Summer has just started and I tried out quite a lot of the new anime this season. Probably it’s because of the unbearable heat that I also can’t bear to watch more than a handful of them. I initially thought this season would be awesome, but it isn’t even that close to being awesome. Fortunately, a few shows have been the saving grace of my summer watch list.
It might be too early to give this show a high amount of admiration, but it’s not too bad to give recognition to new series that shows a promising plot. Ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to share with you my thoughts regarding one of the hottest anime in discussions, Zankyou no Terror (Terror in Resonance).
Synopsis:
In an alternate version of the present, Tokyo has been decimated by a shocking terrorist attack, and the only hint to the identity of the culprit is a bizarre video uploaded to the internet. The police, baffled by this cryptic clue, are powerless to stop the paranoia spreading across the population.
While the world searches for a criminal mastermind to blame for this tragedy, two mysterious children—children who shouldn’t even exist—masterfully carry out their heinous plan. Cursed to walk through this world with the names Nine and Twelve, the two combine to form “Sphinx,” a clandestine entity determine to wake the people from their slumber—and pull the trigger on this world.
(Source: FUNimation)
It’s born from the original concept of the show’s director, Watanabe Shinichirou. Music is created by Kanno Yoko. This duo is one of the most famous collaborations in the anime industry due to the success of their shows. They previously brought us Sakamichi no Apollon (Kids on the Slope) through animation studio, MAPPA, which also presents Zankyou no Terror. At first glance, it is easy to tell the polar difference between the two series.
The first episode was literally a blast. Explosion. Bombing. Terrorism. Destruction. “That escalated quickly” doesn’t quite fit in the scene. I like how kind of slow-paced it felt, yet a right amount of content was shown in every minute.
One of my favorite scenes so far is in Episode 2, where it presented the meeting of the Tokyo Police Department regarding the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office Building Bombing in a lengthy and thorough manner, making it look realistic and appropriate. The scene also indicated the intelligence of the young terrorists behind the bombing, as the investigations suggested from the findings that the terrorists used inexpensive chemistry and right timing to carry out the bombing. Though this is not the only scene that felt believable. What’s also believable is that even authorities like the police can make blunders in judging the situation, which would later cost them their pride and professionalism along their responsibility for public security.
Of course, it wouldn’t be entertaining if there’s nothing that is unbelievable. In this anime, it would be the premise that the terrorists are the high school students Nine and Twelve. I think this is the spice of the anime for entertaining the viewers. People would wonder what these teens can do in the next episodes just by themselves, if they made the right decision of going against the authorities, and other things like where their money come from, what their past was like, etc.
I look forward to the character interactions, especially between the terrorists and the newly hired “accomplice”, who just appears to be normal and weak. What can the two do to make her a real accomplice? Will she make a mistake by reporting the terrorists to the police? There are a lot of things to speculate on.
Smiling character saying scary things is a lot more terrifying than the character with the cold eyes
So far, I like the BG music of the show, as expected from the respected Kanno Yoko. We will hear more of the tracks from the OST as the series progresses.
The show is visually pleasing and convincing in the sense that it appears to happen in the real world. The use of intense lighting and shadowing adds a touch of super-realism to some of the scenes even backgrounds, like these ones:
The anime also maximizes the use of different angles to portray a particular scene, letting the viewer perceive the relative positions of the characters in dialogues. Some close-up shots reveal textures of the materials perceived.
And at some instances, the use of light and dark and left and right in the scenes display character relations.
Watching every episode that has been released so far made me feel like I was watching movies (like how long an episode of Sherlock is). Every second is really worth the time.
I have high expectations for this show to truly play out well until the end.
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