Psycho-Pass - Episode 9 Discussion / Poll
 

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Very good and informative episode.

The hunter is actually a cyborg. I don't know how old he actually is, but I think his brain might have already started to degenerate. He is a very twisted individual. He made a pipe out of Rikako's bones, how sick is that? Makishima wasn't the least bit phased by this -not that I expected him too- which indicates he is just as bad if not worse. He may truly be the worst criminal the Sibyl system has ever seen. The hunter's next target is Kogami, courtesy of Makishima. Curious to see how that will play out.

The Akane and Kogami's side of things was also very interesting. They visited an expert in forensic psychiatry and Akane got to learn a thing or two about criminal investigation. It turns out the good Professor's lectures were banned after it was found out the crime coefficient of some of those who attended his course rose. That's one of the main drawbacks of the Sibyl system. It can't produce efficient inspectors anymore, they can only rely on enforcers. Ginoza's father was a victim of the system, he was labeled a latent criminal simply because he was too good at his job. The system could use some fine-tuning, imo. I can't imagine skilled inspectors who truly believe in what they do can become threats to society.

One of my favorite scene was Akane standing up to Gino. She magnificently put him in his place, which is that of a colleague and not a superior. Given his past, I do understand where Gino is coming from though. He is simply scared of losing another person right in front of his eyes. Nevertheless, he shouldn't treat Akane like a kid, even if she is indeed very young and could use some guidance.

Good episode, I felt during the interview segment with the full body cyborg there definitely seemed something off about him, a bit 'uncanny valley' there, did anyone else get that?

During Akane and Kogami's outing, I thought "That house looks familiar. I'm sure some famous architect had a house just like that one."
Turns out it looks very much like Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater.
But before then, did you spot all the tents down by the river? I wonder if the Sibyl system extends that far?

The whole 'hunter' thing reminds me very much of the old film "The Most Dangerous Game".

Really enjoyed the episode, we learned many things.
Akane was sooooo cute when she was changing clothes and I admire her resolve, she's the type who never backs down when she decides something despite looking like an indecisive person. It's going to hurt when Urobuchi starts torturing her.

I'm sure Makishina knows that Kogami won't be taken down by the cyborg and is just testing him or something.

According to the bio at the start of the program, he's 110 years old. It'd be nice if someone could translate the full bio there.

I suspect that cyborg body of his is capable of only displaying a limited range of expressions. I further suspect that being a brain in an artificial body has killed off his ability to feel simple emotions. So he now needs extreme stimulus to feel "alive."

Nice catch!
I noted the tends, too. I think that we saw a sort of sybil-free island where people try to live without technology. Even the professor's house didn't have any holo and had old techology. In contrast to the Mr. Cyborg speech.

Mine too. I really liked how she stood up to him, for a moment I thought she would have started crying, instead she showed her resolve. She even wanted to file a protest ehehe

yep, she is soo damn cute !!
about Makishima, if I had to guess I'd say that yes he knows that Kogami won't be taken down, but he is not testing him, the cyborg, but want to "terminate" him. Mr. cyborg disappointed him. Or something lke that. Like the school girl did before.
I mean, if the sybil system, in a creepy scale, is middle creepy, the idea of willingly getting rid of your body for a cyborg one reaches the outstanding creepy level :heh: And if Makishima is fighting the system, in his own way, Mr. Cyborg is going to the opposite direction.
The other part of Mr. cyborg interview anyways showed a clear Achilles heel in the PP world. If Makishima would find a way to turn down each info terminal people has, that would be a real problem, not mentioning how everybody would be naked in a blink of an eye :D

Another absolutely awesome episode. Psycho-Pass has been very good since the start, but it's just been consistently great since the start of the Oryo arc.


The hunter is a character that is trying to have it all. Fame, fortune, immortality... all the benefits of cutting-edge modern technology but also with the quaint aesthetics of renaissance Europe... and to "top it all off", powerful criminal thrills in his "hunts".

This strikes me as one of the types of characters that Gen frowns upon.

Yes, the cost of his cybernation and attempts for immortality is probably that his mind is becoming very twisted.

While I expect the hunter to cause a lot of problems for the protagonists, I think the hunter himself won't survive through the entirety of Psycho-Pass.


Agreed. And I suspect the Psychiatric professions are suffering as well.

I have a sister who recently completed a degree in Psychology. So I know from her experience that it's not uncommon for Psychology students to start to see all sorts of pathologies in themselves after learning about them. Many become kind of hypochondriac that way.

To fight "darkness" (be it criminality and/or the most damaged of psyches) you yourself must learn about darkness. Kogami's swamp analogy was very good at explaining the dangers inherent in this, and how not everybody is up to it.

I think what we're seeing here is that there's a particular type of person that's very useful to society but who nonetheless tend to have cloudy hues and/or Crime Coefficients.

Here's a question for you - What do you think Bruce Wayne's hue and crime coefficients would be? Personally, I think they would be a cloudy hue and a fairly high crime coefficient (probably enough for paralyzer but not enough for lethal enforcer since Batman is highly unlikely to kill someone).

The reason being that when you are actively fighting crime in the darkest corners of society, that can't help but to darken the soul and spirit to some extent. You see horrors that most people are spared, and you repeatedly encounter a lot of disturbing mental sickness. It has to have an effect on you.

And yet, I think very stern people; people with firm backbones and/or moral character, are able to stand up to that. They generally won't be happy, and they may be quick to anger, but they know where the line is. So they're on the very edge, but they know how to not go over it. Such people are probably amongst the very best of crime-fighters.

But in the Sybil System they're relegated to Enforcers, which in some ways lessens their impact. You have an uncomfortable position where your Inspectors have a weaker understanding of crime than your Enforcers do, yet your Enforcers answer to your Inspectors. Hierarchy is usually based on expertise, but here it's actually inverted. We frequently see the problems with this system - Look at how much Akane is playing catch-up to Kogami. It's not her fault, Kogami should have more expertise based on work experience alone. But at the same time it makes their work relationship awkward - Even though he technically answers to her, it's blatantly obvious how much she's riding his coattails these pass few episodes.

That being said...


Yeah, I totally 100% agree. That was a simply fantastic scene. It was great to see Akane really stand up to Gino, and insist on him showing her proper respect given that they're equals. At the same time, the anime did a great job of not letting Gino simply look like a total jerk. The man's heart is in the right place, he just doesn't always know how to express it right.

One final note - I'm pretty sure that "Gino's father" is Tomomi. Tomomi picked up for Gino really fast, like a man picking up for a close relative. And during Tomomi's words to Akane, I could detect a special sadness and a touch of shame in them. I think that Tomomi is Gino's father, and Tomomi regrets letting his son down in his own eyes.

I really hope I'm right here. Predictable "twist" or not, it would still make the personal dynamics between the protagonists that much more rich and intriguing, imo.


I more or less agree. Well put.


One more thing - I love the continuing subtle touches of romance between Kogami and Akane. If this anime was wrote by just about any other anime writer, I'd be cheering it on. As is, though, I have my reservations. :heh:

More likely than not? Batman would probably be an incurable latent criminal, but suited to be an Enforcer.


Lets be honest. Even if batman has an aversion to killing people...all the stories that deal with the in-depth philosophy of the no killing rule often go over the idea that Batman is NOT in control enough to go over the line like normal people could. He genuinely believes that if he went over the line and ever intentionally killed, he'd turn into a monster.

Think of people like Batman and the Enforcers as being like potential energy. A boulder held 75 feet off the ground has the potential energy to fall and pulverize a human. It has this energy whether it's falling to crush someone. or if the rock is sitting on the side of a cliff, potential energy in waiting.





One thing I'm wondering about though...how did the composite sketch fail when this guy was working as a high school art teacher? Wouldn't he have been in prolonged, long term personal contact with other faculty and students? ... particularly art students who would you know, be able to draw his face? :heh:

Great episode like always!

I'm glad we finally got some info on why the CID has so few inspectors and so many enforces.

No one wants to work the job out fear of becoming a latent criminal and if you do take the job it isn't a matter of if you turn into a latent criminal it's when.

Of course they powers that be would never openly tell anyone this because they need more meat for the grinder.

When the gang traced the name Makishima used in the school, the result was an old man. So I imagine Makishima walking around the school dressed in hologram of said old man, and only showing his true face to Rikako?

I think you are right. Masaoka straight out called Gino his first name (Nobuchika) when he spoke to Akane, so yeah, definitely father and son.

Another great episode and very informative. Finally an episode where I fully understand the conversations and the metaphors :heh:. The hunter is a Cyborg eh? I guess it is only natural for this show to touch on this subject. Mr. Cyborg's thoughts on humanity's 'cyborg-fication' (or whatever) was certainly fascinating. In the world of Psycho Pass, humanity has depended way too much on machinery and it is interesting to think about what will happen to our world as well.

That being said, making a smoke pipe out of Rikako's bones? Ughhh....Makishima has sent our dear Cyborg on Kougami, so naturally Cyborg will be offed in a few episode times. We will get to see the Dominator's anti matter mode again!

I love the confrontation between Gino and Akane. While Akane was right that Gino should have treated her with more respect, I have to agree with Gino that Akane is playing with fire now. Gino is on the job for years now and is more experienced than Akane. He saw first hand what would happen to those who were interested in criminal's thoughts and their fall. To him, Akane is definitely a child. I think that Akane's interests in Kougami might start to cloud her judgement.

Poor Gino though, I feel like giving him a hug when he walked away :)

Very good episode, even if it was more dialogue and character interaction-oriented. Every scene was just spot-on.

The first time I saw the cyborg guy, I found him very unsettling, not only from the near-blank gaze of his eyes :heh:. Turns out he's conspiring with Makishima, and he is a very twisted individual indeed, smoking pipes made of his victim's bones - how horrifying is that? Now that Makishima has set his sights on Kougami, things are not looking good for him.

Akane and Kougami's visit to the professor also revealed more interesting things connected to the Sibyl System. It's quite logical that some students of the professor's courses have had their hues clouded, as during their learning, they had crossed the line, and were unable to cope up with the truth, as illustrated by Kougami's excellent 'swamp' example.

I got that feeling as well from that scene. Masaoka just stood up for Gino, as he immediately made things clearer to Akane to make her see him in a more favourable light. And even when Gino shouted at him in episode 3, during their meeting, Masaoka didn't retaliate, but just shouldered it all. I wouldn't be surprised if Masaoka was Gino's father; if so, it's a rather sad situation, really.

And oh, I really liked Akane this episode. She's still as moe as ever, especially while conversing with her jellyfish-hologram-thing, but it was refreshing to see her stand up to Gino and speak for her position. Didn't expect that at all.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know the title of the piece of music played during Makishima and the cyborg guy's conversations? It sounded a bit familiar...

I think that's the problem with the premise of this show. too many professions in the real world have you look into evil itself. I'm in Conflict Analysis and Resolution. For graduate students in the field it's rough on them. And that's before they get any real field experience. If they were soldiers before coming into the field usually they cope really well. If they survived traumatic events (genocide, war, uprisings, terrorist attack, etc) they can cope better too. But if they come straight out of undergrad with no international experience they can get PTSD pretty easily. But to be honest both the post-graduate scholars, and practitioners are susceptible to mental disorders simply because of the psychological stress the field will put on people in it. It's kinda why many don't end up going into practice in the field, but instead join the diplomatic community or work in just a research capacity. I wonder how people in my field would score in the Sibyl System
Overall, this episode has become interesting because it shows the types of field hazards that exist in the character's line of work. It is very much similar to the risk I face when I am not in the comfort of DC.

So we see Makishima sacrificing the hunter guy to get Kogami. Kogami is Makishima's prey. But how is the question, that hunter guy might be unstable but he is still pretty scary. I am sure Makishima has something up his sleeve.

The profiling sensei seemed to be the reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes. And Kogami's description of Makishima again made me recall Moriaty.

And yes I am also leaning towards Masaoka being Gino's father.

Symphony No. 9, 4th movement, by Ludwig van Beethoven.

Not so. If you go back to the scene in the teachers office in ep8, you'll see that he wasn't using a disguise when the vice-principal was talking to him. Therefore, he didn't use a disguise in school.

LOL. You are right, that's definitely very weird

You know I see many people (not here mind you) on different forums and sites saying that all the characters say for Shinya are underdeveloped. Which is as fare as I can see untrue.

If they actually paid attention to the interactions between the characters they would see the development being done a little bit at a time.

if Makishima use a hologram when he was with us too Rikako would have "seen" with his hologram
:rolleyes:

That's not it. Akane's interest in learning more about the work of a detective (profiling, etc) is consistent with her her stated goal of choosing to work for the Criminal Investigation Division in order to make a difference (episode 2, if I remember correctly!!). This isn't about Kougami; Akane needs to learn more and catch up to him to achieve her goal, because she won't change anything just by doing her job as an inspector like Gino does.