Psycho-Pass: Sinners of the System - Case.3 On the Other Side of Love and Hate

Directed by Naoyoshi Shiotani, this Japanese animated film is the last of the three Sinners of the System features released in quick succession in early 2019, each focusing on a supporting character rather than the series lead. This one follows Shinya Kogami. The series is set in a dystopian Japan governed by the Sibyl System, which measures citizens' mental state and criminal propensity, and Kogami had killed a man and fled the Bureau at the end of the first season, so what we see here is the exile that followed. Wandering as a mercenary in a small Himalayan country fractured by internal conflict, he rescues a bus of refugees under attack by armed guerrillas, among them an orphaned girl whose village was massacred. She asks him to teach her revenge, and Kogami, knowing from his own experience that killing a man changed him irreversibly, tries to steer her away from it while teaching her to fight anyway. The visual world departs from the series too, trading Tokyo's futurist skyline for bright prayer flags and vivid green. Anime News Network graded it highly while noting the trilogy does little to expand our understanding of the Sibyl System. Who it's for: Followers of the Psycho-Pass series and fans of dystopian animation working on whether ends justify means. Who it's not for: Not for newcomers, since the film assumes you know the previous feature and the first season's finale.