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ChocoBar1 wrote:

HaruhiToy wrote:

She is actually fulfilling a critical, if ham-handed, role. She not only represents but totally personifies what "the system" is all about. The more you hate her now, the more fun her "rude awakening" will be if it comes. So don't kill her off.

So you're saying she's just a poorly written plot device who just exist to be proven wrong since she has no actual reason to act the way she does.

I don't see why she's "poorly-written". I have a feeling that she's going to offer something different to the group, if only because I don't see her coming to the same conclusion as Akane and the others regarding the system, even when she gets her "reveal" that changes her views. Even though she currently exists as the "social norm" ideology sample in the story, she's too fundamentally different from the rest of the cast as a person. Thus, while revealing the major flaws of the system to her will be an important scene and I do see the painfully obvious build-up toward it, her role is still intact and significant to the show and I see her developing as her own individual.
Whether or not this is done well is a different matter, but I see no direct flaws in the execution thus far. Aside from the fact that a lot of viewers seem to just dislike her as a person (myself included).

Juno016 wrote:

Whether or not this is done well is a different matter, but I see no direct flaws in the execution thus far. Aside from the fact that a lot of viewers seem to just dislike her as a person (myself included).

Which is a sign of a good actor.

Also, what seems to be getting lost a lot here, is that Mika is a very realistic character. If you haven't had to deal with someone like that you're lucky.

ChocoBar1 wrote:

HaruhiToy wrote:

She is actually fulfilling a critical, if ham-handed, role. She not only represents but totally personifies what "the system" is all about. The more you hate her now, the more fun her "rude awakening" will be if it comes. So don't kill her off.

So you're saying she's just a poorly written plot device who just exist to be proven wrong since she has no actual reason to act the way she does.

Glad you're trying so hard, kid. Laughing

But really, I can't help but feel her unlikability is entirely intentional. The show itself seems to acknowledge it. If her nonsensical behavior is there for the purpose of coming across as nonsensical, there must be a good reason for it. Hopefully, it's explained.

Of course, there's not much evidence for this, so this is purely conjecture.

reidwyr wrote:

Quote:

but the one thing it can't be accused of is repeating itself.

Say what? So far all that season two has done is a poor's man rehash of what the first did.

The villain is a far less interesting Makishima doing the same thing in a slightly different way, but to the same results. He is immune to the system and is making people immune to it as well. Oh gosh,where have I seen that before?

Mika is Ginoza but far more annoying and poorly written. Sakuya is Kogami with a twist of being blatantly set up to be a "surprise" villain.

The only thing psycho pass 2 is doing is repeating itself to far less positive results.

See, I don't agree with that at all. Makishima's whole MO was just releasing people to their ids without really caring about the results, just as long as those results were interesting to study. Once they stopped being interesting, he "released" his targets from their misery of not having a place anywhere in the system. (A place he put them in, the big jerk.) Also the whole "no emotions because I'm a sociopath" thing.

The immediate thing that stands out about Kamui is that he's super-emotional. He's like a therapist to his own victims, immediately apologizing for any discomfort he causes them in a way that's both creepy but you can also believe it would be effective for brainwashing the kind of people who grew up inside the Sybil system. Makishima had a tiny pool of followers that basically got killed off as soon as they followed him. Kamui basically has an expanding cult of individuals that he seems to be very good towards, if you consider drugs that artificially change your personality and probably drive you insane "good."

tl;dr Makishima's mission was all about releasing people's true, unvarnished selves and seeing them destroyed for his own satisfaction. Kamui's appears to be changing people's true selves in order to allow them to live freely. He wants people to live. Makishima wanted to expose the system subliminally out of intellectual ennui, and Kamui wants to bust it wide open out of righteous anger and sorrow, which is why he's so in tune with Akane.

I don't really have any defense for Mika, but Sakuya isn't actually like Kogami at all. He's taking his place as the enforcer Akane feels most comfortable around, but they're clearly doing something completely different with his character arc and role than they were with Kogami. Kogami was an unleashable wild card to the end. Sakuya is determined, calculated, plotting, duplicitous...and almost certainly in servitude to Sybil. He's a double agent with a ton of secrets, not an openly honest and desperately sane man in an insane system like Kogami was.

So yeah, I agree that this season is a step down, but I had a lot of predictions going into it for how they could repeat themselves, and I'm not seeing those. I'm seeing new ideas with iffy execution. "New" for this limited premise (keep in mind they can't change the premise of Psycho-Pass here, and that premise has a TON of rules and restrictions,) but yeah, I think they're doing good with trying to keep you guessing.

reidwyr wrote:

Quote:

but the one thing it can't be accused of is repeating itself.

Say what? So far all that season two has done is a poor's man rehash of what the first did.

The villain is a far less interesting Makishima doing the same thing in a slightly different way, but to the same results. He is immune to the system and is making people immune to it as well. Oh gosh,where have I seen that before?

Mika is Ginoza but far more annoying and poorly written. Sakuya is Kogami with a twist of being blatantly set up to be a "surprise" villain.

The only thing psycho pass 2 is doing is repeating itself to far less positive results.

Ginoza wasn't even much of a bitch just incredibly strict, we eventually found out that his attitude came from his disappointment in his father and him and Kougami finding different paths leading him to become an Enforcer. Mika doesn't have a reason to act the way she does and feels like she ignored Akane's advice at the end of the first season.

Juno016 wrote:

Whether or not this is done well is a different matter, but I see no direct flaws in the execution thus far. Aside from the fact that a lot of viewers seem to just dislike her as a person (myself included).

Because it's blatantly obvious and doesn't do much of anything for the narrative other than providing us with a Scrappy Doo. It's almost hilarious how much they're trying with her with episode 2 being a prime example. There's nothing worse than a character who is created solely to be hated because it shows that the writers didn't put much time and effort into the character themselves. It's the same thing with Togare, could you make it anymore obvious that the guy is bad news? Does he need a mustache so he can twirl it as well? Though given the people who watch and praise this crap they probably do need it to be as obvious as Makashima's literary drops in the first season.

HaruhiToy wrote:

Juno016 wrote:

Whether or not this is done well is a different matter, but I see no direct flaws in the execution thus far. Aside from the fact that a lot of viewers seem to just dislike her as a person (myself included).

Which is a sign of a good actor. .

Why not praise Yayoi for her ability to contribute absolutely nothing in a given scene next. Rolling Eyes

Juno016 wrote:

Also, what seems to be getting lost a lot here, is that Mika is a very realistic character. If you haven't had to deal with someone like that you're lucky.

Using realistic and Psycho Pass in the same sentence is about as hilarious as this review saying that it's not repeating itself. Let alone the fact that we don't know anything about Mika beyond her being the schoolgirl in the first season and how any of that correlations to her attitude and treating enforcers like shit is another story.

About Mika, I guess the only reason she's like that is because they wanted to make an inverted duality boss-servant in comparison with the first season and some conflict between the main group before what surely will happen later. But the problem here (at least so far) is that this is only Mika dealing with herself, she's not influencing Akane (and to be honest it shouldn't be because Akane made her mind up about her methods in the first season and Mika doesn't bring any argument or reason other than ignorance and pride) so it's only Mika complaining about Akane and obssesing about the "unquestionable unthinkable right thing" without contemplations to options or something. And not being connected with this current plot or being a new issue, it's just pointless and annoying.

I guess a somehow different direction is if she ends up being abducted too by Kamui or seriously conflicted with him later, because in this episode some similar brainwashing happened with the other inspector while mentioning some aspects about the mindset of an inspector, so maybe she could be involved in that too, although so far it's centered in the the inspectors of the other divisions. But with only 11 episodes (there's no more confirmed, is it?) and all the hints about Togane, Kamui, Kogami, etc. I don't know if there will be time enough for that.

BTW, looking at the staff now, I just noticed that Hinakawa has the same seiyuu as Makishima, Takahiro Sakurai. I'm...not sure what to make of that. I can't imagine they'd cast the seiyuu of such an extremely important character as one of the new main characters for no reason, unless they *want* us to be suspicious of him. Now I know to keep an eye on him.

spoiler[Now watch as no revelation about Hinakawa happens at all and I end up looking like such a derp. Laughing

]

Mika doesn't really bother me too much. She is a bit annoying but I'm taking a wait and see approach regarding her. Hopefully, there'll be an episode later on in the season that explains why she's so hostile and devoted to Sibyl. There's still a lot they can do with her character, especially if they end up doing more than just 13 episodes.

Merida wrote:

I get it that it's no coincidence that the series name sounds almost like "psychopath", but are there really no...well, kinda sorta sane people fighting the system? I don't think you need to be a complete nutjob to realize that there's something fishy with Sybil...and Makishima was a charismatic and interesting psycho at least, i'm not so sure about Kamui.

As for Mika, i agree that she's fairly annyoing but i don't quite feel the same burning hatred towards her character as others (though that certainly makes for an interesting read. Laughing

).

Makishima wasn't really a psychopath, just a highly intelligent victim of the system who rationalized his alienation into a divine mandate. Kamui seems to be genuinely disturbed and less ideologically driven than obsessed.

Contrary to this review and a lot of other posters I love what the show is doing with Mika; her deep need to see Sibyl and nothing else bring absolute judgment coheres well to the incidents that brought her into the MWSPB in the first place, unlike Akane who took the job because she was hyper competent and had a mature moral center. Her distrust of Akane and anything else that isn't a dominator judgment speaks to how she's dealt with the tragedy that made her an inspector, and it's going to be very interesting to see how she deals with the reality that Sibyl's judgments are far from an embodiment of justice.

Good review, although I thought Hope was a little harsh on Mika. (I would've preferred Hope to have written that second paragraph on some other character than Mika' Smile

') .I also think that Mika is obviously a foil to Akane and it's intentional that Mika's has complete faith in Sybil. Unfortunatley, based on the first two episodes, I can already tell this 2nd season isn't going to be as good, at least characterization-wise, as the 1st. A lot of people complained about the early episodes of the first season being too episodic, but you found out about everyone's backstory and got glimpses into their character.

The 3 episodes in this season so far, barely have any downtime moments where characters are not talking about a case or having introspective moments. Everything is all plot driven. This might explain the sloppier characterization we're seeing.This is probably a consequence of having only 11 episodes as well. Still, I'm enjoying it.

ChocoBar1 wrote:

There's nothing worse than a character who is created solely to be hated because it shows that the writers didn't put much time and effort into the character themselves.

There's plenty of books and films about characters who are hateful or despicable. As long as there's something interesting about a character, it shouldn't matter whether you like the character or not. Obviously, Mika isn't an interesting character at this point, but that could change depending on what we see in future episodes.

ChocoBar1 wrote:

Using realistic and Psycho Pass in the same sentence is about as hilarious as this review saying that it's not repeating itself.

That depends on if you're talking about the setting or the characters. If it's the setting, not really, but this is science fiction after all. If you mean the characters, I somewhat disagree. I thought the characters in the first season were written pretty well, even if they were typical character types you find in most cop/detective shows.

JesuOtaku wrote:

reidwyr wrote:

Quote:

but the one thing it can't be accused of is repeating itself.

Say what? So far all that season two has done is a poor's man rehash of what the first did.

The villain is a far less interesting Makishima doing the same thing in a slightly different way, but to the same results. He is immune to the system and is making people immune to it as well. Oh gosh,where have I seen that before?

Mika is Ginoza but far more annoying and poorly written. Sakuya is Kogami with a twist of being blatantly set up to be a "surprise" villain.

The only thing psycho pass 2 is doing is repeating itself to far less positive results.

See, I don't agree with that at all. Makishima's whole MO was just releasing people to their ids without really caring about the results, just as long as those results were interesting to study. Once they stopped being interesting, he "released" his targets from their misery of not having a place anywhere in the system. (A place he put them in, the big jerk.) Also the whole "no emotions because I'm a sociopath" thing.

The immediate thing that stands out about Kamui is that he's super-emotional. He's like a therapist to his own victims, immediately apologizing for any discomfort he causes them in a way that's both creepy but you can also believe it would be effective for brainwashing the kind of people who grew up inside the Sybil system. Makishima had a tiny pool of followers that basically got killed off as soon as they followed him. Kamui basically has an expanding cult of individuals that he seems to be very good towards, if you consider drugs that artificially change your personality and probably drive you insane "good."

tl;dr Makishima's mission was all about releasing people's true, unvarnished selves and seeing them destroyed for his own satisfaction. Kamui's appears to be changing people's true selves in order to allow them to live freely. He wants people to live. Makishima wanted to expose the system subliminally out of intellectual ennui, and Kamui wants to bust it wide open out of righteous anger and sorrow, which is why he's so in tune with Akane.

I don't really have any defense for Mika, but Sakuya isn't actually like Kogami at all. He's taking his place as the enforcer Akane feels most comfortable around, but they're clearly doing something completely different with his character arc and role than they were with Kogami. Kogami was an unleashable wild card to the end. Sakuya is determined, calculated, plotting, duplicitous...and almost certainly in servitude to Sybil. He's a double agent with a ton of secrets, not an openly honest and desperately sane man in an insane system like Kogami was.

So yeah, I agree that this season is a step down, but I had a lot of predictions going into it for how they could repeat themselves, and I'm not seeing those. I'm seeing new ideas with iffy execution. "New" for this limited premise (keep in mind they can't change the premise of Psycho-Pass here, and that premise has a TON of rules and restrictions,) but yeah, I think they're doing good with trying to keep you guessing.

What I meant was that each of the characters are just replacements for the aforementioned roles, I am not saying they're exactly the same.

Kamui is doing the same thing Makishima did, of course it is a different way with different goals, but episode 3 showed how they're still resulting in the same situations.

people don't get caught by the system anymore and generate chaos. That is exactly what happened in the first season, see guy punching that divison 2 inspector. Same thing in a smaller scale that will eventually go out of control.

The only difference is that they seem to be manipulated or brain-washed.

Also Kamui's whole situation is a copy-paste from Makishima. Where no one believes he actually exits, until bam, they find proof.

And Sakuya is just that guy supporting Akane's decisions and is willing to go outside the limits, like Kogami. He is obviously going on a different route, but so far he is filling Kogami's shoes.

ChocoBar1 wrote:

reidwyr wrote:

Quote:

but the one thing it can't be accused of is repeating itself.

Say what? So far all that season two has done is a poor's man rehash of what the first did.

The villain is a far less interesting Makishima doing the same thing in a slightly different way, but to the same results. He is immune to the system and is making people immune to it as well. Oh gosh,where have I seen that before?

Mika is Ginoza but far more annoying and poorly written. Sakuya is Kogami with a twist of being blatantly set up to be a "surprise" villain.

The only thing psycho pass 2 is doing is repeating itself to far less positive results.

Ginoza wasn't even much of a bitch just incredibly strict, we eventually found out that his attitude came from his disappointment in his father and him and Kougami finding different paths leading him to become an Enforcer. Mika doesn't have a reason to act the way she does and feels like she ignored Akane's advice at the end of the first season.

That is why I said "far more annoying and poorly written"

I like the second season so far. It’s not one of the highlights, but I would give the show something around a B+ or solid B, so far.

Quote:

It's like the show wants us to hate every second she's onscreen, but that clearly can't be the intent.

Why not? You are right, Mika is obviously made to be hated and I think this must be intentional. To what end? Well, a lot of people have already said that the show will crush her worldview by revealing to her, how wrong she is. In this episode she was proven wrong twice. Once after she scanned Akanes Psycho-Pass (btw: why didn`t we see her actual Psycho-Pass number? I am very curious if it went a little bit up since the last season...) and the second time at the end, when the politician stats to talk about Kamui, who in Mikas opinion does not exist.

But yeah, I see your point. Has she to be this dumb? Ginoza was the far better "let’s challenge his world view by showing how wrong the system can be"-character than she is so far. I don`t like her at all, but I hope that the author is doing this exaggerated negative characterization of her with purpose, because this implies that he will change her in some way later on.

On the subject of Kamui:

I think you are right, Kamui isn`t a Makishima clone at all. But the script lets him use some methods that really remind the audience of some events from the past season. He can trick Sibyl - although with artificial methods like drugs - like Makishima could and he lets his "patients" loose on the innocent citizens (which get from him an artifical way to trick Sibyls scanners. Like Makishimas helmets). They commit crimes on those citizens while Sibyl is watching but it can`t act, since their Hue is clear. For instance at the end when inspector Aoyanagi wanted to use her dominator on the guy, who was about to kill someone. But Sibyl decided to not act because his hue was clear.

That’s one similarity to the Makishima: his methods (or maybe it’s more correct: how the script lets him act). But there is another. In season one Makishima always felt driven towards Kogami and the script characterized them as very similar, although they had fundamental different philosophies. Kamui seems to be driven towards Akane and has a few things in common with her:

Both want to save the people whose hue is clouded.
Both are challenging the Sibyl System. (Yes, I think even Akane challenges it when she says things like Kitazawas rebellion being necessary to change the world they live in. And in this Season she speaks to Sibyl in a challenging manner)

So I think Kamui is to Akane, what Makishima was to Kogami. Some kind of evil alter ego ^^

@RestLessone

Quote:

He's definitely one of the more outwardly emotional characters we've seen.

I would go farther than calling him only emotional. Was it only me, or did Kamui seem like he was sexualy agitated when he injected Shisui with the drug? (I am not sure if this is the right English expression for what i want to say. I hope you can understand what i mean^^). The way he touched her lips and how close he was to her. Their lips almost meeting... I don't know, but he has some kind of irrational/overemotional (even psychopathic?) aura about him...

@JesuOtaku

Quote:

but Sakuya isn't actually like Kogami at all. He's taking his place as the enforcer Akane feels most comfortable around, but they're clearly doing something completely different with his character arc and role than they were with Kogami.

But the show sure tries very hard to make Togane look similar to Kogami...The exercising scene of episode two was almost 1:1 the same scene Kogami had in Season 1 (with Akane watching him). They smoke the same cigarette brand and so on....But if it’s true that he was a psycho-analyst and has the highest psycho-pass ever measured, then he is maybe trying to get close to Akane, as you pointed out in another review. As you said, he is calculating and plotting. Being able to tell that someone is perceptive about people implies that he himself is perceptive about people, too...

Quote:

Psycho-Pass 2 still has a long way to go to live up to the high expectations set from season one

I mostly agree with your reviews so far but one thing bugs me. You are comparing one episode to a whole season. Yes, if you take this three episodes and compare them with the whole season 1 of Psycho-Pass, than the second season sure seems like a downgrade. But how about comparing episode one of season 2 with episode one of season 1? Or at least comparing the first three episodes, which could be considered as introduction to the characters and plot, to the first three episodes of the other one?
I am bringing this up, because I think that the first few episodes of season one weren`t that good, too. Imho the strength of the first season lies in the middle part and in the ending (not including the explanation of how Sibyl works...well I guess even Gen Urobuchi has sometimes problems with scripts ^^)

Kigosh wrote:

Quote:

He's definitely one of the more outwardly emotional characters we've seen.

I would go farther than calling him only emotional. Was it only me, or did Kamui seem like he was sexualy agitated when he injected Shisui with the drug? (I am not sure if this is the right English expression for what i want to say. I hope you can understand what i mean^^). The way he touched her lips and how close he was to her. Their lips almost meeting... I don't know, but he has some kind of irrational/overemotional (even psychopathic?) aura about him...

I agree. I was initially going to write "predatory" but didn't know if I was misreading the scene. The sexual undertones could have been played up for the creepy factor, rather than be a part of his character. Time will tell...

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EP. REVIEW: Psycho-Pass 2