Review for Psycho-Pass Season 2 - Collector's Edition

Introduction

A few years ago, Manga Entertainment released the first season of Psycho Pass in the UK, and I got to review it. It was fantastic, a modern cyberpunk story that had enough of the old school Manga Video, blood, guts, violence and profanity to it, to fit right in with the kind of shows that got me hooked on anime in the first place, but with a wholly modern sensibility when it came to the storytelling and the characterisations. It was the best of both worlds. When the second season was announced, I was all fired up for it, but that enthusiasm has faded of late. It’s down to the writer. Season 1 was written by Gen Urobuchi, who is also responsible for the brilliant Fate/Zero, the unparalleled Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and the fun Gargantia and the Verdurous Planet. He also wrote Blassreiter, which I would never have liked as it had zombies in, so he gets a pass for that. The only show that he wrote, and that I was lukewarm about was Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom. He also wrote Aldnoah Zero, which All the Anime will release this month, and which I’m looking forward to reviewing.


The thing is that Gen Urobuchi didn’t write Psycho Pass 2, Tow Ubukata did. He certainly has cyberpunk credentials, but they’re not that hot, at least not for me. He first came to my attention with Le Chevalier D’Eon, one of the best shows of the last decade, one well worth seeking out, but since then, I’ve seen his Mardock Scramble, a film series that started off with great promise, but fizzled out around the end. And most recently I’ve seen his take on the Ghost in the Shell Universe, the Ghost in the Shell: Arise series of OVAs and the spin-off movie, and I’ve been lamenting the decline of a once smart and cutting-edge cyberpunk franchise. And it’s Tow Ubukata who writes the second season of Psycho Pass. My expectations have already been duly lowered.

It’s not exactly pre-crime, but the future of law enforcement in Japan is a logical outgrowth of the opinion that crime is committed by those who are psychologically capable of it. When it becomes possible to measure someone’s psychological state by technological means, it also becomes possible to pre-emptively stop crime from even happening, by enforcing mandatory rehabilitation and psychological adjustment, or in the case of those too far gone, immediate removal from society by means of execution. So it is that every citizen has a Psycho-Pass, monitored by the SIBYL system, which assigns a set of colours to indicate a state of mind. You don’t want your Psycho-Pass to get cloudy!


That is the big problem for the crime investigators of the future. To investigate crime, you have to understand crime, understand the mindset of those who would commit crime, and that is a recipe for psychological disaster. Understanding the mindset of a serial killer won’t leave you with happy joy feelings. So the police service of the future is divided into two sections. The Enforcers are those who hunt down and deal with criminals and potential criminals, armed with powerful Dominator guns, which automatically scan a target’s psychological state, and are authorised to deliver disabling or lethal energy bolts by the SIBYL system. The Enforcers are those who are psychologically inclined to crime, who would be in permanent rehabilitation, locked away from society, if they didn’t accept the opportunity to serve as Enforcers. They’re the maniacs sent to catch the maniacs. They are overseen by the Inspectors, those who run the investigations, issue the orders, and keep a leash on the Enforcers to stop them going too far. They also have to do this without letting their own Psycho-Passes get too clouded.

The first series saw rookie inspector Akane Tsunemori get a baptism of fire on her first major case, with the SIBYL system tested as never before. Only now it looks like it’s happening again. Akane is now the senior inspector in another unit, with a team made up of new faces and some old. She’s also got a rookie inspector to train up in Mika Shimotsuki, although their relationship is frosty to say the least. But crimes are being committed, violent ones at that, and against received wisdom, the perpetrators are getting away with it. Their Psycho-Passes remain clear, or at the most they briefly spike to dangerous levels, before dropping down to safe levels again. That should be impossible, but the Dominators just won’t act to stop these criminals, although they will act against survivors of violence whose own Psycho-Passes have clouded. And they all speak to a saviour named Kamui, who they say has freed them from the chains of SIBYL. As for this Kamui, SIBYL doesn’t even accept that he exists!


11 episodes of Psycho-Pass are presented across 2 Blu-ray discs from Anime Limited

Disc 1
1. The Scales of Justice < 299/300 >
2. The Creeping Unknown
3. The Devil’s Proof
4. The Salvation of Job
5. Unforbidden Games
6. Those Who Cast Stones
7. Untraceable Children
8. Conception of the Sibyl < AA >
9. Omnipotence Paradox

Disc 2
10. Gauging the Soul
11. What Color?

Picture

Just like the first season, Psycho Pass’s second gets a 1.78:1 widescreen 1080p transfer, although All the Anime are using Funimation’s discs rather than authoring their own. Funimation have done their usual job at bringing anime to Blu-ray, with a solid transfer, clear, detailed and free of visible artefacting. That’s aside from the usual digital banding, which while it is nowhere near as bad as it was in season 1, is still readily visible in certain scenes.

Production I.G. bring their years of experience creating fantastic near future worlds in shows like Ghost in the Shell to bear on Psycho-Pass and the world design is fantastic. It’s rich in detail, vibrant, and the show is fluidly animated, blending 3D CGI and traditional 2D techniques flawlessly. The show uses a muted colour palette to enhance its realism, overlaying the action with a bright and hazy atmosphere. There is also a degree of realism to the backgrounds that makes the traditional anime characters stand out more, despite them again being designed a lot more realistically. It looks as if the violence has been toned down for the second season, or I’ve become inured to it. This time it seems that people shot by Dominators just swell up to flesh balloons before bursting in a spray of blood. It doesn’t seem as visceral or as wince-inducing as it was in the first season.

The images in this review have been kindly supplied by All the Anime.

Sound

Psycho Pass offers the choice between Dolby TrueHD 5.1 English and Dolby TrueHD 2.0 Stereo Japanese, with subtitles and a signs only track locked to the appropriate audio. I went with the Japanese audio and was happy with the experience, the characters suitably cast, the action presented with impact, and the show’s music particularly agreeable. The subtitles are timed accurately and are free of typos, and as you’d expect, Funimation’s authoring avoids the subtitle clash that marred Manga’s release of Season 1. What little I sampled of the English dub seemed on a par with that of the first season.

Extras

The discs present their contents with animated menus.

Disc 1 autoplays a trailer for Ghost in the Shell: The New movie, but the sole extras on this disc are a couple of commentaries.

The commentary on episode 4 features ADR Director, and voice of Hinakawa, Zach Bolton, alongside Monica Rial (Shisui), and Cherami Leigh (Shimotsuki). With Monica Rial, you can expect giggles aplenty, and there are also spoilers for the series as a whole here. I usually watch commentaries after the particular episode, but that’s never advisable for Funimation commentaries. Although this is interesting in that Psycho Pass 2 was an early broadcast dub for Funimation, and they talk about the differences in dubbing process here.

Episode 8’s audio commentary features Zach Bolton again alongside Clifford Chapin (Kamui). They’re joined a few minutes in by Christopher Sabat (Sakuya), and it’s a fair commentary track for Funimation, a little lighter on the giggles.

Disc 2 autoplays with a trailer for Eden of the East Collector’s Edition (the US release from Funimation with the movies, not the forthcoming Anime Limited release).

On this disc you’ll find the video commentary, with Zach Bolton, Clifford Chapin, Kate Oxley (Akane), and Linda Leonard (Kasei), which is just like all the other Funimation audio commentaries, but with pictures.


You’ll find the textless credits here, rendered less than textless by player locked subtitles.

There’s the US Trailer for Pyscho Pass Season 2, and further Funimation trailers for Terror in Resonance, Tokyo ESP, Ga-Rei Zero, Noein, Black Lagoon, Danganronpa, and Kingdom.

I haven’t seen the packaging for this release, and neither can I comment on the 56 page artbook that will be included, although the publicity material says it “contains character and general world information, illustrations and an interview with Tow Ubukata, who wrote the screenplay for Psycho Pass 2.”

Conclusion

I love the original Psycho Pass; I thought it was a great cyberpunk sci-fi series, a worthy successor to the Ghost in the Shell franchise, and truly conveying the spirit of sci-fi visionaries such as Philip K. Dick. As for the sequel, Psycho Pass 2... I have a tendency to take notes while I’m watching a show, just to keep a track of the storyline, little reminders of positive or negative aspects of a show, as well as keeping an eye on the technical matters of audio and video quality. Episode 8 of Psycho Pass 2, I have written in big, capital letters, “JUMPED THE MOTHER-f***ING SHARK”. It takes a spectacularly bad plot development or character reveal to get me that profane in my own notes, as I have seen some poor stuff in my time, been let down on many an occasion. In Psycho Pass 2, it’s the revelation that the series villain is Frankenstein’s Monster that had me telling my television screen to go forth and multiply.


Psycho Pass 2 merely confirms my opinion of Tow Ubukata as a one hit wonder. Other than Le Chevalier D’Eon, everything that I have seen from his pen has been a disappointment, and it’s been a case of diminishing returns through Mardock Scramble, Ghost in the Shell Arise, and now Psycho Pass 2. He’s an unsubtle writer who tends to throw everything at the screen in the hope that something will stick, pulling revelation after plot twist until the bounds of credibility have snapped. Psycho Pass did subtle; it was all about the Philip K Dick approach to speculative fiction, to take modern society and give it a conceptual twist, and see how that would play out. Psycho Pass introduced the Crime Co-Efficient, the SIBYL system, and the Dominators as a means of law enforcement, a way of measuring someone’s tendency towards criminality before they commit a crime, and then react accordingly. The question was, what if someone could beat the test?

That’s all you needed to tell a compelling story, and it led the viewer down a path of narrative wonder. Naturally Psycho Pass 2 starts with the same question, and in true sequel style twists it even more. Now it’s not just a question of someone beating the test, it’s someone who can teach others how to beat the test too. That is an interesting development in and of itself. You don’t need any more than that. You just need to see that story unfold naturally, to take it to its logical conclusion. But Psycho Pass 2 really over-eggs the pudding, adding more and more to the plot that it really doesn’t need, all in an attempt to one-up itself, becoming more of a thrill-ride with increasing degrees of thrill, rather than a compelling story.


Actually it wasn’t episode 8 that had me on the defensive, I could see the warning signs as early as episode 4, where there’s a hostage crisis in a mental wellness clinic, in which an Inspector gets involved. The building is sealed off, the situation hidden from view, and things get pretty ugly and violent in there, affecting everyone’s Psycho Pass except the perpetrator’s. The solution to this crisis is to wheel out a new type of Dominator that can shoot through walls. The problem here is that they just target an image on a scanner, read the Psycho Pass reading and pull the trigger, and in this case they shoot the wrong target. I mean that’s shocking enough. Once again, you don’t need more than that, the point has been made, that mistakes are possible, and that the SIBYL system can be used against the good guys. Only the thing is that by witnessing all that violence, the hostages’ hues have become clouded as well. So as the hostages flee the carnage, screaming for help, the Inspectors and the Enforcers, kill them all, because their Dominators tell them too. That is overkill, pun intended, that’s making a narrative point with the subtlety of a rampaging bull elephant.


Then there are the characterisations, which in Season 1 tended to the more realistic, thoughtful portrayals, but in Psycho Pass 2, they become almost caricatured, stereotypical anime characters. That’s an issue I had with Ghost in the Shell Arise, and it happens again here, with Akane losing depth as a lead character, remaining whiter than white as her hue might indicate, but losing the questioning and doubt that made her interesting in Season 1, now projecting a surety and certainty so solid that it makes her uninteresting. The new characters are worse, with rookie Shimotsuki’s only raison d'être to be contrary to Akane, and eventually going nuts because of how wrong she is, Shisui’s transformation from upright Inspector to Kamui’s minion is dramatic to the point of laughable, and Sakuya Togane has evil villain written all over him from the moment we meet him, but the animators add a leer to him that will make you spray your milkshake out of your nose (note to self, don’t drink milkshake during episode 10 if you watch this show again).


And it’s a crime, because Psycho Pass 2 could have been good. It could have been brilliant, and on a par with Season 1. The opening episodes certainly set up a great series. They ask all the right questions, take the show on the logical next step following Season 1, giving that initial premise enough of a further twist to make it interesting again, have you asking new questions, tantalising with the new possibilities in this dystopian future world. While on an aesthetic level, and on a visceral level in terms of action and gut-level enjoyment of episodes, Psycho Pass 2 really does deliver. It’s just when it comes to the intellectual appreciation of the show, they went and let Tow Ubukata near a word-processor, let him have a pen and paper, and that was that. Thankfully, Gen Urobuchi returned for the Psycho Pass Movie, and even more thankfully, All the Anime will be bringing it to us later this year. Just think of Psycho Pass 2 as the price of admission to the feature film.