Hogan Reviews

I’m reviewing Psycho-Pass all out of order on this website, but to be fair they’re also released quite a bit out of order as well as “Providence” takes place after the Sinners of the System OVAs but before Psycho-Pass 3, finally filling in the last few gaps in the story so maybe we might be able to move forward should a Psycho-Pass 4 arrive? Maybe? Well, anyway, Providence itself is a fun ride throughout its runtime, so let’s take a deeper look!

The film opens up with a large tanker being assaulted by a group known as the “Peacebreakers”, specifically a lady called Professor Stronskaya being found and killed by a Peacebreaker called Kai after she refused to give up her research into the Sibyl System. Kogami, now in his new role of agent for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is dropped down onto the ship and takes a few Peacebreakers out but they manage to escape. We then cut to Akane debating the ethical application of the Sibyl System as it grows in popularity abroad, a meeting that Stronskaya was supposed to attend and in fact after the meeting ends both Akane and head of Immigration Atsushi Shindo get messages about the tanker assault. The whole area is cordoned off and they’re both told that it’s an MFA crime scene and they’re not to interfere, but Akane soon finds out that her and Togami’s old friend/mentor Joji Saiga was sent a message by Stronskaya moments before her death.

Uh-oh, the Dominators aren’t working! …. Again…

The MFA soon team up with Akane and the PSB for the investigation and everyone (including the viewers!) are caught up to speed in regards to the Peacebreakers. They’re a former black ops unit that went rogue and are now like a religious cult who worship “The General”, who speaks but is never scene, and are otherwise led by a man named Tonami. As Ginoza takes exception to Kogami returning to the PSB office and Akane gets a half-hearted apology also from Kogami everyone else plans to pick up what they hope is the Stronskaya Papers in a P.O. Box in Dejima, a dangerous place where immigrants who want to enter Japan are kept in not-great accommodation. The whole thing ends up leading to a showdown with the Peacebreakers, complete with Saiga’s death (aww, he was a great character…), the discovery that the Peacebreakers all have too low a crime coefficient to be targeted by the Dominators, Ginoza defeating an agent called Murray who kept on going long after being mortally wounded, and Kogami and Kai have a fight in a VR room that ends with Kai not only leaving Kogami alive but with some clear clues as to the whereabouts of the Peacebreakers base.

Wow, in the future you’ll be able to have a phone call on your watch! … Oh right. Modern technology is weirdly close to the classic future tech…

Kai is soon tracked down and it’s revealed that he’s an undercover MFA agent called Akira Vasily Ignatov and that before killing Stronskaya to keep his cover she entrusted him with the papers, papers that apparently show how Sibyl could expand to takeover foreign relations and even warfare. So yes this is Kei from Psycho-Pass 3’s brother who was mysteriously killed that was a key focus of that series, therefore it shouldn’t be a surprise that not long after that Tonami is able to use a “divider” to hack into his mind and force his body towards a helicopter on the roof so he can get his hands on the papers but Akira manages to resist control long enough for Shindo to shoot him dead. Akira pleads for Shindo to look after his brother Kei, which shouldn’t be a problem as Shindo’s son Arata is already friends with him, but Shindo uses the Stronskaya papers to make a deal with the Sibyl System: keep Arata off the books so his criminally asymptomatic son won’t be integrated into it in exchange for the papers. This leads to him to be ejected out of Bifrost and leads to him committing suicide on the day of Kei’s wedding, leading to Arata’s confusion and confrontation with Tsunemori that leads him and Kei down the path of joining the PSB and generally sets up the whole plot of Psycho-Pass 3 quite nicely.

This all leads to the Sibyl System agreeing to give the Peacebreakers and their General their own state in Northern Japan in exchange for their support in Sibyl’s global expansion, but obviously Kogami, Tsunemori, Ginoza, MFA big wig Hanashiro and a couple more PSB Enforcers, including Teppei Sugo and top hacker Hinakawa, all decide to hit their base and make sure they face justice…

It’s a really fun movie, though if you’re not familiar with the previous series set either side of this story you’ll be more than a little lost. Great animation, voice work on both sides and OST though, so you might enjoy yourself anyway…

Overall Thoughts:

An inter-agency salute before the big operation!

Psycho-Pass Providence is a really fun movie that once again focuses on the ideas of A.I. control, freedom as a choice and makes sure to throw in plenty of action as well, while finally bridging the gap leading into Psycho-Pass 3. It also focuses on the much more enjoyable original cast rather than the PP3 cast, though they admittedly do get set up well here anyway. If you have no prior exposure to the series you’ll be completely lost, in fact if you skipped the “Sinners of the System” OVAs or Psycho-Pass 3 you’ll have a bit to catch up on as well, so definitely one for fans but as a big fan of this franchise, it made me happy…

While Teppei pilots a craft and takes out automated guns to help Hinakawa take down the satellite stopping the Dominators from working Kogami, Akane, Ginoza and Hanashiro assault the base, with Akane getting a head start and meeting Tonami head to head. She finds out, though in reality she’d already figured out, that The General was a brain-led A.I. like Sibyl and uses her Dominator to transfer Sibyl into The General and take it over, thus robbing the Peacebreakers of their “God”. Tonami badly wounds Akane as she tells him she refuses to kill him as he must face good old fashioned justice for his actions but in order to save Akane’s life the suddenly appearing Kogami kills him instead, much to Akane’s distress.

Uh oh, the Dominator isn’t wo-…. oh right, I’ve done that gag already. Oh well.

With the case closed Ginoza and Teppei transfer to the MFA to be agents like Togami (again, finally getting us caught up to where they are in PP3) and Akane is promoted to a senior role in the Ministry of Welfare but she no longer believes the Sibyl System can be trusted to run by itself without human assistance so at her inauguration ceremony she guns down the Sibyl avatar Chief Kasei in broad daylight and shows that she can’t be attacked by the Dominators due to her low crime coefficient, thus showing the world that there are still flaws in the Sibyl System and halting its international rollout, plus landing herself in prison for good measure, finally explaining that whole thing from the third series. The movie ends with Kogami promising to break Akane out somehow, which given he hasn’t by the time of Psycho-Pass 3 I guess that’s proven harder than he’d thought!