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Psycho Pass
Anime Review
Psycho Pass is dark, dark, dark. And I mean that in a good way. It's an utterly brutal dystopian view of the future, and definitely a world I would not want to live in. And by dystopian, it's a not a post-apocalyptic, Mad-Max style world. Oh no, that would be a thousand times more preferable to what's going on here.
No, no, this world is a cyberpunk-ish, horrific police-state where people live in dull, grey boxes that are decorated by holograms, their clothing is even decorated by holograms, their life is pre-programmed, and jobs assigned by how well they do on a test while in school, and worst of all, their every thought is pretty much monitored by computers.
Everyone has a "psycho-pass", which is that a brain scan is performed on regular basis (like passing a camera on the street) their very soul has been quantified into a computer algorithm, measured and tested. They each have a crime coefficient, and once their number reaches a certain threshold, they are declared a criminal -- regardless of whether or not they have committed a crime yet. Scanners everywhere keep track of everyone and if you lose control of yourself you are captured by the police and sent to therapy (prescription drugs), or perhaps you really crack under the strain of the surveillance state and you are simply eliminated.
 Psycho Pass borrows heavily from Minority Report, which is not a bad thing since if you're going to create a horrific dystopian police state sci-fi series, steal from Philip K. Dick, since he was pretty much the best. And the guns the police have are called Dominators, and they might as well be right out of Judge Dredd -- they can scan people to determine their rating, and go into two modes depending upon what the computer determines the threat level is -- either stun you, or if the computer thinks you're more of a danger, in which case the gun will turn you into pink mist.
And let's talk about the cops running the police state; there are two types; "Inspectors", whose job is to investigate as well as chaperone the other type, "Enforcers", who are essentially latent criminals who work for the police, or are former police, or, who are criminals. Let's put it this way Ñ as an inspector, you're not allowed to "think" like the criminal you're trying to track down, that would make you a criminal too. Instead, you do the bare minimum while the enforcers do all the work hunting down the bad guy, because they already are criminals, most likely due to years of trying to think like criminals. And yes, one day the computer will determine that these Enforcers are too dangerous, and issue a kill order on them as well.
It's not a happy existence for anyone.
 The series starts off rote, with the police attempting to solve crimes, and yet, at each turn in the first 7 or so episodes, we're left with the feeling that someone else has been pulling the strings. Sure the police catch he bad guy or eliminate him, but clearly, they are being set-up. And by DVD2, we're clearly into meeting up with a criminal mastermind who has outsmarted the scanners. And then we get to meet him, and the Pyscho-Pass, and the world they all live in becomes a horrific nightmare Ñ because our master criminal is simply immune to the scanners. He can kill at will, and the police can't even stop him because the Dominator reads him as normal, even while he's slicing someone's throat. Their world, their system of total control and pacification of citizens through their iron fist, has essentially been shown to be a complete fraud.
Of course, we were given clues to this in the very first episode, but we couldn't recognize it until later. The police technology isn't flawless and yet the jail cells are full of potential criminals. The Master criminal is more of a rebel, a freedom-fighter if you will. He's trying to topple a system which, by our standards (which are unfortunately working their way towards the world of Psycho-Pass), seems inhuman and a complete elimination of human rights.
In all Psycho-Pass is pretty good cyberpunk action. It borrows heavily from other cyberpunk such as Ghost in the Shell, Blade Runner and Minority Report, Judge Dredd and even Demolition Man. If you like dark and gritty, as well as a storyline that in the end, has you agreeing with the bad guy as much as you agree with the good guy, give this series a try. It was thought-provoking and entertaining.
Reviewed by Brian Cirulnick, April 2014
Below: Scenes from Psycho Pass .
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Below: Promotional illustrations and character design sheets for Psycho Pass .
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