Zankyou no Terror

If you had a tough childhood, blow up an atomic bomb.

Zankyou no Terror is an original psychological thriller show. It is a different take on terrorism, and received massive hype during its airing for supposedly "thrilling" and "realistic" execution. However, what's the anime really about? A couple of kids running around bombing stuff to solve their problems.

Plot:

A video on the internet regarding a mysterious group called "Sphynx" gets the attention of Japan after unknown people destroy a Tokyo Government building. Nine and Twelve, children with number codenames and the masterminds behind the terrorism act, begin their game of riddles where the result of failure is ... a bomb detonation, while leaving subtle messages behind the bombings.

The plot is seemingly very intriguing and unique at first, with the audience starting to wonder what's this all about and what's the point behind it. Sadly, that ends with the premise. Nothing really important happens from the main plot in this show. It's summed up very easily - a bunch of kids are playing a riddle game in hopes for someone to come and solve their problems, all of this with a bomb twist. The way they wanted to make this all happen is incredibly stupid and unlogical, and it just becomes obvious that explosions exist for the sake of explosions.

There's no real depth or a message this anime wants to translate: everything is just extremely shallow. We get no idea as to why the main characters wanted to approach the situation this exact way, or how the hell did they manage to do it. It is praised as being "very innovative - exploring the society's problems in a unique way", and dear god that's just so wrong. Despite the popular belief, and that the anime thinks it has that, there's actually no terrorism in this show. "Terror" as a word means "to frighten". "Terrorism" - acts that are intended to create fear, are perpetrated for a religious, political, or ideological goal or for demands. None of these things apply to the show, sans the last one which is so subtly hinted that it is impossible to derive it in such a way without relying on massive amount of plot conveniences. (which this anime uses for god knows how many times). Fear doesn't exist in the show, because there's no global perspective - it feels like the bombings are just an everyday thing and nobody cares much that their lives are constantly in danger. So what do we get? A useless plot element. It is just suprising why the characters don't do the first logical thing possible and instead create an extremely unlikely plan that is almost sure to not work (but because of plot convieniences, that becomes possible) and has the exact same result in the end.

Characters:

The characters of the show suffer from being one-dimensional and uncharacterized. The main protagonists, Nine and Twelve, have their own personality traits (Twelve being sweet and easy-going, Nine being serious and determined), but that's about it. Their backdrop is hinted to be something extremely horrible, but it is never elaborated in the show. Instead, the fragments of their backstory just randomly inserted, and it is impossible to actually guess the scale of importance of the events in their past until much later in the anime, when it comes off as very disappointing and underwhelming reveal. The main problem with the protagonists, though, are that they just don't fit to be terrorists. The show attempts to please the casual viewers by making the main characters a pair of teenagers that are super smart, but it forgets to also give enough of a motive for them to start doing what they're doing this exact way and not just going to the police and tell them what the hell happened in their past.

The pair is joined by Lisa, who receives a lot of attention early on, but nothing happens with her character. She joins the duo simply to be a plot device and to drive the conflict of Five and the protagonists the way the anime wants to it to go. She has her own personal problems, but they're not focused on, and she just comes off as a dull character with a clumsy trait. She receives no reasonable development and apart from one scene, extremely irrelevant to the story, so it's really sad to see the potential and the focus shown to her early on being wasted.

Next on we have the antagonist Five. Okay, she is an extremely stupidly written character. Her motives are contradicting, she gets the same cliched antagonist traits and actually is irrelevant to the end result. I personally have no idea why she was needed in the anime, most of the logical inaccuracies happen around her, and she is a fresh air of "generic" in a rather unique anime. The anime just wasn't fit to include a character like her, and that can be witnessed in her last scene in the show which was probably the stupidiest thing I've ever seen in anime this year.

The best character of the show is Shibazaki, and he's a friggin plot device. That's how sad it is. He is the "plot convienience" Sphynx was searching for to fulfill their insanely unlogical and impossible plan. Shibazaki gets some character development, has some sort of a character backstory that is somewhat believable and reflects on his current character quite well, but he gets pushed into a side role after Five is introduced. His personal drama wasn't elaborated much, but he was the only character on which "the rule of cool" worked. It was much more enjoyable and believable to watch him solve the riddles than witnessing Sphynx presenting them (why so serious?)

The side cast doesn't really exist in this show. Everything revolves around 4 (5 with Shibazaki's sidekick) characters in a story that actually has the entire population of Tokyo in direct influence. All other characters are just plot devices that are there to assume a certain position and for the anime to have realism in this aspect, but they are completely irrelevant. And since the next segment is going to talk about how there's no realism in this show at all, the above point becomes moot.

Writing:

And here we go. The most pretentious anime of the year. Let's start off with the impossibilities. It is IMPOSSIBLE to have no casualties after you destroy such a massive building. 9/11 had around 300 people killed on ground level, excluding the firefighters which is another 300. Total number of injured people was 7000. Here, we have no casualties even though the entire evacuated group happened to be next to the building when it exploded, and a mere 50 injuries. That's just so bullshit and immediately kills any immersion. You have a girl jumping from the 4th floor on the ground and she doesn't even get her legs broken, let alone a scratch or bruise? Are you seriously telling me two teenagers stole a friggin atomic bomb from a mass security nuclear facility? And are you seriously telling me the government took 0 actions to find out more about that and locate the stolen bomb before the attacks started happening? And it's just the first episode, guys. There's atleast dozen occurences of straight up impossible and illogical bullshit in every episode. It slows down between the second and the fourth episode, and that's where I thought the anime could actually be good but shit hits the fan again when Five is introduced and we witness the greatest chess game ever - using airport terminals.

Moving on to the riddles, the whole method is stupid and over the top. The duo needed the exact guy who was willing to research them this exact way, and they found a guy not only willing to do that but who was also a part of an incident which involved someone affiliated with their problem - what are the odds! We are never shown how they plant their bombs or how they manage to create them - everything already seems to be completed and in place and then we just need to wait for a boom. The pair are terrorists, but it was cringe-worthy watching them go nuts over a bomb which couldn't be defused, and that they could be labeled as murderers. The fact is that if this anime followed any string of proper logic, they would already be murderers at the very first bombing.

The thriller part is done very, very weakly. The whole thriller is that the audience doesn't know what the characters know but don't reveal because TENSION! That's not thrilling to watch, that's just f*cking frustrating. Their whole story is very predictable, it is very obvious that something happened in their childhood and they wanted revenge but there wasn't enough motive to start blowing stuff up, as the scale of events in their childhood wasn't so bad or shocking, and they were probably too young to understand all that. We have no information on what happened inbetween their childhood and the present events, and the duo talks like the Rising Hope Academy thing happened yesterday, when in reality anyone would most likely forget it over time (and sure as hell wouldn't start blowing up the city). The anime tries to make everything complex and mature and deep but everything comes out so messy that even a 10 year old child could write a more fluent script than this.

There is just way too much to talk about in this section, but I need to keep this short enough and not to spoil anything. The anime is not clever, it is pretentious. It tries to be something that it's not, and tries to be something that it fails to be. Since the show relies solely on being "logical" and "thrilling", if there are no other elements to get hooked to, you simply cannot enjoy this show because it's not "logical" and "thrilling". The only thing that is positive and worth mentioning is that there's no fanservice in this show. The comedy is very very little but it doesn't fit, but because there's almost none of it that's not a problem.

Animation and Sound:

Credit will be given where credit is due. Animation looks salad in this one, especially the explosions. The character designs are okay, although Five looks like a clown for some reason.

What I would like to talk about more is the soundtrack. Yoko Kanno nails one yet again. It is the best soundtrack of the year, with amazing piano arrangements and dramatical music fitting perfectly with the atmosphere. Standalone songs, such as "Hanna", are just amazing to listen. Overall, soundtrack is the only thing I really enjoyed in this show, and I have no complaints and arguments against it. The sound is also well made, the explosions sound realistically, especially in the last episode. The only complaint I have in the sound department is the awful Engrish and subpar voice acting in general, although Shunsuke Sakuya did a good job voicing Shibazaki.

The opening to the show is beautifully animated with decent music, but strangely enough, it doesn't fit with the anime at all. What is overlooked is the ending to the anime, which is simply animated but has some beautiful music and I ended up enjoying it way more than the opening.

Summary:

Zankyou No Terror is the definition of a pretentious anime, and a victim of the Code Geass R2 syndrome. It is overhyped because it is "different" in execution and the themes. Mind if I tell you, that being "unique" is not automatically being "good"? It has an amazing soundtrack, but I suggest just buying the OST album instead of watching this, if it's just for the music. Overall, a disapponting watch, but if you want something pretentiously clever you could check this out.

Final Verdict: 3.9/10

**SPOILER FREE REVIEW**

Zankyou no Terror has easily been one of the most well received anime of the season, and understandably so. It has amazing presentation, unique and memorable music, and it’s directed by motherfucking Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, etc.). After a fantastic first episode filled with intrigue and mystery, the worldwide anime community waited with bated breath to see what this show had in store. So… While some people were able to continue to enjoy the show from beginning to end, watching the rest of this anime for me was more comparable to staring, frozen at the sight of a terrible accident that kills ... hundreds of people. It’s fucking horrible and gets worse and worse with each passing second… but you can’t look away. From the worst antagonist in recent memory to poor character development and a plot the goes downhill fast, this anime can only be described as a shame. Looking at what this anime could have been and comparing it to what it ended up being, it’s nothing but a damn shame.

Synopsis: Two teenagers, who go by the codename “Sphinx”, have managed to steal plutonium from a high tech facility. They then go on a spree of terrorism, bombing building after building as the police department scrambles to diffuse the bombs and apprehend the perpetrators. Sphinx’s reasons for doing this are unclear, even to the auidance.

Quite honestly, I think that Zankyou no Terror has perfectly defined the term “dragging it out”. Many people scratched their heads when they realized that the show was only 11 episodes long, but in hindsight, it didn’t even need to be THAT long. The true downfall of the anime is that it’s story and characters are very, very shallow, despite the occasional intrigue they are able to illicit. While the plot starts strong as it presents a relatively believable, realistic setting, the show soon begins a downward spiral into complete, nonsensical absurdity. For instance, the show loses all of its subtlety and starts trying WAY too hard to be an “intelligent” show, thanks to laughable plot points such as “airport chess” (playing a life-size game of chess with an airport as the board -_-). Some of these are so bad that they manage to create plot holes. This spiral is perpetuated by the introduction of a certain character that we’ll get to later.

The train wreck is culminated in the disaster that was the finale of the show, which was incredibly rushed, anticlimactic, unsatisfying, and really just shockingly bad (that’s right, I could write an entire essay on why that ending sucked, and yet everyone seemed to enjoy it). I think the biggest reason behind this failure is the fact that none of the mysteries have satisfactory answers behind them, or at least not any that are even remotely satisfying. The big revelation of the show is supposed to be the backstory of the characters, particularly their motivations, and quite frankly, it’s all just so damn predictable. The names of the main characters (“Nine” and “Twelve”) coupled with the OP are all you need to see to guess to the character’s pasts (or at least the basic gist of it). Once you do that, its just a matter of figuring out their motivations, which are STUPID! It’s not that the motivations themselves are terrible, it’s that they render the entire storyline completely pointless because there are MILLIONS of other, better ways they could have gone about reaching their goals, but stealing plutonium and bombing shit was the idea they decided to go with? Whatever. In short, the plot absolutely crumbles. It’s bad.

If the plot isn’t where ZnT went wrong, then it was definitely in its characters. Our protagonists, Nine and Twelve, are shallow. We never learn anything substantial about the way they think or who they are. Sure, we learn their backstories, but that doesn’t tell us anything about who they are as individuals. They seemed so promising and unique at first, but they ended up being boring, unspectacular, and not memorable at all. Lisa, the third wheel of the show, has no purpose. Why does she even exist? She is used as a misogynistic plot device in ONE episode, and then does nothing ever again. Even in the finale, when she finally had an opportunity to show that she affected the story or that the story affected her in SOME way, it just doesn’t happen. The ending gets rushed through. So disappointing. Then there’s Five: THE WORST ANIME ANTAGONIST IS RECENT MEMORY. FUCK FIVE. Everything good that the show had going for it gets wrecked or begins its downward spiral once this character showed up. Here’s why: The show used to be morally grey; there were no clear good guys or bad guys because we didn’t know why Sphinx was doing this. Then Five comes along, who is overly maniacal, blatantly evil, and stupidly exaggerated. This wrecks the notion of grey morality and makes it more black and white than a bad shounen would. The show used to have realism; many connections were made to real life, modern places and things that made the show believable. Then Five comes along, begins a game of airport chess (-_-), speaks the WORST engrish I’ve ever heard in my entire life, and successfully manages to manipulate a major government organization at the age of about 17. Makes sense. I could go on, but I think you get the point. This cast of characters is very, very bad, particularly Five. The only character that is even remotely passable is Shibazaki, but he is relatively shallow as well.

In conclusion, Zankyou no Terror has reminded us all about a sad reality: shows that start well do not always end well. In fact, sometimes, they crash and burn. This would be an example of an anime that crashed and burned. I know the first few episodes are really good and really interesting, I know the animation is a fantastic complement to the show, and I know that music is incredible, but none of that can fix the shitstorm of a shallow, incompetent plot and uninteresting characters. Is it a bad anime? No. Is it worth watching? Meh, maybe. It’s just overwhelmingly underwhelming, if that makes sense.

Terror in Resonance is a fine anime in terms of directing and tension. It’s not hard to see how it excited thousands of viewers into calling it anime of the year back when the first episode aired. That still doesn't make up for its undeniably amateurishly handled script when it comes to mystery stories. Personally, I didn't need to wait for the show to be over before I knew it wasn’t as good as they were hyping it to be. The cracks were obvious since the very pilot and kept getting bigger with each new episode. The reason why everybody else didn’t want to admit ... to that is because the director was Watanabe of Cowboy Bebop fame. There is no way for Watanabe to mess up, even if anything else he made besides Bebop was average. Well, damn, he did, what a shock. So for those of you who are in constant denial while hugging your huge anime pillows.
Allow me to give you some basic pointers, for as to why this anime was basically a waste of my time and why I regret watching it so much.
-The plot is basically, plot less:
It starts out with a very intriguing idea about how two teenagers plan to create chaos in Japan by exploding a Government building, and then send out riddles for the police to solve in order to stop the bombs that they plant. Each time, the riddle is engrossed with a message.
However,
I could already predict what the rest of the show will be about after episode 3. I mean, really, it was obvious what the terrorists wanted to do thereafter. A good mystery story is revealing itself slowly, constantly keeping you interested to find out more. This anime didn’t do that. It overused its already lazy exposition gimmicks to the point it revealed all the major plot points in its first quarter. All there was left was an almost fatalistic procedure because it became that predictable. And the only reason it took 11 episodes to play out exactly as I predicted was only because they wasted half the show running after Lisa or Five, characters whose role was to derail the plot and waste time.
-Everyone seems to act like a retard except that one cop.
-There doesn't seem to be real *terror* in the show.
Terrorism and human experiments, Ooooh! what a thrill!
I expect people crouching, crying and going insane. Thinking how it's going to be the end of the world, as the atomic bomb is going to explode.
Lol, no.
-It seems like a very, very bad anime remake of V for vendetta but without the good dialogues, plot and characterization.
-The only reason I watched the whole show was because of the fantastic sound and animation, and that's it.
-Why is five even there?
The story is disrupted when this psychotic bitch, five enters the scene. Where she doesn't capture nine and twelve, but chooses to play a game with them. Which btw is completely fine because the Americans are Muppets being controlled by her and choose to ignore every thing until one them points a gun at her and says that enough is enough. At which point, five kills him and then finally come face to face with nine. You would think that she wanted to say or do something interesting when she finally meets the man she has been chasing this whole time? RIGHT? RIGHT?
Nooooooo, she just tells him that it was all a game and kills herself.
Wait, what.
Yes, EXACTLY.
- Does anybody even know about the experiments in the end? were the guilty parties even punished? We don't know. All we know that a bunch of buildings were bombed and two teenagers were killed. And most of the anime was spent rescuing a stupid bimbo called Lisa.
-This is not how real detectives do stuff they know how to do basic research and are not complete idiots who don't even know how to use wikipedia, furthermore when you look at a nuclear explosion, you don't hold hands and pretend as if they are fire works. Because there is a thing called radio-activity. And EMP pulses are enough to kill anyone who has a pacer in his heart or is in life support in hospitals, thus contradicting the attempt to not kill anyone.
- There is no political statement behind the bombings because the two terrorists do not reveal them until the show is over. They don’t even have demands for not going forward with the bombings; a thing which no terrorist ever does. If there is a statement, there is no reason not to reveal it right away; something which of course they didn't because that way the show would end in 2 episodes.
- Where is the so called awakening of the population that I was promised in the synopsis of the show? Because all I remember is yawing through out the show and waiting for it to show the greatness it promised.
-Over all points:
Story:3/10
Art:9/10
Sound:9/10
Character:3/10
Enjoyment:4/10

(Warning: Spoilers)
Zankyou no terror is the perfect example of a train wreck. Every episode of this show got worse and worse and the writing was completely terrible with bland characters and no sense of development in terms of the narrative or world building.

While the anime is very well directed featuring amazing artwork, animation and a great musical score that does a decent job at immersing you into its world, what is the point if the script is terrible? Its a shame too, since the first couple of episodes were generally interesting but never developed anything past that point and everything felt rushed. The main premise ... of the show caught my attention, be it as it was about terrorism, an idea not really presented too much in anime and certainly stands out as an idea than your typical cute girls doing cute things shows, but many people gave the show a high score based solely on the premise rather than anything else.

Another reason for that was because of the highly influential director working on this anime too. He does a good job at directing the material he was given, and if this show does have something going for it, it probably was Watanabe Shinichiro's involvement. However, no good amount of great directing can save an ultimately broken narrative.

The main two characters are both boring, dull and lack any kind of development. They both come across pretentious and stupid, both in their actions and in their goal as well, which they keep so god damn vague. Their actions and reasons for it just seemed too silly. The whole thing felt like two children playing a game, sending riddles to the police and what not instead of any actual terrorism. There is no political statement behind the attacks and most of the people seem more so confused about the attacks rather than scared.

The riddles themselves seemed far too easy since they were all based on all ready existing myths and the such, but no one could figure them out aside from one detective. Even if this were the case, why not ask the population of Japan for help, or better yet the world, since the videos were uploaded onto YouTube. In this case, the riddles would be a breeze and they would be solved easily. Hell, people in the comments and such would be trying to figure it out themselves so it feels kind of unrealistic how the riddles keep throwing everyone off. The way the main cop comes to the discovery of the riddle is by dumb luck, and makes the entire show feel like a Saturday morning kid's cartoon. There is tones of lazy information dumping as if the audience is retared and can't interpret anything for ourselves, and most characters pull ideas from their asses.

Half way through the series they introduce a new villain who is called "Five" and god, it's been so long since I have seen such a badly written and pointless character. Every scene she was involved in felt like filler and none of it was ever interesting. She keeps on remarking about how she wishes to beat 9 but when she is able too, she kills herself instead. Why? Fuck knows. This character is given a terrible motivation which is never explained to us ever and never expanded on either. We waste so much on this character, which could of been used to flesh out the rest of the cast, but nope.

Lisa was simply a fucking plot device. Every action she took was just to advance the plot in the most laziest way possible. Her actions and decisions were stupid and dumb, making her feel less like a character and more so a cheap way to push the story forward whenever it was necessary. Her motivation to act as a terrorist were weak, the subplot with her being bullied and her mother becoming obsessed with her are never developed at all and the anime expects us to buy into the relationship between her and 12 but since both characters are boring, why should I give a fuck?

The only slightly interesting character was the main detective, but even then, he is nothing to write home about. I understand that both 12 and 9 are emotionally destroyed and that's why their characters act the way they do but they never do anything with these themes and ideas. Their motives are revealed to us far too late for the audience to care or to get invested in and their backstories are so boring and generic, I didn't care at all. You need to do more with your characters to get the audience to sympathise with them than a simple tragic backstory. They need to be appealing in some way. Lisa is given some characterisation in the fact that she can't cook, but this trait is so common in characters that it feels uninteresting.

The ending was the most cheap and bullshit thing I have ever seen. We are presented with a three minute slide show of the three characters having fun together, playing and enjoying their friendship to try to make you feel something for these characters and pull at the heart strings before 12 is shot dead. What cheap, lazy writing. The fact that they try to make you feel something at the very end for these three characters they've barely spent developing and then relying on shock factor felt so lazy.

There were a few things I really did enjoy about the show however. Some of the scenes did a great job at conveying how the characters were feeling through the music and animation and these scenes (particularly the one with Lisa and 12 on the motorcycle) was great. Some of the animation could look pretty great too but that ultimatily means nothing if the script is so bad.

In conclusion, Zankoyu no terror was a disappointment. As someone who never watched it while it was airing and having people hail it as "the greatest show ever" for the past two years, Zankyou no terror felt boring and dull. Now, if you liked this anime, that's fine. I really don't care, more power to you. I just felt it was bad. Really bad.
(Please don't kill me)

Zankyou no Terror is tragic. You can TELL what they were trying to do, it just… didn't work. I think it failed the same way Death Note did: it kept trying to 1-up itself until it went to far. In fact, it has a lot it common with Death Note - from the genre, to the overall story (government vs. criminal), to the fact that we're rooting for the for the ones doing the most harm.

Five was somewhat pointless. It got to the point where it felt like she was only there to be filler, which is bad for a 12 ... episode anime.

I even have issues with Lisa. They kept saying she served no purpose - she even admitted it herself - but she never truly finds one. It would have been much better if she had admitted it, then found a purpose within the trio. But she never truly finds one.

Zankyou no Terror had a lot of potential. But there are so many flaws that it falls on it’s face. Which is tragic, because the first few episodes are astounding and the soundtrack is flawless.

I would recommend skipping this anime and watching Death Note instead. It did what Zankyou no Terror was trying to do - give you a suspense-filled psychotic thriller that leaves you guessing at every turn.

Awful. Not a single character in the story is decently written (maybe Shibasaki, but sadly the story forgets about him post episode 3) and the story is a train wreck.

Nine and Twelve are no more than walking stereotypes. One is the typicial silent and smart guy, while the other is the energetic and unconcerned shonen protagonist we all know. No development or introspection,they always remain the same. Their motivations? their past? the series doesn´t care, alll we got are short flashbacks here and there.

Oh, and I forgot about the girl. Well, she´s the anime equivalent to Bella of Twilight. At the end the ... only relevance that she end having actually is to be the damsel in distress.

The only actually enjoyable parts about this mess were the OST and the pretty animated explosions.

I accidentally saw an anime with a high score and hoped it would be good, but unfortunately it wasn't, The story moves very slowly and is difficult to understand because the story moves so slowly.
The sound effects also make my ears hurt, especially when there is a scene where one of the characters has a nightmare, and I as a viewer have to listen to the unpleasant sound. Very annoying, for what reason do I have to listen to the nightmares of that character?

The character design is also bad, especially their skin color, like the skin of a dead person, too white, are they ... people who don't get exposed to the sun every day? So his skin is white?
Like the skin color of a walking zombie.

The ending song is also very bad, I listened to it after this bad anime finished, and the worst ending song made things worse.
I don't know what those of you who recommend this bad anime are thinking, is it because it was made by Studio Mappa? I think yes or no? What is clear is that this anime is held in high regard, In other words too proud!

This is an almost impossible anime to review without spoiling. But since so many other reviews cover with full spoilers why to avoid it, I'll give it a try.

The show has a fairly strong first episode that builds up a lot of mystery... but also already starts with a fairly large level of implausability. While suspense of belief is part of any show... one that tries to deal with such important, dire topics like terrorism and government overreach, you have to have a reason to keep making it more extreme. By the end of the show, they push this to far ... extremes with absolutely no purpose.

The characters remain uninteresting, undeveloped, and keep creating more and more implausible plans for no strong reason. A villain is introduced half way through the show that acts completely erratically, and does a full about face for no reason so that... we can reach the stories conclusion that it was heading towards without the introduction of said villain in the first place? Really it's a filler arc that runs for a little over half the show's runtime.

And finally, really the most important, this show has absolutely no consistent theme. Terrorism can sometimes be cool and productive, and sometimes bad? There's really nothing interesting Terror in Resonance is trying to say. It has strong visuals and music, and an edgy attitude... but at the end of the day they use backstory to justify a bunch of completely bull**** acts of terror, and it has no meaning, allegory, or anything to real life. It's a lot of spectacle for no reason.

Also... literally the worst use of english in a show I've ever seen. Seriously, find a youtube video of it, it is absolutely hilarious.

Oh, how I love to be let down by potential masterpieces!

Only upside, the first few episodes were very interesting. But it stops about there. The concept was great, the writing was horrific.

Being myself, I'm usually somewhat (read: entirely) emotionally invested into my characters, or at least have a favourite character. With this? Not a single feel felt. Characters felt like they were made of cardboard, just dry and predictable, and not sticking to one personality.

And doooon't even get me started on Lisa! Okay, I loved Lisa initially - 'ooh another obvious female sidekick oH WAIT SHE'S EMO'. Lisa was honestly what made ... me give this show such a bad review. Lisa hindered the actually interesting protagonists and hence hindered the show's growth and appeal, massively. Without Lisa, the plot may have been much much more enveloping - in my opinion, the show would almost be a masterpiece if it had only focused on the relationship and story between the vengeful orphan boys Nine and Twelve, and see them get through to their end goal (with lots of obstacles) and finish with a finale with the likes of Tokyo Ghoul ('Let's go home', anyone?).

But it didn't. There wasn't one relationship in the show that didn't feel empty and superficial.

Each episode felt disconnected to the last, and by the end I wasn't even sure what was happening, other than the show going down the drain.

All in all, 3/10. Very bad. I wouldn't recommend if you don't like to be let down, and like getting attached to characters. Bleh.

This review contains some spoilers, but I am sure that you're better off reading my review (or any review, really) than even trying to watch this.

TL;DR: Style over substance... Wait, really? The style was nothing special as well.

I am honestly puzzled at how this anime has a rating of 8.1 on MAL and multiple awards for being a "Mystery or Psychological Anime of the Year." Seriously? It had almost zero Mystery, and I'm inclined to rate the level of inclusion of the "Psychological" element in negative integers.

The premise, and maybe even part of the first episode, was interesting enough to make me watch the second ... episode. From there on, I continued with it only to marvel at its shortcomings.

The plot somehow manages to incite feelings of both "this might've been better if it was longer" and "this should've been shorter" (at just 11 episodes!). It appears painfully, unreasonably dragged out, but also confusingly rushed, though mostly not really in a way of "I want more of this".

First, the anime shows us two teenage boys stealing something from some important facility, enrolling in a school (that just incidentally introduces the other main character), and planting explosives in a governmental building (where the other main character just incidentally happens to be).

After that, they force the police to solve riddles on the topic of the more obscure parts of Greek mythology to stop the bombs in other buildings from exploding. To communicate with the police, they post videos (with their faces barely hidden under masks, with their voices unchanged, in clothing they later wear outside) which the main detective just incidentally finds, with help of his sidekick. The riddles aren't fun and are impossible to solve without in-depth knowledge of an unrelated topic - a cheap trick to make the main characters look intelligent.

Their vandalism is also not exactly "terrorism", so disregard the title: the characters don't exactly make any demands, nor do they reveal their motives to the public; it is just destruction for the sake of destruction, although some screen-time is paid, for some reason, to reassure the viewers that the main characters care about not hurting any civilians.

Later, the show introduces another party that wants the main characters dead, for their own mysterious reasons. New horribly-written characters appear.

In the end, some parts of the characters' backstory and some of their motives get briefly revealed, with a weak attempt to tackle themes of post-war nationalism and transhumanism. The "grand" explanation doesn't account for around half of the main characters' lives. Furthermore, most of the revelation is possible to guess after following the opening and the flashbacks, which are sporadically pushed into the viewers' faces.

Now, the characters. Nine and Twelve are the stereotypical nerdy, reclusive h4x0r boy and the cheerful sidekick. Both are supposed to be very unusual and unique, but only in the first episode is Twelve shown to be slightly not well-adjusted to life in a normal society. In the subsequent episodes, we learn absolutely nothing about them, nor do they develop - quite the opposite, actually: characters' complexity and development are treated almost like an existential threat to the anime.

Another character that could be called "main" (and whom I despised for ten episodes), Lisa, Nine's and Twelve's classmate, is a good-for-nothing, depressed, bullied (for unknown reasons) high school girl that runs away from her possessive mom. She constantly jeopardizes every plan Nine and Twelve attempt to execute and serves no purpose, aside from being a screen-time hog nobody wanted. As if to highlight how mind-numbingly stupid she is, during one of her numerous emotional breakdowns, she asks Twelve to immediately leave her and let her die while they are trapped on a Ferris wheel, high in the air.

The main detective, Shibazaki, is not as lifeless as the above three, but he's not that well-written either and doesn't exactly leave a lasting impression.

The antagonist, Five, is an exaggerated, cringeworthy, cartoonish villain that does no good for the already failing show, and raises a serious question about if this anime is just making fun of itself at this point.

The visuals and the soundtrack were ok. Not something I especially liked, there were good moments here and there, but overall it was hard to enjoy these when the events are getting increasingly more ridiculous by the minute. The overall atmosphere or some supposed "tension" did nothing for me, either, mostly because I kept laughing at the plotholes, the supposedly "smart" characters acting braindead, and the plot's attempts at portraying drama and struggles.

Overall, the more I think about it, the worse impression I get of this anime. Not worth watching under any circumstances.

Rating: 2/10.

Likes:

This is one of those animes whose subject matter is touchy. Not many people would dare create a show about terrorism, much less from both sides of the coin (aka the terrorists and the detectives.) Most people see the 'anime about terrorism' and immediately jump in. It's a different subject. Other realistic animes are typically slice of life (from what I've seen.) The crime animes focus on murders and kidnappings and disappearances. While those are all interesting, there are enough American crime shows to supply me with enough death and destruction. But this anime's premise really got me. A mysterious video? Bombs? Interesting...do continue.
Twelve and ... Nine didn't want to hurt anyone. It was never their goal. They didn't want mass killings or anything. They just wanted their cause to be noticed, for people to look into what happened to them (and their dead friends/family.) And their (albeit subtle) kindness was something that really caught my attention.
Nine and Twelve as a duo weren't too bad. They stuck together through all of this. And what happened in the last episode? I couldn't bear to hear that noise. I never heard such sadness and rage and loss of hope from any anime or any person. It was something unheard of. And, gosh, did it strike a chord...

Dislikes:

Lisa was probably the most boring character in the entire show. No, she might make my list of top ten most boring characters ever. She was a complete Mary Sue. The Sphinx Duo should have dumped her. She was so completely useless. She freaked out over every little thing they did. And she was all 'Nooo, I can't kill people!' when they weren't even thinking of murder. I wanted to shake Twelve. What in the world did he see in her? She was weak-willed. And, basically, a wimp. She never stood up for herself and took all the yelling and beating from others. Anybody could walk over her. Even a stranger. And no voice color could be better than that. Her story could have been fleshed out more. If so, maybe I would have liked her better.
The supposed (or so I thought) romance was completely laughable. While there have been unbelievable romances (ehem SAO), this was undeniably unnecessary. The relationship between Mary Sue and Why Does It Matter If He Has Synesthesia was just a fan service of sorts. Because every anime needs love! There was no buildup, and even if they had been dating before the whole anime started, I'd doubt they would really care for each other. What in the world did Twelve do for Lisa other than save her a few times? Zip. Zero. There is no basis for a romance. If you were trying to make me feel for Lisa, even a little bit, you failed.
The story ends on a highly anticlimactic note. You build up the whole series around the bombs and the sneaky US government. Then...what? EMP and everyone dies? I made a hypothesis that they were all in the afterlife. It would have been better than what actually happened.
The show also antagonizes the United States. Sure, we've done had to Japan (namely the WWII bombings), but this show went a tad too far. Why would the US even get involved? An atomic bomb? And for what purpose? To render Japan useless with an EMP wave? Highly unlikely. Also, on a different topic, the people who were the voice actors for the US people could have been way better. I was laughing the entire time they talked. They sounded so robotic.

Beginning was intriguing, but after several episodes it turned to shit. Idea to bomb for attention isn't really doable without some casualties, and that makes MCs quite contradictory... Whole airport thing was crap. I hate when something tries to portrait someone to as intelligent by using chess... Of course thing like this can't have happy ending...

Maybe there was something more deep to think about... the end justifies the means? Would work if means werent bombs and end wasnt some crappy story abou destroyed childhood... Maybe whole moral dileamma of just following orders ? Could that be it? Either this anime has no moral story behind ... it, or it has several, but too general to give you something more that you could get just form thinking about these moral dilemmas ...

To sum it up: Only surprising thing about story was MCs incompetence (there could be another paragraph about this...). The sound and visuals were quite good. The characters were 1 dimensional and inflexible. Just go do some thought experiment about "the end justifies the means (... to which extend)" and you can save 4 hours.

Zankyou no Terror was sitting in my list for a while and I finally took the time to binge it in one sitting and I absolutely regret wasting my time on it. This was once again another overhyped anime mainly because of Watanabe but it only turned out to just be a big let down. I wanted and tried so so hard to like this show but in the end, I left disappointed.

Good parts:
The animation and soundtrack were superb, they were the main highlights on the series honestly. The first 3 episodes were very well done, with the bike scenes being some of the best ... moments of the show before it turned into garbage, the plot was promising in the beginning with characters who looked complex. At best, this show would only be given a 5/10.

((SPOILERS!!))

Bad parts:
The plot (4/10)
As I said earlier, the first few episodes were solid, it gave you a good idea of what the show was and it kept the audiences engaged, it felt mysterious with the Nine and Twelve’s backstory being hinted at and it was interesting watching Shibazaki solving their mystery. But everything turned into a disaster the moment Five was introduced (I’ll get into her character later on), the moment they brought in the Americans the show essentially lost its spark. What the show built in the first few episodes was basically thrown out of the window and the show almost became propaganda for Japan.

The characters backstories, namely Five, Nine & Twelve were barely even touched on. We only saw the same snippets over and over again. What we also got was the founding of the weird agency they were brought up in but even so, the show didn’t expand on that. The pacing was completely whack, they could’ve made it a 25 episode series so each character could be developed on but they didn’t. Instead, the directors chose to do this absolute mess of a cat and dog chase that resulted in nothing.

This show is so unrealistic that it nearly made me stop watching. I’m not going to get into the science-y stuff but how does Nine, an American spy, be allowed to cause this much destruction without any serious repercussions? Take the airport scene for example, for her to want to bomb the airport and actually acting on it is a terrorist crime itself. Also, she had SO many opportunities to arrest them but she didn’t even act on it just because she wanted to play whatever ‘game’ she had in mind. I’m not going to talk about the atomic bomb scene because that entire thing was beyond unrealistic.

The terrorism act Nine and Twelve committed barely made sense. They didn’t make any demands or any form of negotiations with the government. Yeah, their plan was to get caught so their backstory could come to light but I can think of so many other things they could’ve done than this. When they managed to hack the police’s twitter (?) account, they could’ve easily just aired out all their dirty laundry but of course, they didn’t.


The Characters (2/10)
The characters in this show ruined the show.

Twelve and Shibazaki were the most promising ones of the show, with Shibazaki coming off as a complex character that plays the classic detector role. I really wished the show had expanded his characters and gave him the spotlight to shine but alas they didn’t. The moment he was suspended he became nothing but decoration for the show, along with his other co-detectives, which IMO, were completely useless and the show could’ve been done without them. Twelve (my favourite character from the series) was yet another character the show focused on a lot, he played the happy-go-lucky high school kid and his smile never faltered but his romance with Lisa was so rushed and in your face by the end of the series that I was completely turned off by it. It wasn’t even alluded in the beginning that he liked her and was only shown towards the end of the show.

Nine himself was the biggest disappointment of the series. He was the dark and mysterious characters that struggled with PTSD which was hardly ever touched on. You would assume characters like him would take up the spotlight but yet his character was never fleshed out and the audience could barely even grow attached to him because of how robotic he was.

The two main females in this series were the main reason why I hated this show so much. Lisa, I don’t even know where to begin. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more useless character till her, I was hoping she had a redemption arc and that her home life would be expanded on but no all of that only led up to her living with the two boys and being a terrible accomplice too. I also don’t see how it’s realistic for her to run off with some terrorist she met once which they tried to kill off too, but for the sake of the ‘plot’ it works, I guess? One might think she ran away and joined them to be useful for the team but she was absolutely, ABSOLUTELY, useless to the point where it was straight-up painful to watch the scenes she was in. And when she finally realised how useless she was she chose to run away and got abducted, no once BUT TWICE. Was her life that miserable that she only had terrorist to turn away too? Also, she had no form of remorse being around them and constantly defended them too, but I’ll save my breath.

Five was another huge letdown. The show really forced you to hate her and didn’t give her the room to grow. Her personality was so one dimensional that it really makes you wonder how someone as psychotic as her works as a spy. Her obsession with Nine was so dragged out only to be revealed that she wanted to beat him and after she says that, guess what? She kills herself, BUT FOR WHAT EXACTLY? Her character was so underdeveloped that I felt bad for hating her because she had so much potential to be that complex villainy character but the writers didn’t even give her the chance. The show kept telling us that she couldn’t leave after attempting to escape with Nine and Twelve but they never told us what happened to her after they left her.

The other characters were just a huge question mark. They didn’t contribute to the show in any beneficial way and just took up space. Exactly what purpose did the other detectives have in the show honestly?

Tldr; terrible plot and even more terrible characters. The show wanted to outshine Death Note so bad but it ended up being the uglier younger sister of it.

I thought this show had some potential, but it was very boring! The characters were annoying, the plot was all over the place. The storyline was a snooze fest. Things happen just because with no real explanation. The overall story just seemed lacking in-depth to me. I didn't feel any connection to anyone on the show, despite their "noble" cause.

Plot summary *WARNING SPOILERS*

Two former lab rats call themselves the sphinx and decide to terrorize Tokyo by planting bombs all over the city. The attacks always follow the same pattern, they release a riddle in video form, the cops have to solve the riddle to ... find the location of the bomb and dismantle it in time before anyone dies.

However, our two terrorists are in no way criminal. They don't actually intend on murdering anyone, they just want to mess with the police. They're just taking the piss out on the government for using them as lab rats. Therefore, the riddles are always easy or too obvious to solve. At least one detective gets them all the time, he seems to be the only one with a brain in the whole police department.

Then they meet a boring wimpy character called Lisa who one of the terrorists takes a liking to after seeing her getting bullied by a bunch of girls in High school just cause. She runs away from her emotionally abusive mother and the terrorists invite her to live with them because she's homeless. Lisa screws everything for them, she is the complete opposite when it comes to intelligence, she is stupid, she gets herself almost killed every time and the enemy uses her as a pawn which is why I found it weird that they even wanted to have her around. Considering how smart they were they should have known better than to involve someone like that, yet they do it anyway and their plan fails because of her.

The villain of the story is another former lab rat, who grew up with them in the institute and works for the US intelligence. She jeopardizes people more than the actual terrorists. She plants bombs in crowded locations, straps Lisa to a bomb thrice, all for the sake of nothing really.

I couldn't be bothered with the show.

Terror in Resonance means Tennis and Sonora. The show is about a man named Nine and Twelve. The duo are actually terrorists who attend high school. It’s a lot like a typical seinen drama, but with more terrorism. The show is about saving the world in an amoral sort of way. Those two don’t actually kill anyone. It’s similar to Batman’s rule of not killing anyone.

The man “Ararata Kokonoe” (Nine) is actually modeled after a doctor in real life. This doctor is not a kind man. He has the same eyes as Nine does. There’s a scene where Lisa and Twelve are disarming the ... bomb. That scene represents a doctoral procedure where a child is being abused. This took place over a decade ago.

Sphinx is what Nine and Twelve are called. It’s similar to a Black Triangle. The two symbolic existences are almost the same. Just like how the pyramid is a triangle, Sphinx is right next to it in Egypt. Even though the Black Triangle and Sphinx co-exist, it is not real. The point being made is that the Black Triangle has no authority.

There are probably many people who wants to be like Nine in real life. He’s a very popular character. The true creator of the show besides Madman, is a woman who works at a place called C2. This woman has someone that she appointed as Nine. This man also works at Samsung. He has the authority of the Black Triangle. He himself is the representative of the doctor that Nine (his eyes) is modeled after. The point being made is that there are more than one Nine(s).

This review is from my perspective, based on the Truth. It’s an honest and accurate revelation of the show’s true existence. And that this review is not just made up. To make the point clearer, this show is a depiction of certain events that happened in real life.

well gotta say it was a surprise to hear sigur rós at the end of the anime, a pleasant one -- as for the anime in general.. it has amazing production, it's very gorgeous and sound and image quality are great but that's the only good part of it.

it tried, i gotta say they had a good idea behind it all and i'm afraid this show ends up in a weird way, i'm not sure if the message is that japan should start developing military prowess? because it seems like it is in my opinion, it does go out of its way to show how ... unprepared japan is for any kind of threat.

the whole v of vendetta thing going on for both boys is so basic that i don't even have to say anything, not to mention the whole love (???) interest between lisa and 12; the only passable character was the detective but it isn't enough to save how terribly written the whole thing is; and 5 character, oof, big oof.

The reverse Death Note esque concept is good.
The main cast is mostly interesting. I liked the detective's story, and 9 and 12 had potential.
The art is good. Characters mostly stand out, and the scenery has a very nice, seinen? feel.
The music and sound are great. The music is played at the right times, and it's well designed.
The opening and ending are very nice, visually and auditorily.
BUT, the plot device characters ruined this show for me, and, in my opinion, it's story. This show just takes you for a ride, and you just have to bear with it to no avail.
Unfortunately held ... back by it's nonsensical writing.

Forgive me if I forget some details. It's been a while since I've watched this anime, and it certainly didn't captivate me:

Zankou No Terror. An anime that I have heard much praise from for its fairly unique take on the sensitive subject of terrorism. At first this anime seemed promising. It had a good starting point, a captivating chase for the terrorists, who are the main characters, and it had me genuinely suspenseful for the first few episodes. But then after episode 4 or so, it went downhill.

The two main characters were a fairly interesting duo to begin with. A charming, intelligent "older brother" type ... leader, "Nine". And a younger partner who seemed more of a follower, "Twelve". Fairly cliche character roles, but it worked well. Unfortunately, the motive they had for their "terrorist attacks" wasn't very well established, which is problematic to enjoying the series. They just had a sad childhood and decided to blow up stuff for fun because they're psychopaths. And their attacks had no casualties, despite destroying entire buildings. That's literally impossible. At least a few people should have been injured, and some killed if this happened in real life.

Anyways, moving one to other characters. One that ended up being a nuisance was "Lisa". She was a generic "Mary Sue" type character and a "damsel in distress" who served no meaningful purpose in the story and just annoyed me. She was always a screw-up who seemed to just be in the way and be a forced love interest for the duo.

I'd say one of the biggest problems that came along was the sudden change in plot. I started to notice many plot ideas stolen from Death Note (which I won't go into too much for spoilers). The duo's back story ended up being generic and as I said before, seemed to take a lot of "inspiration" from "Wammy's House" in the anime Death Note. Another big problem to me was how the series went from the two characters BEING terrorists, to ending up...trying to stop other terrorists? The character "Five" that appears was also from the same setting as them. She's portrayed as being a detective going against them, but is really just another terrorist just like them. Overall, she's a generic antagonist, which makes the plot more confusing. Many parts of this story make very little sense or are ridiculously unrealistic, like the ending, which I won't give away.

Conclusion: If you're looking for a psychological thriller with a deep plot and a well thought out, creative story, go look elsewhere. The first few episodes started off decent, but the episodes after episode 4 or so is when the series started to get worse. Go watch an anime like Death Note or Code Geass instead.

I personally don't like using numbers to describe shows as you can never really quantify subjective opinions. Rating this as a 3 is probably seemingly harsh to some people, but to say this show is anything greater than "poor" is a massive overestimate.

I'm the type of person who hates dropping shows, so when I do they have to be absolutely horrendous. I would have dropped this show as well, but the last few episodes were so boring that I was half-asleep, making Zankyou no Terror somewhat bearable. However, this show was still ass from beginning to end.

Art/Sound:

It's good. The visuals are obviously stunning, ... and two tracks in particular, (Ill refer to them as "Ferris Wheel" and "helicopter" ) hit me hard. Literally the only memorable (good) parts in the entire show. However, even in these scenes with these amazing visuals/music/supposedly heart-wrenching events, I could care less about what was actually happening.

Story/Characters

As generic as it gets. Two kids decide to go blow up public buildings because they are literally autistic. But of course, they don't kill people. Just ruin their livelihood, but i'm still supposed to like them. I'm fine with morally gray or villainous main characters, but I found that the show seemed to idolize them way too much.
If the story was a metaphor, it would be a gigantic hand jacking of these two main terrorists. The show makes it very clear that these kids are the most intelligent, cunning, and badass motherfuckers around, and thus has to remind you this every five minutes. Every episode involves these kids making some dumb riddle about the most random shit and then i'm supposed to think of these people as geniuses because they knew what Ramses II ate for breakfast in 150 BC. There is a difference between knowledge and general intelligence. Knowing random facts does not make you a fucking genius Zankyou no terror!

The rest of the story/characterization was just boring. Nothing really to say honestly. Cliche motivations like "love" and "Make Japan Great Again". Bombs defused at the last second. Typical stuff and insufferably tedious.

So yeah, save yourself some time and watch something else.

A dumb show written by a dumb author about the highest IQ characters imaginable. These Einstein shamers know everything that will ever happen ever, and need not ever offer an explanation for any of their decision making and choices other than "I knew the whole time." The equivalent analogy of protagonist and antagonist interactions is two 4 year olds sitting in their booster seats in the back of the car endlessly repeating "I knew you were going to say that", until mom pulls the car over, exits the vehicle, and is never to be seen again because she just can't take it anymore. It's ... a shame the authors parents never did this, because at the very least it would have given them a single iota of understanding to make this show better.

Art was standard. Sound was standard. Enjoyable for the single reason of terrible english speaking. Yer Kidding!