Forum - View topicThe Literary Secrets of Psycho-Pass
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Knoepfchen
 Posts: 698 |
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Oh, I love listening to great dialogue about things I find interesting. The banquet of kings in Fate/Zero, for example. You don't even need to move the camera for me in scenes like that. Just keep them talking, I'm good. 
But the way PP's society and system was introduced to us in the first episode was... not very elegant. There was too much tell instead of show. I don't have any issues with Akane needing explanations about how to use the dominators or what the enforcers are, as it wasn't in the system's interest to have her look into the abyss before her time. It actually made sense she wasn't trained as a police officer (detective work is what the enforcers are for, after all) and had to have the mechanics spoon-fed to her. But having Matsuoka go on and explain how the scans, psycho-passes, drones... work was a bit much, especially since Akane seemed a lot less clueless about these things a few minutes later. |
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Enigmo
 Posts: 17 |
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For me, Makishima was practically the only thing that made me watch the show to the end. The main detective--forgot his name--was boring af. And the female detective was annoying af
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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While Sybil wanted its true self to be accepted, it also conceded it was inherently imperfect and vowed to step aside without protest if a superior system was devised to replace it. Calling Psycho Pass a dystopia completely misses the point: Sybil is actually benevolent. It does bad things to maintain order but even Akane admits that a stable society under Sybil is better than anarchy. This is a very fresh idea in science fiction: that there is no point overthrowing a system if you don't replace it with something better.
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JacobC
ANN Contributor
 Posts: 3728 Location: SoCal |
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The last shot of Sybil in Psycho-Pass is (may not be exact, going from memory here, but it's close) Akane saying "One day society will be strong and independent enough to come in here, see you for what you really are, and just turn off all the lights and leave." Sybil sees this as a challenge and laughs evilly as Akane strides out of the room. That's not the way you structure the last scene with an "ultimately not so bad" force in a story. Sybil was not remotely framed to be a benevolent system, any more than Kyubey was framed to be a good guy because he used nice words most of the time and was ultimately working for the good of the universe. It's "better than anarchy" but that can be said of basically every governmental system including legendarily heinous dictatorships. ("But at least the trains were always on time" as the old saying goes.) That's why no society successfully functions under anarchy for even a conservative period of time before mutating into something with structure. tl;dr Sybil is not just "imperfect," it's evil. It's literally a giant matrix of psychopathic brains, specifically those previously convicted of the most heinous crimes possible, judging society through a crazy over-the-top "feelings are bad and logic is good" lens. It's not only evil, it's almost downright silly! (I like the show a lot, but on paper it's pretty silly. All in the execution.) |
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Wondername
 Posts: 17 |
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Nice article, the literary references were one of the main reasons I loved this show and didn't get the hate for it. Whenever a new book was introduced or the characters were talking about a certain work all I could think was "oh, you didn't!". They carried some real foreshadowing and whoever entwined these works in the series knew what he was doing. They fit incredibly well, both with the story and with the execution.
That being said, what about Max Weber's references? He was remembered explicitly in episode 9, but through the whole series there was a bunch of references on his work, mostly on his ideas on bureaucracy, the state and authority. I do believe that Foucault's ideas on the panopticon were also pretty important overall, which makes sense since the whole series is centered around that idea as well. Then there was Blaise Pascal and I'm pretty sure that also other Shakespeare works got quoted. But yeah, it's kinda hard to remember or even notice them all. 
I find that the majority of people misses these references and I guess that's normal, but it's also a shame since it adds a lot to the show's depth. So yeah, looking forwards to similar articles for other shows. Pretty please? 
Edit: Derped on Foucault. Also remembered another huge SciFi reference, "Do androids dream of electic sheep?" - Philip K. Dick. |
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RaylenCypher
 Posts: 138 |
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No literary references to Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury in the show? Aww, I'm disappointed. I was hoping it would have some slight connection to the show. I haven't seen Psycho-Pass but based on the content of this article, I thought Fahrenheit would be in there somewhere. |
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hyojodoji
Posts: 584 |
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Makishima's eating a madeleine in Episode 15 is a reference to Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time.
In his translation of In Search of Lost Time, scholar of French literature Suzuki Michihiko wrote:
You can see the translation by Suzuki Michihiko also in Episode 22. |
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Brian_FTP
 Posts: 88 |
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I skimmed through the article since Psycho-Pass is on my list of "anime to watch when I get around to it."
Okay, you've piqued my interest. Psycho-Pass just moved to the top of that list. 
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MajorZero
Posts: 359 |
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Good article, but, since Urobutcher has no idea about what subtlety is, most of these "secrets" (especially dystopian and cyberpunk novels) were recognizable right from the start (hell, if I remember correctly characters even mentioned some of the books during dialogues).
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Chipp12
Posts: 302 |
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It's funny how everyone here are saying "Urobuchi this, Urobuchi that" when they don't know that the actual writer of Psycho-Pass season one and the Movie is Fukami Makoto. I've already said about an interview withe Urobuchi and Fukami before and what's interesting here is that they've explained the way Psycho-Pass was written.
Basically, Urobuchi was making a base plot for each episode, then Fukami was writing the actual script for the episode, and then Urobuchi was giving this script the final touches. And the Movie was written the same way.
If you're interested to read about that and more yourself here's a link for the interview: http://natalie.mu/comic/pp/psychopass |
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residentgrigo
 Posts: 2418 Location: Germany |
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@RaylenCypher Fahrenheit 451 has robot dogs and so has PP but that also goes for MGS Revegeance and Mega Men.
A lot of the leads of PP were dead inside antiheroes who spend 1/3 of the times being nostalgic for the past and the police force in PP2 were straight out anti villains. As they should be! Yo Hope. Akane indeed resigned to the fact that Cybil isn´t something she can mess or expose on her own and hopes that society will try to fix itself but fascistic governments (it is a dystopia after all) have a way to not topple themselves so we will see and a happy ending would be rather pointless. I also find governments that are run by a super brain to be a rather lazy trope and MGS did that one too but it had a figurehead to lead it and the show will need more of a real face to actual struggle against if they choose to. I further have no idea how either of the 2 teams want to resolve the metaseries but the similar endings to both shows are a decent way to leave it be. I would give it off to Katsuhiro Otomo or someone comparable and show a life from the streets perspective in form of a short-ish OVA series but the franchise can´t go on that much longer from a creative or even financial standpoint. The Nolan comparison makes sense (i am mostly a fan) but a comparison with David S. Goyer makes even more sense as i mentioned Person of Interest for a reason .
The picture chosen for the feature lastly proves that PP 1 (2 stopped that) is one of the most homosexually charged shows about a mostly hetero cast. A bit like the 10/10 Hannibal. Now go read a book or something. (Katsuyuki/Urobuchi are the show runners and Fukami is one of the lead writers. The point is?) Edit:MajorZero is right. Goyer has been wasting away on Constantine. Last edited by residentgrigo on Sun Jun 14, 2015 6:27 am; edited 2 times in total |
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YotaruVegeta
 Posts: 1061 Location: New York |
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If enjoying JoJos makes my crime coeficient go up, then I'll gladly become a pile of goo.
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MajorZero
Posts: 359 |
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David Goyer has nothing to do with PoI, it's created by Jonah Nolan. Anyway, I think similarities between PoI and PP are superficial and mostly ends on Sybil and Samaritan. Though, I wish Makishima was half as interesting and charismatic as Greer. |
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Calsolum
 Posts: 898 |
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nice article, i caught about half of these myself when i watched the show but the other half was lost on me since i never knew the original sources. Looks like i have a couple of books to add to my reading list
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Angel M Cazares
 Posts: 5421 Location: Iscandar |
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Thanks for this great piece Gabriella. It will come handy the next time I rewatch the first season of Psycho-Pass.
And I should stop being so lazy and read these and other great works of literature. |
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