent unpleasantness and just getting more incoherent as it went along. I found myself consistently wondering what the show’s director and other staff must have thought when they received these scripts. Was it just impossible time-wise to demand rewrites? It is almost difficult to write a story this poorly.

Anyway. You can check out my very thorough review over at ANN, or my episode notes below.

Episode 1

Lacouse, a drug that can actually change your Psycho-Pass hue. Which just makes it some kind of arbitrary metric, as opposed to a reflection of how you look at the world

“Sybil has lied to us”

Akane’s voice actor is so bad. She over-enunciates everything, making this sound completely unnatural, and killing the sense of confidence you should get from her character

The other latent criminal inspector woman also has an incredibly stiff delivery

Man, these dramatic poses are pretty over the top

The new girl, who has no interest in taking advice from the enforcers

His psycho-pass didn’t worsen while preparing for the bombings

“Does any of that matter now? Is that something we need to know in order to catch this guy?” The kind of officer the system creates

The other cops are idiots

This episode’s kind of a mess as far as the dramatic composition goes

The new girl is just generally terrible in every way possible – unlikable, untrusting, ignorant, headstrong

The bomber’s career paths were blocked by the revelation that he had an easily clouded hue

Kinda standard synth music in the background. Appropriate for this show

“Don’t. He can still be saved.”

Ginoza’s adapted to Akane’s style

“If you shut out those you disagree with or try to pretend they aren’t there, you’ll only end up regretting it.” A good summation of what Sybil specifically discourages – it’s understanding the criminal’s mindset that both makes a good cop and makes a bad Sybil citizen

“Society doesn’t always do the right thing. Which is why we ourselves have to lead virtuous lives”

“Even when society pressures you, as long as you resist it, you can remain human”

Yeah, this track is good. Good percussion too

Of course, they need to keep him alive to interrogate him

“On this one, you’re flat-out wrong.” Rookie girl continues to be ridiculous

Episode 2

An inspector killed an enforcer and then went missing as they were chasing the hologram-bomb

The show’s general aesthetic is pretty strong. Rich dark colors

“WC?” Left at the crime scene

“Going by the book doesn’t always yield the best results.” “I’m not looking for opinions from enforcers.”

Jeez, Akane’s voice acting is sooo bad. Incredibly drawn out and stilted, like she’s questioning the definition of every word as she says them

The animation is okay-ish. Not great

“My hue is crystal clear. It can’t ever get clouded. All thanks to him!” Right, this eventually turns to scifi nonsense contrivance, as opposed to actually presenting an opponent whose danger is reflective of the system itself

These cops are so, so bad. Just immediately denying the possibility that he has an accomplice at all. It’s not “this is reflective of the system,” it’s just “these are really dumb people”

The direction is pretty compelling, at least

“All of her actions must have been okayed by Sybil.” Sybil just becomes totally arbitrary here – you can’t actually trust the storytelling, because none of the rules that governed the first series apply here

Trying to justify the inspector’s actions in the context of assuming Sybil is just. This is actually good – legitimate theorizing using their given assumptions

“There’s no such thing as a person the Sybil system can’t see and track”

Lacouse is made by Togane’s, the new suspicious enforcer dude’s, family

His voice acting is actually pretty fine

He was once a therapist

Akane delegates her people well

This derpy track is pretty bad

The holo is very advanced

Some fine detective work in investigating the holo

The suspect’s coefficient has dropped below enforcement levels

“I knew that he’d come to see me in here”

Akane’s started smoking

Actually she doesn’t, she just lights cigarettes to remember him

Someone scratched WC? on her apartment wall

They just keep assuming the scanners will work, and they keep not working

Yeah, really rich colors in this episode

“What color am I?”

The actual villain says “he could have been saved” and that he thought Akane would understand

Episode 3

Opening with some real crazy body horror shit – the inspector on the operating table, her eye in the capsule beside her, her dominator aimed at her

“Remember the real you. The one who’s been locked away inside for so long.”

Kirito Kamui is the dude

The rookie of course thinks Akane’s just losing her mind. These sure are relentlessly terrible cops

In the first show, it became clear over time why the Sybil system was incompatible with good policework. Here they’re all just idiots from the start

Interesting conversation between Ginoza and the other inspector. Also reflecting on a “real you”

“Can one lose their sanity when their Psycho-Pass is so clear?”

Togane, the new enforcer, apparently had the highest crime coefficient on record

“You’re getting too obsessed with this.” We have absolutely no reason to suspect Akane’s losing it, so it all just makes the other characters come off as ridiculous. Especially since we know she’s right. It’s just plain terrible storytelling

“What if none of the dominators worked ever?” Not the most compelling premise for a season

And also nothing compared to the “do it with your own hands” argument of the villain from S1

Episode 4

This writer is at his best when he’s just handling the standard scifi procedural bits

This scene is just a bunch of torture porn nonsense

Why is she even trying to get the dominator? She knows it won’t work

“It’ll be my fault if we act on our own and something goes wrong.” The rookie doesn’t present a real counterpoint to Akane, she’s just terrible in every way she can be

Medication to control stress takes away the joy of living, apparently

This story fails both as its own story and as a continuation of Psycho-Pass. This may be my first F story grade

And then everyone gets blown up! Christ this is a bad episode

“This question may be directed towards all of society.” “Sibyl… what color are you?”

This is very easily the single worst episode I’ve watched this year

Episode 5

Captured inspector lady has now fallen to Kamui’s side, of course

RED EYED ENFORCER GUY

These conversations with the psychologist guy are so empty. Just exchanging words with no meaning: “It’s like Makishima… but something is different this time.” “If we can figure out what that difference is, we can catch him.” Okay???

Aw dang, a scene of terrible Inspector lady acting vulnerable with Yayoi

Sugo, the guy who shot the Inspector, is getting characterized, so I guess he’ll be dead in ten minutes or so

The politician has been replaced by someone different

Wait, this random handheld game is SOMEHOW linked to the robots in the facility, and that’s their ACTUAL PLAN?!?

Oh no, the inspector has a room FULL OF PICTURES OF AKANE WOW

Episode 6

Like, is this videogame thing supposed to say something about society? It doesn’t say anything. It’s both absurd and devoid of meaning

“People who kill with no intent to kill… what color are they?” God this writing

“Dominators can only fire three Decomposer shots.” WHAT?

They’ve actually turned this show into a crappy videogame

“I WANT TO COLOR HER BLACK”

A good rock track here

And now they can just take over all of the police’s robots, because why not

“There are times when you can’t solve problems by following the manual”

Oh no, the players see what they did! Everything happens for shock value, with no real reason at all

Episode 7

“Transplanting a lot of one’s organs is like transplanting one’s Psycho-Pass.” WHAT. WHAT. WHAT. WHAT. WHAT.

HOW IS THIS REAL. HOW COULD TOW UBUKATA MISUNDERSTAND THE PREMISE THIS BADLY. HOLY SHIT

This season is predicated on “exploring the limits of Sibyl,” but it misunderstands Sibyl so fundamentally that the plot becomes a series of ridiculous, incoherent events

“Are you going crazy?” No, she’s not. This is such a stupid narrative thread. The show continuously undermines anything that could be happening here

A better show would actually explore the reasons Akane has such a clear Psycho-Pass, possibly through using this threat of insanity. But this is not that show

She keeps comparing Togane to the evil new guy, but they don’t really have anything in common

This show is DEFINITELY going to kill Akane’s grandmother

Season one already demonstrated that Sibyl can cheat the system, but now they’re refusing to do that to deactivate the inspector because reasons

Akane’s conversations with Sibyl are at least still pretty interesting

Kamui’s sending a message through the Holos he uses

Kamui survived a plane crash that killed hundreds of kids fifteen years ago

Togane’s familial involvement is coming up

Kamui’s basically had a small army using his Holos, which he definitely made trackable for a very good reason

Episode 8

“A surgery to join the bodies of 148 patients!” Pleaaaaase

HAHAHA HE HAS SEVEN BRAINS

“To machines, he’s nothing but a jumble of corpses.” FUCKING DAMNIT. THAT is the solution? THAT is how he “beats the system”? FUUUUUUUUUCK

AND SO HE BECAME A GHOST

So Kamui’s main secret is… he’s a good prescriber of drugs?

“Kamui is trying to get revenge against the Togane Institution?”

Friggin’ Shimotsuki

She learns too much, but she’s so boring that Sibyl decides to reveal the truth and see what she does

Episode 9

ACTUALLY KILLING PUPPIES

TWO PUPPIES

“We’ll use her to color Akane black.” But… why?

“Can an omnipotent being judge itself?” “What brought this up? I thought we were talking about Sibyl.” A+ writing

An actually nice shot

This opera music are you kidding me

Her grandmother’s ear, of course

And Shimotsuki continues to just be the embodiment of bad plot stuff

Episode 10

This show is terribad, but it’s not even enjoyable, because it’s all so grim and violent

Kamui hijacks a bunch of trains

And we just offhandedly learn that her grandmother was beaten to death. Wow

This is one of the most hateful shows I’ve ever seen

Yeah, that’s the last straw. This may actually be the worst show I’ve ever seen

Just all the hateful misanthropy of a shitty teenager. Awful to watch. What a shitty show

Collective entities judging each other whoaaa

Again trying to draw a parallel between Togane and Kogami that just isn’t there

Episode 11

Akane’s belief in the ideal of the rule of law is what keeps her clear, according to Kamui

So Sibyl does some house cleaning. The end!

And Shimotsuki finds a way to live with herself by denying all of it, and embracing being Sibyl’s lapdog

The idea of a collective Psycho-Pass judgment just… doesn’t make any sense? At all? It contradicts everything the series is built on