Terror in Resonance - Reviews

I really liked the story and I really liked this anime, the ending might've been a little...odd but it isn't bad. 

A note to new readers, I can be EXTREMELY blunt when it comes to certain things, so you have been warned. 

For me, personally, it has been a while since I have watched an anime that i can say was GOOD. Lately, with the exception of a couple, anime has been terrible. I am just being honest in my opinion because new anime is just very disappointing to me....but then I found Zankyou no Terror. 

Story: ~Synopsis~

In an alternate iteration of the present, Tokyo has been hit by a terrorist attack that has devastated the city. The only evidence of the culprits is a cryptic video uploaded to the Internet, which sparks paranoia across Japan. Unbeknownst to the authorities is that the terrorist masterminds—who call themselves "Sphinx" (スピンクス Supinkusu)—are two teenaged boys who go by the names Nine and Twelve. Though they apparently should not exist, they have nonetheless decided to "wake up the world" with their heinous plans of destruction, with their fingers on the trigger.~

When I watch a series, I like to think. I want a story that screws with my mind and leaves me wanting to figure out what the next scene will be. Since the renowed, Death Note, I havent been able to find an anime like this until Zankyou no Terror. This being said, although the storyline of a protagonist driven to revenge against a society seems a little "overdone," this series was done extremely well. But to every story, there is always two sides. This anime is not extremely action based like Attack on Titan, or Code Geass. No, this anime is kind of slow in some areas, but really exciting in others. It is more of a phycological thrill ride than a gore and fight-fest. 

Animation/Sound: If I can be honest, I love this style of animation. Unlike Highschool of the Dead where the animation is vibrant and bubbly, this anime has a "real" feel to it. I can only really compare it to maybe the art style of Death Note and Attack on Titan. And this is the style of anime i simply adore. It feels more mature and the music score just adds to the maturity. The songs are classic and smooth. It gives a very relax feel to the scenes of the anime and I have almost the entire score on my ipod if that says anything about how DAMN FANTASTIC the music is. 

Characters: This is where the anime SLIGHTLY fell apart. This series is short, like 11 episodes short, so granted, you do not have enough time to get attatched to the characters. But surprisingly you do feel drawn to the two main characters, Nine and Twelve. Other than those two, the other characters kind of fall flat,if I can be honest. Lisa, was boring and irritatingly useless in my opinion, and I kind of forgot some of the other charcters with the exception of Five and the detectve, Shibuzaki.

Overall: in case my review didnt already give you this idea, let me spell it out for you, I LOVED ZANKYOU NO TERROR. Granted, it did have its holes just like any other series, but compared to most new anime, this series really knocked it out of the park for me. Some may consider it to be a bit slow and dry, but once you get involved,it is one hell of a phycological train. And it is tragic as well. 

DO NOT LOOK UP ANYTHING ON GOOGLE. i REPEAT, DO NOT LOOK ANYTHING UP ON GOOGLE. YOU WILL BE SPOILED AND IT WILL NOT BE GOOD. DO NOT GOOGLE ANYTHING.  

This is definitely a show with high quality and story problems, which makes it strange to rate. I would say that if you enjoy B: the beginning or thriller type action shows then watch it. its not a waste of your time, with 11 episodes its mostly engaging all the way. (there are some really stupid themes in the show that I must stress may annoy the hell out of some viewers)

Naturally, I’ll review more in depth to sway those curious enough to read.

First is the animation: it is amazing and almost perfect the amount of detail in every scene and moving part like the dual trigger on a Glock in the 8^th episode is seriously great they did an amazing job. Also, no bad use of CGI another bug plus. You can tell the care and hard work the animators and artists put into this show. But some of the bodies on far shots look a bit janky otherwise it would have been a 10

The sound: wow not that many shows surprise me with sound it sounds like an actually living breathing place everything that moves makes a noise and I mean everything. Everything from placing a cup on a table, rain hitting an AC unit or other white ambient noises all is there. Sound reacts different depending on the area that they are in and the voice acting is almost perfect as well the only problem is that the show has Americans in it and they do speak English albeit with a VERY heavy Japanese accent because they were using the same voice actors sometimes they sound perfect other times its like trying to decipher a different language. The music is really good the OP is pretty good it’s interesting and I felt no need to skip, the EP was okay I didn’t really have any desire to watch it. There was a song on Episode 4 that I liked but I couldn’t find it but that sounded good too.

Characters, most of the characters had some good depth and even the most out of place character (who I though had no reason to be there) had some depth. Dialogue seemed mostly natural there were some “I wont forgive you” lame ass lines put in there like that’s so post to make some one care, regardless of that being a culture thing it still makes that line incredibly cringy. Other than that, not that many other tropes were used people acted like people and that also helped this show grow more.

Story: this is the main problem; Motives, themes and the characters are what drives a plot I never felt like the story was being pushed because the story had to take place it felt natural. That being said we don’t know the motives of the main characters and the subtle themes that are in place seem kind of like a theme for the wrong age group, ill spoil it later. The motives that drive the MCs is week at best and they have to explain it at the end and even then you are left scratching your head and wondering if they could do all that they did couldn’t they just compile information and go to the media or the police why become terrorists? And that question is the biggest problem with the show it all seems so avoidable and that is way I think the show hasn’t done as well as it could have. Also the girl has no reason to exist in this series except for the last 2 episodes and even then you learn that this was the plan all along so her being there does absolutely nothing for the story other than to HUMANIZE TERRORISTS.

That is the main proton done but despite how much I liked It I do have a bone to pick with the show. SPOILERS AHEAD

First terrorism isn’t something to humanize and this show goes out of there way to make the MCs somehow not kill anyone and its some miraculous level BS that they pull it off and they try to make them seem like good people through various portions of the show. First collapsing a building tower that high off the ground would kill so many people regardless of the building being evacuated debris would be destroying other buildings and crush people in the area, along with that those lost in the dust cloud could die of suffocation or what’s more likely is that many of the people on the scene could contract disease or cancer but apparently only 27 people got MINOR injuries as implied by the show multiple times. the worst offense however has to be the subway explosion any explosion that is able to break glass and bend and metal is automatically at a 2psi along with them being in a confined space regardless of the RE factor of the explosive would have killed everyone in the subway the shockwave would have killed them in a split second, and if for some reason that didn’t work then the heat and shrapnel would have killed them along with anyone close to the subway car. Also a grenade went off in front of a car that would have shot shrapnel through the car killing everyone inside explosives are no joke and they took time to study them clearly by the bomb defusal scene where they remove the blasting caps out of the presumably c-4 but they didn’t get it all right. Making it seem that explosions are just loud fireballs that push air then they are wrong, it’s the shockwave that you should be afraid of. I’ve heard some nasty stories of guys dying from there own breaching charge just because they were peaked to far around the wall. One last thing on this, terrorism is not some way to create a movement in a good manner Japan is a mostly free nation with many right that most of the world doesn’t have, so why would you decide to take the most extreme action and risk so many lives for this? It doesn’t make sense and the idea that someone thought that it would make sense then yeesh they were wrong.

Next Is the whole nuclear bomb thing they inadvertently mention WW2 and the nuking of japan so many times, along with that they try to make the Americans seem the bad guy even though they couldn’t find a lost nuke and couldn’t locate two terrorists. Also EVERY bad person in the show was Japanese the pyscho girl, the politicians, the scientist, everyone experimenting on the kinds so to make the US seem like the big bad wolf especially when they kill the two TERRORISTS at the end of the show they make it seem like a total injustice even though they were going to die anyway from health failure. It felt pretty clear that writer or director doesn’t like the united states but there are way better ways to make American government seem evil and the Jason bourne series is a prime example.

Last is that the female protagonist only exists to give viewers there “in” so to speak to relate them to world the show creates. Had the show used her as a decent from a broken girl hating the world to a vengeful person who joins the terrorist group that reluctantly brought her in. where she becomes a more and more angry and violent repressing her emotions until the very end when they say that she is a hostage and she’s able to go free despite what she had done which allows her to forgive herself is a much better way to create that character and giver her a good satisfying ending but they squandered her on the typical fish out of water character. There a few more gripes but too be honest if I can’t really remember them after just watching them then they aren’t that bad so if you got this far thanks for the read if you watched let me know what you think its cool to hear the different opinions of others

101010101010101010101001101010101010101010101101101

I have one thing to say: I cried😇