Zankyou no Terror Episode 10 Discussion

shadowtsunami said:
I hope we get info on what Five's motives were because right now it just looks like she did all this to kiss him on the cheek lol.

Nero-chi said:


May I ask if you could elaborate more on what is the universal perspective? Also ahhh that tracking the car scene really was fast, but I've gotten so used to this kind of BS. Now, I do agree with you that the purpose of Five in terms of the story was literally to provide something for the protagonists to fight against on "a level field" (I'm sorry Shibazaki;;;;;;) and quite honestly I would have loved to only see the "battle of wits" between Sphinx and the police force, but the 3-way clashing forces was also somewhat fun to watch as well.

However I do believe that there was some logical sense to her death. The premise behind this would be of Five wanting to beat Nine (she directly says this in this episode) She even says she would not let anyone else have Nine. This would imply she has been obsessed with beating Nine for a very long time now (as in the airport episode - Nine or Twelve makes the remark of her wanting to redo the chess match they had when they were kids.) She then says in this episode that because of Nine, Five had the willpower to stay alive up until now. (we've seen her had the ringing and the collapsing in previous episode/s, but of course this is all my interpretation of the events) Going back to the airport scuffle between them, the conditions of Nine's victory would be of the bomb on the airplane not killing people, (and I suppose side goal of saving Lisa too(for the Twelve!)).To me, I define the game that Five wants to win is for Nine to not get his way. If he doesn't get his way, then in a sense, he has lost. Thanks to Shibazaki's intervention, the plane was directed away and Nine got his wish. Therefore under this logic Five still hasn't beaten Nine. However in this episode, she's successfully delayed Nine's presence to the press conference. Now that she has beaten Nine in a weird sense, she no longer has any purpose in life. Now with that in mind, she could now live a rather mundane life, but so far she's possibly killed the FBI agent, her physical health has been called into attention (Clarence wanted her to see a doctor) and she's decreased the amount that the government of Japan would be willing to take BS in their country by the hands of the American government.

Finally, imagine Five's actions and general everything was supposed to be the entire thriller genre they put this show as-/shot

TripleSRank said:

Well, "universal perspective" is just a colloquial term. The specific term in this case would be "limited third person narration". It means we see the point of view of multiple people. In ZnT's specific case, I'm referring to all parties involved- Sphinx, the police, and the FBI. If we were limited to one perspective or even two, it would be easier to create tension due to not knowing what the other parties are doing.

It's not so much that Five doesn't have a surface reason as it is that there's no solid motive behind that. Why does she want to beat Nine so badly? Because the Japanese government abused her? Or was she just mental by default? (Please keep in mind that her behavior is pretty typical cliché villainy unless she has a solid motivation.) Also, even with a good reason, she doesn't really contribute to the original story. She's just there, making things harder for Sphinx for no good (narrative) reason.

Actually, Sphinx and the FBI may have been on the same side if Five hadn't been present.

This show was pretty lackluster on all fronts story-wise. The ending might be pretty good, but I'm not expecting much.

celeminus said:
its not like the show is overly complicated and it seems like people still dont get the motives behind the characters @_@

depending on how this ends this might turn out really good after declining in quality around the middle

dokidokidoing said:
I think this review provides a good take on Five's character.
http://moesucks.com/2014/09/18/terror-in-resonance-ep-10-nuclear-option/

AsianKungFu said:
Five and Nine should've bang'd each other first before Five killed herself.

BRK25 said:


It wouldn't be hard to find local police cars driving by and attempting to rack their location. Especially radio frequency. However, I digress, you have a point but still, this is me right now.



I don't know what to say. The first half was fine and Twelve was trying to forget about Nine. He still came to the rescue. Now, what happens next?

People are going to bitch about the Engrish but I do hope we get another info dump on why Five acted the way she did. I mean, she liked Nine but I wanted more rather than a superficial feeling.

Also, doesn't anyone think that she got shot in the head and died and the last scene was more symbolic or metaphorical?

Nonetheless, it looked beautiful. The last scene made me drop my jaw cause of the way it was orchestrated.

skudoops said:


I think at this point I have just accepted the engrish. I will continue to say that they should have hired english speakers that knew japanese to do the lines. The Americans speaking wapanese would have been much more understandable (and realistic) than the Americans speaking engrish but perfect japanese. 5 could have stayed with the engrish because she's japanese.

Anyway the scene with her killing herself was weird for me, because there's this strange cut when the explosion happens that removes her completely from the scene. I don't think too many people noticed it but it's something that sorta bugged me and took away from it. I really liked the scenes with the fire before that though.

skudoops said:


I thought she was dead as well but I just looked back and I think the glass was bullet proof. There's a grey sort of splatter when nine hits it and the glass doesn't shatter.

JRadagast said:
And no one realized Five just disappeared right when the explosion happened, the animators didn't even care about making her die, they just deleted her.

MajorZero said:
So, the main point of ZnT is that Watanabe was willing to say "Fuck You!" to Abe and every right-wing japanese person out there? It's nice and all but if it was done in a more interesting and mature way the series would have been among the greatest anime.

Anyway, I felt that episode was overlong and had not much characters development, Five revealed herself as absolutely pointless nutjob, Lisa is still here just for the sake of being here, Nine and Twelve are as blank as ever, those chase scenes done in horrendous "drunk Michael Bay" style and story just serves the purpose of expressing Watanabe's opinion on current japanese administration.

BRK25 said:
There are a lot of things this show doesn't do enough of like informing the viewer and explaining the entire reason why they act like they do.

The viewer needs to peek in and observe every single faucet of energy and symbolism to digest it. And it sucks because not every viewer can achieve this.

http://moesucks.com/category/anime/series/terror-in-resonance/page/2/

This guy's good and brings lot of answers to questions the viewers might have. HOWEVER!
~
I mean, if I can't figure some things out and some guy can make a break down of how things happened in a dissertation manner, this show does have a theme and plots going on but it is so subtle that it is damn near nonexistent.

MajorZero said:

Well, I don't think ZnT is all that complex or even subtle, guy seems to overanalyze it a bit too much (plus, dat A.V. Club vibe from his review...yeah). For me it seems to be pretty straightforward series with very big problems in writing department (mainly composition, overall pacing and world building) which eventually lead it into oblivion. I understand why it's popular though (besides the obvious involvement of cult director of course), people tired of certain type of animation, they want something more grounded in reality, something that willing to tell about social problems, politics and other difficult topics, something that ready to show interesting story outside of otaku realm, in a way, success was predetermined, especially here, in the west.

Now, ten years ago we had Monster and Paranoia Agent, those were a good times.

Keten said:
People can over-analyze any show if they look deep enough. You could go into the inner workings of your typical moe school comedy and find some sort of meaning in it that you could call deep. Does that make them deep, symbolic or metaphorical shows? No, not at all, it's all about execution and presentation.

Zankyou no Terror purposely keeps things from the viewer to... well I guess it's to keep the viewers guessing but it's kind of hard to stay invested when you have no idea what you are supposed to be invested in. Does it have a presentation that screams "SYMBOLISM" and "METAPHORS"? I don't think so honestly... When you have something like FLCL which has such blatant metaphors that you can't not see it's symbolic and metaphorical... or even something more subtle like Cowboy Bebop for instance where the show deals with a specific theme in most of the episodes and it's obvious what the theme is but only if you truly pay attention, nothing in Zankyou no Terror does that. There is no theme per episode, it's just an average crime drama with OP intelligent protagonists trying to outsmart each other but you can't become invested because they don't flesh out the characters properly or give us their motivations until it's too late.

Truth be told and this is my honest opinion. I think it just chose the type of storytelling it has... to look artsy... and nothing else... and now that the answers are being revealed it's showing quite a lot that that is the case because the answers that were kept from us turn out to be nothing special, in fact, down right anti-climactic and nonsensical. There was no real purpose to keeping them a secret because the big reveal of the answers are well... boring. "What was Five's motivation for doing all of this?" Oh she just wanted to beat Nine once because she likes him or something. "What was the deal with the kids in the institution?" Oh they were just experimented on to become super intelligent... Nothing really new or extraordinary or even shocking at all... Maybe the motivations of Nine and Twelve might be but... they are the MC's and the main focus of the story.. keeping their motivations from us doesn't exactly make us care and if it's not revealed until the end, that basically means this was all just a boring and pointless build up just to have a shocking conclusion. It doesn't even seem like they put a lot of effort into writing it because it uses a lot of cliches, plot convenience and flat characters... Not to mention that stupid airport chess game...

MajorZero said:

Thank you kind sir. You just addressed a lot of my concerns about ZnT in one post and I could never formulate it better.

To be honest, I wouldn't call storytelling artsy because for me artsy means something like Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind or Holy Motors. ZnT tried to play on a few turfs, you can see influence from everywhere (curent anime trends, conspiracy thrillers, cop shows) but it never became a thing on it's own.

Keten said:
[Instead of being something different it tried to tell something average in a new way. It can work sometimes if done right but in this case they did everything wrong...

Keten said:


I suppose "artsy" wasn't the best word for me to use. What I meant was it did it to look different. I agree with you that it isn't exactly "artsy" I just think it used this form of storytelling to hide the fact that it was just a cliche average crime drama and in doing so just made itself worse.

Instead of being something different it tried to tell something average in a new way. It can work sometimes if done right but in this case they did everything wrong...

It ends up only damaging the show because due to the lack of fleshing out, it's hard to care about Nine, Twelve or Five. Since Lisa's purpose is to add humanity to Twelve that makes her entire character poor written as well, if we don't care about Twelve, why care about the one that cares about him if that is her entire character besides damsel in distress? Then there is Shibazaki, he could have been cool but most of his scenes are just him walking around talking to people about things that are just not interesting at all. Ya he gets close to the truth with each scene but... we practically already know the answer because it's so blatantly obvious that they went with the "institution turning kids into super intelligent people" route ever since they gave the flashback in episode 2 of Nine remembering it...

The storytelling has little to do with the quality of the writing overall... but that's just it... It's such a boring story with cliches and no real twists to any of them... Even the execution seems off... They present it at first like it's this super serious and realistic crime drama but then they have a building blow up, even showing civilians get caught up in the debris... and there's no casualties? No accidents? Then to top it off, they introduce Five, who has a ridiculous design and turns the show into basically just a "I am smarter than you" contest where Nine and Five show off just how overpowered they are in terms of intelligence.. which would be okay... If we knew enough about them to care... Finally the answers are revealed and it's all just cliche plot points that have been done time and time again with flat characters who really have nothing to them after all. Nine and Twelve MIGHT have something to them with the last episode... but it feels pointless if that is the only episode where we care about them at all because it will have ended immediately after.

Of course, maybe knowing their motivations and going back to rewatch it could possibly make it a bit better... but that would mean this anime REQUIRES you to watch it a 2nd time just to enjoy it... If a show is going to do that, they have to have at least something else to it to make sure the first viewing experience is enjoyable as well. Considering the ridiculous plot points, cliches and boring scenes though... even a 2nd viewing I feel like would be a tad boring to sit through...

MajorZero said:

Ironically, a lot of american broadcast tv series do the same things far better than ZnT and most ZnT fans probably hate those shows with passion.

As for originality, I personally can live without it (not to mention that original doesn't mean good), if execution is good. I believe there's no point to discuss ZnT's execution since this is basically what you wrote in your last post.

BRK25 said:


Good stuff. Very good stuff. You two poking holes and I don't mind htat.

I love the show cause I needed something fresh, something clean and against the boring trope of slice of life shows. I've got it and while the execution is off, and things look bleak, the least I can do is enjoy the small directive scenes added by music and the visuals if they keep it up. I do hope this last episode does something and not stay sup bar like it has.

The Fooly Cooly part I'll have to digress because I talked to someone who watches FLCL lots of times and doesn't see the metaphors, sometimes it isn't blatant enough.

MajorZero said:
Ha, since I'm one of the few who actually didn't liked ost at all (nothing against Yoko Kanno, I like her jazz heavy osts), I guess Hater Award goes to me. No, honestly, every time I hear ZnT ost for some reason Under the Skin soundtrack pops up in my mind and you don't want to hear this one.

Keten said:


Fair enough about the FLCL thing. I guess that's a double edged sword when making your story told entirely through metaphors... Especially ones that are not spelled out for you. Hit or miss for people. lol

I will definitely say ZnT has impressive visuals and an absolutely phenomenal soundtrack(Some of Yoko Kanno's best work in my opinion). Even if the story and character department were done rather amateurish, you can tell that the people behind the art/animation and background music gave their all for this show and made it very easy to watch. Unfortunately... I personally need more than that though before I call a show legitimately 'good'... I give my props to the animation department and Yoko Kanno though. Who knows, maybe the last episode will surprise me, I won't hype myself up for it though, I'll just wait and see.

MajorZero said:

Well, I don't think ZnT is all that complex or even subtle, guy seems to overanalyze it a bit too much (plus, dat A.V. Club vibe from his review...yeah). For me it seems to be pretty straightforward series with very big problems in writing department (mainly composition, overall pacing and world building) which eventually lead it into oblivion. I understand why it's popular though (besides the obvious involvement of cult director of course), people tired of certain type of animation, they want something more grounded in reality, something that willing to tell about social problems, politics and other difficult topics, something that ready to show interesting story outside of otaku realm, in a way, success was predetermined, especially here, in the west.

Now, ten years ago we had Monster and Paranoia Agent, those were a good times.

TehWhiteTiger said:
This anime started out so well, but now I am not so sure. First Lisa just started ruining it and getting in the way and now things are getting a bit weird.

I really thought they had some interesting motive, but it is looking more like they really are going for the, 'life fucked us, so we will fuck japan, because the world sucks'. I suppose the early Death Note feels got me thinking this anime would be more than it is. Or to say something different, I was expecting more of a thriller, and it seems to at least be trying to be symbolic and psychological, which is fine if you like that, but I am personally a bit disappointed.

Oh and RIP 5's Engrish.

TehWhiteTiger said:
This anime started out so well, but now I am not so sure. First Lisa just started ruining it and getting in the way and now things are getting a bit weird.

I really thought they had some interesting motive, but it is looking more like they really are going for the, 'life fucked us, so we will fuck japan, because the world sucks'. I suppose the early Death Note feels got me thinking this anime would be more than it is. Or to say something different, I was expecting more of a thriller, and it seems to at least be trying to be symbolic and psychological, which is fine if you like that, but I am personally a bit disappointed.

Oh and RIP 5's Engrish.