「硫黄降る街」 (Iou Furu Machi)
“The Town Where Sulphur Falls”
Up until this episode, it was believed that Makishima’s modus operandi was to simply provide people with various resources to enable them to do what they’ve always wanted to do, but could not because of Sibyl’s presence. Although his strong dislike for the system suggested that his eventual goal was most likely a revolution of some sort, it did not seem as if he had a concrete plan. The recipients of his aid shared nothing in common other than their psychopathic personalities and their murderous intent, and since each of them acted according to their own desires, there was no pattern that suggested that the mastermind behind the scenes was pulling the strings in order to guide them towards a more overarching and ambitious goal. Makishima appeared to be simply content with using his psychopaths to point out the flaws in the Sibyl System and hopefully sow the seeds of dissent. If a revolution was going to take place, than it would do so without any further intervention on his part. He had given people the resources to ferment one and now only wished to prevent its sabotage and to step back and watch events unfold and take their course.
Yet with hindsight and the 20/20 vision it affords, it becomes easy to connect the dots between all the beneficiaries of Makishima’s helping hand. Kanehara Yuji, the drone plant worker who used Makishima’s computer program to reprogram the drones, could have been used to test the feasibility of manufacturing the anti-Sibyl helmets without arousing suspicion. The murders and subsequent impersonation of online avatar personalities Talisman and Spooky Boogie was carried out in order for Choe Gu-sung to use their influence to spread misinformation about the current situation and rile the populace up even further. Ouryou Rikako’s public displays of her murder victims might have been utilized for Makishima to gauge what a public reaction to violence might be like. All of Makishima’s machinations served to set the stage for the events of this episode.
Makishima doesn’t merely aim to stir up society with a little unrest. He strives to shake the very foundations of society and achieve a complete upheaval of the status quo, and so far his scheme appears to be right on track. Many citizens are afraid to go outside, and some have even resorted to fashioning makeshift weapons and then carrying out their own vigilante form of justice – thus further adding supports to the idea that a latent criminal exists inside of every person. More importantly, each and every aspect of the Sibyl System, from street scanners and drones to even Hues and Crime Coefficients themselves, is now being openly questioned by the general populace. There is no going back to the way things were before, at least not without the use of force or wide-scale brainwashing. Pandora’s Box has been opened.
However, this isn’t even Makishima’s ultimate goal. He wishes to remove Sibyl’s heart itself, to cut down the monster that plagues society, to bring down the god that rules with an iron fist. If PSYCHO-PASS were any other dystopian work of science-fiction, his attempt to overthrow the system responsible for the dystopia would be laudable and worthy of supporting. It could even be argued that Makishima is the true protagonist of the series. The way he describes himself – a common man, ordinary, and unremarkable – is also similar to how many protagonists are often described before they are thrust into extraordinary circumstances and become uncommon and remarkable men and women. Regarding the Sibyl System, it is also Makishima who asks many of the very same questions and shares the very same qualms as we do. He sees Sibyl as we see Sibyl. The other characters might also share some of the same views, especially Kougami, Tsunemori, and Masaoka, but none of them have voiced their opinions to the same extent that he has. Although his methods are decidedly anti-hero and even cross into what we would consider as evil, most protagonists of dystopian fiction are nowhere near saints themselves. The question is then, with all that he has done and with what he is trying to accomplish, should we actually be supporting Makishima?
- In the previous episode, Makishima equated the citizens to a mindless flock of sheep, tended by a shepherd named Sibyl. The people of this society could also be likened to the androids found in Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Androids in that story are programmed for a specific career, similar to how Sibyl chooses a career for people. And if certain androids are found to deviate from the norm in some way, they are marked for “retirement” – just like how if anyone in PSYCHO-PASS deviates from the norm, they are labeled a latent criminal and segregated from the rest of society.
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was the basis for Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, a film that serves as a major inspiration for PSYCHO-PASS with its techno-noir aesthetic along with various cyberpunk elements.
- Speaking of cyberpunk, William Gibson, whose novel Neuromancer is the seminal work in the genre, was name-dropped as well.
- Loved the imagery in the last episode of Makishima with the backdrop of a jungle, making comparisons to Kurtz of Heart of Darkness even more apt.
- Not sure why the one girl in the beginning of episode 14 panicked and feared for her own life when her coworker was stabbed in front of her, but then a large pack of bystanders never even batted an eye for their own safety when the woman was beaten to death… If the concept of murder was truly alien in the PSYCHO-PASS society, then wouldn’t the first woman behave similarly to the way the crowd did?
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