Psycho-Pass

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > VEGETA > Psycho-Pass

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Good_Haro posted:

Look, by the time I finished the episode, I was actually angry at how bad it was.

I really don't get how it could produce that intense of an emotional reaction. Yes, it was a little heavy on "As you know, Bob" exposition, but there's an actual concept it's going after, it did a decent job of setting up some issues surrounding the concept, and the production values are good. I'm not a huge fan of the way the female lead is drawn, and her superior felt a bit cookie-cutter, but those aren't really huge issues. It's just nice that there's a series with a good budget, ideas beyond "boobs, explosions, and exploding boobs" behind it, and is likely to have the discipline to not go off the loving rails like Guilty Crown.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2012 04:26

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 09:34

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

paragon1 posted:

Are we seriously expected to believe a law enforcement officer, one of whose PRIMARY DUTIES is to shoot co-workers who get out of line, was never trained to be psychologically prepared to use deadly force, or to have even handled her duty weapon before? That a massive city's law enforcement body is just that incompetent? And everyone in the field knows this?

Well, from an HR perspective, she probably has excellent credentials and very low latent criminality, so there's nothing that anyone could have pointed to to blame the HR system if she messes up. It doesn't produce ideal outcomes in the field, obviously, but that's not what the system is supposed to do; it's supposed to protect the people who administer the system from any potential repercussions.

I get the feeling that a lot of this society functions very automatically (from the psycho-pass scanning to the robo-guards to the guns' target analysis to the very idea of Sybil), so someone just said "top of her class, must be good to go" and that was the end of it.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2012 02:18

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Paracelsus posted:

I get the feeling that a lot of this society functions very automatically (from the psycho-pass scanning to the robo-guards to the guns' target analysis to the very idea of Sybil), so someone just said "top of her class, must be good to go" and that was the end of it.

Sounds like this more-or-less panned out; she met the system's credentials, so there wasn't any objection. It's just that the system's credentials aren't necessarily very good.

It struck me how very unmoved the people at the mall were by the sight of the cops in holo-suits subduing and removing someone. They didn't seem to notice it at all. And the overly-cheery kawaii police bot outfits felt like they infantilized the populace, by assuming that putting a cheery face on the affair makes it okay. The scary thing is that it seems to work.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2012 03:09

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Sakurazuka posted:

The trouble with this show is that it's trying to showing how bad the system is but it's making it seem so bad that it looks less like a system the was considered 'a good idea' but turned out to have flaws and more something that was deliberately designed to force people into doing horrible poo poo and having horrible poo poo done to them.

Of course, that could end up being the point.

It seems like the system's badness is a matter of your point of view. It's not very nice to the people it operates on, but I bet it's quite good at fulfilling the metrics by which the system's operators are judged. The Sibyl system is basically iKafka; a bureaucracy with the power of life and death over the people it affects, no real feedback from those people, and accountability only to those who don't care about the side-effects, only with the uncaring old guy behind a desk replaced by user-friendly augmented reality touchscreens and a computer voice engineered to be as non-stress-inducing as possible.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2012 02:28

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Dan7el posted:

Second, once they guy started cutting through the floors, all they had to do was start going back upstairs. I guess they needed to head out anyway, though.

Yeah, they had to get the guy to where their cable extension for the Dominators' signal could reach in order to take him down.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2012 18:26

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

CelestialCookie posted:

One related question though, if someone psycho-pass is high, but he/she is not committing any crime, should he be eradicated from the society as well?

My guess is that they either report to therapy, or therapy comes calling for them.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2012 08:16

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

I thought it was Franklin Pierce. Also the back of it looks like a Euro coin.

# ¿ Nov 6, 2012 03:05

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Dr_Amazing posted:

So is everyone just wearing sweatpants the whole time or something under their holo clothes? What's the point in fashion if your nice clothes aren't more expensive than anyone else's?

Some clothes flatter certain figures more than others. Some evoke or broadcast a particular mood. Some people simply like x more than y.

I thought they did a good job of keeping the cyborg guy just a tiny bit into the uncanny valley.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2012 04:18

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Raenir Salazar posted:

Whathisface's life was shitcanned from the get go right because of it? Why wasn't there a few years of careful therapy and close monitoring to see if he improves? Zero effort to distinguish between people who can occasionally have unhappy thoughts but still be productive so okay give them a pass versus actual latent sociopaths seems odd but we wouldn't have our dystopian thriller without it I guess.

I think people view the bad hue as a sickness or sign of contamination, and shun those who have it to protect themselves from "catching" it (the same idea behind the all-girl's school to keep the hue clear). If you create an all-seeing system that points out "flaws," people are going to use it to do the same stupid things they do already, only moreso. I mean, in Japan someone finding out that your great-great-granddaddy was a tanner can mean you lose your job and have to move to a different city where no one knows you and you hope that no one there talks to anyone from your old city if you want to be able to be part of reputable society.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2012 08:42

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

The question isn't whether the Sibyl system itself is "good" or not; it's an inanimate object, it doesn't have motivations or moral agency. And I think it's probably quite accurate at measuring the qualities it's designed to measure. The problem comes when people, whether the system's designers or the society that uses it, attempt to find meaning in those measurements, and do so in manners that are self-serving, fearful, or just plain mistaken, resulting in society warping itself around meeting standards for the measurements like a show dog line bred to maximize certain qualities until the dogs can't walk or reproduce naturally.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2012 17:45

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Raenir Salazar posted:

Definitely the case that Akane has something special about her, might have something to do with how much conviction in your sense of justice is, could be genetic, or both. Lots of 1984 vibes.

I would not be at all surprised if the series ended with Akane being ~~killed~~sent to another dimension as an asymptomatic criminal. The thing about her crime coefficient being kept so low as an unusual trait is just too much of a thing for it to not go somewhere very bad, especially in light of what the Sibyl-lady was saying.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2013 23:19

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

The_Guy posted:

Some of the lines about how Sybil brings the greatest good for the greatest number contrast with the evidence of shortened of human lifespan and epidemic of mental illness.

Well, I'm sure it brings the greatest good for the greatest number of those who administer the Sybil system, which is the only relevant metric.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2013 02:42

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Dan7el posted:

Time to quit and become a florist or something.

And he might not even have that option if Sibyl says no.

It's not entirely clear to me that Sibyl actually picks the job that you are best qualified for or that makes you happiest; I suspect that it strongly factors in what the value of somebody doing the job is to society, regardless of whether it's the best fit for them or if it really is what they want to do. Somebody has to do the lousy jobs, after all, and the supply of people's skillsets/mentalities is unlikely to be an exact match for that, so some square pegs are going to get stuck in round holes regardless.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2013 00:54

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

SpazmasterX posted:

So has Urobuchi ever said why he loves brutalizing women in his shows? Jesus.

I'm not sure to what extent that's mixed with the effectiveness of such things at producing feelings of revulsion across nearly all cultural barriers. If you want to convey "this is horrible, why isn't anyone helping out," then your most effective options are probably either a) brutalization of a woman or b) brutalization of a child; if you use an adult male, there's more of an expectation that they are at least somewhat capable of defending themselves against that kind of physical violence. And since Butcher Gen likes writing about horrible things in general, you end up with a lot of both a & b.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2013 01:26

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Mr. Stay-Puft posted:

According to the dialogue he's "a foreigner." I don't know how common this is, but I've seen instances in manga/anime where non-Japanese East Asians like Chinese or Koreans were drawn with the stereotypical "slanty eyes" look, even as the Japanese people were drawn in regular manga style.

I believe what he's talking about is the three horizontal yellow lines we keep seeing in the guy's eyes.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2013 20:04

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Dr_Amazing posted:

You'd think one of the cops would have been able to track down the mass producing of all these helmets. It looks complicated that you're not just popping out hundreds of them in a basement somewhere.

I get the feeling that the cops don't have much resources that aren't related to Psycho-pass monitoring, security cameras, and the internet. The people building the helmets may not have been told what their function was, and if no one going in or out of the building has a bad hue, then there's clearly no criminal activity, right? :downs:

# ¿ Feb 2, 2013 10:16

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Ulio posted:

So I got up to episode 4 now, does the main character ever get less ignorant? She's supposed to be this genius but she can't even do a job which requires her basically do nothing but point a gun at people.

I don't think they ever say she's a genius. The Sibyl system considers her qualified to do a wide variety of highly important jobs, but that's not exactly the same thing, which is part of the point. Also remember that she wasn't really trained for the job, she just passed a test and showed up.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2013 07:35

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Aureon posted:

Also, what the gently caress is up with Makishima? i understand that the cyborg body may have been weak due to needing to appear so (albeit, why the metal in the head then?), but how does he plan to survive the airplane crashing?

Parachute?

# ¿ Feb 14, 2013 22:19

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

I'm also loving that the real villain, and the basis of their government, is just a bunch of people who think they're above common morality on a power trip -- organized crime legitimized by social authority. And here I thought the science fiction might get in the way of the message. Silly me.

It's also billed as a perfectly rational system without all the problems attendant with human decision-making, when, whoops, turns out there seem to be a whole lot of self-interested human minds underneath all the smoke and mirrors, just like in every supposedly "rational" system of government ever proposed.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2013 09:26

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Looks like Japan decided to take some lessons from their neighbors to the North and base their economy on Juche.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2013 00:09

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Alder posted:

Anyone think Division 2's Inspector is shady as hell? I forgot her name but they were speaking at the conference room and it's odd how antagonistic she is considering well aren't they on the same side and all?

Well, by their society's standards Akane holds some very heterodox views. She's not operating under the assumption that the Sybil system is infallible, which is a dangerous idea and one that is going to provoke hostile reactions from ordinary upstanding citizens. This is going to be especially true for those immersed in the administration of Sybil, because their entire identity is going to be wrapped up in the perfection of that system. Someone who is shady would probably be more comfortable with the concept, because they've already (rightly or wrongly) internalized the idea that the system can be manipulated or evaded.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2014 21:58

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Combed Thunderclap posted:

That's pretty much it. Makashima was always shown hovering around crazy low CC levels (0-10), while Akane's Hue can change, but it recovers so quickly that she's effectively asymptotic (and her CC stays around more normal levels of 30 and 40).

That's sort of true in a sense, but I think the word you were looking for was asymptomatic. :godwinning:

# ¿ Oct 27, 2014 01:20

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Dervyn posted:

Shimotsuki continues to insufferable since her introduction and yet again displays no inspector-like quality besides a dogmatic belief in Sybil.

What else would an inspector need, aside from a decent enough Hue?

# ¿ Oct 30, 2014 21:14

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Wark Say posted:

I mean, if Ernie Ball (the Guitar strings Shinya teases with/promises Yayoi in that flashback episode) are still around, it means that, for example, not everything in the US has gone to poo poo. Unless they don't make them in SoCal anymore.

Or they're part of a dwindling stock of pre-isolation imports, and are far more precious as a result.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2014 19:21

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Alder posted:

C'mon even a rookie has to see this might be way out of her depth

But in order to be a good member of this society you have to rigorously train yourself to not see things, to the point where you no longer even recognize that there's something you aren't acknowledging. This happens to be one of those things.

# ¿ Nov 28, 2014 09:10

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Stall_19 posted:

Legal Positivism at its finest.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2014 01:51

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 09:34

Paracelsus: Apr 6, 2009; bless this post ~kya

Rodyle posted:

And? She had the means to save her friend and didn't even try. It's a lovely scene and just made me hate how she's our female lead and not someone cool like Yayoi. She sucked so much that I kind of hated the other characters because it felt like she was just made to make them cooler by comparison.

Part of the point of the series is how the society the characters live in strips them of the mindset that would allow them to act. The "cooler" characters are more comprehensible to us for the exact same reason that they are considered monsters by everyone else.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2014 01:55

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > VEGETA > Psycho-Pass