I don't think the themes gravitate around the story itself but instead, around the characters who represent them/bring them up.

I can pull out lots of themes, but it's hard to make any one of them cohere around the whole story. So I find it wrong overall to focus on the political and international debate it raises as the only one. It raises themes such as nationalism in Japan, children who are stripped off their childhood, the desire to live a normal life, family disfunctionality and the tool it takes on the young, duty vs personal life, self-depreciation, people who get used as pawns of bigger schemes, generations affected by the bombing of Hiroshima, you name it.Īs much as I don't think the anime had enough time to focus too much in many of these subjects, they ARE important themes and questions brought up by the anime. (Not enough time in 11 episodes.)īeen thinking more about the message in the anime overnight (the things you start thinking about while unable to sleep, heh) and I think it's pretty much about whatever you make it out to be the most. I would like to know what happened to them to shape them into caring individuals despite being abused, abandoned, ignored. If the writers wanted to show the indifference of the populace (like the film Nobody Knows), then they would have been truly bitter and not really cared who got hurt in their attacks. For example, 12 and 9 couldn't have existed as feral children regardless of how smart they were. I wonder if there's a manga and if the story is fleshed out more. The more I've thought about it the terrorism feels more like the acts of petulant children. 12 and 9 had no family to remember them which is why that last scene of Lisa and the detective visiting their graves has resonance and, for me, ties into the title which could be restated as terror at being forgotten. I think in the west we're very conceded about leaving a legacy whereas in the East that legacy is our family. Thinking about the story as a person living in Japan, I've never seen that theme come up around me. I like your idea about children and the clock, but that wouldn't really hold true for Lisa, would it? I agree with you, it's a top-notch anime. Lisa, or even the antihack police dude, etc.), I liked the story and I liked the visuals and music. I've got pretty emotionally invested in all of the characters (yes, even like. Overall, I still find Zankyou no Terror to be one of the anime I liked the most despite it's flaws. It's probably not intentional so it's a sign that she could have seen better execution. And in the end I've reached the conclusion that she's less shallow and uninteresting than we are led to believe, it's just that information is so subtle that we end up overlooking it. That said, many things on this anime could have been more well executed namely Five's character, which depressed me after her death and I set out to find why. I agree that Twelve's death might have been unnecessary but it kind of makes sense, perhaps not the way it was executed but nothing wrong with the concept of it in the plot. As much as I appreciate the political debate Zankyou no Terror introduces, I myself think it's message about children being stripped off of their childhoods and having a clock ticking their lives away while they desperately wanted to be remembered and for the world to know that they lived a MUCH stronger message. What are you saying, Faivu is best Waifu.

The detective seemed a mouthpiece to solve the riddles. In the end I really liked 12 and 9 - and the fat guy in the archives. I really did like this anime, but I felt it was half baked. For her character to grow she needed to fix the damage done to her by getting in touch with her emotions (Twelve) and her reason (Nine) the detective becomes a stand in for the father who abandoned her. The closest I can get to understanding his death is his connection to Lisa.

His murder seemed gratuitous to pull emotions. I felt conflicted on 1 and 2 while watching and can't decide if that's the mark of a good or bad story.ģ) There was no need to kill Twelve. The anime mentions this, so I feel it's a critique against the policy, howeverĢ) The American government encroaching on Japanese sovereignty, the American terrorism, and the murder of Twelve show clear reasons why Japan should be stronger. I wanted to get different takes on the overall theme of this particular anime and why they made certain decisions.ġ) Prime Minister Abe is trying to rewrite the constitution to strengthen the military. This one got very good reviews so I binge watched it over two days. I live in Japan and I rarely watch anime.

Zankyou no terror wikia