After three long years of investigating, Kogame has
finally confirmed the existence of Shogo Makashima. But this discovery could lead to his downfall
as Kogame finds himself led into a deadly hunt with one of Makashima’s
associates. What’s worse, Makashima has
also kidnapped one of Akane’s best friends.
It’s a race against time that brings CID Unit One directly into the line
of fire. However, the real trial comes
when Akane confronts Makashima herself…and discovers he might be the one man
who could bring the Sybil System and their whole society crashing down around
them.
This week an immortal cyborg hunter tried to kill Kogame,
Akane came face to face with a man the Dominator cant work against, and Yayoi
got an episode to herself…for some reason.
All in all though, it was a very strong conclusion happening for the
first half of Psycho Pass’ first season.
Im not sure about how much ive touched on how much I
enjoy the world building aspect of this series.
Both Kogame’s mentor, Professor Saiga, and Makashima’s cyborg hunter
Senguji, along with Yayoi in a way, all touched on some very familiar scifi
dystopia tropes that are nonetheless interesting. For Saiga and Yayoi, it’s a matter of what
Sybill deems worth to be heard and enjoyed.
Saiga’s criminal profiling courses would be perfect at helping the
enforcers of peace of tomorrow better understand the criminals theyre trying to
put away. But then again, delving into
such deep psyches could turn people into latent criminals ripe for Sybill
Judgement. Likewise, Yayoi’s enjoyment
of the underground rock movement had similar potential consequences, so much so
Yayoi was in a correctional facility before Ginoza and then Inspector Kogame came to recruit her. It’s a very strict future for sure and the
cost of personal choice and freedom is pretty clear too. But then you have people like Senguji who
seem to enjoy the future as long as it benefits himself. In his case, he’s an indeterminately aged man
who’s literally more machine now than human.
His outlook on man slowly becoming machine thanks to its dependence on
technology to get through everyday life is scary when you think about it
because its not that far off from total truth looking at society today.
But for once the existentialism managed to ride side by side
with the action. Senguji’s twisted hunt
of Kogame had some of the best moments of Season One. The similar style hunt might’ve gone poorly
for poor Rikako (whose bones were used by Senguji to make smoking
pipes…ewwwwww), but Kogame was a whole different kind of beast and hunter. He effectively played the old man, read him
almost perfectly and, despite getting seriously injured, managed to “retire”
the old tin can in some stellar gunplay.
However, this was just a warm up, believe it or not, for the true
showdown…one that was way more one sided.
At last, Akane came face to face with Makashima…and the Dominator will
not judge him. This scene gave me
chills. Earlier, Akane showed her inner
strength by standing up to Ginoza and reprimanding him for always looking down
on her and the Enforcers (though Masaoka would just go onto say Gino’s trying
to make sure Akane doesn’t end up like Kogame).
Here, Makashima berated Akane and Sybill and while doing so, his Psycho
Pass just kept getting lower and lower, virtually robbing Akane of any and all
power to stop him from killing her best friend.
Is his faith in his course and inability to show any signs of madness
beyond his calm persona what makes Makashima invincible? Will this end up bringing to light the true
flaws of the Sybill system? And will
Akane and Kogame be able to recover from this ordeal, injured physically as
well as emotionally?
The answer to that will have to wait til next week cause
this week closed out with a flashback episode to Yayoi joining the team. I liked the world building aspect but I have
to wonder why Yayoi of all people got an episode to flesh out her
character. Granted she hasn’t really
done a lot to stand out besides offer random investigative points and establish
she’s shacking up with Karanomori. There
was a decent arc for her in this episode, watching her grow from would be
anarchist to full fledged Enforcer. And
we got to see Kogame as an Inspector alongside Gino and see his Enforcer
partner Sasayama in action. Still, this
derailed the good momentum from the previous few episodes. But I guess this is just a small breather
after all that went down with Makashima.
When the series resumes proper next week, im sure we’re going to be
running a lot with few stand alone stories.
Til then, I cant wait to see if Kogame and Akane are on
the same page now with Makashima. Cause
not only has he killed Kogame’s partner, he killed Akane’s best friend. We’ll see if Akane truly is as incorupptible
as they all say (and yes ill go back to that Dark Knight reference im
sure). See ya next week.
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