Can’t believe there is going to be only one episode left as the story of Kamui would have been so much better as a two or possibly three episode arc to build up the world that Sibyl presented to us in the first season and bring it back slowly here to new and old viewers.

This has been dragged out for far too long and honestly I cannot wait for this season to be over, because it has been very badly written, oddly animated and so many quickly-decided resolutions that we are left with an extremely weak anime season into one of the best first seasons I have ever seen in the genre of sci-fi.  It is sad to see.

Now that Kamui and his team have begun their infiltration into a subway station and the public safety bureau closing in I was very surprised how much better this episode was than the rest of the series.  It was fast-paced and avoided leaving Akane behind–  she knows of Togane’s plan with his mother and she isn’t going to sit idly by.

The unsettlingly relationship between Akane and Togane is making for a decent confrontation between the two of them as it sets up him as the antagonist rather than Kamui.  It might be an under-developed turn of events to do but this could be what might save this series from complete failure since the beginning–  in other words a rushed ending.

We’ve seen very little of the original cast–  Ginoza, Yayoi and Karanomori and are interrupted by a new set of characters that look like they may get killed off by the end here as they’ve had no development either which if handled correctly could work out well for a 1-cour series such as this one.

On the plus side at least Kougami showed up again regardless if it was Akane envisioning him and I am glad that the opening by Ling Tosite Sigure is really good.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: 3/10

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What is going on here?!  Shimotsuki was a rookie at the start of this series because she was just like Akane and what added to her character was that she survived a horrific incident from Oryo already.  That alone should have made her stronger, but instead only over the course of these episodes she’s been mentally broken and become an insignificant piece of the story now.  She only adds more drama that is completely unneeded and just fills time.

Initially I thought that Kamui would have been one of those brains that somehow escaped from Sibyl after re-discovering himself and the impurities of the system, but with the reveal last time that he’s a a person with parts of 184 children from a plane crash story that felt so abrupt in the world of Psycho-Pass, I cannot help but feel that the writer Ubukata might be running at the seat of his pants on this one.  Also there are tons of similarities between his work on Mardock Scramble‘s dialogue and this second season of Psycho-Pass in that paradoxes are thrown around.  While the atmosphere and characters were great in carry Mardock along this show is portrayed way too abrupt.

The cinematography is forcing itself to catch up to the level of the first season and Saiga is trying to be the intellectual Kougami of this season–  this show is trying way too hard.  The question that begs to be asked here is why did Production I.G. and Gen Urobuchi leave the staff for this second season to a half-hazard writer and sub-par animation studio where the actual feature film is going to be done by the entire staff of the first season?  This really makes no sense.

One thing that this show has done right is improvements on background designs as we’ve re-visited a few places from the first season and they look pretty good.  However, there are still a few scenes here especially with the Koichi dinner part that looked flat even Kamui’s face when he had his discussion with Koichi regarding his plans to destroy Sibyl.

Once again this show excels at elevating the gore as to somehow try to catch the viewer off guard that this show isn’t a cyberpunk series but a horror one–  bad move because it has been poorly executed up to this point due to its shoddy animation techniques and overly-exaggerated camera angles.  Overall it leaves a lasting effect that this show has been written, animated, and all around concieved horribly.  To use the ballad piece during the big reveal toward the end of the episode, why?

Akane’s grandmother Aoi is in trouble and so the first time episode director Keisuke Kojima illustrates this to such a bad effect by using extremely dark scenes to capture Akane’s gradual descent into a less than perfect hue.  It also doesn’t help that these odd camera decisions were managed by the Kimi no Iru Machi OVA director Hiroshi Kobayashi.  Worst OVA I’ve seen recently and Shimotsuki’s praise over the Sibyl system scene was weird especially with this direction.

Also, Aoi was ONLY introduced in this season and it would have made a heck of a lot more sense to use Kougami as the death piece here in transforming Akane’s psycho-pass black and using the grandmother this grated on my nerves quite a bit.  Ubukata you need to stop over emphasizing that Togane is a villain as we’ve known this for a while and that end scene after the credits didn’t help keep this subtle at all.

THIS IS ONE OF THE WORST SHOWS OF THE SEASON.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: 1/10

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So it looks like I was right on the mark about Kamui in his connection to the 184 children that died–  however it’s noted by Shimotsuki here that he was pieced together with parts of these children.  This makes sense as to why the Sibyl scanners cannot detect him but I fail to understand why he has taken upon himself to push the Sibyl System to destroy itself as we gathered in an earlier episode.

A lot better direction here than what was thrown at us in the past two weeks but it looks as though the budget was pretty low for this season to begin with: the music is a step down from last season, the direction especially here where Kamui is put into the place of the doctor discussing with Saiga about the procedure of how Kamui was re-created made absolutely no sense whatsoever.  I still cannot fathom why Production I.G. used a subsidiary of its company, Tatsunoko to handle animation production on this as it was stated before by the parent company that this WAS going to be their new flagship series in the vein of Ghost in the Shell.  What’s even more puzzling is why hand it off when they are producing the animation for the feature film?

Shimotsuki is getting stronger as she’s been discovering the secrets behind Kamui’s connection to the Togane foundation, the doctor performing his surgery and Misako Togane’s uncanny resemblance to Chief Kasei.  This proves how even she is able to have a little distrust towards the system even while being hypocritical with her feelings of jealousy over Akane’s out-of-the-box investigation methods.  The worse thing this show could have done for itself and especially here was write up a flimsy story about Kasei and potential family members.  None of which was pointed out in the first season–   is this season running by the seat of its pants and just moving forward as it goes along?  Sure does look that way.

Judging by everything that Shimotsuki discovered even about Sakuya Togane being created just proves that Kasei has been pulling some strings for the sake of protecting Sibyl.  What I do not understand is why Shimotsuki if she knew even with the slightest bit of detective skills that she has that Kasei and Misako Togane are one in the same then she should not have submitted that report to her.  Getting herself apprehended by Togane and his mother was a slap in the face that completely dismantles Shimotsuki’s character back to square one!  This goes to show how poorly written these new inspectors and enforcers are for this season of Psycho-Pass!

OVERALL IMPRESSION: 4/10

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I am really glad that Psycho-Pass received a second season and a feature-length film, but when I had initially heard the Gen Urobuchi would be out of the writer’s chair for this one and had been replaced by Tow Ubukata I was perplexed.  A few of the episodes from this season were decently animated but now it’s gone downhill again.  Also is Yuugo Kanno afraid of doing more orchestral productions with his score here; the first season’s soundtrack was amazing but what the heck is this?  If he was going to switch his style and move towards an electronic sound with this season he should have taken notes from Ken Arai and what he’s doing with Kiseijū’s music.

What in the world is Tow Ubukata trying to do to this series?  Akane discovers a plane crash that occurred 15 years ago carrying 184 kids–  all of which were killed EXCEPT for Kamui.  How convenient.  I feel like this would have been a lot stronger if it was woven into a two or three episodic arc similar to what the first season did with the Holo incident regarding Spooky Boogie and Talisman.  The Oryo arc of season 1 was an incredible three-part arc that transitioned a science-fiction show into straight up horror very well that I was hoping this season could gain from.  It’s too bad this show suffers from competing with the  excellence of the first season and heck even Shimotsuki was more engaging with a minimal role in that portion of the series than she was here as a main cast member!

The backstory for a killer that is supposed to be this season’s villain and rivaling Makishima?  This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and we are already half-way through yet we’ve not seen a single bit of Kougami nor Kamui’s motivations for killing inspectors and enforcers, stealing dominators and hacking into video games.  It was great to see Kougami in a dream sequence even if it was just Akane disillusioned by Togane’s behavior, seriously why is this guy even reminding her of Kougami even now?  I understood it when he pointed the gun at Kamui on the boat in the previous episode but come on now, Ubukata could have done much better than set this up as Akane missing Kougami by using  one of the biggest romance tropes in anime ever.

As bad as the last episode was this was bad enough because Akane’s grandmother is put into the picture for the sake of illustrating Akane’s perfect color and point out foreshadow.  Poorly executed here.  I cannot help but sense that Togane is a part of Kamui’s endeavors somehow considering Chief Kasei must be his mother from the pictures Shimotsuki found.  Shimotsuki discovering that the surgeon whom operated on Kamui after his accident being tied to the Togane corporation throws this idea out to us in a huge way.  Can’t say that I like where this is going because it seems all too predictable and that the revealing from the Public Safety Bureau finding out that Kamui has 185 followers behind him develops that he’s more connected to those kids than that incident.  Really isn’t a good way to develop a villian.

Perhaps the reason why he was unable to be recognized by Sibyl is for two reasons here: He is the original lab-rat in the creation of Sibyl and secondly he is somehow a part of those other children that died physically and mentally.  It’s about time we see more of Yayoi and Karanomori since this season has neglected its original cast for choppy scenes that portray brand new characters.  BUT I will say it again like I have before: this season is trying way too hard at being like the first one, hope that Tow can come out of the mess he’s put himself into crafting this because this was horribly written.  Surprising because his three-film collection of Murdock Scramble turned out very good and had some solid direction.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: 3/10

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I was quite disappointed with this episode for many reasons and I hope Tatsunoko Productions can up the ante for this series because this episode sure had some poorly drawn sequences.  Karanomori had a few horrible facial expressions and I hope that this isn’t a sign that the budget is lowering for a season that isn’t even close to what the first season was.

Makishima Shogo was an asymptomatic serial killer void of any emotion that provided some rather fantastic interactions between civilians and the public safety bureau.  People that obeyed the system to the core others that were being influenced by him is a huge part of what made Psycho-Pass’ season 1 such a huge success.  Just about every scene that had him appear in was well-written and never a dull moment, but this season has just been bad in terms of villains.

Kamui is entirely different story here, he shows emotion as we saw in a much earlier episode crying over losing comrades yet his regard for killing inspectors and enforcers this episode was the complete opposite!  Bad writing has resulted in everything that we had here and it’s times like these I wish Gen Urobuchi would just take over in the writing department.

Another part of this I did not like is how they’ve emphasized that Togane is going to be a hindrance to Akane later on especially with the focus on him working behind the scenes to investigate Akane’s very-own psycho-pass.  Shimotsuki in all certainty has been shaken up by what she has seen in his room in hopes to protect her senior inspector.  I can see this backfiring completely on her eventually–  resulting in her death or someone else’s.  The roles have reversed from Season 1 into this one.  Akane has taken the role of Kogami’s out-of-the-box methods in solving cases, Shimotsuki is the rookie just as Akane which is a good transition to see but for the sake of time could end up having some poorly executed plot threads in terms of characterization.

As for the holo-designer Sho there has been little to no role for him which I really have to wonder if the creators aren’t aiming in developing him further by rushing it at the very end.  Even Yayoi and Karanomori there hasn’t been much in the way of development for them this season.

These past few episodes have dismantled my theory that Kamui is an inside job to destroy Sibyl.  I say this only because of how many people have been slaughtered in the past four episodes–  it wouldn’t make much sense for the Division I to pull this off in a gore-like manner that was present here.

I find it peculiar that Akane saw Kogami in Togane during the final scene–  yeah they might have had real weapons pointed at killers at one time but with all that is going on with Togane I don’t see many similarities.  Also how has Akane built such a strong enough partner relationship with him that he rivals Kogami?  Strange.

Thinking how Togane is the same height and weight of Kogami it would be a cry and shame to see him revealed to be Kogami in a future episode.  The cigarettes that Akane she is seen with lighting up and breathing in even down to her investigation methods are a call to Kogami and IF Togane is him would completely deconstruct how much she has matured from Season 1 into Season 2.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: 3/10

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Tastunoko did fairly decent at re-designing the animation to look more like season one, even the music for this episode was more orchestral and less electronic than it has ever been this entire season so far.  I’m not going to jump the gun and say that every scene looked fantastic as there were a few expressions here that Shimotsuki and Aoyonagi gave off that looked off but nevertheless it is a step in the right direction for the animation studio.   As for the music, thinking back, those first few episodes ended up having background music that all sounded very similar, the sounds were completely different than it’s predecessor, here though we are finally getting a small taste of what made the original series so good in terms of musical style as well.  Good to see the crew with Yuugo Kanno slowly returning to that.

Leaving off with that huge cliffhanger last time we end up getting a bureaucratic view of the Sibyl System and how it strictly follows its designation between criminals and victims–  in short, its all one sided.  The people trapped inside of the health care center are just like all of society: ingrained in believing in the system, but here is where this season two is able to tear this down in a completely new way.  As we saw in the first season when a young woman was beaten right in front of a crowd to proving how strong the bystander effect is within Sibyl, here we’ve got an isolated area where a similar situation is happening and among the victims is Inspector Aoyanagi for specific reasons by Kamui.  To further establish that the Sibyl System can be changed from Kamui’s perspective, from the outside–  this leads to dangerous effects which results in not just high stress levels of people but a slaughter by the end of it.  This episode handled something very well here in that it used Kasei with everything that had taken place from season one to establish this topple of the balance of power between Divisions 1 and 3 quite dramatically.  Shimotsuki was beside herself after those people started running out of the building–  her snobbish attitude in the faith she held for the Sibyl System was completely handed to her here which will undoubtedly mold her into a stronger inspector OR kill her.

Akane Tsunemori learned quite a lot from Kogami as we can see her utilize detective skills very well here too–  Kamui experimenting with Inspectors including testing out Dominators to see who all can be judged, Akane is able to ascertain a lot of this from questioning Masuda and its impressive to get a glimpse of her growth from last season to this more empowering female lead that she has become.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: 8/10

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