Psycho-Pass Review

By: Lostsakana

Release: 2012
Category: Cyberpunk, Dystopia, Thriller

Tired of sexism, clichés, stereotypes, and copy and paste storylines ruining your love for anime?

Psycho-Pass is an anime from last year that pretty much flew under the radar. It explores a dystopia in which people are regulated based on brainwave patterns that predict deviant behavior before it is committed. The main character, Akane Tsunamori, (a female in her early 20’s) is on an elite police team designated to hunt down criminals and capture or kill based on how far gone they are on a number scale read by detecting brain waves. Basically, if you’re crazy enough, they kill you.

I can’t begin to recommend this series enough. While it may not be for everyone, it’s dark and thought provoking. Twenty two episodes long, this series ran into early 2013 and there are rumors that a second season is in the works.

Before you dive into Psycho-Pass I’d like to explain three things.

1) The music is TERRIBLE. Not the background music, but the opening themes (there are two) are just atrocious, especially the first one. And the second opening theme… Sounds unmistakably like it was sung by the youtube flash video creator Weebl…

2) The premise is fabulous. It will remind you of ‘Brave New World’ and pretty much every other dystopia book you read in high school.

3) I’m so happy to see a heroine who is strongly written and non-sexualized. Her character is maybe the best part of this series. She and much of the rest of the cast show character growth as the series goes on.

Animation: 8/10
Yeah, not much to say here.

Music: 5/10
The background music is generally strong but the terrible opening/closing themes really drag it down… I’m serious: that first opening is a must see, merely because it’s so bad.

Story: 8/10
Psycho-Pass does have its problems, but they don’t take away from the general story or the enjoyment very much. But you may find yourself asking questions like “Why is this 99-floor government building completely unoccupied under ANY circumstances?” BUT I’M SERIOUS, YOU SHOULD STILL WATCH IT.

Characters: 8/10
Yep, I love the cast.

Premise: 10/10
I point this out because even if Psycho-Pass isn’t an epic classic that will rock the anime world, or even one of my favorite anime of all time, it is still the best effort I have seen in attempting something new I’ve seen in a VERY LONG TIME. Yeah, everyone should watch this, if only to encourage the writing and production of more series like this one.

Need another excuse to watch? The anime licensing company Funimation, which has perhaps the best PR department in the industry, is streaming the entire Psycho-Pass anime for free on their website via Hulu. Fuck yeah.

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Amnesia (Anime) No Spoilers

By: Lostsakana

Release: 2013
Category: Harem, Romance

Now the question is: Can you dock a rating for an anime based only on its genre…? I would say no. No, that would be unfair. It’d be like rating a show for kids poorly because you’re holding it to the standards of adults. It’d be like rating a horror flick poorly because you don’t like scary movies. Like rating the Naked Gun as a 2/10 because your dog died moments before and the thought of laughing makes you sick.

Amnesia is based on a reverse-harem dating sim. For those of you unaware, Japan has an abundance of not just anime, manga and video games in its popular media, but also dating games where you play as the protagonist and have the chance to date a number of characters with different looks and personalities. These games are designed to incorporate many different endings and often these can have huge variance depending on the decisions you make. There are hundreds of these games in almost every genre: romance, hentai, adventure, and even horror (try googling Song of Saya)… as long as you’re a guy. (Or don’t mind playing as a boy…)There are OVERWHELMING numbers of these games but the options for girls are very limited. (But I would encourage almost anyone to look into the bird dating sim “Hatoful Boyfriend” because holy shit—just do it.)

Amnesia is, as you have probably figured out at this point, based on one of these dating sims for girls. With that in mind, what rating does it deserve? Certainly not a 2, or a 3, not anywhere near the ratings I keep seeing over and over. It seems to me that the main beef most people have with this series is that it is “a shameless harem”. Oh please!!! And the same people who rated this series probably gave anime like Shuffle a 9 or 10. Alright men in their 20’s: this is not the anime for you.

Girls? Gay men? Give it a shot. But understand what it is:

This game is based on a dating sim. In dating sims the main character is left a completely blank slate for a reason. You are supposed to project yourself onto this character. If the lead was designed to have too much of a defined personality players would feel pressured to make decisions based on what they feel the protagonist would want, not their own interests. That being said…

An adaption should be able to break through that play-through motif. Unfortunately without changing too much about the story this is a difficult work around, to invent a new character as the lead out of thin air.

The Amnesia anime has a HORRIBLE protagonist. But with an understanding of where she came from (a completely blank slate designed to compliment every potential suitor) who could blame the writers? Had they changed too much about the lead I think this would have upset some players (and the main target audience) who saw her as having a different personality.

The Amnesia anime is eye candy. Watch the opening and ending themes: This will give you an idea of what you’re in for.



Animation: 10/10
Beautiful animation. No complaints here.

Directing: 5/10
My main complaint here is that there are some problems real problems that can pull you away from enjoying the story.

Why were the directors so set on keeping this series Y-7? They have references to “spending the night together” but the director must have explicitly told the animators to draw stab wounds without blood, because wow, what the heck.

My other complaint is that they never had the main character make any expression beyond a blank stare. Even in situations where she is about to be horribly murdered, or even when she’s being strangled she still has a more calm expression than the average person discovering a parking ticket. It’s outrageous how expressionless she is. Even if her personality was designed to be a blank slate, she should still feel emotions for heaven’s sake! Her facial pallet is embarrassingly blank even in desperate situations.

Story: Eh…. 6/10
It’s an adaption… they did the best they could… Not dreadful anyway.

Music: 8/10
Not bad.

Characters: 8/10
If you ignore the main character’s blank personality the rest of the cast is interesting and fun.

Overall: 7/10
Amnesia is a dazzling 7/10. Amnesia knows exactly what it is and exactly what it’s trying to be. It’s refreshing to watch an anime that doesn’t take place in high school for once. I cannot emphasize this enough.

Remember where this series originated and enjoy the eye candy!

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Chaos;Head was Terrible. (No Spoilers!)

By: Lostsakana

Release: 2008
Category: Super Powers, Psychological

It's difficult to put your finger on exactly what's wrong with Chaos;head. But having watched it the whole way through, it's impossible to deny that the series is deeply and powerfully bad. Character motivations are conflicting and almost constantly they contradict themselves. I watched the dubbed version of Chaos;head but I have a feeling that not even the worst English-language director could be responsible for this many problems with the dialog and script-- I suspect that they didn't have much to work with; not much to make worse.

The main character, voiced by Todd Haberkorn, a talented voice actor in his own right, can’t save this terrible protagonist. As I stated before, the motivations aren't clear, and even Haberkorn can't carry the radical shifts in tone and script that the dialog seems to demand. Chaos;head is embarrassingly bad. It's almost as if the team of creators took a white board full of ideas and crammed them all together into one 12 episode piece of crap. There are too many things going on at once. I've heard it argued that the team didn't have enough episodes to work with so the plot was rushed, but I don't buy this excuse. The first 3-4 episodes were nearly unbearable to watch. They were jumbled, disorganized, and PAINFULLY slow...

I've seen few anime which promised excitement, drama, and horror and instead include almost exclusively bad "twists" with plot holes and failed directing. Few times I have been THIS bored and uninterested in an anime series even after several episodes in.

No, Chaos;head COULD have been pulled off. It really could have, but the directors, writers and animators all seemed to be working on a patchwork of failed ambitions. Even by the finale I was still just praying to be done with the show, but I kept watching: perhaps exclusively out of loyalty to the Steins;Gate team-- but not even a willingness to enjoy the series could survive after the first episode. This series is BAD. I am HIGHLY tempted to compile a list of all the flaws, but I'm too horrified by the prospect of having to skim through this terrible anime once more.

Overall Rating: 3 / 10
It’s just frustratingly bad, maybe because we know it had potential for so much more... It’s like if you were served bellow average food at an extremely fancy restaurant: it’s not HORRID but it’s bellow average and SO, SO, SOOOOO much lower quality than our expectations that its pathetic.

I don’t know. I really do think that it was a 3 at best.

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