- Hello, anime fans.
Welcome to another episode of "Scenic Fights"
"Fight Scene Breakdown."
I'm Logan Lo.
- I'm Chad Vázquez.
- The biggest weeb I know.
Today Scenic Fights is breaking down
the knife fight scene between archrivals
The Enforcer, Shinya Kogami,
and the Criminally Asymptomatic, Shogo Makishima.
- Our first scene today comes
from a very awesome 2012 anime "Psycho-Pass."
So without wasting too much time,
let's get right into it.
- That was my line.
- Oh.
- Kogami versus Makishima.
Makishima comes in, knocks out that gun.
No. No gun for you.
- So he's just putting pressure on him. Okay.
- Yeah. Kogami, knife out.
Makishima, knife out and dueling. It's on.
Big lunging attack by Kogami.
Denied.
So Kogami's character uses what appears to be a Buck 110.
Guys, this knife feels good in the hand.
It's nice. It's heavy.
It has weight.
The brass comes in handy because again,
if you're hunting and you're skinning things,
you have blood.
Brass, by nature, antibacterial.
You'll note that there's brass even in the lining of it.
What's the negative of this?
Deployment.
We don't see how Kogami deployed the weapon.
I'm going to deploy this weapon
as quickly as I can from my back pocket.
(knife snapping)
That took a couple of seconds.
If one hand is occupied against an assailant,
I cannot use this deployed.
I can attack with it, but not to its maximum ability.
Once I free my arm, (knife snapping)
I can do my deployment,
my full deployment, and then attack.
Let's talk about Kogami though.
This is a hunter's knife.
What is Kogami doing?
He's hunting Makishima.
So this weapon symbolically, poetically,
it makes sense for Kogami to use
this Buck 110 hunter's knife.
It's not the best defensive
or really offensive weapon
because of the time it takes to deploy
and the fact it needs two hands deploy.
I would like to note that we are not 100% sure
it's a Buck 110.
It looks like it. It certainly looks like it.
The reason why it might not be a Buck 110
is the speed at which Kogami was able to deploy the weapon.
I can't deploy it that quickly.
Then again, I'm not Kogami.
So now let's talk about Makishima's weapon,
which, just like Kogami's weapon, has that limitation of
essentially needing two hands to deploy.
Can you deploy with one hand?
Kinda, but you'll note that Makishima
actually deploys it with two hands.
It does not have a lock like the Buck 110 does.
What lock could I possibly do?
I can potentially keep my thumb here,
but I'm in a fight,
so not only do I have to remember how to fight,
I have to remember to keep my thumb here.
I have to remember to keep my finger here. Why?
So it doesn't go backwards on me.
The only options available is essentially a number one slash
or a number two slash.
Potentially a number three slash, but that's it.
If it's a straight weapons-to-weapons fight,
and these two are equally skilled,
Makishima is losing because this is the inferior weapon
to the Buck 110.
Makishima's weapon choice is purely one for aesthetics,
not for practicality.
And perhaps that's what he wants.
Little circling.
Makishima blocks that first attack
and then attacks the head
Okay, so here Makishima is doing a block
with his thumb down,
elbow out.
Let's talk about why that's inferior.
Here, I'm at a disadvantage, at least structurally.
All Kogami has to do is drop his elbow and slash my belly.
Boom. And I can't do much to stop it.
I'm going to stop you.
Do not allow me to stop you and slash my belly. Go.
- Okay, yeah.
- Why? It's that elbow.
Find a wall. We don't have a wall here, but find a wall.
And I want you to push against it this way
as hard as you possibly can.
And then all I want you to do is drop your elbow here
and push this way.
Which one do you feel stronger?
I'm going to assume that the one
that felt stronger was the latter.
Why? Your entire body's behind it.
I'm thrusting with my legs.
Here, I'm striking with my arm,
maybe the rotation of my torso.
Structurally, it is just much stronger elbows down.
What could Makishima have done?
He's got a razor blade.
All I need to do is go this way, and I'm slicing in
and that arm's done.
Or, hold on to his weapon,
I can also
change the angle and slice this arm,
Are they gonna kiss?
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
- [Chad] Maybe not when you're trying to kill someone.
- Escape. These wild slashes is really all Makishima can do.
All right, that's an interesting, I guess, takedown.
What do you think of that, Chad?
- It isn't like Makishima did a takedown.
Throughout the thrust, he just caught the arm
and they lost their balance.
He just kind of reversed them.
So I wouldn't call it takedown,
but Makishima has a left overhook in the armpit
and that's being used to pin down his opponent,
but I don't see that being a valid way
of holding someone down with just one arm.
So why don't we actually break that down
and see really what's going on here
and what's valid and what's not.
What I see happening is Kogami is really committing
to another thrust,
and Makishima happens to get out of the way
and with his left arm, go over
and I think use momentum
to pull Kogami down to the floor.
Logan, and I will do this very slowly.
I'm not going to jump in the air like Makishima,
one, because I just can't do it,
but I also don't want anyone to get hurt here.
We do have a pointed weapon.
- Are you really trying though, Chad/
Are you really pushing the boundaries?
- You know what?
If you can get us a million subscriptions,
we will do cars hitting people and flying all you want.
Here we go.
Thrust happens.
We're gonna go real slow here.
He goes over this arm.
Now we're gonna do this very slowly.
Going down to our knees,
the position lands
belly to the floor, like so.
Makishima's using his body weight
to pin down Kogami's shoulder.
Now I don't think this is valid.
Do you see he has a free arm there?
Logan can base his hand, and start turning away from me.
And start coming to his hip here.
So you see how he just started building a base?
I don't see that pin being a valid hold,
especially as how long Makishima had that pin
for the time that we saw it.
What's interesting though,
is that you notice that when he did attack,
he went for the wrist and there is some logic to that.
- For Makishima, it's a good target.
Plenty of nerves.
You have plenty of tendons that can either close the hand
or open the hand.
More importantly, in the front, of course,
there are the arteries and the veins.
Crucially important.
(mouse clicking)
Kogami slashes Makishima.
It looks like, what would you say that?
The pec, the armpit?
- Imma say the left nipple.
- Well, thank you, Chad.
Makishima's realizing
not only has he sustained an injury,
he's lost his blade and he's lost his pistol.
Not looking good.
Okay, what's Kogami gonna do?
Kogami's coming in for another lunging thrust,
'cause the first two worked out so well for him.
- (laughs) Yeah, right.
- He does a third. - Third one's the charm.
- And this time, what does Makishima do?
Flash bang. - Flash grenade.
Okay.
- Bam.
In the anime,
Kogami is always training.
This particular scene doesn't ring true.
That he would repetitively do a lunging straight thrust,
which by itself is not a great opening move to begin with.
But not only is it not great opening move,
he does it not want not twice, but thrice.
- In his defense,
probably the only thing that maybe is happening
is this an emotionally involved fight for him.
So possibly him not being himself
or thinking clearly maybe might be playing a role in this.
- So, and how important is it to manage your emotions?
- Extremely.
- Okay, all right. I see that, Chad.
All right, so I see you're a nicer guy than I am.
You're going to give it a pass.
- A "Psycho-Pass."
(tone revving) (glass breaking)
- "Psycho-Pass" fans, I get it.
I understand why they chose the weapons that they chose.
Kogami, the hunter, using the Buck 110, hunting his prey.
Makishima, the murderous artist
using the beautiful straight-edged razor.
I get it. I understand that's moving the story forward.
Unfortunately, it doesn't lend itself to this scene
because now we've run into the limitations of both weapons.
Specifically, we run into the limitation
of Makishima's weapon.
And the other thing that I have to say that bothers me a bit
about this scene is missed opportunities.
Here, we know Kogami can fight.
We've seen in other parts of the anime,
but he chooses not once, not twice,
but thrice (blade snapping)
to come in with that big lunging, telegraphing attack.
Any seasoned fighter is going to read it
after the second one.
Oh, you just launched two lunging,
straight number five attacks?
I wonder what you're going to do next.
That bothered me.
For that, and just that,
don't kill me, anime fans, I'm one of you.
I have to give this "Psycho-Pass" fight a
D.
Don't kill me. One of you.