Psycho-Pass Episode 18: A Promise Written on Water

“As long as I’m a detective, I can’t touch him. This case made me aware…that the law can’t protect people. In that case, my only option is to step outside the law.”

Summary

Division 1 reacts with shock towards Makishima’s escape, and Chief Kasei decides to treat Makishima’s apprehension as a high priority issue. She reassigns Division 1 to the case, ordering that Kougami Shinya be kept off it as Makishima’s safety is treated with the highest regard. When Shinya learns of this and realizes how fishy it is, he attempts to sneak out but is easily detained by the drones and Chief Kasei, who attempts to use the Lethal Eliminator mode through Gino to get rid of Shinya.

Impression

“Director of Psycho-Pass Apologizes for Poor Quality of Episode 18“

Okay, firstly I’d like to talk about the elephant in the room, to get that out of the way first. I’m sure you’ve all noticed it – even if you were watching casually, it’s not hard to suddenly be painstakingly aware of the horrible animation in some of the scenes this week. For me, Psycho-Pass serves as one of my highlights of the week, and so it’s a real disappointment to get onto MAL and find the above thread in the Psycho-Pass discussion. True, it wasn’t all bad, and admittedly most of Akane’s faces were fine, but some of Shinya’s and Masaoka’s were just appalling. Despite this episode not really featuring revelations as drastic as we’ve seen in previous weeks, that’s not really a good reason to have dodgy artwork of that level, especially when we’re 4 episodes away from the entire show ending. Aside from artwork, the animation itself was choppy – I caught some clear frame skips (e.g. Shinya lifting his arm to take a puff of his cigarette was just about instant) and Masaoka’s face looked like it was the product of a really bad fanart at times. On the bright side, at least the director has come clean with it and is apologizing, as per the link above – it’s good that Production I.G. are recognizing their shortcomings and admitting that they didn’t live up to the high standards they usually have. I didn’t take too many screenshots where the quality was sub-par, but a few managed to make their way through. Who are these people?

Right. Now onto actually talking about the episode. Clearly the Chief (who was subtly disposing of her old body and is now equipped with a brand new one) has taken on a more antagonistic role, and has started to fall under the suspicion of even Gino, the usual stickler for rules by calmly blackmailing him with his “failure” regarding Kagari’s case, essentially asking him to bring in Makishima like a loyal Inspector without receiving any answers whatsoever. Shinya has everything spot on – from someone hardly in a position close to Chief Kasei, it’s impressive how he can deduce that much. From our point of view, it’s not that strange to think that MWPSB manpower is being reduced even further – clearly Kasei and the Sibyl System didn’t take offence at Makishima’s quick rejection of their invitation, and have instead become obsessed with obtaining his brain for their causes – because the value of the prize Sibyl will obtain at the end is now even greater. By keeping Shinya off the case, Sibyl ensures Makishima’s safety as none of the other Division 1 members are likely to kill him out of rage – and that’s the most important priority they have. Shinya needs a gold star or something for putting it so succinctly – the top brass don’t want him apprehended; the police just act as bodyguards for him. Too bad it was hard to recognize his face half the time. I don’t know this guy…I don’t know who he is…

“Now, Ginoza-kun. Show me how you take charge as a leader. Show me that you can act decisively, unhindered by emotion.”

I should probably stop giving them such a hard time over this animation thing huh… even though they look like badly drawn stick figures sometimes. Anyway, it was pretty surprising to see that Kasei went to such an extreme extent to keep Shinya on a leash – to the point that the security drones were set up to recognize his identity and detain him until Kasei got there. Once again, Gino played the unfortunate guy that ended up having to choose between his personal desires and his job – and to make it easier for both himself and Shinya, I can understand why he pulled a Non-Lethal Paralyzer on him. I’d have done the same – Gino could save face, and Shinya wouldn’t get himself recklessly hurt. Even though Shinya wouldn’t die in such an anti-climatic manner, it was still very tense to see the Chief so boldly force the Dominator to enter Lethal Eliminator mode in front of a crowd of MWPSB employees, and test where Gino’s true loyalties lie. I’m sure everyone there knew that a Dominator shifting modes that easily is not a normal occurrence, and hopefully more suspicion will now be placed upon Kasei by a wider range of people, none more so than Akane, who calmly handled the situation like it was nothing. That display was actually kinda cool there…she’s growing up so fast~!

The other major event that occurred this week was Shinya’s “betrayal” of his promise to Akane, commenting that he can’t simply always be a detective due to his ideals. Within the boundaries of a detective, Makishima is not capable of being judged by the law, and therefore as he says, Shinya will have to step outside the bounds of a detective and revert back to the way crime used to be apprehended. Masaoka’s safe house and the handgun that Shinya has probably never had to use before act as good symbols for this – now he’ll have to do the entirety of his job and make his own judgements, without falling back on Sibyl’s guidance and instructions over when to shoot someone and when you can’t. Hwoever, by using the helmet and literally walking away from the MWPSB, he’s now given Kasei the best opportunity she’s had thus far to easily eliminate him, making the MWPSB themselves (with their Dominators) a significant threat to him as well as the danger that comes with hunting down Makishima.