i will administer judgment

I recently watched Psycho Pass and thought it was pretty good. Not the kind of fangirl screaming good that warranted a blog post maybe, but I enjoyed it. The characters were cute, I loved Akane, and even the mystery solving plot had me excited for a bit towards the end. But then I watched Psycho Pass 2 and suddenly the first season was a masterpiece in comparison. In other words, the second season was bad enough to warrant a blog post.

GOOD SHIT

Psycho Pass 2 was terrible. I don't want to say it wasn't completely necessary to make another season because I think the whole crime solving premise and post-Sibyl reveal setting can be interesting. It's just that Psycho Pass 2....didn't make it interesting. Or rather it just made it super weird.

Shimotsuki was a disappointment. I don't hate her I'm just super disappointed. She's the main reason why I don't think Psycho Pass 2 should exist. Because the ending to the first second was absolutely perfect. You have actual Queen Akane comfortable in her role as head Inspector, you have Ginoza and Kunizuka as her ultimate hype men standing behind her, and you have a new Inspector ready to be guided just as Akane once was. It was perfect because she was the one involved in the Makishima case, and you know she'll be great because she noticed something wrong with Rikako right away. That detective intuition could've been passed from Kougami to Akane to her!

A moment of silence for your wasted potential

Instead you have her being mean to Enforcers for no reason, dismissing Akane's sensible claims, refusing to work with them as a team, caring more about her reputation than justice, breaking down once Sibyl's truth is revealed...ugh. I know it's not her fault that she didn't know the whole truth about Makishima but it pisses me off anyway seeing her accept Sibyl so easily when IT'S PEOPLE LIKE THEM THAT KILLED YOUR BEST FRIENDS?? You know, the entire reason why you joined the police in the first place??? What the fuck Mika??

PLUS this whole Togane Misako bullshit is a complete mess in the first place. Why was she allowed to do this? The thing about the original premise for Sibyl that worked was that although various personalities were allowed to control Kasei, there was always the sense that it was ultimately a hive mind. You know, one united decision making process. Rather in this season it just seemed like Misako did whatever the fuck she wanted. I liked the idea of Kasei as a personification for Sibyl rather than any one person, but this season just threw that out of the window. It wasn't really Sibyl doing such and such, it was Misako and her creepy ass son running around doing ??? What were they doing? Clouding Akane's Hue? It's just so annoying to think of something like Sibyl, a metaphor for god, purposefully going after this one girl. It's just so out of character for something presented as omnipotent that it would ever see anything beyond the greater picture.

Also holy shit Sibyl you, as a collective entity, let this creeper join the fucking police?! What happened to the whole job evaluation system?? Did his mom take over Kasei's body just to use it for nepotism?

It's this season that made me think wow can you think of what a terrible fucking idea it would've been if Makishima became part of Sibyl? Because if he got the same degree of control that Misako apparently had like good bye civilized society.

MOVING ON FROM SIBYL, let's look at the other villains of this season. I didn't like them. I mean, it wasn't as if I loved the fucked up criminals in the first season but at least there seemed to be a pattern to them. Like Makishima was specifically seeking out these exaggerated weirdos so the over the top violence/gruesomeness made sense. But in this season it was just wow you made my crime co-efficient go down I guess I'll brutally beat up people and give my life for  you. What. The. Fuck.

STOCKHOLM SYNDROME: THE SEASON

Okay I'll let the bomber guy go, he was actively avoiding civilians and his target was pharmaceuticals. I can run with this premise. But the old guy who just savagely started beating up people and giving a lecture? What the fuck was that? And Kamui's all like damn you police AS IF IT WAS ALL THEIR FAULT. Okay they shouldn't have shot the victims but you let them get beaten to death? And you killed all those enforcers? And you created a game that let people kill civilians? I seriously can't tell what your goal or moral guidelines are anymore.

SPEAKING of the game, what the fuck. How did he even do that? Do you expect me to believe that 'everyone' is playing is game about a chicken rolling around? This isn't fucking Pokemon Go mate, what kind of game attracts 'everyone' no matter what the demographic? And how are the military drones controlled anyway? I doubt there was enough there for everyone who was playing to control one each, so how did they decide how the commands worked for each drone? I'm telling you if I know gamers, there would definitely be a good number who would totally ignore the enemies and just roll around the map. There are so many problems with this.

Now if it was Angry Bird I would completely believe that psychopaths would use that

PLUS THAT that politician friend of his was like damn I feel guilty about a thing I had no control over in fucking elementary school I guess I'll help you kill a ton of people. Then he was like ah yes check out these creepy knock-off of the S1 corpse sculptures; like dude pretty sure it wasn't just survival guilt that clouded your Psycho Pass.

A poor man's Choe Gu-sung

And what the fuck did you have against Akane?? He was all like yeah we want her to stop going after Kamui by giving her a piece of her grandmother's ear. Did they not see the flaws in this plan??? Did you think she got this close to Kamui by going 'oh no you hurt my grandma better back off'?? Plus you technically just helped 'Sibyl' and her sadistic son so CONGRATS SON, YOU PLAYED YOURSELF.

EVEN the stupid reveal that Kamui was........everyone? What the fuck. If he's just using Holos it's still him isn't it? Are you saying that he was running around the city being 184 other people? What the fuck? Are you saying Ginoza talked to Kamui the psychiatrist and he did nothing while his crime coefficient went up? Wasn't he supposed to be super pro at preventing that or does he only offer that service to fucked up criminals? Are you saying that the Bureau let this dude be a psychiatrist for their Inspectors when he couldn't even be scanned? Are you saying all the 184 people had normal jobs and lives without being acknowledged by Sibyl?? If they did then what was the point of Kamui's motivation to be recognized?? What the fuck????

*M.Night Shamalyan voice* WHAT A TWIST
(also remember the good old days when he just prescribed talking to your dad instead of stabbing you in the neck with drugs)

ALSO what was the point of leaving WC everywhere? I get that the first few were to lure the police there but what was with the one at Akane's apartment? Why did he do that? And how? Are you saying that just because this guy can't be scanned he can break in anywhere with no physical traces?

AND WHAT THE FUCK was with the whole train thing? It was just revealed that all of these people lost loved ones thanks to failures of infrastructure and y'all decided the best way to get revenge was to destroy more infrastructure? Who the fuck even

I can't get a good grasp on Kamui at all. Makishima gave off a feeling of just wanting to see the world burn. He went after the destruction of the Sibyl system in order to see a free world and he didn't care whether it was free from stability or safety. His goal was clear: he wanted to see human nature unconstrained by an omnipotent judge.
Kamui wanted to judge Sibyl. Okay I get that. But he also wanted to know what color he was? To prove...that all of him were people? Judging Sibyl is fine and all but then the show started asking about collective judgments of society?? What?? Why? Huh??

*Kamui voice* Don't talk to me or the 184 personalities inside me ever again
(Ugh this is worse than the pretentious literary debates in the first season)

NOT TO MENTION Kamui claimed he had a goal but he seemed to be doing it in a pretty fucking roundabout way. Like he went to all that convoluted shit to get Dominators...okay...that's sounds fake but okay...then it turns out he wanted to use them to get data?? Are you telling me that this dude who can hack government drones, create an augmented reality game and use complex Holos, couldn't do what one Korean hacker managed to do with a laptop in the first season? I recall Choe Gu-sung finding Sibyl without all of this fucking mess.

Almost all of the highlights of this season were the leftovers of season 1. Ginoza and Kunizuka being Akane's protection squad was the best. I would've preferred to see Ginoza having a bigger role, especially since there was some focus on Kougami being missing. Rather than that fucker Togane, I think Ginoza giving Akane advice would've been better considering their history together and with Kougami. I also enjoyed seeing Jouji Saiga working with Division 1 and I was kinda sad he left in the end (because he didn't want to depend on Akane?? what kind of weak ass excuse was that??) I'd say the only new addition to the show I liked was Hinekawa because he was a precious cinnamon roll and he calls Akane 'onee-chan' like how cute?? But maybe I was just missing Kagari.

Too pure, too good for this world and also screentime

Of course my favorite character was Akane. I loved seeing boss ass veteran agent Tsunemori do her job. Taking on that Kougami style detective work, casually chatting with the personification of society's framework, solving clues and kicking ass - love it. Her development was my favorite thing in season 1 and she continues to be the bright light in season 2.

Yeah my enforcers are pretty cool
But they ain't as cool as me

Unfortunately even she got bogged down by a lot of this season's problems. The worst was the fact that every time she was down she need someone to talk her out of it. Whether it's Kougami's hallucination or Kamui or whatever. Even in the end she was pretty much passive as Togane and Kamui just shot themselves. Hurray Akane, you didn't even really need to go through all that internal debate anyway. smh this was as roundabout as Kamui's plan. Even her parting words to Kasei didn't have that satisfying bite as it did in the first season's finale.

All in all, season 2 felt like a cheap imitation of season 1. Rather than having it stand on their own, it just felt like they were trying the replace the originals. They put Ginoza and Kunizuka on the side, added in Togane like some sort of creepy doppelganger, and Hinekawa as a sort of Kagari but with less energy and presence. Then you had all these new characters coming in and out and either they made no impression or they died before they could. The great character dynamics of Division 1 in the first season gave us a united team that we could cheer for. Makishima stood in their way as a intriguing villain, one with a distinct personality and goals. A lot of the villains and their acts in season 2 felt more like they were fucked up for the sake of shock value.
Well, if there's one thing this season did, it really highlighted how great the first season was so go watch that instead and pretend this one doesn't exist.

OKAY ONE MORE it might sound like nitpicking at this point but the openings were this season were way better

tl;dr AND ANOTHER THING -