Psycho-Pass is a Japanese anime television series illustrated by the mangaka Natsuo Sai and Production I.G from 2012. The genres of it are cyberpunk, crime, and physiological thriller.

The setting of it is in the 22nd century when Japan enforces the Sibyl System. Sibyl System is a high-tech, intelligence and fully automatic system which makes all decisions for people and eventually became the new “god”of them. The system measures the occupational ability data for citizens and chose the job which suits them  the most. The system even chose a lover for each citizen who are safe to society. The system can scan the citizen’s mental states and crime coefficients in order to determine their threat to the society. If a person’s mental state color is unhealthy and turbid, then the person have to take stress care to make his or hers mental healthy in order to clear the mental state color. If a person’s mental state color is turbid and with higher then acceptable crime coefficient, the person will be a potential criminal. Potential criminals’ freedom will be all taken away by locking them in a hospital room until they’re corrected. Sibyl System gave most people peaceful, easy, and satisfying life. But it also took away people’s values, and let them become livestock without realized.

Akane Tsunemori, a young woman who has her own sense of justice; join the police force. But at the first day of work, she has to face an emergency case. A women is kidnapped and the resultant trauma causes her crime coefficient number rose rapidly. The police should use the their gun called “dominater” to kill or anesthetize her because of her crime coefficient. The dominater can atomically change its lethality based on the criminal coefficient that Sibyl System gave. The trigger will lock if the target isn’t potential criminal; the gun’s lethality will change to maximum if the target have very high criminal coefficient. Dominater changed to killing mode to the kidnapped women, but Tsunemori doesn’t choose to pull the trigger. Instead she choose to bring the women’s coefficient down by comforting her. Akane Tsunemori puts her own sense of justice above the judgment of Sibyl, and this will of her makes the society better.

Peace don’t stay long, murders starts happening one after another quickly. First the serial murders at factory; second the virtual idols despoil murders; third the high school amputation sculpture murders; and last the human hunting game series kill. After many investigations, the police located the man who most likely is the one behind the scene called Shogo Makishima. But when Tsunemori aims the dominater to Makishima, she shockingly finds out that Makishima can’t been sanction by Sibyl. What will happen next? What’s the truth of the Sibyl System? What Shogo Makishima wants, and what secret does he has?

I will gave Psycho-Pass 9 points out of 10 points. I gave it 9 points because I think it shows humanity extremely straightforward, and the characters are distinctive and realistic. I also like the fact that this anime is like a reasoning and strategy game. I have to think enable to understand the character’s decisions and movements. I decided to took 1 point off because the brutality story makes it kind of depressing when you watch it, and violent scenes appear a lot. So if you don’t feel comfortable seeing bloody things, you really have to prepare yourself before watching it. I watched Psycho-Passtwice and I even recommended it to my mom. My mom likes it too and she said that she always watch the episodes when she can be focus because she doesn’t want to miss any part of the story.

The philosophy behind it, the book references in it, and the music in Psycho-Pass are very outstanding. Psycho-Pass has a lot of existentialism thoughts, and many philosopher have been mentioned frequently in it. They’re philosophers like Plato, Max Weber, Descartes, and Kierkegaard. “I think that the only time people really have value is when they act according to their own will.” I personally like this quote a lot from Shogo Makishima, and you will have lots of fun watching this if you’re interested in philosophy.

I’m super amazed when I saw the books the characters are reading and the ways that the characters mentioned books in the story. Shogo Makishima used contents from Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift to satire Sibyl System, and he even compared the society from 1984 to the society of Sibyl System. Shakespeare’s writings, Beyond Good and Evil, Brave New World, and even Bible were mentioned in this anime. This made me sighs that how many books did Natsuo Sai the mangaka had read, and this is so amazing.

The music fully shows the characters’ personality, and describes the character’s mood so that the audience can understand them easier. Most of Psycho-Pass’ music are very futuristic, which suits the settings well, but surprisingly there’re many classic elements in them such as violin and piano. I think that this show about the humility and the technology. The electronic sounds represent the technology, and the classical instruments represent the humanity. By combining these two elements together, I can feel the battle and scramble between humanity and technology. But at the same time I can also feel the coexist and the interdependence between them. The music connected with the story very well, and when I listen to the music the scene where the music played will always pop out in my head.

Psycho-Pass is actually a dystopian anime that’s covered by the label of cyberpunk. It has a society that’s very similar with Brave New World’s. Just like Rikako Oryo(a character from Psycho-Pass)has said, “Everyone here is the same. They don’t notice anything. They don’t say anything, and they don’t think anything. They are merely a shell and they will disappear like the melting snow. This epidemic leads innocent people to their deaths, and yet, it’s pathogen will never be eradicated. This is a disease called serenity – a form of death that people have wished for.” Use prisons made by velvet instead of iron, and use happiness to let people love the feeling of being enslaved; these are the tricks of stable totalitarian rule.

Psycho-Pass reminds us that technology is a double-edged sword; we should use technology wisely instead of being controlled by it unconsciously. It also reminds us that perfect society does not exist. Psycho-Pass make us think that when the wisdom of science can finally unlock the secrets of the human soul, and when it makes all decisions for us and finally controls us. What would we be left with? Can we still be counted as a human?

Psycho-Pass is a high quality anime that can makes us rethink about our definition of justice. The depths of thought of this work is far deeper than most others, and I think you will definitely think a lot and learn a lot by watching Psycho-Pass.