Episode 6. We start off with a view of Kogami’s demons, and I realize that the hazy flashbacks from Episode 2 were of this trauma, not of Episode 1…though Episode 1 can’t have been a pleasant experience.

“I’m not going to die down here.”

Ginoza is called in to visit Judi Dench as “M” to give a report on Tsunemori.

After this initial concession, he’s actually rather complimentary and fair; he may even be growing to like Tsunemori. (Professionally, not romantically.) I award him a few more points on top of the ones from Episode 5.

M goes out of her way to mention both that Ginoza had a partner whose Psycho-Pass went bad and that his father’s Psycho-Pass went bad. The latter would be an intriguing twist if I hadn’t accidentally spoiled it for myself by looking up Ginoza’s full name on Wikipedia. (Out of deference to anyone reading through as they watch for the first time I’ll save my thoughts on that until it’s confirmed in-show.)

Not content to stay focused on anything in particular, the episode jumps to an all-girls school.

To be honest I picked this for the screencap because my symbolism senses are screaming that this statue has to mean something clever, but I can’t actually think of anything. Nothing too significant happens in the first school scene so I’ll go on to what’s next.

Oh, heck yes.

For some reason I keep expecting Tsunemori to be all business, all the time. But she goes to cafés with school friends, hangs out online with a cutesy avatar, and now she plays classic arcade games. It’s soon clear she came down here to ask Kagari about Kogami (like she did with Masaoka in Episode 4), but she’s not just politely humoring him as part of asking for a favor—she’s actually focused on the game. And for his part, I love that Kagari cooks.

I took the most screencaps from this section because I enjoyed it so much. Here’s Tsunemori laughing after Kagari teasingly asks if she’s fallen in love with Kogami.

I think some of this is deliberate, that Tsunemori has figured out consciously or subconsciously that the best way to deal with Kagari is to pick up his brash and swaggering ways. But she doesn’t blush or try to explain it away or deny it; she just bursts out laughing. Take that, tropes!

(I don’t even mind if it does develop later. The point is that it’s not a requirement and Tsunemori doesn’t think it’s a logical conclusion or anything.)

Kagari’s home cooking is actually way better than processed food, and he tries to use it to get Tsunemori drunk.

Shouldn’t be too hard, right? The straight-A student just out of college, female, possibly even not yet of legal drinking age?¹ Turns out Tsunemori’s a little more worldly than he would have thought, and she’s just a little buzzed. Take that, Kagari!

…Actually, that’s a little more flip than I was at the time. Tsunemori was cleverer than I gave her credit for, sure, but at some point I realized that Kagari might be dangerous. That is, in some shows, he might try to get her drunk in order to assault her. He may be under heavy surveillance, but it’s not exactly a safe situation for Tsunemori.

I’m glad it didn’t go there, and am still a little rattled about the whole idea. Does it connect to “latent criminal”, or is it just that he’s male, particularly with his previous leering comments?

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Karanomori gives Tsunemori some more details on the case, now that she knows what to ask for. Kunizuka eats her instant ramen.

I still don’t have much to say about Kunizuka, and the additional information Karanomori provides about the past case is all pretty factual. The important takeaways are that (1) it was gruesome and (2) they never caught the culprit.

The show then gives me a two-for-one by having Tsunemori meet up with her friends again

who whack us over the head with some in-universe symbolism, which is also the only real interesting point from this episode that isn’t just introducing facts. Kogami wasn’t just an Inspector; he was a good Inspector, and yet he’s now Tsunemori’s subordinate, an Enforcer.

The implication is that Tsunemori may follow the same path.

At school, we find out someone’s missing, and that there’s a creepy older girl that everyone looks up to whose haircut is inextricably associated with my coworker, even though it’s a haircut that’s found all over the place in manga-style media.

It turns out she’s been carefully observing other girls, particularly those with a “cloudy Psycho-Pass”. One girl in particular has come to see her. She comforts her and gives a familiar speech², and I’m thinking she’s going to go kill this girl’s abusive stepfather, but no, she just kills her. Take that, uh, kindness and vigilante-ism?

I skipped ahead to the punchline because nothing much happens in the rest of the episode. The team retroactively establishes that the throwaway robot murderer from Episode 3 had to have had help, like the hologram killer from Episodes 4 and 5. Kogami is certain that it’s the mastermind from his own cold case, even though his only real evidence is the lack of connection between motive and means. Ginoza, as usual, can’t jump to that conclusion, but for once he doesn’t get mad at Kogami for it. The show confirms that Kogami’s right anyway by (1) having the discovery of the dead girl happen the same way as the case Karanomori described, and (2) having Advent Child show up behind the new killer just before the credits.

Here we go again.

This entry was posted on April 18, 2017. Tags: Psycho-Pass, Psycho-Pass watchthrough