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mushroom-kin · 9 months ago

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This is a study of one of my favorite small scene in Psycho-pass: sinners of system 2.

"Unit One always comes before everything else." - Tsunemori Akane

Psycho pass s2 - an unhinged retrospective - i. Celebrating 10 years anniversary of PP2 - ii. Ode to Shimotsuki Mika - iii. Women's justice - iv. Why both Togane and Kamui combine to make the shadow of Kogami - v. Kogami and Akane's relationship - vi. Sybil as a character, who also wants character growth - vii. Wrapping up because I spent 2 days writing this non stop

(warning: horrifyingly long text post, Spoilers for all of Psycho pass up to the latest film Providence)

i. Celebrating 10 years anniversary of PP2:

Psycho-pass 2 just has its 10 years anniversary. Happy 10 years for Psycho pass 2.

I watched psycho-pass season 1 while it was airing, it came out when I was in middle school, and I remember catching it right at the All-girl academy arc. When I finished s1 and did not even know that s2 was coming out.

I have been in and out of the fandom for many years and got to hear people relentlessly shit on s2 and talk about how they don't like it. I never really understood it, or I mean I have heard their reasonings, but honestly it truly makes me so frustrated because I think a lot of what I heard can only be boiled down to "I hate women" or "Kogami is not here".

Even when I begrudging sub to r/psychopass, I will always been haunted by random post about how everyone hating on s2, or telling people to skip it.

When I was rewatching all of psycho pass this past months with my friend @h4msanta, and having them watching it for the first time. I was once again remembered why s2 was so important to me.

ii. Ode to Shimotsuki Mika:

I really like Mika, I understand people probably liked her way more in s3 or starting at sinners of the system 1 which I lovingly call the "Mika propaganda".

But I liked her the moment I saw her. I really appreciate her character against Tsunemori Akane. She is so important, to me.

Imagine you are Shimotsuki Mika, you are 16 year old teenage girl. You are very smart but kind of blunt and rude as a person. So while you are great student, you are not really well liked. You have a crush on this other girl who you go to school with, but she is closer to her childhood best friend. You always felt like a third wheel in this friendship. Some other girl who is so much more popular and prettier freaks you out, and now because she talked to one of your friend, that girl disappeared. And you as a teenager felt something very wrong about this, but still told the girl you had a crush on to ask about if she cares about it so much.

You later learn both of them are murdered and displayed in the worst way possible.

The MWPSB, who shows up on scene to arrest who might be the murderer, who you suspect is that art girl who is more popular than you, ultimately failed to arrest or judge her before she escaped. The police who showed up did not solve the case, you cried in the arms of a kind woman who also work with the MWPSB. You don't know this yet, but she is also a latent criminal, the type of people you hate the most. But that doesn't matter to you because you have developed a crush on her.

You are 17 now, and you are the youngest person that have ever join MWPSB. You feel like you need to prove something to everyone, you don't want them to look down on you because you are young. You meet your co worker, you senior, a young woman who is 4 years older than you. Seeing s woman behind her, you remember her from that fateful day in the rain who kindly comforted you. You are told that she is an enforcer, this translated in your brain as a latent criminal. You realized that this was the unit who failed to capture your friend's murderer.

You are 18, and you have been on this job for a year and half now. But somehow people still treat you like you are a baby, you don't understand why your senior who you think is very reckless and unreasonable is liked by everyone. Not only by everyone, but also by the Chief. She seems to be able to do everything you can do better, and seems to go against Sybil's judgement all the time. Who does she think she is, you think to yourself. Worse is that even when you treat her with animosity, she treats you with cool professionalism, never seeming that bothered.

Your senior have always sent two enforcers with you, one who was once an inspector just like you, but why would you listen to him, he lost his job and sequentially lost his right to say anything about anything to you, the other one who you have being harboring a crush on this whole time, even though she is an enforcer, a latent criminal, she has been kind and patient with you, even though she also seems to trust in your senior's judgement. She might also be in a relationship with the analyst, but you choose not to think too hard about it so it won't cloud your hue. You don't understand why your senior is doing any of this.

The first time you are at a scene before her, you are unsure if you should go into the building to intervene, you stand there hesitating, you know there is a senior inspector already in the building. She has been on this job for 10 years now, how would she not know the protocols. And while you stand there with the two enforcers, this time without the pesky guy who used to be an inspector who give you words of advice you don't want to hear about, not knowing what to do, waiting for something to happen.

The Unit 2 people shows up on scene, they tell you they have taken over by the orders of the Chief. Once again you have been undermined, but none of that matter. Because swiftly after, the metal curtains rises and unit 2 points their Dominators at every person who ran out of the building clothed nothing beside their underwear, and judged all of them to be unfit to a part of Sybil's society. Your senior shows up on scene and screams at all of them. But you don't even know you heard that, you were too busy staring at all of the blood at your feet, these used to belong to the hostages.

You soon learned that the Senior who worked as an inspector for 10 years, was the first to be eliminated in the building, she was now also just another puddle of blood.

You learned that there is something very suspicious about one of the enforcers you work with, and how he has an odd obsession with your senior. You take the time while they are off on a case to research and even go to his quarters to do some sleuthing. You find out that is he is a massive stalker, have been taking pictures of her and analyzing it. You don't really know what you were going to do with this information. But you ended up finding more and more about this guy, so you go on and put all of this into a report to give your chief in lieu of explaining why you think your senior is not fit for the job.

What you did not realized that you got more than you bargained for, you have now learned the TRUTH of this world, the real face of Sybil. And you cannot turn back, and now "they", "they" want to ruin you.

Your senior continuously works with this guy who is monster under human clothing, unbeknownst to you, he designed himself to remind her of someone, the perfect kind of uncanny valley. He asks you to figure out where your senior's grandmother resides, and you are scared, and you are just 18, a man is looming over you, exerting power and unspoken violence at you, and part of you still think you want to hit where it hurts at your senior.

Very soon, your senior will have a melt down while confronted by a severed ear of her grandma. If any hope of having her grandmother coming back alive was dashed, when you were sent the brutal images of an old woman beaten to death, helpfully having her smiling face on the side as an addition to identify the bloody mess. Some part of you know that "they" probably sent this image to your senior as well.

In the mess of the moment, you slip away and find the man who has been threatening you bleeding on the verge of dying, you think maybe all you have to do is judge him. His hue is dark as soot, Sybil will judge him and all you need is pull the trigger. But his consciousness slips away before you make up your mind to shoot him, your Dominator returns to it dormant state. Your time has passed.

You declare that you will forget all of this. That you believe in Sybil, and that also means you believe in "them".

The female enforcer you relied on this whole time tells you that the person who leaked the information about your senior's grandmother was indeed that man, but she suspect there must be someone else who told that to him first. She says to you "whoever that person is, I'll never forgive them." In that moment, she seems cold, she looks at you pointily and you reply "same here". Your crush with her probably died in this moment.

You don't know this yet, but you probably never will forgive yourself.

In the coming years, you will grow to have a better relationship with your senior. You will call her your senior not with annoyance but because you grew to respect her and like her. And she will call you Mika-chan as token of affection she has for you. You will grow to rely on her, and she sees you as a trustworthy partner. Even if you don't see eye to eye on everything, you learn to work well with her, and with the rest of your team, forming real friendships with other enforcers, seeing them not just as a number, their crime coefficients, but as real human people. Something that took you a long time to learn.

Now you are the chief inspector, an amazing position to have at your young age. You have to take care of some hot headed rookies after your "senpai" entrusted Unit 1 to you. They are annoying, and reckless, and even more unreasonable. When they tell you about how they are doing all of this because they are detectives after all. You suddenly think about your unit 1.

(Psycho-pass 3 chapter 3 page 20)

You mutter annoyingly, you have to left these dumb kids go do their stupid justice.

You are the same age as the rooky pair. You are 24 years old, you have been on this job for 7 years now.

iii. Women's justice

I spend a lot of time thinking about the conversation Shion and Yayoi has at the end of s1. Yayoi notes that "all of the old fashion men are gone from the job", saying that they are "not suited", while Shion think it would be kinder to call them "romantics".

I did not even think about how crazy this is until recently, but during the 2 months where Gino went to a medical center and before he was reassigned back to unit 1 as an enforcer. There are only two people at the office of unit 1, Akane and Yayoi. How horrifying lonely and isolating that must be. Having to lose everyone in such a short amount of time, when does grieving for one starts and the grieving for the other ends.

Season 2 is a lot to me about where men and their understanding of justice led them, and fall out of that looks like. In s2, we focus on Akane's understanding of justice which stems from her faith in people and approaches to reasonings which heavily influenced by Kogami. We also have Mika who is more like Gino in s1, or even earlier in his career, a person who deeply believes that she is doing the right and just thing while missing the mark over and over again. And then we also have Aoyanagi who has been an inspector for 10 years, and felt that she kind of lost her way after killing her trusted enforcer that she knew for a long time. I adore all of them, and how their way of interacting with justice and crime is very different to first season.

I was honestly super happy to see Aoyanagi in Sinner of the System 2, seeing her being vibrant, caring and also forward thinking, getting to work together with Masaoka. It made me wish she will eventually get a prequel novel (that I will have to spend 2 week trying to find a way to read it).

This is me not saying "men are from Mars, women are from Venus", I thinks what I am trying to explain is more nuanced than just "men and women are the same" or saying "men and women are different". And I think Psycho pass is also trying to saying something here about gender. (All my favorite works are somehow about gender.)

I quite like characters like Mika, she is so righteous in what she believes in a worthy cause, the upholding of Sybil. She so firmly believes it, while her own pettiness and pride chides her into doing things that ruins her. I supports women's wrong, and sometimes women's wrong looks like a 18 year old girl fucking up her own and other people's life because she is too petty and too set in her own ways.

But I also think it is quite nice that we get to see her gradual growth through out sinner of the system and s3 and then her moment in providence, which made me and my friend actually cheer when we saw it. That Mika would go and beg Sybil to go help Akane, because Akane is too valuable. Mika is stubborn and petty and prideful, but she can grow to be loved by others, and by that she can also grow to love herself.

iv. Why both Togane and Kamui combine to make the shadow of Kogami

Togane as a character fascinates me so much. He was basically "genetically engineered " (not literally), I guess in this case, "emotionally engineered" to break through Akane's guard. He choose to smoke the same braid of cigarettes as Kogami, he stands near her to affirm her decisions, he talks in a way that made Akane think she is talking Kogami, quite literally overlapping Kogami's image over Togane's.

And he was able to achieve all of this by how you ask.

By rigorously stalking her, documenting her hue everyday, analyzing her facial expression. This chills me to no end. Stalking is not uniquely a crime that effects women, and any sources I could possible cite is probably woefully under reported. But I have heard many people told me that s2 is boring or low stakes or that one of my personal "favorite" was calling "kamui too feminine as a villian", which was a opinion I read on r/psychopass (why am I still in that sub reddit baffles even me) that now just lives rent free in my brain like some kind of horrible worm that won't leave.

I find Togane to be very unsettling, he feels so awfully predatorial, this can also be demonstrated in his interactions with Mika once he shows his true color to her. I think seeing Mika freak out and crying on the desk while he pushes her head down, never not given me fight or flight responses.

Kamui, on the other hand, is so soft. He is very polite. I guess I also learn that "narcissist" and his favorite item is "a mirror" in wiki. I don't know where they got that, and who is manning the psycho pass wiki, please put your sources in. Is it from the s2 profiling book? And also because it is not very complete, half of the pages don't even mention providence (which was a blessing for me for the longest time), and not to speak about the tvtropes page for psycho pass, which is riddled with how s2 is bad. Saying it like it a fact or something.

Kamui is so interesting, because he seems like he genuinely cares for each and every part of the people in his plan. Not saying that he is not ready to sacrifice them for the greater cause, but it also seemed like he felt bad for each of the people he lost on his way to confront Sybil. He shed tears for them, and seems like he remembers their name, their past, and their ambitions. This is why I was quite annoyed when I found out that somehow he was also a "narcissist" or something. Because I really liked the idea that Kamui was also suppose to be juxtaposition to Makashima in s1, who is very individualistic. But also that Kamui was also supposed to be Akane's foil. He believes everyone can be saved, by him.

I read this on Pixiv while reading a fic about Akane and Mika, that assessed, paraphrased by me "Mika hates criminals, but Akane hates crimes itself, to the point she wants to save criminals from crime."

Kamui felt like he was able to save people from Sybil. While being admired by the people he were able to save. Kamui still felt very alone being a collective, not being recognized by Sybil, let's say he is seeking recognized from the proverbial mother. The two kinds of fear of being "the horrifying ordeal of being known" vs "not being known". And this case Kamui wished to be seen.

Sybil as the proverbial mother. In a way mirroring Togane's complex about his mother, and his devotion to Sybil.

Kamui says in the first episode of s2 about thinking Akane would understand him, that the guy who just exploded, not by Akane's hand by the way, is very interesting. This is further expanded on in the manga, where in the later part of s1 Gino talks to his therapist, who we now know was just Kamui in holo, and Gino tells him that he doesn't want to stop working yet, even if it leads to him having worsen hues. And it is thanks to watching Akane's work in the field giving him a sense of hope. That hope is also what pushes Kamui to go on and commit the action of s2.

In the tunnels, Akane walk through them alone. Kamui is holding many hostages underground as his final plan of s2 to DDos the system, and she was told to go detonate the bomb that will bury them all by Sybil. She made up her mind to do something different, this new found courage and determination given to her by imagining Kogami by her side.

She will let Kamui judge Sybil and so Sybil can judge him.

In the dark she encounters Kogane, who tell her that supported her, and telling her that he would go kill Kamui, that "Enforcer Kogami would've done the same". These were words that designed to get her. There is something really awful about Kogane, like inspirational murderer who wants to set people free or war hungry mercenary dictating the causality of peace, these are all very horrible and scary. But Togami feels very personal, slimy, all this is to groom her to be in the perfect corner for him to corrupt her.

After Kamui and Akane face the Sybil system. Togane comes in and is ready to execute Kamui, and Akane runs in to stop him. Togane has already seen his mother's brain scattered on the ground before he came in, he has nothing to lose. He proudly tells Akane that he was the one who brutally beat Akane's grandmother to death. Akane's psycho pass spike up to 87.9, which is the highest we ever saw her.

Kamui reassures Akane that "the spirit of the law" that she so deeply believes in, "if that can become the scales of justices that weigh all society equally". With real law like that, can make even Sybil a real god someday. This steels Akane, and her number drops to 48.5. Kamui pushes Akane away, and both Togane and Kamui shoot each other.

And in the most insane decision s2 production could have done. After Akane who spends the better half of s2 chasing Kogami's shadow by lighting up his cigarettes, hallucinating him encouraging her, and at her worst by overlapping Togane's words and image with Kogami's voice. The s2 production team made that, the moment when Kamui gets shot and turns to her, visually mirror Kogami getting shot by Akane in s1 episode 1.

That mirroring shot composition will haunt me forever I guess.

In every corner, Akane will see Kogami, whether if she tries to look for him or not. And that is how both Kamui and Kogane makes a Kogami.

v. Kogami and Akane's relationship

I feel like I need to explain my thoughts on this, before I go and excitably draw my 7 days of Shinkane week, which will probably be an art piece that I am mildly happy with, accompanied by like a dissertation paper on my feelings about them in every "era" of their interactions.

I am a shinkane shipper don't get me wrong, but I am also of the firm belief that Akane also isn't romantically interested in Kogami in the s1. This is quite important to me, even when I was a teenager watching the show. Akane seems to not be bothered when she is teased by Kagari for liking Kogami, when she blushes about going on a date, she is actually blushing at the concept of learning profiling, and not an outing with Kogami.

I found Akane incredibly admirable steadfast in her belief of justice and law. It was very important to me that the s1 anime did not make her seem like a blushing school girl who clung to Kogami's every word because she liked him romantically. She listened and challenged him, even going to wager her worth to safely retrieve him with Sybil. Because she saw Kogami to be her partner, her mentor, a person who she trusted and admired.

This is probably more of me speculating on "vibes" alone, but on the other hand, I believe that Kogami might have caught feeling for Akane at a certain point in the middle of s1. This is just me, but also Kogami cannot be more happy to see Akane in every scene in the 2015 movie. That is a guy who is very happy to see Akane, even when he is told this is supposed to be their execution ground.

Akane develops her habit on relying on Kogami's cigarette smoke, I think this is more for comfort, and maybe closer to infatuation than love, or maybe it is faith.

And then 2015 movie they just had to have the most tension ever, horrifying amount of chemistry, and then it is all over I guess. Akane, kogami, they were all cooked. after that, every time they are on scene I am biting the corners of my television, grrr bark hisiss. And every time Kogami mention Akane he looks so soft, what is wrong with him, big wet cat ugghhdhdheeeeshh why didn't you just say sorry when you had the opportunity too, gasrrrrrr.

Oh yeah, I was trying to explain why this all matters. So having Akane wanting to rely on Kogami is what made her looks vulnerable and exploitable in the eyes of Togane.

Which is why I think it is quite funny and important that Akane learns kind of the wrong-ish right-ish lesson by the end of s2. Saiga tells her that he is going to put himself back in the cage, despite of the fact that his hue has been improving, and he tells her "being dependent doesn't quite suit me".

This later part is not in the anime version, but in the end of the manga, (in this case because psycho pass is an anime original, I use manga as a supplementary material) she looks at the cigarette and notes that she is okay and that she is now a full-fledged detective.

(Psycho-pass 2 chapter 26 page 25)

And the last line she says in the manga mirrors the line that Saiga says, she puts out cigarette and says " after all being dependent doesn't quite suit me". (I did not include the page after since it is translated as "since depending on does not mean to agree on". my translation is from comparing the Japanese scan and comparing it to the Chinese one.)

I think this is a quite important moment for her since Akane spends a lot of her time feeling like she is playing catch up with Kogami. This also doesn't mean that she doesn't still want to reach out to Kogami when she is given the chance to. She doesn't stop lighting cigarettes even in 2015 movie and she goes all the way to SEAUn to go find him.

Akane I think understood that she needed to stop relying on ghost in her mind, and maybe when the next time she see Kogami she wants to be treated more as an equal (emotionally). Which is why the phone call scene in Providence makes me go feral.

vi. Sybil as a character, who also wants character growth

People who are not happy with s2 and called the ending unsatisfying, probably had a different idea of what they wanted the show to be.

In a story like psycho pass, one who watch the first season would easily describes it as the "dystopian sci-fi thriller" it is. But honestly by the 2015 movie, can you really call the world of psycho-pass a dystopia? I have never read a piece of work where lots and lots of character agrees and knows there is something very wrong with the world. But instead of choosing to tear it all down, they are attempting to systematically incrementally changes it from within. A lot of people out there might not think it is that sexy, but I think reform is really cool and based. And as we live in our own dystopian world, that is how the real work enact changes as well, I actually really appreciate how Psycho pass takes it time.

Of course, by the point when season 2 come up, people don't know that yet.

In s2 Sybil is also an active player in the world. Sybil can be cunning, actively pitting Mika against Akane, and watch them run around like funny little lab rats. They are afraid to be shaken and challenged, they don't want to hold up a mirror. They are curious, they also want to be accepted. They can also experience fear. All of this makes for great conflicts in s2. And Akane for one, is interested in having Sybil improve with time or to be threaten to be left behind.

Kamui wants to have a honest conversation with Sybil, and Akane leads him to it. Kamui is recognized by Sybil for the first time, now Sybil can also "see" themselves now. Akane points the Dominator at him, and Kamui asks her that why doesn't she point the Dominator at Sybil.

"The one who's holding the Dominator becomes a part of it" Kamui tells her, "when a true judge appears someday, no matter how many brains it removes, it Crime Coefficient may remain high."

"it is possible that this judge might be, the person standing in front of me right now". I have to say this whole conversation is probably really ringing crazy bells in my head because I just watched Providence for the first time not too long ago. (I am not okay, I am ill, god it was everything I need, I need to go cry and vomit in the bathroom now)

There are two parts of it. In s3 Arata talks about the reason why he like Dominators is because it has a trigger, and that he can choose to shoot or not. This is a huge part of Akane's belief as well, very evident in the episode 1 of s2, where she wait to shoot the guy on the edge of 299 to 300.

I have always liked the conversation in s1 where Kasei talks to Gino about the trusting the system. The idea is not that Sybil system is perfect, but instead human belief makes it perfect. The efforts of the people, the faith they have in this system, that is what make the system run smoothly.

And having people like Akane and Arata, and all of the other people they influenced, who actively challenge the System's judgment, they had made the system better. This is what "the one who's holding the Dominator becomes a part of it" means to me.

The second part of this conversation is about judgement to Sybil. This is something that is again echoed in Providence, Akane lets Sybil absorbs General, Tonami in anger shoots her and declares that what she is trying to do is killing god, "you are the witch who bring disaster to society."

And then Akane went and killed god in the end of Providence, and both my friend and I just had to pause the movie, and scream into a pillow for 10 minutes.

Akane believes her action would be helpful for improvement of both Sybil and law. This is such a fascinating concept. And I really cannot wait to see if they will explore this idea further in s4.

Sybil is still evolving, and one day they will stand judgement before the people.

vii. Wrapping up because I spent 2 days writing this non stop

There are still so much I want to write about in s2, about how Gino is so funny in season 2 and how I love him. And how much I love Sho as an adorable fluff ball. Yayoi and Shion going strong. And also SAIGA!

There are so much I can say about the whole s2 that really makes me want to scream from the roof top. Long long ago when I imagined myself writing this *look at word count and sweat* normal looking tumblr post. (pending 5.2k ish) I thought about naming it something like "In Defense of Psycho pass 2", but honestly speaking s2 is amazing, it speaks for itself.

This ended up being half me talking about s2 and half me just needing to word vomit about Providence that permanently bricked my brain.

One day I will write the post about Providence ending mirrors, s1 ending and that is going to kill me.

If you read to the end, thank you! Looking forward to more unhinged post from me? With better art hopefully.

#psycho pass 2 #psycho pass #psycho pass sinners of the system #tsunemori akane #akane tsunemori #mika shimotsuki #my thoughts #i have so much to say about this #psycho pass movie #psycho pass 3 #psycho pass providence #Sakuya Togane #kogami shinya #ughhhh i am very normal #i accidentally just spend two days writing this #kamui kirito

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