[Triple_R]

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.

Originally Posted by Kanon

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?

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

Originally Posted by Jimmy C

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."

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.