Psycho-Pass: Part 1 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Psycho-Pass: Part 1 Blu-ray Movie Review

This is the kind of "pass" you probably want to fail.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 3, 2014

People who aren’t able to sublimate their emotions are often accused of wearing their hearts on their sleeves, but imagine for a moment what life would be like if your general emotional state at any given moment were a quantifiable data stream that was being measured by the government, just to make sure you were staying on the straight and narrow and weren’t about to go off the deep end and do something stupid like commit a crime. Psycho-Pass is built on just such a conceit, a sort of anime version of Minority Report, where a sort of “precog” entity known as Sybil is constantly measuring each and every individual’s emotional temperature, scoring it, and then deciding if the Public Safety Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Division needs to take action to prevent any imminent crime. The actual anime starts somewhat in media res, slowly bringing the viewer up to speed about this dystopian future society. The focal character is a young woman named Akane Tsunemori, a rookie cop in Unit One of the Criminal Investigation Division who is thrown headlong into a hostage situation which deprives her of any typical “rookie training” at the hands of her supervisor Nobuchika Ginoza. Instead new Inspector Akane is quickly briefed on Enforcers, so-called “latent criminals” whom the Criminal Investigation Division utilizes to track down bad guys in a sort of “it takes one to know one” gambit. The Inspectors act as watchdogs over the Enforcers, making sure they don’t do anything untoward as they close in on their prey. Both the Inspectors and the Enforcers come equipped with a high tech weapon called a Dominator, a sort of combination Star Trek tricorder-phaser that instantaneously measures any given individual’s “crime coefficient” (meaning the likelihood they’re about to commit a criminal act) and then amps up an appropriate blast which can vary from a kind of quasi-“stun” which paralyzes the perp to a much bloodier level which basically makes the bad guy explode.

Akane is assigned to supervise an Enforcer by the name of Shinya Kogami. Another Enforcer actually finds the captor, but his Dominator malfunctions and the bad guy escapes. Kogami soon catches up with him and quickly (and rather bloodily) dispatches the villain, but then the Dominator indicates that the hostage’s crime coefficient has risen to dangerous levels and Kogami aims the weapon at her. At this point Akane has to make a split decision since her entreaties to Kogami to put down his weapon fall on deaf ears. While the ultimate decision is neither that surprising nor has any truly lasting consequences, it hints at a philosophical underpinning that Psycho-Pass never really ends up fully exploring. This, perhaps more than any other element, is what sets this series apart from what is perhaps its stylistic (if not thematic) closest equivalent, Mamoru Oshii’s massive Ghost in the Shell 2.0 franchise.

This lack of introspection is even more interesting in that Akane is initially quite troubled by the decision she had to make, while at the same time evidently not bothered in the slightest by something else that is dealt with almost as an afterthought in the show: the hostage’s crime coefficient actually declines to the point where she’s no longer seen as threatening (hence Akane’s frantic attempt to get Kogami not to shoot). Wouldn’t this make anyone question the whole foundation of the Sybil system and its onsite interlocutor, the Dominator? If an individual’s crime coefficient is that variable, does it make any sense to actually go after them at all, considering the fact that they may just be experiencing a temporary “spike”?

The Dominator actually does end up providing some “issues” as this first half of Psycho-Pass’ first season plays out (the second half is being released on Psycho-Pass: Part 2, as is Funimation’s standard operating procedure, though a limited edition Psycho-Pass: The Complete First Season featuring bonus CD soundtracks will also be available). The series actually gets quite dark as it goes along, with Akane ultimately having more to question than merely whether or not she’s made the right decision with regard to one of her Enforcers. While it isn’t fully developed yet by the halfway point, it appears there may be some political intrigue in the offing, yet another way this series is often quite reminiscent of Ghost in the Shell.

In some ways the darkness in Psycho-Pass is redolent of some live action series which have come down the pike lately which tend to concentrate on more gruesome aspects of the human condition (think outings like Hannibal). The series pulls few punches in its depiction of sometimes fairly graphic violence, and its portrayal of a future society on the brink of absolute chaos is suitably oppressive. While there are standalone aspects to the first eleven episodes of the first season, there’s also the hint of larger plot arcs being developed which could ultimately make Psycho-Pass one of the most memorable—if also one of the most disturbing—anime of recent vintage.

Psycho-Pass: Part 1 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

If you've seen any of the many Ghost in the Shell releases, you'll know pretty much exactly what to expect from Psycho-Pass' AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is a dystopian future society that is one part Blade Runner, with neon signs seeming to "melt" under nonstop rain, and one part, well, Ghost in the Shell itself, with dark, shadowy environments which occasionally burst into brightly lit daytime environments where things seem relatively "normal", if only for a moment. A lot of this anime is intentionally on the soft side, with objects seen through glass or other intermediary objects. However, when the animators give us a close-up or a brightly lit sequence, it becomes obvious how sharp line detail and color are. There's a slightly desaturated look to long segments of the series, especially in the nighttime, outdoor sequences. It should be mentioned that a lot of Psycho-Pass is intentionally very dark, to the point that it is sometimes difficult to make out exactly what's going on, but that seems to be stylistic choice meant to mirror the troubling world that Akane finds herself in.

Psycho-Pass: Part 1 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Psycho-Pass features an English dub in Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and the original Japanese language track in Dolby TrueHD 2.0. The English dub is (expectedly) much more aggressive, with quite a bit of nice immersion with regard not just to things like the Dominator in action, but also more subtle ambient environmental effects of the urban cityscape. Dialogue is very cleanly presented and the show's score is also noticeably more fulsome in the 5.1 rendering. Fidelity is excellent on both of these tracks and dynamic range is quite wide as well.

Psycho-Pass: Part 1 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Episode 5 Commentary features Lydia Mackay, Scott Freeman and Lindsay Seidel.


• Episode 11 Commentary features Kate Oxley, Rob McCollum and Alex Organ.


• Psycho-Pass at Sakura-Con Part 1 (1080p; 21:20) documents the show's presence at Sakura-Con and features some interviews with the creative staff.


• Textless Opening Song "Abnormalize" (1080p; 1:32)


• Textless Closing Song "Namae No Nai Kaibutsu" (1080p; 1:31)

Psycho-Pass: Part 1 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Psycho-Pass doesn't have quite the overweening intellectualization of Oshii's work, which will either be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your point of view. And while some may end up thinking of this as a kind of Ghost in the Shell-lite, the first half of the first season develops its story and especially its characters in often very smart ways. Akane is a really interesting heroine, and her growing relationship with Enforcer Kogami rings true, especially as Akane has to decide if she's a "boss" or a colleague. There are some pretty gruesome aspects to this show, though, and it is certainly not anything younger kids should be exposed to, at least without parental pre-screening. But for those who like darker dystopian crime thrillers, Psycho-Pass offers a great deal of style and even a modicum of substance as well. This two Blu-ray set features great looking video and sounding audio and comes with some decent supplements. Highly recommended.