Psycho-Pass 9: "Paradise Fruit"
Oh man, I took so many screencaps in this one. I’ll try to resist putting them all in here.
The episode starts off with the aftermath of Episode 8, and Ginoza deliberately bumping past Tsunemori to talk to Kogami.
Rude. At least he’s come to apologize to Kogami. Even Kogami’s surprised by this, but accepts graciously.
The next day (?), Tsunemori is getting ready to go out.
I continue to be fascinated by the holo-costume device, even though it’s just trying on different outfits but faster. The settings she has listed are “Evening”, “Holiday casual”, “Urban Trendy”, and “Business”.
OH GOD IT’S THE JELLYFISH ASSISTANT AGAIN.
*cough* Jellyfish notices that Tsunemori’s paying a lot of attention to her clothes, and—“Oh! Do you have a date?”
Welp.
(Also, I’m realizing how many of my screencaps this episode are just Tsunemori blushing. Um…)
There’s also something else minorly interesting going on here: Jellyfish is more than just Siri. It’s actually semi-sentient, not just with powers of deduction but with apparent emotions. More seriously, though it hasn’t been particularly foreshadowed at all, Jellyfish is probably hooked up to Sibyl. It’s also a bit weird to watch Tsunemori’s personal assistant watching her try on outfits in the wake of Amazon’s terrible new Echo Voyeur announcement
Tsunemori turns on Hulu to catch an interview with…Advent Child’s Butler‽
Turns out he’s actually the CEO of a construction company, which explains why they can hide all that stuff in the sewers / steam tunnels beneath the city. More importantly, he’s a cyborg, and by this point definitely “more machine now than man” (not to mention “twisted and evil”). This means I should probably retire “C-3PO In A Human Suit” for describing Choe Gu-Sung, now that there’s an actual confirmed cyborg involved. Also it explains the unnatural green eyes.
Boss Butler is all-in on the cyborg thing, and runs the usual line with his interviewer: “you depend on your appliances and your apps just as much…can you really say you’re not a cyborg?” She’s not exactly happy with this line of reasoning. (I’m actually with him on this, though I’m personally not interested in replacing parts of my body that are still currently functioning.)
They then go on to talk about the brain being the last limit for lifespans—for someone fully cyborgized like him, he could live to be 150. The next step would be some kind of computerized brain, at which point “the era of immortality will have arrived.” (Color me a bit more skeptical on this one, though I suspect it won’t actually show up too much in the show.)
Meanwhile, Tsunemori is going to pick up Kogami for their not-date.
Oh yeah, people drive on the left in Japan.
I admit I took this next screencap just because I’m amused at the idea of a little police robot snapping at Kogami for smoking and then keeping a prejudiced eye on his every move after that.
We’ve seen a good handful of emotions from Kogami so far, but this might be the first time we’ve seen “grumpy”. But he makes up for it in the car.
Mmm. I mean, what?
Tsunemori and Kogami drive to Hinamizawa
where they meet Kogami’s old criminal psychology teacher. He (presumably) flawlessly describes several details about Tsunemori’s life that he gleaned from observing her for, oh, ten minutes or so.
Pause for a bit of Japanese. Professor Fashionable Scarf uses 祖父 and 祖母 here instead of お祖父さん and お祖母さん. I always learned that the latter terms are more respectful, and the former terms are what you use when talking about your own family to someone else, so when speaking in a more abstract sense I would have assumed the latter were better. But it seems like that’s a bit too simplified.
Professor Scarf notes that people with a good relationship with their grandparents tend to have a good relationship with “Holo Avatar AIs”. I can’t think of any reason why this might be, but sure.
Kogami asks the professor to give Tsunemori a crash course in profiling. Tsunemori puts in that even though it’s seen as “an outdated method”, she’s very interested in it…
I like to think she realized that with two expert profilers in the room she had no chance of keeping that part a secret, and then blurted out an admission.
(See? Screencaps of Tsunemori blushing.)
Kogami also asks Professor Scarf if he knows Makishima, who’s potentially “the worst criminal since the creation of the Sibyl System.” Scarf is a bit skeptical, and so they have a philosophical chat about charisma, which apparently has three components:
- Nature of a hero or prophet
- Ability to make others feel good when they’re around you
- Intelligence and eloquence
Kogami says Makishima has all of these. I’m actually a little surprised from a story-building perspective that none of the MHTTP crew fits the description, not even Kogami himself. Ah well, they’ve got time to set up plenty of other parallels between Kogami and Makishima. (Guess Tsunemori has been demoted from Most Important Character by now after all.)
This sequence includes one very odd shot from Scarf’s perspective of Kogami against the window where the “camera” “shakes”, as if shot from a handheld camcorder. I have no idea why it’s doing this; if I had to make a guess, I would say they’re being recorded. But that’s coming from very, very scanty evidence, and it could also be some kind of symbolism that’s just too subtle for me.
Back at the MSFSU, Ginoza and co have found Makishima’s fake identity that he used while teaching.
Still not sure how he got away with this, but sure, whatever. Kunizuka contributes that no one was able to give a good enough description of him to make a composite sketch, which seems even more unlikely.
BUT SURE, WHATEVER.
Tsunemori and Kogami drive home, and I’m relieved to realize that they have a self-driving car, and so their full-on conversations aren’t going to get them both killed. Tsunemori wonders why Professor Scarf’s lectures aren’t in the MGLIAD archives, and Kogami explains that attending the lectures caused attendees’ Psycho-Passes to get cloudy.
Tsunemori, good girl that she is, is REALLY UNCOMFORTABLE with the idea that she just spent a day clouding up her Psycho-Pass. Kogami casually reassures her.
She’s not exactly convinced, so Kogami explains that it’s like diving into a swamp (a pond?) to see how deep it is—not everyone’s going to come out okay. Tired, off her guard, and a little sorry for her reaction, Tsunemori offers a bit of flattery that is Definitely Not Flirting.
You may like and respect him, Tsunemori, but that is literally why he’s an Enforcer and not an Inspector like you, how could you forget this.
We then cut to Makishima having dinner with Tunnel Boss. He’s…not particularly engaged?
If I had to pick an emotion, I’d say he looks sad. (Also “preppy”. What’s with the sweater vest? Makes him look very young…)
Tunnel Boss cheerfully talks about the flip side of his morning interview, and notes that his new pipe is made out of Rikako’s bones…which means someone had to go fish her out of the dirty river we saw her fall into in Episode 8. Just…seems like a lot of trouble, is all. For a pipe.
Makishima asks idly about Tunnel Boss going full cyborg.
Interestingly, the Japanese word here is 心, usually translated as “heart”. I guess the angle he’s going for is “soul” or “consciousness” rather than “brain” or “heart”; it’s not a comment about Tunnel Boss’s brain and nervous system still being organic.
For whatever reason, Makishima’s reminding me of Kiryuu Touga from Revolutionary Girl Utena this episode…even though he’s more of the “End of the World” type.
Ginoza is upset at Kogami for taking Tsunemori to see Professor Scarf. Tsunemori interrupts and says it was her idea; Ginoza doesn’t care. Tsunemori says she’s upset at being treated like a child.
Ginoza snaps, in a replay of Episode 3, then explains to Tsunemori that the whole point of the Inspector/Enforcer system is that the Inspectors do not need to understand the minds of criminals. That’s what the Enforcers are for.
(He tosses a fair amount of shade at Kogami during this.)
Tsunemori objects that that’s not good teamwork. Ginoza asks if she’d throw her career away over an investigation, i.e. would she let her Psycho-Pass rise up to danger levels in order to solve a crime. (Again, this is literally what Kogami did.)
Tsunemori screws up her nerve to respond and then discovers that she is pissed.
We’ve got “grumpy Kogami”, “sad Makishima”, and now “cheesed-off Tsunemori”. This episode is exploring all the new emotional frontiers.
Tsunemori also says she’s “managing [her] Hue just fine.” I wonder if this means she’s angry because of the lecture earlier today, or that this plus the lecture will finally start affecting her. Or maybe she’ll wake up tomorrow, “powder blue” as always. After all, getting angry doesn’t necessarily indicate a problem with one’s mental health, and may even relieve pressure that’s been building up.
But setting aside the argument and Tsunemori (rightfully (?)) standing up for herself, Ginoza has a point. If the Enforcers are better at solving crimes, and solving crimes is dangerous to one’s mental health, then it makes sense for the Inspectors to act as “handlers” and liaisons but not actually attempt to do any criminalizing themselves.
Masaoka catches up with Tsunemori and stops her from doing something she’d probably regret later. Instead, he gives her some more background.
This would be a more interesting subplot if I hadn’t spoiled it for myself by accident. Grr. Again, I’ll talk about it when the show reveals the rest of the info.
Masaoka agrees with Ginoza’s point about the separation of Inspectors and Enforcers, or at least can see the value in it. He also explains to Tsunemori why Ginoza might be so desperate or frantic to keep others from following Kogami’s fate. But he says something near the end that seems suspect:
“Committing a crime or cracking down on crimes… Both sides face the same phenomenon called crime. There’s no difference.”
And I can’t agree. They might both cause some kind of mental stress, but people react to mental stress very differently. I’ll buy that mental stress causes some people to be more likely to commit crimes, but I don’t think that automatically applies to everyone. Is Kogami more likely to commit a crime at this point?
…well, maybe something done to Makishima…
…But I guess the Psycho-Pass is tracking multiple things—at the very least it has both “Crime Coefficient” and “Hue”. So maybe I’m on shaky grounds.
Because it has to, the episode ends with Makishima and Tunnel Boss, even though I’m not particularly interested in hearing more of their conversation. Tunnel Boss comments that Makishima seems to have a crush on Kogami, and, uh
I think he might be on to something there.
Okay, seriously, this is weird. The Big Bad shouldn’t be so kawaii. Go back to normal in the next episode, please.
At least the credits are back to—
AAAAAAH!
Gosh, I had a lot to say this time. Or maybe a lot happened.