What They Say:
The game is on at the airport and lives are at stake as Shibazaki and his team stumble into the middle of Nine and Five’s dangerous game of chess.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Five has set up her game, and her old acquaintances Nine and Twelve are fully involved. That’s all well and good for a battle of wits between brilliant people who could all predict the outcomes of any situation if everything was as it seemed. But there’s a lot more fun to be had when that’s not the case, and there are some tricks up every sleeve in the house tonight.
Nine’s first big move to get the jump on Five was honestly something she should’ve planned on given her inhuman omnipotence, but it worked because of the first big wildcard on Sphinx’s side, the one the audience has been waiting to see shake things up all along but something that Five could never expect (after all, she’s right in assuming that these boys, especially Nine, aren’t the best at making new friends): our poor, adorable little Lisa. All she needs to do is provide a distraction that allows the combined effort of the three to accomplish what any two people, even two of the brightest out there, couldn’t quite manage alone. But Five immediately realizes the one thing that Nine, possibly Twelve, and certainly anyone watching the story unfold had realized when the prospect of Lisa joining the team came up: an unpredictable addition is as much a new weakness as it is an asset. And so Five makes her big play, and with the FBI and local police behind her, it doesn’t take much to give her a major upper hand in this continually altering game. Honestly, while every aspect of this conflict is fascinating to watch, the things that the law enforcement officials under her are fine with doing to potentially capture a couple of terrorists who are actually the ones trying to save the public from the danger these forces are putting them in get to pretty ridiculous extremes. The hypocrisy to the point of complete role reversal is obviously a deliberate theme, but it remains a bit unrealistic in a show otherwise very true to reality.
Fortunately, the investigators are well aware that there’s something very wrong with these methods, and provide another unexpected element that could tip the scales either way. Building on that theme, Nine realizes their presence and intentions, and plays his card to get them on the opposite side of what would seem natural, which happens to be the side that aligns with their interests in this scenario. Shibazaki is the only one who really matters as usual, but his relationship with Sphinx, particularly Nine, is a valuable one that receives another bit of development here. Meanwhile, Twelve is the one who really cares about not only the general populous but especially their cute new cohort, and so neither member of Sphinx spends a moment sitting around while Shibazaki and pals take care of the bigger business, instead marching into danger to ensure that if one of the three goes down, they all do.
In Summary:
Terror in Resonance is as much a clever mind game as it is a big action piece at this point, introducing plot elements that wouldn’t be out of place in any Hollywood hit. Some of them feel less inspired than others and some bend the sense of realism a bit, but it’s hard to complain about a series that remains this gripping and well-executed at nearly every turn. Most important are the themes that are simple enough but still effective and the relationships between the colorful cast of main characters. No matter what happens, there’s no doubt that I’m fully invested in how it will all play out right up to the end.
Grade: A-
Streamed By: FUNimation
Review Equipment:
Custom-Built PC, Sceptre X425BV-FHD 42″ Class LCD HDTV.
I love this show. But, it drives me crazy that they don’t provide the subtitles in a separate file so that we can either change the color of the subtitles (white text is impossible to see) or have a screen reader speak the text.