
a review by ThyMrMan

a review by ThyMrMan
Hmmm, how would I sum this up, a show with a ton of potential ruined by the length given to it. With only 11 episodes, it lacked the space to allow the characters and the world of grow and just told us the pure story. Which without the support of character development, felt like it kinda failed to deliver a story that was as strong as Psycho-Pass 1.
Characters
The weakest part of this show for me by far. Akane sticks around, and continues to be a strong character. Who as shown in Psycho-Pass 1 will continue to hold onto her beliefs, even when everyone is attempting to make her break. And while I feel she has changed some from Psycho-Pass 1, we don't see a ton of that change. She spends a ton of time moving from plot point to plot point, without any downtime to explore how much Psycho-Pass 1 really effected her. Which seems to be an issue I have with all the characters in Psycho-Pass 2. We get introduced to a number of new characters, many of which had a ton of potential to grow into great characters. Its just that we don't get a chance to see the characters just talk without an imminent threat coming.
Characters like Sho Hinakawa, get teases occasionally of character development. At least telling us about the history of the character, and yet after a single scene it is never brought up again, and kinda just fades. Until the only thing left of Sho is he is the shy red hair guy who is good at computers.
The other main Inspector in Psycho-Pass 2; Mika Shimotsuki gets a fair bit of development throughout the show. But can probably but summed up as believing 100% in the system, and doesn't want to deviate from the system. She is said to have a surprisingly clear psycho-pass, but we never really learn why this is. It is just stated as a fact near the end of the show, the only reason really mentioned that I can think of for it being so clear, is her near cultist belief in the system.
Sakuya Togane, an enemy that was created to be a villain from creation. We get flashes of his backstory, but it is never overly explored. His main drive seems to be the person he sees as his mother, who is now part of the system. He did a decent job of being a kinda unhinged looming threat throughout the show. We are told early on to watch him, and it isn't till we get close to the end that we understand why.
I guess the main villain would be Kirito Kamui, who following the trend of Psycho-Pass 1 isn't really a villain or a hero. He seeks out the Sibyl System in order to force a change in the world. A change that he sees as necessary in order to feel like he has a place in this world and gain judgement. I enjoyed his development, seeing how he came to be invisible to the system. And how caring the burden of all these people has drawn him to want to create a change. While I would have loved to see more development for his character, expanding on beliefs even more. It did a pretty good job the time given to it.
Music, Art, Sound
Starting with both the OP and ED, loved them really. Enjoyed them at least enough that I didn't feel like skipping them like I do many shows. While in general, the music and sound effects throughout the show did a good job. It did what was necessary, and helped to elevate scenes when needed. While the art throughout was really good. Kept the style that I would expect, and was high quality pretty much everywhere you looked. The explosions from the Dominators where just as messy as you would expect.
Story
While the story developed strongly, and came to a definite satisfying ending personally. I can't help but feel like it was let down by the characters, which would have helped it have more of an impact. Feel like some changes unfortunately ended up occurring to things from Psycho-Pass 1, but I can give shows some freedom when it comes to shifting things somewhat to allow a story to come together. The idea of the paradox was satisfying and interesting, with a collective being forced to judge itself in order to judge another. But I feel like the change we believe happened, didn't really have that much of an effect. Since the system itself says it can't correctly judge collectives yet, and we know the system can freely tweak numbers to suit its needs.
9.5 out of 11 users liked this review