Forum

Last edited by Dfens on Sat Nov 29, 2014 6:21 pm; edited 3 times in total

I'm with Hope on this show I went into it really liking the first 2-3 episodes and loving the 1st season but it's becoming much harder each week that I kind of want to drop. I will rarely drop a such unless it actually bores me to sleep but this one I just don't feel the excitement for the next installment and marathoning it won't help either.

And yes you could say this season was a promotion of the movie from the lower production values to the less effort they put into the writing.

In Japan they get bored of or easily forget about a franchise real fast, so once it's off the air for awhile they usually will move on. So unless they strike while it's still popular or in peoples memories it's hard to make a come back unless it's based off a long running manga or light novel and they needed more source material. With this show being a original series their was no source material to borrow from and wait for.

In the US we can wait however long for another season or movie and still happily enjoy the show while in Japan it's the exact opposite.

I agree so far the first 2-3 episodes were the best and to me quite good and seeing Akane's growth, but there's certainly some stuff in Hope's latest post and generalization of Ubukata in general on other shows that I disagree with.

Izanagi009 wrote:

JesuOtaku wrote:

Oh, I'm sure they didn't! Nobody says "make this not as good" in a production, ever. He was probably just told he couldn't make something that would heavily change the status quo from the end of season one. Doesn't mean it has to be bad! It just means the story has to sort of resolve itself within itself and not change much overall. But I'm positive Ubukata tried to make the very best thing that he could with what he had...he's just not a very good writer. I mean, look at his resume. Most people saw this coming, we just didn't expect it to be this dumb. But expectations have been managed since early on...I'm genuinely disappointed that he somehow blew a hole in my already lower, but still optimistic outlook.

For some frame of reference, since I, despite my love of anime, only track seiyuu production credits and have only recently gotten to following directors and producers, I would like to know what the main issue is with Ubukata?

For reference, I've only watched the first and second Mardock Scramble movies and looking back, they were certainly explicit and gory (the gang sent to kill Rune in the first movie is a combination of "freaks" I never saw coming) but the writing, while a bit rushed and inconsistent in pacing, did have some emotional scenes I liked (the courtroom in particular).

In addition, I have heard no real complaints about Ghost in the Shell Arise which he is the writer on.

Still, kind of odd he was given, according to Wikipedia the 24th Nihon SF Taisho Award for science fiction writing

This. I too haven't heard many complaints about the writing in his past shows. I don't think it's that odd, plus we need to keep in mind he was given the award for the written version not the anime adaptation of the novels where he had to work with a director to adapt them.

This season is certainly not as good as the first but as for the stuff in bold....huh?

I have to say, I too did not see that bolded statement coming...

I mean, going through his writing credits I've enjoyed almost everything (Especially Mardock Scramble and D'Eon and then Arise, Fafner and Heroic Age were very good but not great, so to me he's been consistently putting out good scifi anime) and complaint wise: The only complaint I've really seen about Mardock Scramble had nothing to do with the writing, only that some complain about the casino part, or that part of it was lacking action due to said casino stuff (which probably worked even better in book form but I still thought was good even though some didn't like it or found it boring). Same with GITS Arise, nothing to do with the writing (except maybe that it was too familiar, which is still relatively high praise given the franchise even if something more daring was hoped for), the only thing I've seen get consistent criticism is Cornelius' music and lack of more memorable tunes (even more of a problem following up Yoko Kanno's amazing work on SAC).

And for more stuff, most people credit him with turning around Fafner and making it good with good use of the setup when he took over the second half and I don't recall much in the way of complaints about Heroic Age's writing. And I really liked Chevalier D'Eon too, which was his first show that I saw since I didn't get to see Fafner until later.

I dunno, I don't remember any large reaction toward looking at Ubukata signing on for PP2 with "welp, I know this is gonna suck" like is being implied by "most people saw this coming".

Looneygamemaster wrote:

Quote:

But I'm positive Ubukata tried to make the very best thing that he could with what he had...he's just not a very good writer. I mean, look at his resume.

Out of curiosity, would you put Le Chevalier D'Eon in with his "bad resume?" I thought it was pretty good. Of course, it's the only show of his I've seen. Embarassed

Same here.

Well, it's subjective, of course. The reaction I saw wasn't "this is gonna suck," not at all. It was "...Oh. Well that's...okay. I guess that's fine?" When I think Ubukata, I think Mardock Scramble first (it was okay) and then Fafner and Heroic Age. (Zzzzzzzzzzzz.) I haven't actually really liked anything he's written before. I didn't hate any of it or anything, but I've never been impressed by his work. That was also the reaction I saw from the anime fans I communicate with most on twitter. But it's all completely dependent on what kind of circles you run in. I didn't mean to imply that there was any kind of widespread "this is gonna suck" following the announcement. Mostly on the ANN forums and Twitter, the places I tend to look to gauge opinion trends (which are not at ALL reflective of anime fandom on the whole, but they are of certain types of fans) it was a widespread "eeeeeeh, okay?"

It's not that I dislike Ubukata's resume, I just don't find it very interesting. If it had been announced that Psycho-Pass 2 was being helmed by, say, Kenji Kamiyama, my reaction would have been completely different, and I don't love all or even most of his work either, but I do think he has thought-provoking ideas and tends to write unique, interesting things. Ubukata? Can't say he's ever tickled my brain or come up with anything I thought was novel. I mostly associate him with gore and manufactured drama, sometimes competent, sometimes not, but that's about it. That's definitely what we got in this season!

Although yeah, I didn't know he was head of story for Le Chevalier D'Eon, which I remember liking, but that was literally seven years ago and I don't remember much about it now, so maybe I would feel differently, I'm not sure. I do remember having really negative feelings toward the handling of the whole zombie thing in that show, though. All the same, whatever D'Eon was, it didn't have much of an impact on me. I don't think I click with that guy's work.

But Psycho-Pass 2 isn't a matter of me clicking, I don't think. It just seems badly written. ^^;

JesuOtaku wrote:

The second season was made on a significantly lower budget by a partner studio, and was aired after a re-run (not a common thing for anime!) of the first season, so that tells me that the second season was made to promote the movie and maintain interest in the property. It's a "filler season" because the movie and second season had to be written and produced fairly simultaneously, and they don't want huge continuity errors or anything.

Okay, this makes a lot of sense. I guess with all these issues leading up to season 2, it's no surprise the show is turning out the way it is.

Also, I'm not too familiar with Ubukata's work so I don't know what to expect. I've seen a little bit of Chevalier D'Eon, which was alright, and GITS Arise, which was decent as well. I wasn't expecting a masterpiece with PP season 2 but I wasn't expecting him to crash and burn so spectacularly either.

JesuOtaku wrote:

It's not that I dislike Ubukata's resume, I just don't find it very interesting. If it had been announced that Psycho-Pass 2 was being helmed by, say, Kenji Kamiyama, my reaction would have been completely different,

That's funny because I was thinking the exact same thing. At this point, if Urobuchi isn't available to work on any future Psycho Pass installments, Kamiyama would be a great choice to bring in. His GITS experience makes him a perfect fit for this type of material.

I liked Psycho Pass at first but by the second half it just felt like a checklist of Urobuchi cliches. The themes, the characters and the setting gave me a very strong sense of deja vu. Not to mention it's not nearly as interesting or well written as Madoka, Fate/Zero or... well I'll just cut to the chase and admit literally everything else I've seen from Urobuchi is a great deal better than Psycho Pass.

Now that being said I do not think Psycho Pass is a bad show. That being said, I do think Psycho Pass 2 is a bad show. And it only seems to be getting worse.

As I've already established I wasn't really all that impressed by Urobuchi's contribution in making the first series so I was actually cautiously optimistic about how things would turn out with a new writer. But even so I'm still just as disappointed as everyone else. S1 had a good amount of flaws but this is on another level.

well fate/zero was around 7 years ago, also he got helped greatily by Nasu
as a little trivia: urbc actually wanted Kariya to rape and kill Aoi, then Nasu stopped him and they went for mild strangulation instead
old Urobuchio was fun like that

azhanei wrote:

My biggest miff about episode eight was the mild chibi art when Togane and Akane had tea. Convoluted writing I can handle -- I watched seven seasons of True Blood after all -- but that style is too out of character with the show. I hope it doesn't happen again.

Oh haha, I don't know what's up with these last episodes that force these scenes so badly, in the previous we had the "oh my grandmother is in danger I go oh wait it's fine oh thanks for saying to me how nice I am bye", in this one it's "oh no a person entered in my house *odd editing* nothing well we are here let's have some tea and talk a little bit". Also the scene of Togane talking with Saiga was so unnatural ("Hey, hi, I don't have a lot of time but I'm interested in you and your abiltity to cloud PPs" *discuss about that with casual dialogue* "ok I go bye"), this show needs to know how to introduce scenes like these more naturally because with all of these I say aloud "that was weird~".

Kind of frustrating that people are pointing fingers at the show for being bad in not understanding last episode that they were talking about the transplants making the scans think they are someone else. I got it straight away, it was not that difficult to understand.

And what is so odd about organs being used in identification? Some people are way too quick to assume that a sci-fi has to fit to specific ideas we have now, not thinking of the theory of the technology to gain an understanding. It does make sense to us that that identification should be easily done through a scan of the brain rather than the rest of the body, but with their technology there can be reasons. Firstly, they might have found that a body can scanned more easily to pick up a unique ID over the brain. A brain could get damaged so the entire organ is not recognisable, the deceased might not even be able to be identified while parts of their body can.

And as seen they can upscale what the children would look like if they were older. A big fact about the Psycho-Pass it that it not only measures the body, but also life style. It is not far fetched that they may have medical breakthroughs where they can they are easily able to follow who they are through their body as it changes according to predictions. Their drugs for altering moods, controlling their emotions and such, could also have pretty drastic changes on their brain chemistry that also makes it difficult to keep track.

And the dominators a identify the user by being grabbed by them, their body. Dominators themselves were already ridiculous for blowing people up, but if the purpose was to remove them from the system (blowing their guts up) that actually can be explained now. Wait, this actually explains why Dominators are gruesome. It is why one is dead when they join the system, because they no longer have their body which was their identifier.

SquadmemberRitsu wrote:

I liked Psycho Pass at first but by the second half it just felt like a checklist of Urobuchi cliches. The themes, the characters and the setting gave me a very strong sense of deja vu. Not to mention it's not nearly as interesting or well written as Madoka, Fate/Zero or... well I'll just cut to the chase and admit literally everything else I've seen from Urobuchi is a great deal better than Psycho Pass.

Now that being said I do not think Psycho Pass is a bad show. That being said, I do think Psycho Pass 2 is a bad show. And it only seems to be getting worse.

As I've already established I wasn't really all that impressed by Urobuchi's contribution in making the first series so I was actually cautiously optimistic about how things would turn out with a new writer. But even so I'm still just as disappointed as everyone else. S1 had a good amount of flaws but this is on another level.

Could Psycho Pass S1 be a lesser Urobuchi work, yes?

However, in my mind, that like saying a show has gone from a 97 to a 95 on a grading scale, it's still better than a vast majority of anime that gets made, especially compared to, well my punching bag, Cross Ange.

S2 gives me a sense of "oh dear lord, this will make me angry"

Because vast majority of organs don't emit things like brainwaves, so to scan those they'd have to either x-ray them (and we never saw handheld x-ray tech, which would've been pretty useful on the assspoiler[pull]ault dominator) or do thermal scans (which are nowhere near as unique as necessary).
Also organ transplants are far easier than brain transplants, it's the whole reason this mess began.

Besides, brain damage or drugs causing brainwave changes isn't an argument, any organ can get damaged or otherwise modified in its behaviour, the brain is probably the one organ that most likely causes death once damaged.

A recuring theme in cyberpunk is turning humans' bodies into machines, in PP we saw some guy who went full cyborg save for his brain.
Basically, when you have tech that lets you easily change organs (in synthethic ones nonetheless) the one organ you CAN'T replace is the one that should logically be used for identification purposes.
And the fact that said organ emits waves helps too.

qberr wrote:

Because vast majority of organs don't emit things like brainwaves, so to scan those they'd have to either x-ray them (and we never saw handheld x-ray tech, which would've been pretty useful on the assspoiler[pull]ault dominator) or do thermal scans (which are nowhere near as unique as necessary).
Also organ transplants are far easier than brain transplants, it's the whole reason this mess began.

You are assuming no alternatives would be found. After all, they can make people explode from a distance, there could be things they can read about someone's body.

The problem of cybernetic parts can easily be covered by government laws that require that cybernetic implants be registered as registered.

And still it fully fits into the system Sybil marks their people as dead once they become a brain in a jar, and dominators fully and unnecessarily destroy the body once they need to be removed despite the fact it would rise crime coefficients.

Lethal Eliminator blows people up because it's a sure kill (also gratuitous gore, but that's meta) that's all there is to it really.
Making people explode from a distance isn't impossible(they boil people from the inside, it's in the novels, microwave magic apparently), reading something that simply doesn't exist is.

Regulating things like that is just risky when you aleady have brain wave magic.

The brain is what defines a human's identity, basically, it's a simple cogito ergo sum related concept present in most cyberpunk fiction.
Using you spleen to ID who you are instead of you brain when you already have magical brainwave detectors is just retarded, brains being unique and not-changeable simply makes them the best choice for identification.

qberr wrote:

The brain is what defines a human's identity, basically, it's a simple cogito ergo sum related concept present in most cyberpunk fiction.
Using you spleen to ID who you are instead of you brain when you already have magical brainwave detectors is just retarded, brains being unique and not-changeable simply makes them the best choice for identification.

They can measure crime coefficient from brainwaves. But you also have to remember the rest of the system was made around the brains in jars thing, by losing their body they lose their identification in the usual system.

Their Psycho-Pass is made up of change over time, one has to realise it is not just a number, it is an entire record of who they are.

Toma is officially missing, not dead, and yet he became a jar brain, and then died.
Them losing their ID in the system isn't necessary, stopping people from researching them is.
We don't yet know what a dominator would read once pointed at a Kasei housed CA, it's pretty much the only interesting thing this season might still offer.

PP is the numerization of their present likelyhood of committing a crime, that's all it is.

Well, I don't think it's a bad show. I can watch it and become interested. Just an after-effect from the first season I suppose, tolerance with Akane? Of course, you want to follow Kamui's motive.

I think S2 is plum crazy enough to make my PP go up.

It's a "wing-it" type of show, a weakness of mine, especially when it's sci-fi. Director Tomino seems to like doing it too. While S1 questions Sibil, the society underlying its rule, and how to shake the public (because UroGen likes to play with the balance of human morality), PP2 so far has thrown in wild grisly circumstances that we have to accept as plot momentum.

I can't explain even if I remember what I watched from previous S2 eps. Guess it comes with being "slow". Holographs and drugs are sure doing their jobs to throw me off.

It is gung-ho?

EP 8
spoiler[We have Fossil Fuel Kamui! Yep that's what I'll call him. Lower in dirt that we can't see him. He's made up of so many body parts. DEAD! Decomposed! Blew my mind really (sounds like something from a fantasy. Undead chimera), and the Togane group thought it was OK to do?

"$^% skin graph! We're going to perform ultra god fusion cell implant prosthetic on you. " Plane crashes aren't pretty.

Togane is Sybil's little puppy.
I know Sybil's/Kosaburo/etc is a super bee-yatch but she wouldn't allow Akane to get harmed. Or at least I say that she shouldn't. She's still the head of the Public Sec. Bereau.

Time wasting scene with the janitor (?) or was it a plummer?[/b]]

Forum - View topic
EP. REVIEW: Psycho-Pass 2

Your Anime Rankings - Best of Spring 2024, Jun 10-16

Ultraman: Rising Anime Movie Review

Cheering for Gunma: Narenare -Cheer for you!- Anime Producer Hayato Kanno

This Week in Anime - Is OEL Manga Really Manga?

The Horizon Volumes 1-3 Manhwa Review

Black Butler Manga Goes on Hiatus Before Heading to Climax

River's Edge Manga Review

New Projects Bring New Opportunities for Kinema Citrus Anime Studio

Tokyo Revengers TV Anime Gets Sequel, Fairy Tale Mini Anime

The Café Terrace and Its Goddesses Season 1 Anime Series Review

Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Psycho-Pass 2

Forum

Forum - View topic
EP. REVIEW: Psycho-Pass 2