Psycho-Pass Episode 1-4 Thoughts

Kept you waiting, huh?

It’s not an easy time for me. It’s even worst that all the best anime are during GODDAMN UNIVERSITY. But here we are at last, with one of the biggest surprises of 2012; Psycho-Pass. Animated by Production I.G & written by Gen Urobuchi, I was definitely looking forward to watching this. And since it’s been 4 episodes, I’ll assume you guys already know the story.

The Dominators are f**king crazy – who invented them must’ve been insane. These guns, while normally nothing more than menacing paperweights, can scan a person’s “Psycho-Pass” and determine whether law enforcement is required or not. If it scans a high enough level, you get tasered. Consider yourself lucky if that’s the case, because others may not be so lucky… they go boom. Disturbing stuff indeed, and if you ask me, they’re doing a superb job of explaining it’s perks and flaws so far. The cons definitely outweigh the pros, making for a potentially interesting story.

Moving on to the characters, we’ve got ourselves a surprisingly interesting cast of cops. Aside from the Yayoi Kunizuka (Shizuka Itou) whom we know next to nothing about, we’ve got Shuusei Kagari (Akira Ishida), Tomomi Masaoka (Kinryū Arimoto), Nobuchika Ginoza (Kenji Nojima), and Shion Karanomori (Miyuki Sawashiro). But the characters that stand out to me are Akane Tsunemori (KANA HANAZAWA) and Shinya Kougami (); Akane has a big heart, which may seem very naive to many, but she knows the system is flawed and will always try to do the right thing. Many fans call her a scrappy, but not me; I see her as a strong-spirited rookie who tries to make herself useful. Shinya is both serious & understanding, having long realized the position he’s in without putting the blame on others. He’s not some typical cigarette-smoking lone wolf – nonono, he’s a pure, funny and likeable badass. As usual, I look forward to watching these two interact with each other. As for the others, each one seems to have their own skeletons which I’m curious as to find out.

So far, these episodes are simply establishing the characters and the world they live in. But unlike, say… Sword Art Online *shiver* the atmosphere is very consistent with the story, which doesn’t wallow in the dark too often, much to my awe. The interactions are pleasant if nothing more, and action scene from episode 3 is awesome… even if it was too short. As we’re now moving into the first story arc, we dive back to the horror of SAO- er, I mean Virtual Reality, on a manhunt for pizza. With great animation, music and voice-acting, this show is must watch for this season.

Thanks for reading! Until next week! Hopefully…