Score: 7/10, 3/5
Length: 8 Episodes
Genre: Drama, Action, Mystery, Sci-fi, Psychological, Political
Availibility: Available on Amazon
In the interest of sparing myself and my readers the risk of me becoming a broken record, I recently took on the policy of not reviewing sequel seasons of anime. In practice, this would mean that I only review shows during their first season and just let the Season Summary cover any changes, developments, or shifts in tone that might help people decide whether or not they want to stick with the franchise. In reality, though, Psycho-Pass 3 serves as a solid example of how there can be exceptions to every rule I try to put in place. Like the different arcs of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Psycho-Pass 3 can functionally exist as a standalone series that requires little to no knowledge of the larger canon. Though it certainly has ties to the older series, most of the cameos and references we get of the old cast only serve to remind us that they're still alive and kicking ass in their own way. So, to enjoy this series, it isn't really necessary to catch-up on the older seasons, especially since the sequel movies still haven't gotten official releases here in the States. For anyone who is familiar with the older series, though, the question of the day boils down to whether or not this fresh start for the franchise lives up to its predecessors and, if so, which one. Put another way, the question is whether Season 3 more closely resembles the original Psycho-Pass anime which was inventive but so obsessed with its desire to look smart that it became unbearable or its second season which managed to dumb things down to make it more accessible but failed to adapt the formula enough to keep the dystopian cop drama engaging. Unfortunately, most of this review will likely feature me still trying to puzzle out that very question since this series somehow managed to both grab my attention like the first and disappoint me like the second. In other words, a perfect sequel for me to give the full review treatment.
Given Psycho-Pass's tendency to go full "galaxy brain," though, that's job's not exactly going to be an easy one.
For the sake those who need a refresher or those who haven't the slightest clue what Psycho-Pass is, I should probably start from the beginning. Taking many of it's base concepts and ideas from classic works like 1984 and Ghost in the Shell, the world Psycho-Pass is one that is both scientifically advanced, though not enough for it to be indistinguishable from our own, and inherently dystopian in nature. With the creation of an judicial system capable of mass surveillance that can detect a crime before it even happens, Japan has achieved a kind of peace for its people that relies on its citizens maintaining a a certain level of mental health. Specifically, the mental status of every citizen is constantly monitored by an autonomous authority known as the Sybil System, named for the prophetic oracles of Greek legend, which then dispatches members of the Public Safety Bureau to deal with system-designated "latent criminals" before their mental instability starts to upset the mental status or "hues" and "crime coefficients" of those around them. Adding an extra layer of intrigue to this dystopian cop drama, Psycho-Pass sets up the Public Safety Bureau to function as a kind of "to catch a thief" scenario where caught and collared latent criminals, called Enforcers, are used to hunt down and either detain or kill other criminals while being observed and monitored by their handlers, the Public Safety Bureau's Inspectors. Rather than actually overseeing judgement over these latent criminals, though, all the Public Safety Bureau does is force the criminals into a corner so the Sybil System can judge the criminals on-site via a link the Investigator and Enforcer's weapon, the Dominator.
The show's use of terminology is almost comedically on-the-nose most of the time which is, of course, almost constantly at odds with the show's otherwise deadly serious tone.
To put all that in much simpler terms, the world of Psycho-Pass is little more than your basic surveillance state dystopia that uses psychology or mental health as its means of controlling the population. By essentially boiling a person's psychology and proclivity to commit a crime to a quantifiable number the all-seeing eye of the Sybil System creates a society of fear that turns mental health into something commercially, socially, and morally exploitable and enforceable. The original series used that base to make its characters question and debate everything from the nature of man to the power of a society and government to sway the hearts and minds of the people. The main problem with its approach to that topic, though, is that it relied so heavily on the referencing and outright quoting other authors that it quickly became more of an homage to classic literature than a new entry into the larger philosophical, sci-fi canon. Borrowing ideas and quotes from Salinger and Shakespeare to Gibson and Phillip K. Dick, the original Psycho-Pass became so conceptually overloaded that it became unwatchable to large portions of its audience no matter how invested they were in its initial premise.
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Instead of becoming a glorified bibliography of classic literature, though, Psycho-Pass 3 opts to function like any other series and just tell it's story. Much like the beginning of the original Psycho-Pass, we are given the opportunity to meet the show's primary characters and see how they will interact for most of the show as they are thrust into their first case. What's more, the start of the third season starts off on a much better stride. Within the first few seconds of their time on screen, we're given to understand that there is a lot more going on with Inspectors Shindou Arata and Kei Mikhail Ignatov than the blank slate that was Tsunemori Akane. Arata, for example, is introduced via what appears to be a reoccurring nightmare that leaves a great deal unsaid but hints at the fact that he's working to uncover a conspiracy within the Public Safety Bureau and Sybil System. As he wakes up, though, we are given one of the most solid examples of character chemistry I've ever seen as Kei and Arata instantly start talking around each other until they find common ground on their ultimate, shared objective: learning what happened to Arata's father and Kei's brother. In this moment, we glimpse who these characters are, their dedication to one another, their dividing differences, and their drive to uncover the truths about their society that Akane had only just started to reveal in Season 2. Though I can't say that this season's batch of Enforcers receive the same treatment, the series does strive to give them each their moments to shine and grow as characters as Kei and Arata's investigation causes them to dredge up or lean on their Enforcer's pasts to get things done. This way Irie, Mao, Tenma, and verteran Enforcer Shou--these slaves of the Sybil System--get to be treated like people and players in the larger game this season is centered on, rather than walking contrivances that conveniently push the Investigators and plot in the right direction. So, oddly enough, this kind of character focus brings Season 3 closer in scope to generally underwhelming Season 2.
Now this is a buddy cop duo I can get behind.
Unlike Season 2, though, Psycho-Pass 3 manages to succeed with both its character writing and development of a larger mystery to drive the story's drama and character growth. Namely, since Season 2 gave away the vast majority of the Sybil System's secrets--albeit only revealing them to Akane--Season 3 gives us a few different mysteries for the cast and audience to unravel regardless of their knowledge of the previous two seasons and sequel films. For long-time fans of the series, one of the key mysteries to unravel is the mystery of what happened to Tsunemori Akane and the Investigators and Enforcers of Unit 1. Starting this mystery in media res, we are simply told that Akane has been imprisoned by the Sybil System and is awaiting trial for openly killing someone without it affecting her hue or crime coefficient in any way, an act that would normally label her as "asymptomatic" and thus a candidate for the hive mind that makes up the Sybil System. For whatever reason, though, she hasn't been disposed of or incorporated into the System, leaving both the audience and the former members of Unit 1 to piece together the gap between Season 2 and 3 and unravel the nature of Akane's game with the Sybil System. For the old and uninitiated alike, though, there is the mystery of the third season's new threat to public safety, the enigmatic Bifrost System and its Congressmen and criminal Inspectors. Introduced as a threat that can challenge the authority of the Sybil System, Bifrost exists as a game of extreme chance for Japan's power-hungry elites where "Congressmen" essentially play the stock market to manipulate the nation on a macro level so that they might then get away with large, world-shaking crimes via their subordinate Investigators and catspaw Foxes. The risk in this game, however, is that if the Congressmen lose everything or risk Bifrost's exposure to Sybil then their lives are forfeit, allowing someone else to take their seat in the game and manipulate the nation toward their own benefit.
All of this is, of course, handled with Psycho-Pass's usual love of H. R. Giger's blend of technology and eldritch horror.
Where Season 3 starts to fall apart, unfortunately, is the manner and tools it uses to steadily unveil the existence of Bifrost. While the series is still perfectly enjoyable episode-to-episode, little inconsistencies and tonal problems build up over time and start to turn the series' initial intrigue into full-blown melodrama along the same lines we got during Seasons 1 and 2. Over the course of multiple arcs, Arata and Kei work to solves crimes perpetrated by Bifrost's Inspectors and Congressmen, each time growing closer and closer to Bifrost itself and the mystery of what happened to their relatives who were likely killed because of they knew too much. This structure offers plenty of interesting social commentary to consider ranging from the manipulative practices that lead to market crashes to the development of institutionalized cruelty against immigrants. But it isn't so much the cases themselves that are the problem so much as the manner in which they are solved. Rather than turning to standard deduction and following trails of evidence, Psycho-Pass 3 turns to something that might as well be magic for all the sense it makes. Namely, a majority of the show's cases are magically solved by Arata the minute he uses his "high empathetic abilities" to basically see the past by empathizing with the trace remains of anyone he encounters. In concept, this kind of concept isn't that much of a stretch given the near-magical nonsense that props up the Sybil System's ability to scan and quantify the mental state of its citizens via surveillance cameras. In execution, though, Arata's abilities grow more and more ridiculous as time goes on and he goes from reading people's mental state via facial tics to basically living someone else's life just by standing in a bombed ruin his target happened to occupy at one point. All of this is, of course, explained away with the revelation that he is "asymptomatic" like most of Psycho-Pass's villains but, as the previous seasons proved already, that term means nothing and is one of the franchise's biggest narrative problems. From sociopaths and psychopaths to driven geniuses and now people who might as well have magic powers, the term asymptomatic holds absolutely no meaning and becomes little more than a catch-all for anything this otherwise grounded series can't be bothered to actually explain. Particularly when you take the existence of Akane who shows similar symptoms to those who are labeled "asymptomatic" without being one of them for reasons that are never explained, the concepts this world is supposedly built on just start to fall apart and reveal themselves to be easily manipulated but poorly explained contrivances.
Yeah, I got nothing. This is just too stupid, even for me.
To be fair, though, the problems with Psycho-Pass 3 don't rest solely on Arata's nonsensical abilities or the show's inconsistent use of the "asymptomatic" label. Much like Ginoza Nobuchika's idiotic feud with his Enforcer father, Kei's contributions to the story fall completely into the realm of the melodramatic as his only character growth is forced upon him the minute his wife Maiko is turned into a hostage--a role she was clearly destined to play considering the fact that she is blind and depends on Kei's job as an Inspector to get treatment as an immigrant. As if turning his disabled wife and only female coworker (who is 100% crushing on him) into damsels in distress wasn't bad enough, though, the series basically develops Kei into a secret, half-Russian Jason Bourne. Though we see plenty of proof that he's a skilled martial artist and CQC expert, the series conflates the skills he learned as a soldier fighting for the freedom of his homeland to such an absurd degree that it becomes laughable. Then, just to put a cherry on top of all this contrived nonsense, the series uses Kei's incoherent rage against Sybil and Arata for failing to protect his wife as an excuse for him to turn into an Inspector for the both the Public Safety Bureau and Bifrost.
You know, because he's Russian and all Russians are actually Manchurian spies who could kill a bear
with their fists and are just waiting for their chance to go on a murderous rampage, right?
This wouldn't be a Psycho-Pass property without one, last nail in the coffin and a guarantee that this series will be forever inaccessible to me or anyone else who cares to watch it legally. I am, of course, referring to the fact that this series ends on a cliff hanger, leaving absolutely nothing resolved just so it can sell tickets for the next sequel film that will, like every Psycho-Pass film before it, not see an American release. More than the near-magical bullshit and melodrama, this nonsense is what ultimately kills the Psycho-Pass franchise for me. Everything else I could live with because at least the bizarre developments and tonal inconsistencies are entertaining and available in a format I have access to. The moment this series turned into little more than a glorified prequel to the next feature film, though, I was done. Whether or not I like the practice of chopping up a story to sell the pieces on different platforms is irrelevant, though. The fact of the matter is simply that Psycho-Pass 3 ended up being an incomplete story that, while certainly enjoyable and better than its predecessors in many ways, still ended up disappointing me. If that's not a problem for you, then I actually have no qualms about recommending it. Even as an incomplete product, each arc of Season 3 ended up being a great experience that looked great and maintained such a great pace that each 45-minute episode felt like it went by in half the time. If you're like me, though, and would rather watch a complete story or would rather not turn to piracy, then this is a show you can probably afford to overlook. If, however, by some luck, we do get access to the First Inspector film here in the States, I might revise that opinion. I'm looking at you, Amazon.