Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Psycho-Pass 2
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Kigosh
 Posts: 18 |
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The Show was dumb before but now it became utterly ridiculous. The whole thing became so ridiculous that I think it might be a parody, I am only not sure of what exactly.
Just to make sure: this contains lots of spoilers, so don’t read if you haven`t watched episode 9, unless you don`t plan to watch it anyway. spoiler[So, Mika is basically untouched by “the truth of this world” that was revealed to her last episode. She has still the same personality, which is defined by her obsession with and being a slave to Sibyl. And her Psycho-Pass is still clear, although it is evident, how she experiences a great deal of stress, which – so we were told several times – influences the Psycho-Pass in a negative way. In fact, being obsessed with something clouds the Psycho-Pass, too. But I guess being obsessed with Sibyl is ok. Hope pointed out in her last review that Ubukata took up the job of writing a sequel to a Show with whose rules he was not familiar with. But this seems like a mistake a college first-year would do in his first essay. Its like having the assignment: “write an essay about Psycho-Pass (insert any topic)”. Then becoming the feedback from the professor: “you did write a lot about Psycho-Pass (insert any topic) but did not discuss what Psycho-Pass is and what the premise and thesis of your essay should be. Please do it again.” Yes, to me, it feels that way ^^ Then some “shocking” scenes about Missses Frankenstein and her son – as if we didn`t already know that they are evil. The Show is repeating it for about the thousandth time how evil Sibyl is and everyone affiliated with it. I got it, I am not stupid, let’s move on please! Oh, if you haven`t seen the episode and don`t plan to but still reading the Text, then wait until you hear how the show demonstrates that mother and son are evil: (childhood flashback) Miss Frankenstein buys a Puppy and Frankenstein Junior kills the Puppy…You get it? He killed a Puppy, he is so evil!!! Oh and then Ubukata tries to be like Urubuchi by bringing some philosophy into the show. Well I am glad about that, since all the philosophy we got in this season was a Platon Quote from Akane in Episode one and the Derivatio Diabolica Episode. But the way the Show handles these complex questions feels again like a college first-year would do: He reads a Wikipedia Article (keyword Omnipotence Paradoxon – Allmachtsparadoxon if you happen to be German) and writes down what he reads. There is no critical discussion about the topic whatsoever. “can an omnipotent being create a stone so heavy that even he cannot lift it?” Sounds smart, does it? Well, all the things the Show discusses about this question, is really to be found in the first few sentences of the Wikipedia Article. The Show wants to create an analogy between the omnipotent being and Sibyl but does not reflect what omnipotent means, if Sibyl even has to be omnipotent and if there actually is anything like omnipotence (or if it`s just an imagination of our mind…). And if you wondering what the “solution” to the paradoxon is: well there are a few approaches but like always in philosophy, you just have to deconstruct the premise. Who says that an omnipotent being is bound by the laws of logic, physics or space-time. Or to phrase it in a non-religious way: what if our imagination of omnipotence is flawed? Why is this important? Well do the analogy to the Sibyl system. But who wants to think while watching Anime anyway? Oh and Akanes deduction of the question and its answer is spectacular: “ […] Then, what if they [Sibyl Brains] can judge themselves? In terms of judging everyone without any exception, the perfection is maintained. But if that is the case, those who form Sibyl are no longer criminally asymptomatic and hence, it means that it didn`t judge those who should`ve been judged. There`s only one solution to this paradox.” You get where she is pointing at? The solution is “let’s shut this [expletive] computer down”. So basically, the System we have nowadays in the real world. So, all this time and all this “brain-talk” to come to an answer every child knew since the beginning of the Show. Wow! Then some Akane fanservice. I guess the Show wants to show us that Akane isn`t the innocent child she was (in Season One) by showing her half naked and smoking. And shower scenes often hint some kind of metamorphosis and profound change to the showering character (in Anime at least). Is maybe something about to happen? Yeah…the world of Psycho-Pass is really dirty…and so Cyper-Punk -.- Probably the best example of the Shows lack of self reflexion and complexity are Kamuis dialogues with his childhood friend in the dinner scene. He has two problems with Siby, it is unjust because it was implemented in a unjust way and it is unjust because it judges in an unjust manner and cannot be judged itself (you know, basically Montesquieu: now office person or in this case System shall have the absolute power in the state and needs oversight by someone other office/person or system). So he is saying Sibyl has no right to judge hence, it needs to be judged (he even uses the phrase “judgment”). But who will be the judge? So far Kamuis done a lot of judging himself. He decided who gets to live and who dies (even in this scene) and who gives him the right to judge? On what basis does he judge? Maybe he bases his judgment on morality, some kind of law, or just by arbitrariness? But to be fair, we don`t know yet if he is going to be the judge. Maybe there will be some kind of plot twist and Akane will (again) Judge the System? Or why not make Mika the Judge? Then she would finally have some use to the story besides being annoying. My point is: The show does not discuss those questions. That was the great strength of the first season. There was always some kind of discussion of the actions and it`s motives. But most of all, the villain, Makishima, was not some guy on a justice trip. He wanted to destroy Sibyl just simply because he didn`t like it. He had now noble reasons and just motives. Kamui on the other hand wants revenge and justice (or fairness) and thus is not a very compelling villain, to me (stereotypes and so on…). ] The rest I’ll leave uncommented. Those above were the main issues I had with this episode. Okay, now I get why People like to write those rants. It has something cathartic for the writer. Somehow I feel better now having written all those things down ^^ What do you think about this Episode? Did you like it? If not, what where your problems with Episode 9? If yes, what do you think about my (maybe somewhat exaggerated and biased ^^) critique? |
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Xirema
 Posts: 2 |
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Episodes like this one demonstrate rather clearly just how dumb a show can get when you don't have a good writer at the helm. Oh well. At least Urobuchi is back for the movie, so there's that at least. So apparently Sybil can't read Kamui because he's a collection of dead people, yet it can identify the severed ear of Akane's grandmother just fine? At least it would be more consistent (though no less dumb, I stress) if scanning Kamui popped up like 70 people instead of just popping up nothing. Also, how the hell is Mika "faking" her panic, exactly? There's no way in hell her psycho-pass remains stable after hearing that information. Kamui's motivations made less sense than usual: he kills all those people for reasons that make no sense in a manner that defies logic (so a jump scare can elevate a person's crime coefficient, apparently?) Yeah, it's a lot of dumb this episode. I feel bad for praising it back around episodes 4&5, when it seemed like it was at least going to do something interesting with the lore. |
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FackuIkari
 Posts: 411 Location: Argentina |
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after the episode ended I was like "yeah let's go, the finale" but then after a while, like every week I was "... what was the point of that again" and now I'm just thinking, why?... why? why?... Urobuchi why do you left this in the hands of Hamatora's writter? why? the first season was so awesome, we could have go straight with the movie, wrap up Kougami's plot line and get this over with, but no, they had to make another season out of nowhere when it didn't needed one. And the worst part is that is canon because Mika is in the trailer of the movie and... just, f*** this shit, only 2 more weeks. I'm done.
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CrowLia
 Posts: 5528 Location: Mexico |
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Just out of curiosity, was there some site policy or some other reason to change the tagline for this ep's review on the frontpage from "steaming pile of garbage" to "nothing but a failure"?
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Angel'sArcanum
 Posts: 304 Location: Toronto, Ontario |
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While I haven't actually been watching the series, I was always suspicious that Ubukata wouldn't make something too great out of it, and a lot of the stuff I've seen from him are subpar (still need to get to Mardock Scramble) but actually I didn't know until recently that there is actually another person doing the writing as well, and considering the show is doing THIS bad and comparing the works between the two writers, I'm more inclined to believe it was Jun Kumagai's doing, but perhaps I'm wrong. Le Chevalier D'eon may be a mess (especially those last 4 episodes) and the first season of Fafner a bundle of convoluted world-building elements and weak melodrama, but they pale in comparison to stuff Kumagai has worked on like Hamatora and Valvrave (and to a lesser extent Galilei Donna). Hamatora's first episode was laughably ridiculous, stupid and convenient in linking its two mysteries together and setting up the plot that I pretty much dropped it on the spot, and Mr. Kimlinger's scathing review of the full first season can probably attest to it and then Valvrave is logic errors, plot holes and stupidity galore. Reading some of these episode review summations have me feeling that this is not something even Ubukata can muster in how mind-numbingly bonkers it is, so I don't want to give even more criticism to what I already have against him when it might not be deserved, but perhaps I am wrong, but I'm really suspicious about this.
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JacobC
ANN Contributor
 Posts: 3728 Location: SoCal |
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Too unprofessional. Seems click-baity or insulting, and we don't want that. It's still in the review text proper, but putting it in the headline was a bad judgment call on my part. 
As for the involvement of Jun Kumagai, he did a lot of work on Terror in Resonance too, which had a lot of similar problems, so I think you're right on the money. I think they both share equal blame on this one, and I think they're both pretty bad writers. One's clearly worse than the other, but...yeah, Ubukata still put the okay on every idea Kumagai may have contributed to this disaster, so blech. |
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Yttrbio
 Posts: 3670 |
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Oh, come on, how bad could it b-WHOA!
Even the one thing I liked about the last episode (Mika looks much better with her hair down) was gone by the time this one started. "Oh, being put in this animal-torture-thing is terrible, please release us from it. By slowly burning us alive." |
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JacobC
ANN Contributor
Posts: 3728 Location: SoCal |
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And what WAS that what even WAS that?! |
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Adam Wednesdays
Posts: 30 |
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I'm not all that familiar with Tow Ubukata's writing, but once the pointless philosophical monologue wankery started it immediately reminded me of the "let's talk about the philosophy of roulette and game theory for twenty minutes" that pops up in Mardock Scramble. Except at least in Mardock the ideas they were talking about almost had some relevance to the characters. What's the point of a mini-dissertation on how Sybil can reestablish its infallibility when THE CHARACTERS AND THE AUDIENCE ALREADY KNOW IT WAS NEVER INFALLIBLE TO BEGIN WITH?!?? It's not just that season one was all about how the system relied on an illusion of omnipotence to hide it's real, much nastier and ugly, pragmatic reality; the second season's story so far relies on Sybil to be even more fundamentally flawed than the first season made it! Hell, the scene RIGHT BEFORE the "is Sybil omnipotent?" mumbo jumbo was Sybil's chosen spokesbrain and her supervillain Enforcer son created through mad science telling the inspector they just converted to evil about how they were purposely going to cloud Akane's Psycho-Pass because they're EEEEEVIL and... jesus, it's even dumber when you write it out.
But yeah, this is the episode where PP2 couldn't even keep internal consistency with itself. Neither of the villainous plots make any sense at this point beyond whatever justifies the next SHOCKING TWIST FULL OF BLOODSPLOSIONS. The dovetailing into weird 120 Days of Sodom/Hannibal territory with the rich people torturing immigrants (because that clears their Psycho Passes somehow???!?) was incredibly misbegotten. And what the hell is going on with Mika? Her character was always annoying, but for the first half of the season she was at least consistent. Now she goes from "horrified by the conspiracy of those in authority" to "brain-broken into loving Sibyl unquestioningly and enthusiastically recruited into destroying Akane" to "horrified and surprised that Tougane does bad things despite being a part of the plot." I knew there was a chance this season would be a disappointment, but god damn did it turn out to be a steaming pile. At this point I'm just hoping the last episode is an amusing train wreck (and that it's completely forgotten about by the time the movie rolls around). |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6900 Location: Kazune City |
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Angel'sArcanum
Posts: 304 Location: Toronto, Ontario |
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Fair point, I guess enabling this crap to happen is just as bad as conjuring it up yourself. Honestly the episodes he did for Terror in Resonance are actually a bit of a surprise since I felt things were decent around episodes 5-8ish because the plot actually had some urgency after the formulaic and conscientious games between Sphinx and Shibazaki that didn't really go anywhere, but ultimately TiR was a massive letdown too and finished on a lot of low notes. *sigh* Will a day ever come when Watanabe makes a true return to form with another good original solo project? But I digress, I think I'm going to follow suit with everyone else and just stick with season 1 and see how the film pans out too. |
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JacobC
ANN Contributor
Posts: 3728 Location: SoCal |
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Engineering Nerd
 Posts: 903 Location: Southern California |
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I was quite disappointed when hearing PP 2 is not animated by IG; but now...thank goodness IG didn't!! Psycho-pass 2 is a straight disgrace to the franchise.
The movie (animated by IG) will be worth the wait though, gorgeous visuals plus Urobutcher+Fukami Makoto (This guy IS the real star) spells totally-worth-your-time, hype and wait writing. |
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AiddonValentine
 Posts: 2345 |
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y'know, I thought Psycho-Pass' first season got silly with the first half revelation, but that looks like Arthur C Clarke next to this. WOW. And as someone said before, why in the WORLD would you give this series to the guys who wrote a pile of derivative dreck like Hamatora? This is probably gonna be a frontrunner for "Worst of 2014" lists.
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qberr
 Posts: 62 |
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ep9 was probably the best unintended comedy since wizard barristers' finale
that clapping, damn. |
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