DISCLAIMER: This review talks about the first season. I may watch the second season to see if it's better.
Ah yes, Psycho-Pass. Anime fans all over loves this one, often comparing it to the likes of Cowboy Bebop, GITS, and others as potentially one of anime's all time greats. Admittedly, the concept of the show was pretty interesting in of itself, so I sought the show out while traveling through Netflix. Going into this, and knowing how well-liked it is from many fans, I looked forward to seeing it and looked forward to finding what was so good about it. After watching it though, I saw myself unfortunately in multiple levels of indifference towards it.
This is in no way putting the anime down. My indifference towards the anime does not take away from the fact that there are positives to the show. In fact, the positives in this show are very positive. The visuals, the story progression, the tone of the series, the themes of the show all melded together in a very well made fashion. On those levels, the show didn't feel like it was a chore to watch, and I enjoyed myself considerably while watching it. However, the biggest thing that dragged my experience down and caused me to be so uncaring to this anime is it's characters.
I like my fiction to have good memorable characters that I can remember years down the road even if I forget the series that they came from. Characters perhaps are the most important part of the story for me. If there are no characters, there is no story. Unfortunately for me, the cast of Psycho-Pass in my opinion is the most disappointing thing about Psycho-Pass. I couldn't bring myself to care in anyway about any of the main characters whatsoever. They, for what the type of anime this is set up to be has got to be the most generic hodgepodge of characters that they could create. We got the one who jokes a lot, we got one hardass veteran with a heart of gold, we've got the one Cool Old Guy that introduces the rookie, the list goes on. The only characters in this anime that I gave a crap about were Akane and Makishima. Even then, I'm not sure I could remember them if I ever saw it again.
That being said, if you enjoy the type of anime that Psycho-Pass is, you'll enjoy it. Like I said, it's really well made, well paced and well produced. It's a shame to me that the one area that's most important to me just fell so flat.
A complete mixed bag.
DISCLAIMER: This review talks about the first season. I may watch the second season to see if it's better.
Ah yes, Psycho-Pass. Anime fans all over loves this one, often comparing it to the likes of Cowboy Bebop, GITS, and others as potentially one of anime's all time greats. Admittedly, the concept of the show was pretty interesting in of itself, so I sought the show out while traveling through Netflix. Going into this, and knowing how well-liked it is from many fans, I looked forward to seeing it and looked forward to finding what was so good about it. After watching it though, I saw myself unfortunately in multiple levels of indifference towards it.
This is in no way putting the anime down. My indifference towards the anime does not take away from the fact that there are positives to the show. In fact, the positives in this show are very positive. The visuals, the story progression, the tone of the series, the themes of the show all melded together in a very well made fashion. On those levels, the show didn't feel like it was a chore to watch, and I enjoyed myself considerably while watching it. However, the biggest thing that dragged my experience down and caused me to be so uncaring to this anime is it's characters.
I like my fiction to have good memorable characters that I can remember years down the road even if I forget the series that they came from. Characters perhaps are the most important part of the story for me. If there are no characters, there is no story. Unfortunately for me, the cast of Psycho-Pass in my opinion is the most disappointing thing about Psycho-Pass. I couldn't bring myself to care in anyway about any of the main characters whatsoever. They, for what the type of anime this is set up to be has got to be the most generic hodgepodge of characters that they could create. We got the one who jokes a lot, we got one hardass veteran with a heart of gold, we've got the one Cool Old Guy that introduces the rookie, the list goes on. The only characters in this anime that I gave a crap about were Akane and Makishima. Even then, I'm not sure I could remember them if I ever saw it again.
That being said, if you enjoy the type of anime that Psycho-Pass is, you'll enjoy it. Like I said, it's really well made, well paced and well produced. It's a shame to me that the one area that's most important to me just fell so flat.