SPOILERS AHEAD (Turn away if you haven't watched Psycho Pass yet)
Psycho Pass is one my favorite anime of all time, thanks in large part to Shogo Makishima. Today I will point out the sheer genius of the character and the brilliance of the writing staff. Let's take a look at the first time Akane met Shogo Makishima.
Did you catch it? Here is the genius of Shogo Makishima. Sure, he's ruthless, sure he has no conscience. But here is the amount of thought that was put into that scene by the writers.
Shogo gave Akane a shotgun and a choice. Pick up the shotgun and use her free will to kill him and save her friend or continue to put faith in her dominator and the allow Sibyl to make the choice, while he kills Yuuki. He was prepared to win either way she chose. Had Akane taken aim with the shotgun, she would have most certainly killed Yuuki as well as Shogo. As we all understand how shotgun shells work, the farther the distance the shot goes, the wider the spread of the shot. As smart as we are led to believe Akane is, having scored so high on her aptitude test that she could choose where she wanted to work, she was still an ignorant child when compared to Shogo. We see at the end of the scene, Akane is defeated. She knows that Shogo was right about everything he said to her. She now has to accept that fact that as smart as she is, she was no match for Shogo. She was powerless against him, her friend is now dead and Shogo walked away a free man.
This scene was the turning point in Shogo's character. From this point on, we learn that Shogo is not the true antagonist, but rather, the anti-hero trying to expose and destroy the truly evil force, Sibyl. The writing and character development in this is what makes Season 1 of Psycho Pass such a great anime to watch. (Not to mention the uber cool Dominators, when they work)
This anime remains one of my top 5 anime of all time despite the dystopian future it takes place in. If you haven't seen Psycho-Pass yet, and you suffered through these spoilers, go out and give it a watch. It is easy to see that I am only scratching the surface of Shogo's genuis through the anime.
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