Kids become terrorists to make friends.
A solid show. A good combination of ideas to keep your brain working and action to keep your enthusiasm going.
But it very rarely made me go “Wow! This is awesome!” I can think of one scene which did that (the one on the ferris wheel). It was more of a “Hmmm! This is pretty good!” If I compare it to similar shows involving terrorism, it feels like something is lacking. It doesn’t have a tenth of the thoughtfulness or tension of Monster. Eden of the East had an underlying goofiness which made it much more entertaining. And a show like PSYCHO PASS doesn’t pull its punches with the social criticism aspect.
Compared to PSYCHO PASS, Zankyou no Terror’s political criticism is weak. It never feels like it’s going all out. Half the show consists of the terrorists trying to save lives, for crying out loud… When I saw the promo art of epxloding buildings, I was all excited. Sadly that ended up being irrelevant and the terrorists were Japanese teenagers who couldn’t make friends. Still a cool show, don’t get me wrong, just it could have been much more.
Also, surprisingly, this had some of the best romance in the past year.
- Storytelling – C – Good scene changes and dialogue, but doesn’t excel at any one aspect.
- Voice – B – The animation is distinctive.
- Characters – A – The show’s strongest point.
- Attention Grab – C – A few episodes had me on the edge of my seat, but there were a few where my interest began to wane as well.
- Production – A – I quite like the animation.
- Overall – B
Recommendations – Monster, Eden of the East, PSYCHO PASS
This series looked really good and at least had a storyline with a proper climax and some interesting twists and turns, so I stayed interested until the end. It was a good thing that the characters’ motives were revealed quite lately, though, b/c I couldn’t relate to them at all.
Re Five, what was her motive at all? Did she want to see Nine before passing away? There would have been more convenient ways, given how clever she is, like simply calling Nine and meeting up at some place.
Re Sphinx, the second bomb in some nuclear power plant was a cheap deus ex machina imo. But then again it was quite improbable, too, that U.S. army helicopters discover Sphinx at that facility so quickly. And why should U.S. army try to liquidate Sphinx anyways?
In any case, if I were Sphinx I wouldn’t create a nuclear explosion just to get screentime for my case. Sphinx could hardly expect any public sympathy for the suffering of their group of victims after bring nuclear armageddon to the rest of the world.
Also, I agree that the terrorists trying to rescue people all the time was kind of annoying. Without these faults the series would have been pretty good.
I think Five loved Nine, but was angry at him for what she saw as abandoning her. Being a genius and understanding your own feelings are different things I think. 🙂
Yeah, Sphinx’s motivation didn’t make much sense. There could have been much better ways to do that… oh well, it is much more entertaining that way.