Hacker Cinema
Psycho-Pass
PSYCHO-PASS サイコパス
2012 · TV series · 28 min episodes · 3 seasons
AnimationCrimeScience FictionFantasyActionAdventure
In the year 2113, people are given brain scans to determine how likely they are to commit a crime. Those who fail are apprehended, or even killed.
15 positive1 mixed3 neutralfrom 19 commenters
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23 comments on Hacker News
I enjoyed both seasons immensely. I think it’s actually on Amazon Prime in the US, as they acquired the rights to the first season and removed it from AMC+ and HIDIVE, and then produced the second season, iirc.
Make sure you get the watch order down for Psycho-Pass. If you’re able, watch the extended edition of season 1, as Crunchyroll makes it appear to simply be another season in their listings, if you use their platform.
I just found another similar series via Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_%E2%80%93_Invaded
Have you heard anything about Id: Invaded?
Here's a list of some old and new ones, that an old fart might enjoy
Monster (Chasing a serial killer)
Ergo Proxy (Can't describe it)
Samurai 7 (Sci-fi variant off 7 samurai)
Last Exile (Post appocapltic world with lots of flying machines)
Kino's Journey
Mushishi
Time of Eve
Gargantia
Baccano
Durarara
Psycho Pass
Arslan Senki
Sunaboju (Desert Punk)
Witch Hunter Robin
Hunter x Hunter (old not new)
Texnolyze
Darker than Black
Black Lagoon
Great Teach Onizuka (One of the old and best)
Gintama (Comedy, It's at the level One Piece and Naruto disgusing as Comedy, you have to get past 30 episodes)
Kabaneri of Iron Fortress (Just for animation quality)
Beck (Music career)
Golden Kamui
Terror in Resonance
Ping Pong Animation (Don't let the animation fool you, it's one of the best stories)
Area 88 (Story ends abruptly, watch at your own risk)
Ashita no Joe (Old anime, boxing genre)
Valkyria Chronicles (War story)
Scissor Seven (Comedy, Chinese, assassin, in a strange world)
Shura no Toki (Martial arts, 3 generations)
A Record of Mortal's Journey to Immortality (Chinese cultivation genre, 3D good animation, faithful adaptation of one of the good novels in this genre)
Swallowed Star (Chinese cultivation genre Sci-fi variant, great 3D animation)
I watched Redline recently. The animation is worth seeing but the "story" is paper-thin.
Ergo Proxy I just didn't get.
Psycho Pass I really enjoyed; good depth of story and exploration of the pros and cons.
GitS series is probably my favourite anime, and very high up in my favourite anything.
Berserk is good, and descends into Evangelion-level insanity as it progresses.
Ninja Scroll is forever a classic. Worth a re-watch every 5-10 years. I'm due.
There's an 8 year old Psycho Pass movie you can probably watch cold. If you like it, you'd enjoy the series. There's also a new Psycho Pass movie that came out in July (not sure if it is streaming yet).
It's not new at all, and you've probably already heard about it or seen it, but I'd be remiss if I didn't suggest Serial Experiments Lain for fans of SF anime.
There's quite a few directors who credit Murakami as an influence on their works.
Rian Johnson credits HBW+EOW as an influence on Looper.
Wong Kar-wai says he took inspiration from Murakami in Chunking Express.
David Mitchell is clearly influenced by his works (worth reading if you're a Murakami fan). His novel Cloud Atlas got a film adaptation with Tom Hanks and some other big names.
In anime, Satoshi Kon and Makoto Shinkai have said Murakami was a big influence on them. There's also Haibane Renmei which was influenced by HBW+EOW (IMO not worth watching). Probably plenty more anime with similar styles because it's a more suitable medium for the kind of surrealism in Murakami's novels. You might like Psycho-Pass, GITS, Lain which share some of the same elements of Murakami's works.
> Psycho-Pass, is a really good anime in terms of society and crime
At it's core it's an exploration in Bentham, Mill's view of Society, warped into some dystopian technocratic utopian ideal of what it should be.
Sadly, to appeal to the masses and get it on screen it had to be tied into some cop-drama, the first seasons were good, with good philosophical examination, but the movie in Netflix and following seasons were utter garbage. I've tried re-watching them, and other than re-hashing the cop plot it was pretty lame.
I highly recommend to first 2 seasons to techno utopians who have a very shallow and superficial understanding o the Human psyche and think that 'AI solves that' type hand wringing doesn't always end up like this. We Humans are the apex predator for a reason, and people who don't examine the Human condition and try to engineer society from an ivy tower always forget that.
The CCP is the best example of a Psycho-pass analogue and the mere fact that this latest hack reveals they are a more advanced Stasi-like police state with poor OPSEC shows just how feckless these things are in practice. Sadly, the consequences are real: Tibet, Xinjiang, Hongkong various African countries.
With that said, read this [0] as a primer and stick to the first 2 seasons in Japanese sub if you do give it a watch and end it with the movie if you MUST in order to spare yourself the disappointment of the latter parts.
0: https://logicmag.io/commons/panopticons-and-leviathans-oscar-h-gandy-jr-on-algorithmic-life/
Here's a HN thread from four months ago about Serial Experiments Lain[0].
I had it on my list of "must watch" anime for years but only got around to it last year. It comes off as purposely obscurant and parts of it haven't aged well but for anyone interested in cyberpunk anime it's essential.
I'd also recommend Ghost in the Shell (the movie and Stand Alone Complex) and the first season of Psycho pass along those lines.
[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26863490
I'm always amazed at how many people watch movies/TV like Blade Runner, Black Mirror, Terminator, Altered Carbon, Her, Ex Machina, Firefly, Cowbow Bebop, etc and think "Yeah, that looks like a future I want." Dystopian Sci-Fi is a warning, not a blueprint. Even the utopian Sci-Fis often reference a struggled past in transitioning to their societies. And a lot of these problems have to deal with surveillance or an adjacent technology (like Minority Report or the more realistic Psycho-Pass).
Psycho-Pass. Finish season one, which tells a complete story. There was a drop in quality in season two. Psycho-Pass is about two layers of futuristic police, "inspectors" with full citizen rights, and "enforcers" who are treated as "latent criminals". A brain scan from the end of a cop's weapon, which takes a second to complete, may determine your fate. The lead female character is initially very keen and eager to be an inspector, but soon questions the system and society. It's fast-paced and a great show.
> Where a surveillance state combined with ML analysis leads to something akin to pre-crime arrests
While I haven't seen Minority Report or Eagle Eye, this aptly describes the anime TV series Psycho-Pass (2012). If I remember correctly, the show is mostly focused on the effects of having a crime-coefficient system.
If you're into anime, Psycho Pass had a few episode subplot that pretty much was that, minus the in letter format.
Looking at all these comments, did no one watch Minority Report? The whole film was about the difficulties and ethics of "precrime" and arresting people before they even committed a crime. Obviously we aren't doing that here, but stories often exaggerate a bit.
I'd also like to add another good series that explores this topic even more than Minority Report: Psycho-Pass. Psycho-Pass is more extreme in that there's stations setup that are constantly monitoring peoples' brain patterns and trying to predict aggression. I think many draw parallels to mass surveillance and some uses of ML for predictive crime detection.
Both these shows tackle ethical challenges related to policing in this manner even when the predictive power is quite high.
Australian Netflix user here as well, very similar story with a couple of exceptions:
1. Kids, one in particular loves a number of shows on Netflix and is happy to re-watch them. They do plenty of other non-screen activities, so Netflix remains a decent 'downtime' option
2. Kids. I just don't have the kind of time to watch movies and TV shows the way I used to. I just finished the two seasons of Psycho-Pass, which took me a couple of months to get through. And that's still with most episodes requiring multi-mid-episode pauses for reasons of 'parenting' (be it parental intervention or prevention of kids viewing disturbing scenes).
As a result, I churn through less content, slower, and therefore Netflix probably has a greater use to me longer term. My budget refuses to stretch to multi-streaming-platform subscriptions, mostly actually due to ideological reasons.
(I'm paying for the top Netflix option with a view to convincing a couple of relatives to get off their expensive Foxtel subs - with minor success).
For those interested in what can happen, I'd recommend watching Psycho-Pass [0], which revolves entirely around a civilization with citizen score. Good stuff happens (nobody locks their homes anymore), but potential criminals are taken out with no form of judgement whatsoever (à la Minority Report).
Edit: and also, shorter and not any less scary, that one episode of Black Mirror [1]
[0] https://myanimelist.net/anime/13601/psycho-pass
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive_(Black_Mirror)
Code Geass, Death Note, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Shingeki no Kyojin, No Game No Life, Steins; Gate (these are top notch) Boku no Hero Academia (Season 1 and 2), Sword Art Online (first 13 episodes, maybe 25, but after that is terrible), Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, Full Metal Panic (season 1, FUMOFFU, Season 2). Psycho-Pass, Made in Abyss, Accel World, Ga-Rei Zero (these are just amazing, but not top)
Be careful with FUMOFFU, leads to death due to laughter
They cover a wide variety of range, not all of them might be of your taste. You also need to get used to some things that are Japanese culture in animes (their way of being fun, their way of being embarassed by stuff that is not in your culture and so on).
Insane plot (like REALLY incredible): - Code Geass - Death Note - Steins; Gate - Shingeki no Kyojin (not completed, season 4 coming soon) - Made in Abyss (not completed, season 2 coming soon)
Epic (you feel hyped): - Sword Art Online - Full Metal Panic - Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (this anime is amazing, but I recommend watching it only after you've watched quite a few animes. Rewatching it leads to improvement. It's like when you try wine for the first time and it sucks, then it turns great) - No Game No Life - Boku No Hero Academia - Accel World
Laugh: - Full Metal Panic FUMOFFU (requires watching the season 1 first)
This list is purely based on my taste, but I watched over 200 animes (lot of bad stuff too, sadly), so for a beginner it's a good baseline.
Good plot (not like the insane ones, still good): - Psycho-Pass (AMAZING soundtrack) - Ga-Rei Zero - Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Psycho-pass just yet [0].
The Sibyl System is made up of networked human brains giving tremendous computation ability.
Would not surprise me that the answer on what's beyond silicon is actual living brain tissue being the CPU.
[0]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2379308/
I agree with all of these but have to add some, because you are missing a lot of the classics.
- Alien (talk about classic Sci-Fi Horror)
- Westworld (watch the movie before the show. Trust me)
- 2001 A Space Odyssey
- The Thing (I've only seen the old one)
- Moon
- Children of Men
- 12 Monkeys
- Gattaca
- Blade Runner
- Dark City
- Akira (anime)
- Primer (my favourite time travel film)
- Interstellar
- Black Mirror
- Psycho-Pass (anime)
And of course everyone needs to watch - The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
Very comprehensive. A lot of edge cases though. To my understanding the Memories compilation [1] consisted of 3 films (Magnetic Rose, Stink Bomb, Cannon Fodder), and while they were all sci-fi there's only one I would really consider to fit the genre (Cannon Fodder). Magnetic Rose is borderline and Stink Bomb just plain isn't for obvious reasons (lol). GenoCyber I wanted to watch but I've heard it is more a masterpiece in gore than anything remotely Cyberpunk.
A lot of these I have simply never heard of (& I thought I was an expert) so I will have to check 'em out. I always say that good starting off points are the Masamune Shirow films and OVAs (GiTS, Appleseed, Black Magic, Dominion, etc) and Psycho-Pass (a real gem).
You should watch Psycho-Pass. I feel you will like it.
[0] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2379308/
Psycho-Pass is a lot like the GITS anime, with a side of Minority Report. Not quite identity stuff, but still classic sci-fi concepts in a near future setting in the form of a police procedural.
It spends much more of its time on multi-episode story arcs, and does them better than GITS does, but doesn't do as well at one-off episodes. For reference, I thought the one-off episodes were the stronger part of GITS; if you disagree you'll enjoy Psycho-Pass even more than I did.
I am more reminded about Psycho Pass (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2379308/) a terrific anime tv series. It basically explores a future in which a person's criminal intent (called their crime coefficient) along with other mental attributes (collectively referred to as one's psycho pass) is judged by the Sibyl system - A system that works so well that it acts as judge, jury and executioner with little human input. It explores a lot of questions such as the role of free will and potential for change in such a world. Interestingly lot of people find it hard to lower their crime coefficients after it 'stabilizes' to a new high (Like how it becomes easier to commit a crime again after having done it once - the same judgement the police make in this article). Also like in this article, people who are victims of abuse and crime often find their crime coefficients inevitably rise.
Don't let the cartoon characters fool you. IMO The complexity and depth of this series (and a lot of sci-fi anime) far surpasses the likes of minority report and hollywood sci-fi in general. My description really doesn't do it justice.
There is a tv show called Psycho Pass which is set in the near future. I bring it up as it has a wristwatch in it where you press a button on it and then it projects a larger screen out of it (maybe 6"x4") about six inches away from the wrist. Sensors then allow you to interact with the screen.
So, I was thinking that the Apple phone would be something like this projected keyboard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projection_keyboard) but as a touchscreen that is suspended in mid air.
No idea what the tech behind that could be. Closest I could come up with is the watch shooting out a fog when you want the virtual display.
I definitely thought the Apple Watch would be a little bit further ahead of other smartwatches than it is. I thought it would be to other smartwatches what the iPhone was to other smartphones at the time.
I liked Terra e (2007, not the 1980 film which isn't very good). It bears some similarities to Psycho-Pass, although it probably doesn't meet the "mature" marker with its super powers.
I struggle to recommend more because mature anime is almost nonexistent these days. I can count on one hand the number of shows that might fit the bill in the past 5 years (Aoi Bungaku, Jormungand, Attack on Titan and Night Raid perhaps, and they're not all good).
If you just want something entertaining without the same old cliches in most anime, then Gintama will have you in stitches.