Forum - View topicEpisode Review: Terror in Resonance
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gedata
 Posts: 615 |
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spoiler[9 was going to press that button after 12's death. If what would be the point of that if there weren't bombs to begin with?] |
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Kigosh
 Posts: 18 |
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Shibasaki and Lisa were there too and they could have been shot, too. And by using this bluff the viewers saw, what kind of ally america was. The kind of that is ready to go over bodys in order to cover up its own crime. Ofc it is somewhat of a pull but I see it more like a Plot element, that provoces a reaction. If there actualy are bombs is not important (for me) as it dosent change anything about the outcome of the story |
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bibotot
Posts: 79 |
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Now, the first few episodes were very good. Tons on intrigue, mysteries and puzzle-solving. The second half feels like teenage romance with some terrorism in it. The terrorism element feels fake and child-like and towards the end, Lisa being a constant pain in the ass drags the series down. Nevertheless, good execution and well-scripted dialogues still caught my interest.
I will give this anime 8/10. |
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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Ultimately the show completely fail because it tried to have the hero be sympathetic, which means they weren't kid hellbent on revenge, they really thought there best option was to blow up a bunch of building to raise awareness of there pet issue. This is completely ridiculous now, a few months after the Snowden leak, which I'm not quite sure how long anime production cycle are but I'm assuming these events happened before the show was very far in production.
If they actually accepted that blowing building in the middle of one of the most densely populated city in the world will kill people, no question, the show could have been a lot more. And the show did nothing interesting with its ideas, nothing that wasn't done before. Human experiment is bad, like that wasn't said before. They could have done much more interesting stuff with that; what if 5 wasn't some crazy psychopath, what if instead she actually became a super savant (like that was supposed to be the entire idea) and was like helping cure cancer and she tried to pledge with 9/12 for them to stop there action and instead help her with her research? Would have been far more interesting, can the good of many outweigh the horrible experiment? Nah she's just stupidly evil, lets avoid even contemplating any interesting moral dilemma. The world was so cartoonish that no real world moral or idea could be taken out of the show. The presentation and music was superb, which makes me even more pissed cause they could have been spending that talent/energy on a series with better story, character. |
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kj_4247
Posts: 22 |
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they definitely did not stop the bomb, it went off in the upper atmosphere according to plan
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jdnation
Posts: 1997 |
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Started off great with amazing episodes, but halfway through it just kinda died...
Five was awesome, but then wasted towards the end. Weak resolution for her story and outcome. Lisa was largely pointless towards the end. Perhaps she was supposed to be symbolic of those Japanese who passively just allow American dominance to get the better of them and bully Japan into submission without bothering to do anything. In that sense she is an 'accomplice' to everything that happens to her through inactivity and inability to do anything, by being with 9 & 12, she at least starts to come out of her shell, but her only contribution was in one episode during the airport incident. It seemed that she could've at least been a way to provide tension between 9 & 12 in a conflict of interests with 12 being the more human who wants to enjoy life & warmth while 9 is obsessed and cold. But this didn't come off very strongly with the exception of the ferris wheel moment. But overall, as an entertainment vehicle the latter episodes don't live up to the excitement and intrigue of the beginning episodes. The series devolves into investigation without any build-up to a kind of cathartic pay-off. And as others point out, there are some plot holes where people don't die, when perhaps there might be some consequences to events, notably with the nuke. Minimizing casualties would be a more ideal & believable thing that would've made for an interesting series, even with 9 & 12 trying to stop 5 at the airport from needlessly killing more people than necessary, which could then be contrasted with American foreign policy. Anyway, we did get an awesome OST thanks to Yoko Kanno... so good..! But it's a shame that the show couldn't live up to expectations... Still, it's worth a watch and I'd still recommend it to anyone. |
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DRosencraft
Posts: 665 |
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This is exactly what kept coming to mind, especially after that episode where they hack the police database and released a bunch of classified information. They would have had an infinitely easier time going the route of sympathetic heroes if they went with cyber-terrorism or hackers than this convoluted no-death massive terrorism story. It feels almost like they wanted to push for the visual shock value of stuff blowing up, without the weight of what that would mean. At least if they went with the Snowden angle they could justify the ambiguity of consequences. Moreover, I fell like it made the mistake virtually every series does when it tries to go the route of, "this character(s) a super genius". That is, they do little to convince you of that. 9 and 12's tactics have a bit of cleverness, but ultimately aren't all that complex or hard to figure out at all, making them ineffectual as you watch them unfold. Lisa was supposed to be the totally sympathetic character - the extreme and constant bullying at school, the possibly mentally unhinged mother at home, no friends, and getting caught up in some terrorist's plot. But they insisted on doing little to nothing with her character until the very last moments of the series. The scene of "what their life shoudl have been" falls flat for this type of series because it ignores the fact that few, if none, are actually lllike that. For a show that tries so hard to bring up so much social commentary, that scene to me is another shortcoming of execution. It was just a little too idyllic, so for the sake of not making the execution of the series seem worse than it is, let's just imagine that scene is meant ot be their dream of what their lifes could have been. I doubt American audiences are generally going to like or even really understand this series as much as some Japanese audiences might. I would argue that isn't really a part of the calculation that went into this show, whereas other shows might consider how a non-Japanese audience would receive it. I'm not Japanese, so I can't say for certain, but it would seem unlikely that many anime viewers in Japan would take to the mesage trying to be sent by this series, because it's botched. |
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AwaysAnnoyed
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This series does not fail. It is judged too harshly by people who want things to be done and shown in a certain way, but bashes it if it doesn't live up to their biased expectations.
Maybe it is not the series that does not meet expectations, but it is the expectations themselves that were set too high from the get-go. I don't know how to argue my point, but that's just what I feel. I feel people should give this show a break, and accept the way how things turned out, because right now, thinking of how the series could have been done better isn't making me feel better or really adding any more meaning or productivity to my daily life. |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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Why should you accept the shortcomings of a show that desperately wants to be taken seriously as it deals with serious subject matter? This isn't Akame ga Kill with it's loose sense of physics and soft morality, this is a terrorist thriller that's clearly meant to be plausible and relatable, and thus it should be scrutinized for logical issues and poor writing more so than other dumber anime. And yes, you should have expected better from CowboyBebopGuy, this is the worst thing he's been in charge of. That's not even saying "oh, bad for his caliber of work", but instead bad for just about anyone.
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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Well the show had some of the biggest name in anime industry attached to it and had a really big budget. It was tackling a big issue with lots of interesting idea attached to it and lots of room to introduce idea. So if there's a show that deserve to have high expectation it's this one, unless your saying that anime cannot amount to anymore than just dumb entertainment, which I strongly disagree. |
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Redcrimson
 Posts: 160 |
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The problem is that I kinda disagree with that entire premise. ZanTero is grounded in reality insofar as it's using real-world understanding to articulate abstract ideas, but at the end of the day it's still largely allegory, and that means its going to bend arbitrary rules to make its point. Even calling it a thriller seems somewhat inaccurate. It's certainly structured like a thriller, but unlike something like say Death Note, it's all just smoke and mirrors. Nine and Twelve could just as easily have been jewel thieves or bank-robbers and the story would have pretty much the exact same narrative core. The terrorism/thriller elements are just the flavoring, not the actual dish. Of course the show falls apart if you parse it as "Anime Tom Clancy Novel", because that's a fundamental misreading of the work. |
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secondkas
 Posts: 95 |
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Such was my faith in Watanabe’s directing prowess that I had to grit my teeth and tediously see this series to the end because if there’s one thing I’ve seen Watanabe be good at, it’s his pacing of a show’s story from start to finish. And now that Terror in Resonance is complete, I now either question his skills or the amount of his involvement in this one.
A lot of you had already mentioned it, and yes, there’s only so much height that I can suspend my disbelief. If they intended to make it about a realistic cat-and-mouse chase involving terrorism, shouldn’t the police or task force have handled it more practically? Is it really that common for teenagers to cause havoc in Japan? Isn’t that a glaring lead? Or is a male physique’s age hard to distinguish? Shibazaki and his team should’ve analyzed the videos SPHINX’s uploaded and from the CCTVs, deduce they’re youth, go back to the site of the first bombing, find out that a class of students from a specific high school had a trip there, go to that school, find out that two boys just recently transferred there, investigate them, eventually finding out who they are and that a bomb is in one of their lockers. That would’ve cut the problem short. Or, Shibazaki, with all his deduction, just tackled Nine in episode 5, because how often is a teenager seen walking away at a scene? Again, are teenagers that inconspicuous? Instead the adults let themselves be caught up in the kids’ riddles and games when they could have handled it their way, whether US is involved or not. Now I am not dictating that this is how it should’ve happened, but when I think my ideas are better than what I’m watching, then something is wrong. And Lisa, that damn Lisa! It’s really hard for me to feel the tension of any scenes involving her when a huge part of me wanted her to die. Among everything else, I was too preoccupied with her going away. Many of you already said a lot about her so I won’t delve into it anymore. And I’m not going to give this show a free pass just because of the poignant message it wishes to deliver. Watanabe has always been good with a story’s execution, poignant or not: the things that are shown, the things that are said, the things that are implied, and how and when they’re done, he was impressive with those, and they’re always clear. But this one is all over the place. The revelations, twists, and dramatic moments feel forced, it’s hard to care anymore despite the amazing technical stuff like animation and music. I was so looking forward to this series, so my disappointment is profound. I can’t believe I would think Free! Eternal Summer is better than this. Free! was purely fanservice, but it never promised more and actually delivered well. I can’t believe I would compare a Watanabe work on the same level as Free! at all... |
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Theozilla
 Posts: 135 Location: Oakland, California |
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I agree. I think best way to describe Terror in Resonance in addition to its social commentary and allegory is that it's a show about mystery/thriller in of itself as genre/narrative tool but not the actual mystery/thriller of the plot itself. And even Death Note (and most thrillers in general) bend the "rules" occasionally in service of the story. I personally thought Terror in Resonance was a great show, a little shaky in a few parts, but overall an excellent series. Last edited by Theozilla on Sun Sep 28, 2014 12:03 am; edited 1 time in total |
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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If the show as to bend rule of reality to makes its point, its point is wrong (or at the very least its not putting forward any reason to trust its point). Therefore you either already believe the message (preachy to converted) and its kinda pointless or you don't believe it's message and at best your position remain unchanged, at worst it reinforce your belief in the exact opposite of the message the show was saying. i.e. if you think the message was that if you don't let new generation talk and influence society they'll rebel, I come out thinking that kid are so freaking dumb (they chose to blow building rather than just give the information to the public) and that, yes, not letting younger generation influence society is a damn good idea. The show chose to be about terrorist with all it implies. It could have been about jewel thief, but it wasn't. And it was very far from flavoring, it's in the title and pretty much every advertisement underline that fact, the first few episode are completely focus on that aspects. |
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Redcrimson
Posts: 160 |
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That... is just not how fiction works. Seriously, give me one actual example of that ever being true. Paranoia Agent is also a crime thriller set in an ostensibly "realistic" universe. Is it "wrong" because it also happens center around a seemingly supernatural kid on roller-skates bashing people in the head with a golden baseball bat? The terrorism in ZanTero being ostensibly "realistic" is irrelevant to the idea that it's also largely just an abstract device in the narrative.
How is that relevant to the actual text? Bleach is about the horror of coffee stains on white pants, it's right there in the title!
I dunno, between Lisa's social struggles, the boys' implied backstory, and the purposeful evacuation of the building, I thought it could be pretty easily inferred from episode 1 that the show was not functionally about literal terrorism. By episode 3 I thought that was glaringly obvious, but it seems I'm in the minority on that count. Even after episode 10 conveniently explains in not-so-many words exactly what the show was really about. |
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