Blair Loveday
Many years ago I enjoyed watching the dark and freaky Psycho Pass first season.
Then as the seasons went on the quality deteriorated. Now with a re-release on Bluray I was super keen to see if the first season was as good as I remembered. And now I have watched it, it sure is!
If you haven’t seen it before, Psycho Pass is dark. It’s set in a sci-fi world where everyone’s brain is constantly being scanned. With this it can tell if people are going to commit crimes. People with too high of a score are captured by the cops. These cops are armed with special weapons called Dominators, these are guns which will only fire if aimed at someone approved by the system. They can use this to stun someone, or explode them into a mass of blood.
So yeah, it’s pretty dark.
The series follows Akane Tsunemori who is a rookie cop. Her first crime she checks out has he persuing a messed up criminal who has a hostage who he has raped. They catch up to him to take him out, but the messiness of this future becomes apparent fast. The woman he has abducted and abused has her mind starting to go because of the awful crap done to her. Perfectly innocent not long earlier, and now a potential future criminal. Our new rookie is immediately caught up in the horrifying ethical situation of what to do with her.
Told ya it’s dark didn’t I?
The series follows the series of characters in the division as they investigate crimes and go after a big baddie. What makes the series interesting is the side stories that get pursued throughout. We have all of the people the live and breathe the system, then we get baddies and how some really undermine the idea of what’s going on. Akane being our main character is interesting. She has grown up in a world without crime because of what the cops do. But being one of the people that now has to do this she faces the reality of taking people out who haven’t committed a crime yet.
The theme is really good, but Akane doesn’t get the development she deserves.
Added to this is fantastic animation and voice acting. The world has been built beautifully to create a massive futuristic city that feels interesting and gnarly. It manages to capture the feel of futuristic and dystopian in ways that look initially very clean, but then with the awful horrors they uncover and the wider horror of what the cops do it creates that jarring feeling.
Psycho Pass Season One is still an exceptional series. If you haven’t checked this one out yet, then I can’t recommend it enough. And if you don’t have it in your physical collection yet then this blu-ray is a must add!
