Thoughts on Psycho-Pass 3

Psycho-Pass 3 launched last month, and we're just over halfway through the season. It's weird though because numerically we just finished episode 5, but in terms of run time, it's actually more like episode 10. I've never watched an hour long anime episode before. They aren't usually structured that way, but aside from some rockiness in episode 2, Psycho-Pass 3 seems to be making good use of its extra time, and in that way, we'll be getting what would ordinarily be sixteen episodes' worth of dystopian crime goodness.

Fair warning, there be spoilers ahead!

I fell into Psycho-Pass late, but since then it's become one of my favorite anime series. I still think the first episode of the first season is one of the best examples of world building I've ever seen. Though the second season was definitely a mixed bag (to the point I think the spin-off visual novel did a better job), it wasn't bad enough to sour me on the series as a whole, so I was waiting with both anticipation and trepidation for Psycho-Pass 3 to come out.

Would it be watchable since the Sinners in the System movie trilogy was never released in the US? Would I be happy with the new protagonists? And most of all, could it find a new angle on what it is like to fight crime in a world where it is possible for criminal intent to be read before it can ever come to fruition?

So far, the answer to all three is yes!

Granted, not having seen Sinners in the System means that there is a new character who I don't know much about, but given that there is a clear time skip between Psycho-Pass 2 and Psycho-Pass 3, she doesn't feel too much out of place. Since the composition of Division 1 has changed, it's not surprising that someone new would slide in representing a different part of the organization. Aside from the fact she exists at all, there's no knowledge needed that the show won't tell you regarding how she fits in and why Ginoza, Teppo, and Kogami are now working for her. (Well, seeing Kogami is a bit odd, but hey, time skip.) Frederica's team isn't the focus though, so I don't feel we have to have a lot of detail on how her team came to be. And judging from some comments I've read, a lot of this is new even to people who've seen the movies.

My biggest surprise though was how well Arata and Kei won me over as the new protagonists. The original Division 1 was the best, and while they got jumbled a bit in Psycho-Pass 2, at least we kept mainstays like Akane and Ginoza. But I think the series is better for setting up our new duo, since they're able to give us a new story with fresh points of view. It also allows Akane to be moved into another role. While she was the rookie in the first season, the veteran in the second, she is now, oddly enough, imprisoned in the third, and no doubt the mystery of why that happened will be part of the story.

And finally, does Psycho-Pass 3 manage to find a new way to tell a crime story in a world where criminal intent can be monitored before a crime happens? Why yes it does! And it does it through diffusion of responsibility, a real world phenomenon where a person does not feel responsible because of group think; because they were just following orders, or because they assumed someone else was taking care of it. If a dozen people individually do small things that lead up to an accident, and the victim feels that dying in said accident is better than the alternative, then who can be blamed? Even if the suicide is awfully convenient for someone else.

There are some things that feel different though. For one thing, even though there is still a fair amount of Dominator pointing, it takes until the third episode for someone to even fire the thing. While that's partially due to the lack of an enforceable target, it feels strange not to have anyone use the show's signature weapon, especially since the cast change and time skip make this a decent entry point for newcomers. Some of that might be a bit of a backlash over the second season's willingness to explode bad guys left and right, especially since the blood and gore for such lethal enforcement has been drastically toned down. (No bright red to be seen, no sir.)

But we also see new protagonist Kei get into fisticuffs a lot for an inspector, which is really supposed to be enforcer work. The whole reason inspectors have enforcers is so that the enforcers (who are latent criminals cleared to do detective work) do the dirty work so the inspectors' psychological profiles remain undamaged. Kei even punches someone in anger at one point, and though he was temporarily suspended, I was surprised he passed the psychological exam to come back to work. Though Kei outwardly appears calm and composed (until he isn't), the opening animation suggests another side to him that could be a lot more manic and dangerous, so I'm curious if this is something that has always been lurking in him (in which case why isn't he already a latent criminal) or just that he has yet to turn.

Kei and Arata are more maverick thinkers than Akane and Ginoza too, in that the two of them are clearly pursuing their own agenda. The Sybil System did not find them to be compatible as partners, and yet they choose to work together anyway. Moreover, we know that Arata's father killed Kei's brother, so the fact they are working together means that they suspect there's more to the murder than what has been publicly declared the truth.

Though Akane has always had a humanitarian side to her, in that she would prefer to avoid killing if at all possible, I believe Arata is the first inspector to point out that the Dominator has a trigger for a reason, so if the inspector or enforcer feels that Sibyl is in error, they can choose not to shoot. Akane believed that implicitly, but Arata is the first to call out what has always been true. And once it's spelled out, it's actually a fascinating consideration given that Sibyl otherwise controls so much of people's lives.

The new enforcers in Psycho-Pass 3 also get short-changed, though to be fair, this is also a problem Psycho-Pass 2 had due to the shorter season length compared to the first. Though Irie and Todoroki got a little character development, we don't really see much of Hinakawa and Kisaragi. Kisaragi looks like she's going to be getting more focus soon, but we're past the halfway point and she's barely done anything other than look sharp in a suit. Hinekawa arguably had some development in Psycho-Pass 2, but I still don't feel like I know the guy. Since he and Karanomori are the only returning members of Division 1 I was hoping he was kept so they could do more with him this time around, but that hasn't been the case. I get that he's the introverted hologram expert so he's not cool like Ginoza and Kogami, but he still could be more of a character with his own personal stakes.

The funny thing is that the season has now aired five out of its scheduled eight episodes and I feel like there's no way Kei and Arata are going to unravel this conspiracy and learn the truth about their family members in the three episodes we have left. And yet, if this wasn't an hour long show, I wouldn't be as concerned with six episodes remaining. Logically, they should have the space. There's still a third of the season left.

So far I've been enjoying Psycho-Pass 3 a lot more than its immediately predecessor, so here's hoping it can make a strong finish.

Loscon and NaNo Progress

I will only be at Loscon for one day this year, but if you happen to be there, you can see me on Ethics in Speculative Fiction at 10:00 am on Sunday, December 1st. I'll likely hang around for a little while after as well.

It's kind of funny heading back to the same hotel again so soon since it's where World Fantasy was only a few weeks ago!

In other news my NaNoWriMo progress is going well, and I'm pretty happy with that. Not just because I'm on track to finish, but because this means that I'm getting over the creative logjam that started with my illness earlier this year. It was a little nerve-wracking getting started and my outlines are never as thorough as I want them to be, but I'm relatively pleased so far.

I'm currently at the 30k mark and have started the second story arc. I don't want to talk details this early in the process, but I'm stretching my creative legs and trying a few things I haven't done before. I can see there the rough spots are and I'm already leaving myself revision notes, but I think the draft will be viable.

This is going to go past the 50k NaNo target range, which was expected, but how far, I'm not sure yet. I was picturing the novel broken into three parts, but at the same time I don't see this draft hitting 90k as the middle arc feels leaner to me.

Jack of Spades, Now at Curious Fictions

I'm trying an experiment. As mentioned in my original health post back in July, I wanted a chance to earn some of the support I was eventually given. And one of those things was asking people to support my writing through Curious Fictions.

For the past few months I've been posting a backlog of the reprints I had the rights to, some of which have never been available outside of a physical copy or paywall, and now I'm moving on to the bonus item, the novella Jack of Spades. This is something I wrote quite a while ago. To give you an idea of how long ago, one of the reasons I stopped submitting it is that the Hunger Games became popular and I was afraid people would think I was trying to cash in on that.

I also wasn't quite the writer then that I am now. But I still liked the story.

So I decided that I would offer it as a special bonus to subscribers. Much to my dismay, it wasn't at the level of storytelling my memory told me it was, so I rolled up my sleeves and started revision work. I think it's much better now, though I know readers won't be able to compare!

Now Jack of Spades is live and you can read the first chapter for free. New installments will go up every two weeks until it is done.

If you like the idea of seeing additional fiction from me on a regular basis, please consider subscribing. If this does well, I'd love to write more serials.

NaNoWriMo 2019

I'm going to be doing NaNoWriMo again this year, though I'll be getting a late start since I wanted to wait until after the World Fantasy Convention ended. (It's really hard to work while at a con.) So today is really my first day of work!

That puts me behind a bit, but after writing so much, I've learned a lot about my novel writing and revising process; enough to know that I don't actually like writing the 1667 minimum words per day. I like to write more, and the reason for that is 1667 words is not a chapter for me. It's too short.

My chapters tend to be somewhere between 2000-3000 words (closer to the 2000 word end on first draft, as I'm definitely a put-in more than take-out sort of person when doing revision).

I could write less than a chapter a day, and in previous NaNos I did, but I discovered during revision that I had to make more edits that way, because I would forget details from the day before. So now what I do is write my chapter straight through until it's done, so I can manage its beginning, middle, and end in one go, keeping the entire "arc" in my head. And it's worked better for me.

This also means that it only takes me 25 days to hit the NaNo goal (probably less, because I'm not always writing the minimum--the chapter is whatever it requires) and I'll still finish by the time the month is over.

Since I've been dealing with cancer most of this year, I haven't had much chance to write, but now that I'm healthier again I'm hoping that I can kickstart my writing engine with a new book.