Psycho-Pass is one of my favorite anime series, mostly for the first season's well-thought out dystopia where crime is virtually non-existent (until it is). It's a bit like Minority Report, except instead of predicting crime before it happens, the Sibyl System is able to judge someone's criminal inclination. Latent criminals are put away for treatment before they become a danger to society. If treatment is successful, they are allowed to return, though it's implied that this event is rare. Once someone's too far gone, it's not possible to go back.
The two seasons of Psycho-Pass have followed Division 1 of the Criminal Investigation Department, which has been composed of two inspectors (people with good Psycho-Pass ratings) and four enforcers (latent criminals who are trusted enough to hunt other latent criminals so the inspectors don't get corrupted).
Though the story has largely been told through the eyes of inspector Akane Tsunemori, the fan favorite is enforcer Shinya Kogami, who used to be an inspector until his Psycho-Pass worsened due to his desire for revenge over the murder of his former partner. Season 1 saw Kogami satisfy his revenge at the end of the season by taking out the main villain, but in doing so, he went from a latent criminal to an actual one, so he had no choice but to flee the country at the end of the story.
That was fine. It was the ending that we knew was coming. Akane would never have killed Makashima, because she believes in working with the law, even if it is a flawed system, whereas Kogami's sense of justice had long fallen outside the Sybil System.
Then Season 2 happened.
While it had a number of flaws that had nothing to do with Kogami's absence, the fact the fan favorite was gone didn't help matters. (For me personally, I would rather have had Ginoza's role punched up since the guy's life was put through a meatgrinder in Season 1 and we don't see much of the fallout from that.)
About a week ago, Psycho-Pass 3 was announced, and it'll be airing in October this year. This wasn't entirely a surprise, considering that the Psycho-Pass: Sinners in the System movies started releasing earlier this year. No one's picked those up for North American distribution yet, but chances are Funimation will since they have the previous movie and both TV series.
And here come the spoilers.
I started reading the reviews for the Sinners in the System movies because I figured they weren't coming over to the US anytime soon and I wanted to know something of what they're about. I knew the first was a sequel, starring Ginoza and Mika; the second was a prequel, starring Teppei and the now deceased Masaoka; and the third was a sequel, picking up after the previous stand-alone movie with Kogami. (Which I haven't actually seen yet.)
I didn't feel a strong need to see what Kogami was up to, but I still wanted to know what the movie was about. So when the review went up at ANN, I read it, and realized that there was more going on than I'd thought.
The movies weren't just to bring Psycho-Pass back into the awareness of its audience in preparation for Season 3, but also to lead in to Season 3. And it sounds like Kogami is coming back.
I'm not entirely sure I like this, though if it's handled well, I'll roll with it.
Until this point, Season 3 hadn't teased any of the previous characters coming back. In fact the first promotional image is of two new characters we've never met before, though from their outfits and their Dominator weapons they are clearly part of the CID like Division 1.
Unfortunately we also don't know most of the staff for Season 3 either. The lead writer changed from Gen Urobuchi in Season 1 to Tow Ubukata in Season 2, which is what most people have credited as to why Season 2 was so much poorer than its predecessor. While I think it's possible for someone to write a good Psycho-Pass story without being Gen Urobuchi (as shown by the Mandatory Happiness spin-off game), Season 3 is really going to need to earn some trust back, and I don't think shoving Kogami back on the show is going to be enough.
Whichever way it goes though, I'm pretty sure I'll be watching in October.
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