Psycho-Pass - Episode 4

Following recent events, Akane finds herself troubled by her relationship with Kogami... or rather, the relationship of "a friend" which someone who sounds just like Kogami... a concern that sends her into the virtually reality Internet of this world's future to take some advice from the star of an online community who posits himself as a kind of online agony aunt.

While all of this seems to be unrelated to an investigation into a missing person (logged thanks to, of all things, the toilet having not been used in a significant amount of time), the reality that said missing individual is dead cascades onwards towards the news that he is in fact Talisman, the aforementioned Internet celebrity.  But if he's been dead for months, who was Akane talking to online?

With that question in mind, the investigation has a clear path - to unveil the real life identity of the current Talisman as the probable murderer.  This looks set to be easy thanks to another online celebrity and apparant former classmate of Akane's, an anarchist known only as "Spooky Boogie" who offers her help in cornering Talisman.  This is done via the arrangement of an offline meet where everyone involves dresses in "holo-cosplay" (not Holo cosplay, you understand - no wolf girls here) to appear as their online avatars - of course, this isn't likely to deceive a Dominator, but it seems that Talisman has some other tricks up his sleeve, causing sufficient confusion to make good his escape and giving him an opportunity to plan his next crime.

It's certainly good to see that Psycho-Pass is happy to tackle things beyond episodic story arcs, with this week's instalment setting up what looks likely to be a two-parter.  What a decidedly good opener it was too - no matter how clunky its virtual reality (which is at odds with a world of holographics cosplay and furnishings) the key tenets of its story are rock solid and make for a great murder-mystery drama in their own right.  No matter how many possibilities this series might hold as a whole, I'm quite happy for it to stick to this crime drama angle for at least a little while, as it too seems ripe with opportunities for good story-telling.  As a result, Psycho-Pass remains one of my favourite shows of the autumn so far, as it continues to get a lot of things right to outweigh those moments where it feels a little creaky.