Now with Psycho-Font.

You know a show is something special when it brings yours truly out from a five month hiatus to post something.

Psycho-Pass is, as the title says, a cyberpunk anime. Now, the Japanese do a lot of things well. Tentacle porn, cherry blossoms, and school uniforms are some of these things. Cyberpunk happens to be another one of these things. However, just how well Psycho-Pass will measure up against classics like GiTS or Akira remains to be seen.

First Impressions

It’s moe-moe Tom Cruise.

Bright colors! Electronic soundtrack! Strange as fuck plot! I guess I’m watching a Production I.G. show.

Stereotypes aside, episode one does feel like a sort of strange blend between Deus Ex / Tron / Minority Report in terms of aesthetics and themes. Psycho-Pass is set in some sort of dystopian future in what one assumes is Japan. Not too far in the future, though; they still use lighters and have gas cans scattered around abandoned warehouses (perhaps it’s a parallel universe to Half-Life 2).

I’ll just let you guess who’s who.

The characters so far aren’t particularly memorable. There’s the dark mysterious guy who’s probably the hero, the grizzled veteran, the token secondary female character with minimal dialogue, the annoying good guy who’s probably a bad guy, the comic relief, and the naive, idealistic newbie. Who is played by wheelchair-girl from Guilty Crown, so I guess she’ll get shafted in some manner at the end.

Predictions

It’s not Cyberpunk without a little rape on the side.

So far, Production I.G. seems to be stuffing the moral ambiguity of this setting down our throats. Similar to Minority Report, criminals can be arrested/executed before they’ve even committed a crime, just because the “system” has tagged them as such. The twist is that hardened criminals are helping the cops catch other criminals. BUT given that our cute young heroine is against said system then I’m guessing the system is bad and should be abolished.

Using ironsights. DOIN’ IT RIGHT!

It’s still too early to see which way this show will go (and given Production I.G.’s recent track record, I’m not overly optimistic; at least we’ll get a kick-ass soundtrack i guess), but I predict there will be at least two betrayals, and next week will contain a flashback moment. And probably someone else exploding into giblets, that was probably the best part of this week’s episode.

Gets shot by gun, turns into the Hulk.

Next up: Chuunibyou! Just kidding, fuck that noise. Probably Btooom! or something, when I finally get off my ass and watch it.