Psycho Pass 2 Episode 4 [ Judgement ]

I would like to allocate the award of my brain to Kiyotaka Suzuki and Tow Ubukata , the Director and writer of this show respectively. This episode isn’t pulling punches. This SERIES isn’t pulling punches! Everything hurts! Gen Urobushi is a supervisor so I’m sure he allowed this and helped with the plot as well, but I’m throwing all this what the fuck on YOU Ubukata. What the hell guys?!

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This episode returns to the situation with Aoyanagi and the crazed man declaring he will free the world and be a savior ‘like Kamui’. The situation there is bad quickly, with the Enforcers locked out and the Inspector locked in. What commences for the hostages is nothing short of horrific, including torture and violence. The best comparison is in Psycho Pass Season 1 when Makishima incited all of the riots in the city. These people are killed, beaten, stripped to their underwear, and given impassioned speeches. This will not end well.

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There were some really great pieces to this episode. Seeing Akane work in this new season is always a treat. Once a girl who doubted her use to anyone is now the only one keeping the entire precinct together. The other inspectors don’t understand anything and are literally pawns of Sybil, but that makes them useless to Sybil’s true goal.

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Akane once again relies on Saiga and goes to interrogate the man who claimed Kamui could fix his hue. Yet he seems to know nothing, and suddenly falls silent to everyone. So why? Why is he silent when the man who is outside of the ‘law’ going crazy? The situation seems to worsen and even as Aoyanagi wakes up, she is beaten and bloody before the end of it all. Mika is sent to the scene but is little more than useless.

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Scratch that- Mika is the definition of useless. She complains about not being able to do anything all the time but then turns around and does nothing. Aoyanagi doesn’t ASK for assistance, so she leaves her in there to die. Her inexperience causes everything to crumble around them and eventually, the third division is sent in to fix it as she has allowed the crazed mad men to send messages throughout the area. Mika has become almost irredeemable, her inexperience and whining proving to be nothing but insufferable. What does her failure to act cost?

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A massacre. The man inside has destroyed the psycho pass of every person inside, tortured them beyond the point of return, and the third division shoots down every single person . . . including the person with the highest crime coefficient at the time- Inspector Aoyanagi.

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Akane arrives only in time to see everyone causing a massacre, and finds herself horrified. They even broke out new heavy artillery dominators in order to do so. They took the lives of one of their co workers, innocent tortured civilians, and the man behind it all calmly thanks the man for doing his job. We see here the key difference between Makishima and Kamui- both are able to throw away lives, but Kamui does not throw away the lives of the people he ‘helps’. He was even prepared to let the old man come with him. He willingly died to experience ‘life’, and Kamui allowed it only because it was his will.

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We’re already seeing some key things here this episode. Kamui is trying to target the dominators and used this whole plot to learn if an inspector could be killed by one. He lured Aoyanagi probably because he knew she was a much more likely target to go beyond the point of no return, and it gets even worse. Why was Akane not there? She had chosen to investigate a man who went mysteriously silent as she came to interrogate him. He had an outburst, then went quiet. He has a history of his crime coefficient rising in the same situation, so it creates evidence and a trail for Akane. This speech also happened exactly when Aoyanagi was lured out by Kamui. I suggest to you, readers, that Kamui specifically planned this to happen when he knew one of his ‘friends’ would have an episode in public, forcing the MWPSB to move. And then what?

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Kamui has suggested in prior episodes he knows Akane is different. He has even said ‘I had hoped you would understand, Akane Tsunemori.’ There is no telling what he knows or how he knows it- but the conclusion is clear. Akane went to interview someone because he spoke in relation to a man specifically mentioned in a previous instance. This person who was mentioned even likely broke into her house to leave a message. Kamui wasn’t trying to attack or scare Akane, he was trying to make her think. He was also luring her away from the scene because she was the only inspector who could have stopped it.

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Kamui was using this as a test. He was also using it to ask a question. What color are you, Sybil? What color are you when you would allow the massacre of tortured victims to keep your secret, when your dominators can judge people who have been abused, when the blood that stains the ground are the precious citizens of your new ‘world’?. . .Even your own inspectors?

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Kamui intends to do just as Makishima did, but his plans utilize compassion gained from saving people who were lost to the world. Latent criminals and victims of medications gone wrong, they are no longer simple murderers having fun as Makishima enticed. No, these people want to help Kamui rewrite the world and fix the things that have destroyed their lives. Akane Tsunemori and Kogami Shinya were the only ones capable of stopping Makishima Shogo from stopping the Sybil System. . . and now that one is gone, can Akane stop both the senseless massacres as well as unveil the mystery. . . ?

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A knight, a savior with compassion for the people. Or a simple murderer who wants to overthrow the government. What are you. . .Kamui?

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Funimation will begin streaming dub episodes of this weekly, and I will be covering that to. Look forward to it as this horrific and psychological mystery unfolds.

Oki

This Post Has 9 Comments

  1. MidnightDevont October 30, 2014

    Not since episode 11 of last season of Psycho-Pass has an episode of….ANYTHING, reduced my brain functions to animalistic noises. The shear scope of what was accomplished in this episode, it filled me with the same fear and unease that the riots Makashima started filled me with, It made me hate Mika even MORE [omg, character development please, and for all the people using last season Ginoza as a example of a character being bad at the start but growing on you, STOP, he was NEVER this bad.], the question of what color Sybil is….I just…I CAN’T EVEN. Anime News Network said season 2 was less intelligent then season 1….I would strongly disagree. Kamui is no Makashima, but he does make you think about the system and how it functions.

  2. Vange Chandran October 30, 2014

    This episode hit a new level of fucked up. That wasn’t “enforcing,” as Division 3 called it. That was a massacre. Even Aoyanagi, who finally stepped up, not just for her job but also to help people, was caught in Kamui’s plan. I’m having a really hard time getting over her death, especially after last week’s episode. We just got to know her, and it was so nice seeing her and Gino get along. And now she’s gone.

    Side comment though–Oki, what do you think: Do you think we’ll see Kougami at all, or do you think he’s not coming back from season 1?

    1. Vange Chandran October 30, 2014

      Also, like MidnightDevont said, Shimotsuki was unbearable in this episode. I thought former Gino was bad, but I owe him an apology now.

    2. Oki October 30, 2014

      Her death really upset me ): Ginoza liked her and it felt like yet another kick the poor puppy moment. I think, after this episode? Ginoza isn’t stepping up to the plate at her partner, so its almost necessary. Add in that Kamui is killing innocents and Sybil making it worse..I think there is a fair chance

  3. Moonlight October 30, 2014

    By the end of this episode, I could only stare in silence and horror. I honestly felt a bit sick, watching all these victims being slaughtered without mercy. This episode….wow. I haven’t felt this much shellshocked over a Psych Pass episode since season 1. It reminds me of the first time I began watching, with episode 1.

  4. KF October 30, 2014

    I didn’t expect it to be this brutal…

  5. vehino October 31, 2014

    Psycho Pass is a program that both repels and fascinates me. It’s a show that teaches its audience to repudiate violence in any form by showing the horrific consequences of giving into the temptation of it. Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors had a beautiful quote on the subject: “Violence isn’t always what’s evil. What’s evil is the fascination with violence.” Well, Psycho Pass presents an excellent argument for how that fascination destroys not only the lives of innocent people, but the ones who perpetuate it as well. It seems to take the subject very seriously, and that self-same seriousness is what made this episode so difficult to watch. The division three enforcers were presented in their purest forms as opportunistic murderers looking for (and enjoying) any excuse to cut loose, the inspectors themselves were bungling bureaucrats incapable of protecting the public, and the victims themselves were subjected to an excruciating ordeal comparable to any exploitative horror film in the vein of Hostel or Saw that even included a false escape wherein they ran straight into the gun sights of their rescuers and were chopped down as they gibberishly begged for help. It was pure horror.

    At the same time, the show once more fell back into its habit of mixing this extreme violence with lurid sexual imagery. Was there any reason Aoyonagi had to be stripped to her bra and panties before meeting her gruesome end? Hell, last week had our captive inspector giving simulated oral sex while biting her captive’s thumb, animated with extreme fetishistic detail from the tears in her eyes to the stringy saliva running down her chin. Last season featured a murderous lesbian teenager turning her lovers into derivative street art. And who can forget what happened to Akane’s poor friend at the hands of last year’s archvillain? Another character reduced to her underwear, throat slit, handcuffed to a railing. Then there was that other woman who was beaten to death in front of a passive crowd. I’ve not yet come to understand what this show is trying to say about sex and violence: But a reoccurring trope in Psycho Pass seems to be that if we see your bra and you aren’t a main character, you’re probably going to die. Keep an eye out for Mika: If she gets a shower scene with lingering shots, she’s probably not going to make it.

    I consider this episode worth watching if you’re an adventurous viewer willing to be shocked by mature subject matter. I admire Psycho Pass for pulling no punches, and unflinchingly eliciting choked cries of, “What the FUCK?” from its audience. I only hope that as the series continues, it moves its observations of sexuality towards something more positive than what we’ve seen. With respect to the ladies, I would never want to be an attractive, sexually active woman in Psycho Pass’s Tokyo: Shit like that will get you killed.

  6. Choe Gu-Sung Fan December 24, 2014

    Am I the only one bothered by how helpless everyone was against the old guy? Seriously, if it wasn’t his bullshit about saving people while he murders them (at least Makishima and his goons were honest crazy) it’s the fact nobody is able to overpower the senior citizen who needs to pause for breath from his robotic dog, yet is able to fling a fully grown woman with one arm. And the Inspector on the end of that just lets him grab her? Break his arm, kick out his knee caps, anything! Seriously, this was a bargain bin henchman, who only did so well because apparently all the competent Inspectors and Enforcers are in Division 1.

    1. Oki December 24, 2014

      Might as well call every other division the leftover squad.

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