Zankyou no Terror

Painted in red, the word "VON" is all that is left behind after a terrorist attack on a nuclear facility in Japan. The government is shattered by their inability to act, and the police are left frantically searching for ways to crack down the perpetrators. The public are clueless—until, six months later, a strange video makes its way onto the internet. In it, two teenage boys who identify themselves only as "Sphinx" directly challenge the police, threatening to cause destruction and mayhem across Tokyo. Unable to stop the mass panic quickly spreading through the city and desperate for any leads in their investigation, the police struggle to act effectively against these terrorists, with Detective Kenjirou Shibazaki caught in the middle of it all.

Zankyou no Terror tells the story of Nine and Twelve, the two boys behind the masked figures of Sphinx. They should not exist, yet they stand strong in a world of deception and secrets while they make the city fall around them, all in the hopes of burying their own tragic truth.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Twelve Main

Saitou, Souma Japanese

Nine Main

Ishikawa, Kaito Japanese

Shibazaki, Kenjirou Main

Sakuya, Shunsuke Japanese

Mishima, Lisa Main

Tanezaki, Atsumi Japanese

Five Supporting

Han, Megumi Japanese

Mob-ko Supporting

Satake, Uki Japanese

Mukasa Supporting

Kanuka, Mitsuaki Japanese

Hamura Supporting

Aigasa, Keisuke Japanese

Kurahashi Supporting

Tezuka, Hideaki Japanese

Clarence Supporting

Takahashi, Daisuke Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Kimura, Makoto Producer

Ootsuka, Manabu Producer

Inoue, Takamitsu Producer

Reviews

Sep 27, 2014

thebionicboi

Recommended

I'll start this review by saying I started watching this show with no prior knowledge about the writers and the premise, so I had no idea what to expect. What I found was a mature and compelling story that kept me entertained throughout the season.

Even in such an amazing season, it managed to shine through as the anime that defined the summer of 2014. Even compared against such great shows as Gekkan shoujo, Tokyo Ghoul, RE:Hamatora and Aldnoah;Zero, Zankyou no Terror stood on top.

Story: 10/10

There are many stories that focus on anti-heroes and terrorism, yet none have come close to the level of maturity found ... in ZnT. This shows succeeded in areas that other shows such as Death Note faltered. You will find no edgy character development here; no shonen-esque elements. This is the kind of show that you could quite happily show to any non-anime orientated friends with confidence that they won't leave mid-way through, or that you will have to justify why so-and-so is making unnecessary fanservice.

Art: 10/10

The art style of ZnT perfectly fits the tone of the show. There are many still-life scenes in ZnT, and each one perfectly captures the essence of Tokyo. After seeing Tokyo rendered in both Tokyo Ghoul and Tokyo ESP, the realistic calming images in ZnT were a breath of fresh air.

The character design also mirrors the art style: realistic enough to provide a sense of severity, yet different enough to give the show an underlying artistic element.

Despite some background characters lacking detail in some parts, this is expected for the first release of an airing show and does no detract from the overall excellence.

Sound: 10/10

There are very few shows in which I decide to buy the OST, and even fewer in which I will continue to listen to the songs many weeks later. These songs bear a strong resemblance to 'songs from a cold country' which is a phrase that will become clear if you watch ZnT. In short: the sound is beautiful, elegant and very melancholic.

Character 9/10

Both 9 and 12 have starkly contrasting personalities: 9 being blunt and mature with 12 being childish and playful. Lisa describers them as having'a smile like the sun and eyes like ice'. However it goes far deeper than that. Underneath 9's calm exterior lies indescribable grief, and under 12's smile lies a form of severity to match 12s.

At this point many watchers would criticise Lisa fir being 'bland' or simply a plot device. However it is impossible to imagine the show without her. Not only does she create a contrast, with her troubles with her mother against 9 and 12 orphan statues, she shows a great deal of development over the show's progression.

Finally I will touch on the characters in the police force, and how ZnT manages to capture adults in such an appropriate way. The police are neither shown as mindless soldiers, nor as clumsy un-organised oafs, and although the duo play along with them, the police are never antagonised.

Enjoyment 10/10

From episode 1 I was hooked. No other show kept my interest like ZnT. Now that it is over I feel as if I have gained something from the experience

To summarise, Zankyou no Terror showed a level of maturity and elegance I never expected from anime, and it is my hope that other shows in the future will learn from ZnT.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Sep 25, 2014

nightwalk

Mixed Feelings

Oh, Zankyou no Terror... How much did I praise you during the early few episodes, but how could I know that you will turn out how you did. Zankyou no Terror (Terror in Resonance or Terror in Tokyo in English) was one of my most anticipated titles of the season and I am sure I was not alone. The show also gained a bit of a hype because of the famous Shinichiro Watanabe (Samurai Champloo, Cowboy Bebop), who I am in all honesty no big fan of, but okay, let's get this review started. Just make sure that I will NOT be able to hide ... all possible spoilers, so just read this review if you have already finished the show or dropped it and don’t consider picking it up again! Or if you just don’t care about spoilers...

The plot, or rather the premise, was what caught my attention and interest at first. “An anime about terrorism?” Sounds thrilling alright, but sadly it turned out to be quite a train wreck with lose plot and lackluster characters in the long run. Basically the show is about two special kids, who build bombs and make them explode, but with no people around so nobody gets hurt. That’s a weird characteristic for two young blooded terrorists, but there are reasons for this, obviously. And they announce their terrorist attacks on YouTube and ask the police riddles, so they may or may not stop the bomb from going off. That’s what I was thought to be quite interesting and I was hoping for there to be a message behind the bombings and some deeper meaning and connections, but sadly that wasn’t so. Either I didn’t get them, or the riddles were just there to make the show appear smart. The show generally shows its story from two perspectives, from the bomber’s, naming themselves “Sphinx”, and the police’s perspective. What I found somewhat disappointing that there was no real tension during the moments when the investigations took place and the investigation process went waaaay too easy. I mean the main detective, Shibazaki, seemingly knows all of Greek mythology (that’s what the riddles are mostly based on) and at one point he clears a riddle because he watches his fat friend play a video game. It reminded me of some cheap Hollywood movie in which the protagonist finds out some very important clue due to something a kid spouts. I’m sure you know what I am talking about.

How the story played out felt a bit cheap in general. I mean Shibazaki (together with "Five" in the middle part of the anime) was the only one driving the plot along thanks to his super knowledge and his daughter who knows a lot about bombs and nukes. Also in the end he meets a few men who willingly agree to just tell him everything he wants to know in fullest detail, just because.

Another point when the show took a huge nosedive in my opinion, was when a former “friend” of the main characters “Nine” and “Twelve” was introduced as their nemesis, called “Five”. Five was basically the point on when I almost gave up on the show. She seemed just like a psychotic woman who had to stop Sphinx because the US said so. And to do this she went overboard multiple times, resulting in countless casualties, damages and wounded innocents along the way, for a ridiculous, nonsensical and compleely unjustified reason and motivation if you ask me. And she also did pointless and silly riddles with bombings, which the main characters now had to solve and disarm… While the character of Five was not complete useless, I do agree that she shouldn’t have been there. They should have spent more time on the "important characters" and explore those more. Speaking of which.

The whole cast of characters was so lackluster, with barely any real explained motivations or fleshed out ones among them, the only decent one being the detective Shibazaki. He was the only one advancing the plot, but even this with the most trivial and convenient ways possible, like I told you before. I mean his relative and one friend gave away the location of the bomb in the last episode, oh my, how convenient indeed. It was so cheap I had to face palm. A lot of answers to the already mentioned riddles by Shibazaki where really sudden and there was never a clear train of thought to follow either him or the actual main protagonists, which was a shame. This could have been a great cat and mouse game like in Death Note, but it was not. There isn’t much to talk about the two male main characters to be honest. Nine was the rather cold and distant guy, while Twelve was the funky and hyperactive one. They have flashbacks to their past every now and then, when the plot feels like it, and that’s about it. We literally learn everything there is to them in the first two episodes, with their motivations being revealed in the very last episode.

The last character I want to mention is Lisa, Sphinx’ female sidekick. She has a highly clingy mother and got bullied in school, that’s where she first met Nine and Twelve, which was the most convenient and cheapest way to introduce her, because for whatever reason Sphinx joined a local school in episode 1, but where never ever seen there again, which makes it pointless and the yet again really, really cheap. Her relation with her mother seemed like an important plot point in the beginning, but was quickly abandoned and never talked about again, which is quie a shame. The only things she then really did where trying to cook for Sphinx, but messing up, helping them out a few times, but messing up, staying at home, but messing up and so on. She also gets kidnapped a few times to drive the plot along, but contributed nothing important or meaningful to the story whatsoever. As you can see, the writing is not really strong with this one. Sadly this doesn’t change in the later episodes as well and even the conclusion was everything else than satisfying and quite anticlimactic. They basically shoved everything we already assumed down our throat in the most forced way possible, though at least it is complete and not inconclusive. That’s a plus.

But thankfully the show is good in two aspects; visuals and sound. The animation was really good for the most part and especially in the first episode gorgeous. The explosions were fluent, the attention to detail on backgrounds and characters remarkable and the use of lighting and shadows impressive too. But sadly the anime has a few quality drops during its duration of 11 episodes and often likes to use 3DCG to animate even two background characters, which is really cheap and effortless if you ask me. Characters tend to lose a lot of detail once they move away from the screen too. Nothing new, but when the show does want to look good, it certainly does. The other thing I want to mention is the soundtrack by the famous Yoko Kanno (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Cowboy Bebop, Jin-Roh), which was done very well and especially during the show’s high points in the last couple of episodes, the soundtrack really stood out. One particular scene being one scene in a Ferris Wheel, which was in all honesty my favorite moment of the show. The voice acting was solid, but no performance really stood out or caught my ear.

But even with all these flaws, Zankyou no Terror was one of my most anticipated shows each week during the summer 2014 season. The whole thrill of how things can turn out, what will happen next, really thrilled and captivated me, only to be let down again and again…

Okay, let’s get to the verdict.

Zankyou no Terror was such a huge letdown for me in multiple aspects. This begins at the flow of the story, tons of unanswered questions and thin writing, the flat and weak characters and the unsatisfying, yet complete, conclusion of the show’s plot. Zankyou no Terror could have been a great comment on terrorism and a huge controversial thing to talk and discuss about, but sadly it turned out to be a cheap and forgettable popcorn flick with fancy visuals and good music. Don’t worry, Sphinx. I will remember you. I will remember you for being in a show with the first good English I heard in a long time and in my biggest disappointment of summer 2014. Zankyou~

RATING:

STORY SECTION: 4/10
Premise 1/2 (interesting)
Pacing 1/2 (solid)
Complexity 1/2 (has some nice attempts)
Plausibility 0/2 (completely unrealistic)
Conclusion 1/2 (overblown, but well presented)

CHARACTER SECTION: 4/10
Presence 1/2 (fairly typical and not memorable)
Personality 1/2 (generic and some completely bland)
Backdrop 1/2 (some is shoehorned into the plot)
Development 0/2 (non-existent)
Catharsis 1/2 (overblown, but it's there)

ART SECTION: 8/10
General Artwork 2/2 (very detailed)
Character Figures 1/2 (quite generic but very detailed)
Backgrounds 2/2 (very realistic)
Animation 1/2 (sometimes good, sometimes average)
Visual Effects 2/2 (quite good)

SOUND SECTION: 7/10
Voice Acting 2/3 (quite good but no outstanding performance)
Music Themes 3/4 (good tracks and very well used)
Sound Effects 2/3 (ok, I guess)

ENJOYMENT SECTION: 5/10
Art 1/1 (looks great)
Sound 2/2 (sounded good from top to bottom)
Story 1/3 (interesting hook, but that's it)
Characters 1/4 (Shibazaki was not that bad...)

VERDICT: 5.6/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Sep 26, 2014

Manumento

Not Recommended

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

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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