Psycho-Pass Episode 6: The Specimen Case

“Because the girl should not survive her shame,
And by her presence still renew his sorrows.”
– Titus Andronicus, Act 5, Scene 3 

Summary

As Akane wants to learn more about Shinya’s demotion from Inspector to Enforcer, the rest of her team in the CID tell her about the Specimen Case, where an unknown individual was responsible for mutilating then biologically preserving the bodies of victims using plastic. The culprit was never truly found as the murders eventually stopped, though Shinya believes that this case and their recent ones they investigated had the same mastermind behind them. In an isolated girls’ school, a worried kouhai seeks comfort from Oryo Rikako and opens up to her about her domestic problems, not knowing that those problems would soon end, though not in the way she wanted them to.

Impression

Oh my god, that is absolutely fucking disgusting. It’s late at night, and the last thing I want is to be creeped out by freaky corpse-like doll people that have been displayed after being grotesquely arranged and decorated with all sorts of ornamental crap. Sorry, I just had to get that out of the way – let’s start from the top, I’ll get back to this soon.

So instead of leaving the issue with Shinya being an Inspector in the past to settle and backtrack onto later, it seems that his former role and degeneration into an Enforcer is actually an important plot point in the arc to come. One – because of the Specimen Case that resulted in his demotion, and two – because of the person behind the scenes pulling the strings that he was very sharp to quickly catch onto. That person is very clearly Makishima, who seems to not only be involved in the current case and the one before, but also the incident with the rampaging drones. I suppose he’s like a more psychotic version of Orihara Izaya in a way, being the pushing force that hands the key to those who are close to, but do not yet possess the desire to kill, turning them into real killers that will act to suit whatever whim he’s following. At this point it’s clear that he’s both an expert in psychology and programming, being able to hack Holograms and drones as well as deduce the right victims that will act in the way he needs.

Most likely, he was behind the Specimen Case as well, which is pretty gruesome in itself. Plastination is a real process and has been done in real life, though clearly it’s not overly mainstream as this is my first time hearing about it. It’s a process used to create biological specimens by replacing parts with various types of plastic, preserving the samples. It’s probably very useful for biological or medical investigations and thus would be a great method to use – except this is Psycho-Pass, and it’s pretty standard that the human body will be used as the victim of plastination. It’s bad enough that they cut up and take apart humans (fortunately not into little itty bits as seen in the previous case) but man, preserving their corpse like that and creating a horror sounds creepy beyond words. It was apparently graphic to the point that all the plastinated corpses were slightly fuzzy and censored, and the only close-up we got was of the late Enforcer Sasayama, who was likely Shinya’s friend and so he lost it completely. The specimens were then put on display hidden under holographics, which sky-rocketed the stress levels of those who eventually saw them – I wouldn’t have let that kind of case go at all just because the incidents stopped occurring, as it’d be too big a deal and with serious moral issues that are too large to write off as unsolved.

I think the current incident is slightly different from the Specimen Case, but still eerily similar to the point where it’s obvious that the previous culprit had a hand in it. You’d have to be completely new to anime (or even stories in general) to not be suspicious of Oryo Rikako the first time you see her – presumably loved by all, having good grades, looks and probably wealth – the perfect girl that everyone fangirls over. And this is a girls school. Other than the fact that no-one is absolutely perfect, she’s batshit insane in her definition of “beauty”, because the last time I checked, beauty did not connotate getting preserved, rearranged and hideously displayed like something out of Claymore. Rikako staring into another dimension is absolutely right – the dimension of fucked up, twisted moral values. You hear about artists, writers and poets go on about being immortalised in beauty for all of eternity, and it’s a noble goal – just…not in the way the show suggests. The school environment is closed in order to prevent the girls’ Psycho-Pass from clouding, but on the other hand, isolated areas means less intervention, and as everyone loves Rikako she can pretty much do whatever the hell she wants, including stringing up plastinated bodies on rose bushes and displaying them throughout the city. My god, I feel so sorry for the girl. I admit that the shock value makes this kind of anime worth watching, and it was brilliantly carried out – though I’m far from advocating it at all.