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Originally Posted by Triple_R
Did 1984 build up a false utopia? Did Huxley's Brave New World? Did Shin Sekai Yori?
All of these narratives very quickly delve into the negatives of their dystopian settings.
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I have not read Brave New World but I just feel Shin Sekai Yori and especially 1984 had much better world building.
At its core I also feel 1984 is a warning about the future (that book's message still frightens me) that doesn't work as well for me with Psycho Pass.
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Gen presents a future where humans are over-medicated (to the point that the average human lifespan is actually decreasing), and overly reliant on machines and systems geared to measure and maintain psychological health to maximum efficiency, no matter what the cost. Gen almost certainly sees the real dangers in a world like that. In fact, with this latest arc, it's clear how Gen personally could feel very threatened by a world like Psycho-Pass. Would the VN Saya no Uta survive in a world like Psycho-Pass? I very much doubt it.[
When portraying a futuristic setting, the key is not ambiguity, moral or otherwise. The key is believability. And here is where Psyco-Pass works exceptionally well, imo. It's not hard at all to see how, in a generation or two, our world could look a lot like the one in Psycho-Pass'.
And that's what makes the world of Psycho-Pass so interesting, and chilling, to me.
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But that's my problem I can't see why a world like this would be created because the system seems so flawed in the first place. Perhaps later on in the series there will be an episode explaining why this system came about, but for now this aspect of the world building feels a bit weak to me.
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Makishima is right about the world of Psycho-Pass, imo, but that doesn't mean he's some "pure white" character. The man obviously has a lot of blood on his hands, and raises the old "Do the ends justify the means?" question (and that question does retain some moral ambiguity).
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Of course Makishima is not pure white and of course the end doesn't justify the means. I don't really see any ambiguity here. His reasoning might be right the system is wrong, but his methods are also wrong. That's pretty clear cut to me.
Even though I find him to be a fascinating villain and I am looking forward to watching more of him, I still see him very clearly as a villain.
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The protagonists are generally good people who want to do the right thing... but are ultimately enablers of a horrible system.
The antagonists are generally horrible people who are entertained by toy-criminals brutally victimizing innocent, moe girls (how much more evil can you get in anime?! )... but those antagonists are right about the system.
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I'll admit this is an interesting way to look at it & I do like this aspect. I am not saying the characters or story are not interesting though, it's the set up of the world itself that doesn't fully work for me.
edit: What I mean is I can see where a world where people try to create a stress free environment might happen. The warnings about censorship of art for example work for me.
However assuming a stress free environment should create a world that initially looks to be free of crime or at least less crime, but right away we see crime hasn't gone away at all and heck it doesn't even seem stress has gone away (even though this is what the system supposedly does). People are so worried about keeping their psycho pass clean, if anything that society seems more worried to not be worried.