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Terror in Resonance (TV).


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HaruhiToy



Joined: 15 Apr 2008
Posts: 4118
PostPosted: Thu Sep 25, 2014 10:51 pm Reply with quote
Beautiful ending.

Yes there were a few plot flaws and loose ends around but those don't matter really. Twelve got as close to the ending he wanted as is possible and that's what mattered.

It was touching the day they spent together with Lisa, acting almost like normal kids (Lisa such a klutz of course). For the first time ever not escaping, plotting, or executing. Twelve spoiler[knew it was their last day.]

You guys nattering on about the logic of the U.S. actions and EMP and hospitals are totally missing the point.
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Alberto7



Joined: 11 May 2014
Posts: 43
Location: Montréal, QC, Canada
PostPosted: Thu Sep 25, 2014 11:54 pm Reply with quote
HaruhiToy wrote:
You guys nattering on about the logic of the U.S. actions and EMP and hospitals are totally missing the point.


I agree with that sentence. Ironically enough, I'm the one arguing against those guys/girls and giving it importance. Laughing I guess I just don't like it that the show is being unjustly bashed (I think) and losing credibility because of things that are quite easily explained, even if they aren't all that relevant.

Gina Szanboti wrote:
Alberto7 wrote:
the US government spoiler[shot Twelve as well Nine, we're just not shown explicitly. The camera tilting backwards while the doves flew into and out of focus was Twelve's visual perspective as he fell backwards after being shot. They didn't leave him alive, no.]

There's no reason to believe that spoiler[they shot him, because there was no reason not to hear the shot if they did. It was clear to me that Twelve knew he was dying, rather than that he knew he was about to be shot, what with the blurry vision and his last words. Instead of a shot we got the ringing in the ears they've associated with whatever was killing all three of them. Yes the doves indicated that he died (shades of Cowboy Bebop), but that was just so we wouldn't be waiting to see him in the hospital or something.]


I thought it was just a stylistic/artistic approach to let the music play by itself without spoiler[hearing the gunshot (drawing another Bebop parallel, much like Ballad of the Fallen Angels, with Spike falling to the ground to a possible death, but without hearing the clinking glass shards or the exploding grenade).] However, what you say makes sense; it could have been that spoiler[whatever illness they all had finished him off at that point. But it doesn't matter, because Twelve dies at that instant, regardless. No need to kill a dead man. It is convenient for the US. He was under the sniper's aim, so he would have been dead anyway. They could have also shot him after collapsing to make sure he was dead. There are many reasonable explanations.]

Gina Szanboti wrote:
Quote:
...given that she had the skills of an average person.

No, she had the skills of an average six year old. If she'd had the physical and mental skills of an average teen or adult and even half of the average social skills, I wouldn't have disliked her so much.


I guess I didn't really convey that properly. Let me make that clearer. Someone with her attributes (or lack of attributes, for that matter) and in her situation (harshly rejected by society) is fairly typical in the real world. I don't know about you, but all the shy kids in my school who got bullied a lot were very similar to her. Even I was somewhat similar to her during my "darkest" moments in my teenage years. One mentally limits oneself and becomes inept at most tasks when society does not let you develop freely. She might not be your typical person, and perhaps isn't representative of the entire population, but, by contrast, she is A LOT more of that than most of the other characters in the anime, and certainly more than all of the other main characters.
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Gatherum



Joined: 14 Feb 2012
Posts: 773
Location: Aurora CO
PostPosted: Fri Sep 26, 2014 12:29 am Reply with quote
Watanabe's most noticeable strength is typically his genre-mashing, but I feel that his penchant for powerful scenes is a bit understated. No, spoiler[Twelve did not deserve to be shot, but the suddenness of it] threw me for a loop! Very few anime manage to be bold enough to give us a truly spoiler[bittersweet ending] like this, and though I am still convinced that it was a quick wrap-up resulting from time constraints, it is, in my opinion, tied with that of Angel Beats as most skilfully-done for the conditions.

Alberto7 already stated most, of not all, of the points I would have offered on this, so I will just say simply that my rating for this one shall be very good. It should have been higher, and would have been had there been just a bit more time--another four (or more) episodes, perhaps. Alas...

Thank you, once again, Watanabe, Kanno. Truly, a duo to be reckoned with.

*Goes to import the soundtrack.* :3
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Merida



Joined: 21 Feb 2012
Posts: 1945
PostPosted: Fri Sep 26, 2014 1:01 am Reply with quote
Pretty good final episode. I liked that spoiler[all three of them were reunited in the end and the scene of them just playing around like normal kids was very poignant. The scene of the bomb explosion was also eerily beautiful. The final interaction between Nine and Shibazaki was very important because to Nine Shibazaki probably turned out to be what Lisa was for Twelve: somebody else he was able to connect with and certainly the first adult he believed he could trust. I don't think Nine was shot, his health was probably in a similar condition than Five's. Whether he died right there on the spot or later in the hospital isn't really important for the story IMO. He knew he could trust Shibazaki to reveal the truth to the world and was finally able to let go. It was pretty much ineviatable that Nine and Twelve would die, so dying after reaching their goal at their "home" was the closest to a happy ending they could get.]

Overall i do have mixed feeling about the series. Unlike many others here, the lack of logic or realism didn't bother me all that much. My main problem lied with the portrayal of Five and Lisa.

Five was probably supposed to provide a contrast to the boys by showing what happened to the kid that wasn't able to escape and had to survive all by herself. But since we were never able to look beneath her character's (psychopathic) surface, it was hard to sympathize with her.

I think i more or less get the purpose of Lisa's character now, but i still don't know why they had to make her so excessively useless in order to achieve it. And the ending proved again that the writers weren't interested in her as a chracter at all.spoiler[ How did her life change afterwards? Did she return to living with her mother? Is she still being bullied? We'll never know. All we know is that "a lot of people wanted to talk to her" and she let her hair grow...]

So yeah, the series had an interesting premise, some stunning visuals and an absolutely beautiful soundtrack, but it didn't quite manage to live up to that masterpiece potential the first episode showed. Rating this Very Good.
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ikillchicken



Joined: 12 Feb 2007
Posts: 7272
Location: Vancouver
PostPosted: Fri Sep 26, 2014 1:36 am Reply with quote
Well, that was certainly a huge disappointment. Terrible writing. Nonsensical plot. Insubstantial characters. Never really payed off at all. Just a complete mess. Still pretty watchable by virtue of the outstanding direction but ultimately a totally empty experience.

Unicorn_Blade wrote:
As a side note, although technically no one spoiler[got killed as a direct result of the bomb, potentially hundreds of people in hospitals etc could die as a result of power shortages. Not sure how long the generators would last knowing that electricity and most electronic devices went dead for quite a bit.] Was that somehow taken into account by Sphinx?


What struck me as especially weird is how they actually called attention to this albeit in regards to spoiler[planes rather than hospital patients.] I mean, it's one thing to suspend your disbelief when they tell us the debris from the first attack didn't kill anyone. That's unrealistic but fine. But they specifically point out that spoiler[an EMP will crash a bunch of planes and that they won't have time to land them all and then...they just never mention it again. Not really sure wht to make of that. Was the implication that they did just say screw it in the end and kill a bunch of people or...what?]
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A Mystery



Joined: 10 Oct 2010
Posts: 1886
Location: Netherlands
PostPosted: Fri Sep 26, 2014 1:46 am Reply with quote
@ikc: I got the idea that spoiler[they first said it would take too long to get all the planes to land, but one officer said 'just do it in 30 minutes' (IIRC) and] all of a sudden it was no problemo.

Very convenient Wink, I wish real life worked that way!

Anyway, agreed with ikillchicken. Oh and the OST is a masterpiece. Nothing less.

The show: I'll be nice enough to give it a Decent.
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11306
PostPosted: Fri Sep 26, 2014 1:50 am Reply with quote
They did address it. They said it would take 90 min to spoiler[clear the skies, were told they had 30, and then with 3 minutes to go had a passing mention that somehow miraculously the last 4 planes would be on the ground at zero hour.]
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DuskyPredator



Joined: 10 Mar 2009
Posts: 15433
Location: Brisbane, Australia
PostPosted: Fri Sep 26, 2014 2:10 am Reply with quote
Episode 11 (finale)

Saying that this was a case of a couple people wronged is completely missing the point, it was actually meant to be entirely ironic. The misfortune of the children were products of the government, something the government did because they would bring power and progress to the country and thus the people. How they were able to do what they did was directly a result of the government, they gave them the abilities, and then they created the secret weapons. The goals were not noble, in thespoiler[ end the weapons they created to use against others were turned on themselves, the progress was totally reversed, the fault lay with those who tried to cheat.]

The US Government came to uncover cover ups, in the end they only spoiler[ended up helping unleash the threat, and covering up their own bad moves]. The phrase they wrote at the sites, VON, we find out spoiler[meant "hope", in my understanding it meant the hope that the mistakes were never made again], and very well may have been one reason they went so far. Their actions were an act to spoiler[solidify the hope that it would not happen again, they needed to show exactly what could come from what was done wrong].

I think that there were problems in getting the message across, many viewers just don't get it the way the presented it. Too many people see Lisa as just a failure of a useless character, instead of seeing her as a realistic product of the environment she was in, something connected to the message of Nine and Twelve being the products of theirs. Too many people see Five as a pointless character for the main narrative instead of again a similar product of the atrocities committed, that she never actually was on the side we thought she was. I think that I will overall rate it Very good, there were some really good scenes, especially with music, that overall I think made it something that should not be missed. The first and last Episodes, plus that one scene on the bike being some of the best.
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DuskyPredator



Joined: 10 Mar 2009
Posts: 15433
Location: Brisbane, Australia
PostPosted: Fri Sep 26, 2014 2:27 am Reply with quote
To talk about the discussion on the spoiler[fallout], I would assume that the limit of saying it would spoiler[take too long to land the planes was referring to going to proper airports]. By saying to spoiler[land them quicker he mean to make emergency landing if need be, just get out of the air]. spoiler[Hospitals] were also addressed, they passed the information to a spoiler[separate body to handle it which I assume would mean quickly trying to come up with alternatives after the blackout, trying to have manual ways, or getting foreign allies to bring as much aid as they can]. Effectively acts of trying to spoiler[have power over other countries meant that they were more reliant on outside help].

But yeah, I think it is safe to say people spoiler[on life support probably died, the cause was]. They would be innocent victims in all of this, but is probably something connected to a spoiler[responsibility the government has over its people safety, and the responsibility of the people to make sure that their government also stays in line].
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Ohoni



Joined: 10 Jun 2003
Posts: 3421
PostPosted: Fri Sep 26, 2014 2:42 am Reply with quote
Quote:

I guess I didn't really convey that properly. Let me make that clearer. Someone with her attributes (or lack of attributes, for that matter) and in her situation (harshly rejected by society) is fairly typical in the real world. I don't know about you, but all the shy kids in my school who got bullied a lot were very similar to her. Even I was somewhat similar to her during my "darkest" moments in my teenage years. One mentally limits oneself and becomes inept at most tasks when society does not let you develop freely. She might not be your typical person, and perhaps isn't representative of the entire population, but, by contrast, she is A LOT more of that than most of the other characters in the anime, and certainly more than all of the other main characters.


Yeah, there are plenty of above average people in anime, and plenty of average ones, why is it so offensive to have a few below average ones too? Statistically they are roughly equal in number to the above average ones.

About the planes, that is not completely nonsense. spoiler[They said it would take 90 minutes to land the plane using conventional means, as in, "putting them down at airports in an orderly fashion." If told they had only 30 minutes to do it, there are all sorts of messy shortcuts available, like putting planes down on highways, landing them faster than usual (leading to skids and ground crashes), that sort of thing. There would likely be deaths, and plenty of destruction, but they probably could land that many planes in that short a time, with the vast majority of the passengers surviving.

The idea that the nuke caused zero casualties is complete nonsense though, there definitely would be auto-fatalities, hospital fatalities, people with pacemakers and other electronic medical devices, etc. In a country like Japan, probably tens of thousands of people died as a result, if not more.]


Anyways, overall I think the show had a good message, interesting characters, and high production values, but was a bit dull in places, so I didn't really enjoy it as an entertainment experience as much as I could have.
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Gatherum



Joined: 14 Feb 2012
Posts: 773
Location: Aurora CO
PostPosted: Fri Sep 26, 2014 3:44 am Reply with quote
DuskyPredator wrote:
The US Government came to uncover cover ups, in the end they only spoiler[ended up helping unleash the threat, and covering up their own bad moves]. The phrase they wrote at the sites, VON, we find out spoiler[meant "hope", in my understanding it meant the hope that the mistakes were never made again], and very well may have been one reason they went so far. Their actions were an act to spoiler[solidify the hope that it would not happen again, they needed to show exactly what could come from what was done wrong].


I think it also has a lot to do with peace of mind through recognition and remembrance. In the end, spoiler[Nine's final request to Shibazaki was to "remember us", and considering that we're dealing with a couple of children who grew with no one to turn to but each other in the face of the sure knowledge that they would die young, that is certainly not beyond understanding]. Their methods were certainly extreme, but in the context of their goal, they represented a stroke of genius: the show's setting is meant to mirror the world as it is today in real life, and in the current climate, few things attract attention and impact the media more than terrorist bombings.

As for the misgivings surrounding the idea that spoiler[the electromagnetic pulse emitted by the detonation of an atomic bomb would produce no indirect deaths], I respond with a query that might make the whole issue laughably simple: when was it ever stated that the spoiler[aftermath of the detonation produced no deaths]? Shibazaki spoiler[did, indeed, state on the elevator that none of Sphinx's previous attacks produced any deaths, but this does not suggest that Nine's atomic bomb would follow the same course. Rather, he was commenting on Sphinx's modus operandi which, while still ambiguous, was certainly never to kill a large amount of people to begin with. With that, he concluded correctly that Sphinx must have intended to detonate the bomb in the least lethal way possible, but not that no deaths would occur.]

Frankly, it is clear to me that spoiler[the use of the atomic bomb was Nine's last resort, since, hyper-intelligent as he is, there is simply no way to prevent undue civilian casualties when detonating a nuclear device in or near a populated area. To sum it up, logically speaking, people did die, and Nine, unfortunately, is responsible for them.] Whether or not this changes your perception of him is up to you, but I will state very broadly that it is rare, if not outright unheard of, for spoiler[anyone taking the kind of macroscopic direct action that Sphinx did would walk away with it without blood on their hands. It sucks, but it's collateral that has to be taken into account and accepted. I truly do not think that Nine and Twelve approached any of their bombings with the realistic expectation that they could certainly avoid any and all potential deaths; they could only take precautions aimed at decreasing the likelihood. That none of them did result in any fatalities up to the atomic bomb is, frankly, almost a damned miracle, especially considering Five's involvement; pleasingly enough however, it was not impossible under the conditions and alleged explosive yield of those bombs.]

I must also submit to you that the importance of Lisa's character depends not on her practical uses, and in fact, actually hinges on the lack thereof. Yeah, sure, I guess it would have been cool in a way to see her make a more readily apparent or even intrinsic contribution to Sphinx's operations, but that truly would have defeated her intended purpose. As spoiler[the atomic bomb was ascending into the stratosphere, Twelve thanked her for recognising and caring for himself and Nine as human beings. It is true that she was trying to escape the comparatively meagre trappings of her own life, but I think it does take a little bit more than basic teen angst to be shown the destruction and injury that Sphinx wrought (by Nine, then still trying to scare her away) and still refrain from seeing them as monsters. She cared for them--she was inept in all things practical, but she cared for them both to the bitter end, and that arguably became as important to them, if not more so, than government recognition of their tragedy. I said it before, but I may as well repeat it here: she is the essential humanising element. Anything else would have detracted from that.]


Last edited by Gatherum on Fri Sep 26, 2014 3:14 pm; edited 4 times in total
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Unicorn_Blade



Joined: 18 Jul 2010
Posts: 1151
Location: UK
PostPosted: Fri Sep 26, 2014 1:17 pm Reply with quote
DuskyPredator wrote:
spoiler[Hospitals] were also addressed, they passed the information to a spoiler[separate body to handle it which I assume would mean quickly trying to come up with alternatives after the blackout, trying to have manual ways, or getting foreign allies to bring as much aid as they can]. Effectively acts of trying to spoiler[have power over other countries meant that they were more reliant on outside help].

But yeah, I think it is safe to say people spoiler[on life support probably died, the cause was]. They would be innocent victims in all of this, but is probably something connected to a spoiler[responsibility the government has over its people safety, and the responsibility of the people to make sure that their government also stays in line].


It would be great if all bad stuff could be blamed on the government here. Thespoiler[ people on life support or waiting for urgent surgeries die, because the government x years ago was corrupt and hurt two boys who decided to fix things their own way. So yeah, if you died because of the after-effects of the bomb set up by Sphinx, go and blame the government.]

I do not buy this logic. I think the show tried its hardest to establish the fact that Sphinx went out of their way to attract attention without actually killing anyone, and spend ages showing how symphatetic they were, risking their own lives to disable the bomb on the train, save people at the airport, save Lisa, etc etc etc.
And then Nine's spoiler[bomb potentially could have indirectly wiped off hundreds if not thousands of lives.] The fact it was addressed in one sentence at the end of the episode before beautiful music and ending credits kicked in was not really how it should have been addressed. It looked more like a sentimental rubbish to make it seem that they were better than they were.

For the separate body they talk about it would take weeks if not months to address the issue knowing that a massive area has been deprived of electricity and potentially most electronic (and expensive) devices were 100% useless, and would have to be either build from scratch or purchased for money that the government did not have in abundance. Not just hospitals, but everywhere. So the bitter sweetspoiler[ 'happy end' with the 'remember we lived'] seems like a cheap way out of dealing with what the effects of Sphinx's last action actually were.
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ikillchicken



Joined: 12 Feb 2007
Posts: 7272
Location: Vancouver
PostPosted: Fri Sep 26, 2014 7:10 pm Reply with quote
Gatherum wrote:
As for the misgivings surrounding the idea that spoiler[the electromagnetic pulse emitted by the detonation of an atomic bomb would produce no indirect deaths], I respond with a query that might make the whole issue laughably simple: when was it ever stated that the spoiler[aftermath of the detonation produced no deaths]? Shibazaki spoiler[did, indeed, state on the elevator that none of Sphinx's previous attacks produced any deaths, but this does not suggest that Nine's atomic bomb would follow the same course. Rather, he was commenting on Sphinx's modus operandi which, while still ambiguous, was certainly never to kill a large amount of people to begin with. With that, he concluded correctly that Sphinx must have intended to detonate the bomb in the least lethal way possible, but not that no deaths would occur.]


But see, that's where I find it annoyingly ambiguous. I mean, are we meant to think that Sphinx finally just said "Screw it, spoiler[we're gonna kill a bunch of people. Oh well"?] If that's the case, okay. But that flies very much in the face of their actions up to that point and forces us to reevaluate them as characters. Yet, I don't know if we actually should given how they just glossed over this whole issue. It's not really clear whether we're actually supposed to understand that spoiler[the bombing killed a bunch of people or whether we're supposed to think, despite the implausibility, that it didn't.] Give me one or the other and maybe you can make something out of it. But if you don't, you're just kinda shrugging off a huge, character defining question.
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FenixFiesta



Joined: 22 Apr 2013
Posts: 2581
PostPosted: Fri Sep 26, 2014 7:27 pm Reply with quote
Sphinx "wanted" to be stopped, but they needed someone like Detective Shibazaki to be the one to do it, someone who both could solve the riddles and see the real message.

spoiler[In the end, Sphinx went through with the final gambit with the nuclear bomb because Five and the US Government openly interfered,
]

Had Sphinx plan went as smoothly as possible, Shibazaki or at least a detective with as much investigative skill would have also uncovered the Athena program and when Nine and Twelve were satisfied they would turn themselves (preferably to said detective) in all the while revealing the "real bad guys".

Nine and Twelve knew that there time was limited in every manner possible, and they were acting on behalf of the dead so they did not care if society remembered them as heroes or monsters.
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DuskyPredator



Joined: 10 Mar 2009
Posts: 15433
Location: Brisbane, Australia
PostPosted: Fri Sep 26, 2014 8:53 pm Reply with quote
Unicorn_Blade wrote:
It would be great if all bad stuff could be blamed on the government here. Thespoiler[ people on life support or waiting for urgent surgeries die, because the government x years ago was corrupt and hurt two boys who decided to fix things their own way. So yeah, if you died because of the after-effects of the bomb set up by Sphinx, go and blame the government.]

I do not buy this logic. I think the show tried its hardest to establish the fact that Sphinx went out of their way to attract attention without actually killing anyone, and spend ages showing how symphatetic they were, risking their own lives to disable the bomb on the train, save people at the airport, save Lisa, etc etc etc.
And then Nine's spoiler[bomb potentially could have indirectly wiped off hundreds if not thousands of lives.] The fact it was addressed in one sentence at the end of the episode before beautiful music and ending credits kicked in was not really how it should have been addressed. It looked more like a sentimental rubbish to make it seem that they were better than they were.

But the bombs were the creation of a more current government. It was spoiler[only set off under the pretence that the government did not follow through with asking for the press conference, it was to show what destruction may happen if the same thing happens again]. It was not exactly the spoiler[end the only end they wanted, but the US hold some blame for interference, acting like the world police]. They did not even have an actor with them.
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