Psycho-Pass 2

The Passing ROSSMAN

The original Psycho-Pass surprised me with how deep it was and how well its narrative flowed. It was a fresh take on the whole "Big Brother" sci-fi world that we've already seen sooooo many times in the past. Psycho-Pass 2 surprised me again by keeping up the premise, taking it a step further, and by remaining pretty damn entertaining.

The first season was all about finding out what was running the supposedly Utopian futuristic Japanese SIBYL police-state system (say that 10 times fast) that controlled the country, and how there were some people who seemed to be able to avoid punishment for their criminal potential (or for their actual legitimate crimes) when scanning everybody on the street for their Psycho-Pass (i.e. their mental health state) was just an everyday part of living in this society.

This, the second season, is all about what the color of one's Psycho-Pass hue really means, and how it affects the average citizen, and if and how a bad tone can be "cured" as it were. At least how it's potentially cured by a few of the characters involved in this whole tale.

Psycho-Pass 2 picks up with Akane (our chief protagonist, and all around badass police woman) continuing to help the SIBYL collective system out by doing her daily duty as an investigator in the Public Safety Bureau's Criminal Investigation Division. It's also about an individual known as Kamui and his quest to expose the SIBYL System and its inhumanity to the world... At least that's what the PSBCID (what an acronym) is led to believe at first. Kamui is an anomaly that doesn't even register on the Dominator guns at all (Dominators are the hand-held cannons of the PBRSTD that either pacify or blow-up people with high crime potentials depending on the hue of their Psycho-Pass). It's not like he just always shows up as "clear," or under the radar and nonpunishable by the Dominators, he just doesn't even show up on the screen when a Dominator is pointed at him. This boggles everyone's mind, and allows him (and his seemingly unending stockpile of unidentifiable holographic shells that he hides behind) to manipulate not only situations, but individuals, as well as hardened police officers to do what he wants and achieve his goals.

Kamui is very interested in the SIBYL System, and finding out its weaknesses. He begins by testing the limits of the Dominators, then by testing out how one can bend the weapons to an outside influence. He's also good at using unsuspecting civilians and tricking them into doing his bidding (either by fucking with Stress Care Facilities, or by making people think they're playing a silly first-person shooter on their smart phones, when in fact they're controlling a fully-armed military robot in the middle of a police raid). What's even more strange is that the SIBYL System doesn't want to pull Kamui into itself, or even study him; it just wants him erased, but it won't put a block on any of the Dominators or Inspectors that he's using for his own purposes because that would admit that the system is flawed.

Add to this the new Inspector, Shimotsuki — who's a total cunt who's constantly going behind her superior's (Akane's) back like the little bitch that she is — and Akane's very old grandma who has oooooold age issues out the yin-yang, and Akane has a butt-load of problems she has to juggle while simultaneously tracking down Kamui and trying to end his mad reign of death, destruction, and fucking with innocent people's Psycho-Passes. Over the course of these two series, Akane has turned into one of the most hard-nosed cops in any gritty police drama that I've ever seen (right up there with the Major in Ghost in the Shell: SAC), and having a whiny, bitchy, vindictive coont like Shimotsuki act as her foil really made the drama that much more real. I think everybody who's ever had a job knows somebody like this little Shimotsuki whore: a backstabbing twat who refuses to acknowledge her mistakes and the fact that the person whose job she's gunning for could actually be right about anything. And I think we all want to bash her head in with a stapler. That's okay. That's healthy.

A flight involving the deaths of over 180 children, a new level of existence for the SIBYL System, and easily-manipulated cops all play into the overall narrative. I was impressed how they escalated everything over the horror that we learned about Japanese society in the first series. They took that, and built upon it in a very logical manner.

What I liked most about Psycho-Pass 2 was how the main character, Akane, kept growing from the first series. She never reverted to the wimpy loser that she was in the very early episodes, and she only became more hardened and cold as the story proceeded. And I loved how they brought the old doctor back from the first series (the one that helped Akane out big time near the end, thusly clouding his own Psycho-Pass). He's now a part of the main group and plays a pretty big role in getting shit figured out and then done.

If you saw and liked the first Psycho-Pass, you'll like Psycho-Pass Dos. If you saw but didn't like the first Psycho-Pass, then you won't like this one; it's just more of the same (only different, but I don't know if I'd qualify it as actually better). If you like dark and serious dramas with quite a bit of gore, this series is made for you.

Psycho-Pass 2 is more of the same as the first series... Which is good. It's a great continuation of the stories and characters, and is a great stand-alone series in and of itself. I recommend it if you enjoy stories that have good progression, interesting mysteries, and some pretty dandy violence. 6 out of 6 Dominating Stars of Justice from me.

The Dominating ANGRY AMY

If the future in this show was now, I'd be a cop just so I could grab me one of those Dominator guns. The first person I'd aim it at is the Rossman. I'm sure his psycho-pass reading would be off the charts... The only problem I'd have after that would be getting parts of his brain, liver, and spine out of the carpet.

This show was interesting and enjoyable enough. It did seem to me that it was trying a bit too hard to be Blade Runner though. But I liked it, and I give it a thumb up.

DR. DAVE

I tried to create a gun that would only explode people who deserved it... Only it blew up everybody it was aimed at. Hmmmm, maybe it did work after all.

This was a good show. It was like Miami Vice meets Runaway... Runaway, you know... That really great movie with Tom Selleck and Gene Simmons in it, and the robots and the cool guns that fired bullets that could find whomever they were sent to kill?... No? *Grumble* The youth today... No sense of classic cinema.