Anime Bureaucracy

Since I am trying to learn Japanese, I end up watching anime. The most recent for me was Psycho-Pass. The lead character is a young woman, Tsunemori, who is presented as a 'good' person, and at least on the surface, her decisions are 'good'. But the story doesn't make sense from that angle- indeed, watching from that perspective means the entire plot devolves into absurdity.

But the way to watch this while maintaining some sort of logic to the story is that Tsunemori is the archetype bureaucrat. In the first episode she errs badly, potentially putting everyone in danger. The one put in most danger, Kogami, is a man with a goal- to kill a man that definitely needs killing. So, instead of being angry with Tsunemori he sees instead a means to an end, a way to use her and her dingbat sense of morality to his own ends.

But the other character using Tsunemori to its own ends is the Sibyl system itself- the ultimate system of bureaucracy. Just as we see with our own bureaucracies, the exceptional psychopaths rise to the top, while the little people are often medicated out of their own minds. And it is rather obvious from moment one, with Tsunemori's co-workers and friends tending to die around her, the system doesn't protect the people very well.

Unfortunately, Tsunemori doesn't see it that way. Despite learning the truth about the system, she accepts it as preferable- as stabilizing force. Somehow, she presumes there would actually be more death and destruction than what is already at hand all around her.

Kogami reminds me of American special forces- these types are the type that are increasingly relied on, and increasingly broken, by our stifling bureaucracy. The physical and mental skills required of the special forces tend to keep the bureaucrat types out. But they cannot solve the bureaucracy, but instead get used by the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy has stultified the normal military to the point where they really can't do what would traditionally be their job. Instead, it's desk jobs and elective transgender surgery for most, and these tiny corps of actual warriors. And the warriors know much is wrong, but they don't know how to fix it, and what they want most is a clear objective and the ability to limit communication with the meddling bureaucrats.

Tsunemori, meanwhile, often looks like walking death, with terrible pallor and questionable haircut. Yet she always passes the psych tests, and the only way to see this is that she is always in congruence with what the system wants. She has internalized the system's morality to the point where she can't question it, even when the bodies are dropping around her and she becomes aware of the insanity that comprises the system.

Much like Blomkamp's movies, there's no hint of a solution to the central problem in Psycho-Pass, just a series of unfolding events that continuously highlight the deeply unfortunate state of affairs.