Psycho-Pass 15: "The Town Where Sulfur Falls"
The year: 2112. All online interaction takes place over Nico Nico Douga.
Things are pretty bad. The first third of the episode is devoted to demonstrating just how bad: the regular, non-helmeted citizens have begun rioting too. Misinformation abounds; one person says the internet says that attacking a criminal means
Um. Come on, random man, weren’t you listening to Masaoka’s speech back in episode 9?
Back at the MYTMND they’re not really prepared to deal with this.
Psycho-hazard hasn’t been mentioned since episode 1, and it doesn’t really explain anything here. I feel like the show would have been better off not inventing a specialized term for “people in stressful situations get stressed”, especially when they already have the “area stress levels”.
This week, Makishima and Choe talk about sci-fi books from the 20th century.
For my part, I also prefer Dick to Gibson or Orwell, though I like his short stories better than his novels. Makishima also talks about preferring physical books to just reading on a computer, which I do as well. E-readers sure are convenient, though.
Nothing actually happens in this scene.
The MTMNT has gathered all of their two, maybe three teams in a briefing room. Look, there’s another team!
They’re kind of hosed, says General Dodonna Chief M, but they have no choice but to go suppress riots one…by…one.
At the same time, Makishima and Choe are giving their own briefing, but it’s unclear what for.
It struck me as a little odd that Makishima’s strike team is all male. I don’t think it means anything, though.
Both sides head out. Kogami grits his teeth while saying Makishima’s name, and since Ginoza isn’t there it’s Tsunemori’s turn to point out that they don’t have any proof that it’s him. The two of them discuss it and conclude that it has to be him, since anyone else would have left a trace. They also agree that there must be more of a purpose than just wanton destruction.
Kagari is…not quite keeping up with the conversation.
They reach the first riot, and Kagari makes a bad joke.
I’m not sure what we’re supposed to conclude from this, if anything. Kagari has bad timing for his sick sense of humor, sure, but is it also a reminder that he too is a latent criminal?
(I’m probably reading too much into this.)
They use one of their precious EMP grenades—which looks rather painful—and the rest of the crowd surrenders willingly.
Kogami points out that this isn’t the end of it, though: those who wore the helmets will now be identified and shunned, or worse (as we saw earlier). There does seem to be another problem, too, which is that way too many of these people seem to be committing crimes as soon as they get the helmet. Isn’t the point of the Psycho-Passes that you’d be able to detect that tendency in someone before they get the opportunity? Oh well, maybe it’s just tuned low.
Kogami again pulls out a day-saving measure by realizing that this is all a distraction, and the show rewards us by cutting to
a bus.
Which, honestly, feels appropriately anticlimactic for a Makishima plan, especially after talking about how he wants to live in a “normal” society.
It turns out that Sibyl may have a single point of failure, says Expert Cracker Choe. (Oh right, he was the one that helped the Hologram Killer back in the first arc.) This doesn’t actually make sense, and Choe says so, but the plot demands it, and it’s worth the risk for them to check out. CLIFFHANGER ENDING.
I didn’t have much to say about this episode because it was mostly “things are bad”, plus Makishima’s Reading Rainbow segment. We’ve heard most of the ideology before, and we haven’t seen any riots like this. Pieces are just being moved into place for the next episode.
Except…there are seven episodes left, meaning I’m now more than two-thirds of the way through. But I can’t see what Makishima can do that’s bigger than this if MPKMN crew manage to get things under control. Will this confrontation really be drawn out for seven more episodes?
Or, more likely, Makishima will win this round, and then we’ll get a few episodes dealing with the fallout. I guess I’ll find out.