In the world of anime, where the protagonists—high school age though they may be—typically come upon intelligence, power, weapons, or anything else to separate them from the common man, they also must find an enemy to fight and friends to support them. Rare is it that only a few characters set themselves against the rest of the world to fight without any hope of reprieve; it certainly helps pull at our heartstrings. But fight is the wrong word to use here, because Terror in Resonance is about terrorism. Using bombs and covert plans, the protagonists, not the enemy, are the ones hiding in the shadows, and in the end it’s the civilians and non-combatants who get the short end of the stick. And watching our protagonists—who we are obliged to watch and support—making the public into sacrifices for the purposes of their goals can be nothing short of heart-wrenching. Who do we support? Can we justify these decisions, when no one else in the world will? These moral questions and more serve as the lynchpin of the show’s dilemma…as long as there's a moral question ultimately posed at all.
Our first episode introduces the terrorists, two boys who are only referred to as Nine and Twelve. Despite their diametrically opposed attitudes, their dialogue indicates an incredible closeness, as well as a wall set up between them and the rest of the world. After we see them break into a well-guarded and clearly secret facility in the first scene, they leave with a stash of plutonium, while leaving an enigmatic message spraypainted on the ground inside; “VON”. Now they are out in society at large, and the first thing they do after integrating into society is to execute a perfect strategy to take down a public building with seemingly common materials, planning everything down to the last detail. We see them use the floor plan ingrained in their memories to guide a young girl, Mishima Lisa, to safety, where Nine announces “You are now our accomplice.” A message was left by the pair on the internet warning of the attack, and now the Japanese police force, having connected them to the facility break-in from before, is completely invested in stopping these terrorists before they strike the public again.
Well, the public buildings at least. I mentioned earlier that the killing and the motive form an intricate yet terrifying balance that drives our investment in the characters and their developments. However, for that sort of balance to happen two things are necessary: a clear picture of the sadness the terrorism is creating, and a motive to weigh on our own moral scales against this sadness. Terror in Resonance provides neither for most of the show. Rather than inflicting casualties and sadness for their goals, they make a point to not let anyone die in their first attack, so meticulously planned out to inflict maximal structural damage without a single life lost, but still remaining hidden, all while giving the world a message of what's to come. It was a well-executed sequence, but it takes all the weight out of the act.
Additionally we're given no motive. There are hints, given via flashbacks and dialogue, but with their scarcity and vague nature, nothing feels truly dire. As the show unfolds we expect motives to rise to the surface, and yet we really get nothing but a confirmation of what we know. They trust each other and no one else. The mystery grows and grows, and as the brilliant detective Shibazaki invests himself in solving the case and stopping the pair from using their stolen plutonium, we get the sense that the pair is planning a large theatrical affair, using these smaller incidents as a buildup to the final climactic reveal. If a villain did this, it would be mysterious. When the protagonists do it and yet refuse to even share with us, who are constantly watching over their shoulder, we feel cheated.
Anime and terrorism have shared some interesting history. Mobile Suit Gundam and other mecha series have traditionally involved terrorism to some degree, as a force that fights for a singular ideal against anything that gets in the way. Many times they came accompanied with a self-endowed moniker that supposedly carried a great deal of emotion and significance for them, while for the rest of the world it was simply a way for them to sleep better at night. Later anime explored what it is like to be in the shoes of those terrorists, to feel the struggle of deaths versus ideals, and to see how a name can become an enigma, an ideal, and a banner of hope. Code Geass struck the anime world with its uncompromising view of terrorism and beautiful portrait of manifest ideals through planning and charisma, while Eden of the East and Requiem for the Phantom gave us mystery and the circumstances to turn ordinary men into terrorists, and Texhnolyze gave us a harsh exposure to a world where every group is comprised of deluded terrorists, of one ideal or another. Terror in Resonance , having the most realistic setting of all of these, still does the least to expand upon these ideas.
The show still isn’t bad, and even goes beyond average in coming up with intriguing plans and eventually developing our two protagonists. The ending does reveal all, and while the motivation may not have been worth it, the final few scenes certainly are. Things come to a definitive close, and they do get very emotional. Events swell and come to a climax, one that entirely changes the nature of the show. And yet it happens fast and with no time to dwell. A rushed climax can feel contrived, but in this case it feels more like we have spent the show gathering the courage to rip off a Band-Aid, inevitable and demanding our full attention, complete with our desire to see it over as quickly as possible for the pain it influcts.
The show’s finale acts somewhat like the opening theme; despite its allure, it has no chorus or refrain, and so the song itself sweeps us along without anything to grab hold of. By contrast the ending theme has a clear chorus, but feels like a controlled chaos, with notes and lyrics going in all directions at once. The opening plays out like a terrorist plan being carefully crafted, quiet and sinister; the ending plays like the aftermath of the bomb going off, with a panic carefully directed by the masterminds. In general the soundtrack favors neither approach, giving a more poignant series of soft notes that underline the scenes without taking over. It is a fantastic soundtrack; even before I knew that it was the famous Yoko Kanno at the reins I was sure I would be listening to it for years to come. Arnor Dan—who I had not heard of but now own a good number of songs from—contributes his ethereal voice in a few of the songs, mostly at very key points with great effect.
The real trouble for Terror in Resonance came in that the middle section reveals nothing that we are particularly interested in seeing. The terrorism goes astray, the motives go astray, the end goal goes astray, and the character focus goes completely astray. Beginning with a chess match that was far less tense than comical, everything becomes a series of games with character development supposedly on the line and societal overthrow tossed out the back window. With a whole 11 episodes to put us in the heads of these bold young terrorists, meticulously building up to a grand finale, the middle 6 episodes are spent simply watching them deal with unexpected issues and nonsensical antics that take away from them doing the building, the finale, and the terrorism. For as much as the beginning and end provide an enjoyable experience, using the central core of the show to discover the genre of terrorism may point you back in the direction of the shonen action works its starker palate, unsettling music, and darker thematic elements work so hard to escape.