Zankyou no Terror ep3: the man who hates Summer.

What does it mean to be a rare beast? Is it a good thing or a bad thing? I think ultimately the question to that can only be answered by the beast itself. Is the rarity treasured, viewed as a weapon, or has the beast taken ownership of that rarity itself and wielded it as it sees fit. In this case, one rare beast is let out of its cage, while the other two run wild using their power to a vicious end, but an unknown purpose.

I was with Shibazaki on this one. It seemed pretty clear from the viewer’s standpoint that the Sphinx didn’t care whether the bombs went off or not. The question immediately becomes the phase 2 of their plan. An end game of just blowing up stuff until either nothing is left, they die or get caught seems like a pretty aimless and uninspired endeavor for people of their caliber and guile.

I do enjoy the mystery of all of this though.  The end game seems to be the plutonium Sphinx stole about half a year ago.  Anything else understanding what they want seems to be a crap shoot.  We are unaware if the plutonium has been processed into an actual bomb, or if they plan to use it as a dirty bomb, ruining the country with wide spread radiation.  The plutonium may only be a bluff.  They could have sold it for all anyone knows.  Unlikely, but it is a possibility.

I’m tempted to guess that government of Japan may have had a hand in their traumatic, regimented childhoods.  There’s a scene where we see the two of them a children peeking in on a room full of other adolescents as they are being lectured by some woman who could be a scientist or doctor.  She mentions how names are generally gifts of love, but since they are children without families, they won’t be afforded such names.

What a horrible thing to tell a child!

I hate child abuse.  It makes my blood boil.  That scene made my blood boil.  It transcends the medium of fictional entertainment.  The concept itself turns me sour.  Perhaps it did so for the children as well?

Some parts of this show seem “well-worn” on me.  The moment I saw Mukasa playing a video game while Shibazaki was busy trying to figure out Sphinx’s next riddle, I knew some “ah-ha!” moment was going to take place.  You just knew that video game was going to help him solve the mystery.

The moment I saw Shibazaki talk to his superior outside and stand up, I knew he was going to tell us a story about his childhood.  I also wasn’t surprised when his backstory involved him calling out corruption in his department and pissing off someone with political aspirations.  Just the fact that someone as intelligent as him is filing paperwork makes me think he’s incredibly lazy, or incredibly annoying to his superiors.  It also gives me reason to believe that his interception of Sphinx will have political ramications for Japan, as well.  These types of things tend to be cyclical.  Fifteen years isn’t nearly long enough for corruption to be washed away from the world.  It’s like a type of cancer that can’t ever be fully purged from human society.  So long as there are people in power fighting for more power, and looking for easy ways to get it, there will be corruption.  Add a little money, and a healthy fear of consequences into the mix, and you get a real recipe for disaster.

I suppose my one solid gripe about this episode was Lisa’s involvement in it.  And by involvement, I mean she was almost totally not involved.  I do feel a bit for her.  We still see that she’s senselessly bullied, and that for whatever reason her mom hounds her until she can’t get peace.  She seems to have enough of a reason for a teenager to run away with some terrorist bombers.  I’ll let that pass.  I’m just anxious of what her eventual part in all this will be.  For now, she’s like a link for the audience amongst all these clever people and adults.  There is a fair amount of immediacy being tossed about when she’s on screen, because you just know that she’ll be used in the future as some sort of X-factor to trip up Twelve and Nine, or to screw over all of Tokyo when she takes their side fully.

Lastly, the link between Shibazaki’s grandparents being Hiroshima bombing survivors can’t be just some loose end used just to add something personal for the detective to latch on to, it can’t be just something to make it seem like this is more than a game to him.  I feel like the overall theme of nuclear weapons is only going to get stronger and stronger as the series pushes forward.  And that will really push forward the suspense – and/or the body count.

So far, pretty good episode.  Nothing really stood out for me, though I don’t doubt there will be plenty of praise for this show, just as there has been for the previous episodes.  And I don’t doubt it’s deserved.  The show is incredibly competent, and pretty entertaining on some levels.  But I’ve yet to be really wowed by an episode from start to finish.  The second episode was pretty close, but I’m expecting more.  And I will wait patiently for it.  I’d like to see if this show can prove to me that it’s a rare beast on its own.

Note:  what the hell is up with Mukasa?  How can a grown man be that annoying, lazy and whiny?!  It’s just as clear as it is with Shibazaki why he’s doing paperwork perpetually in archives.  The same can be said for the young detective who kept complaining about why they brought Shibazaki from archives.  Just replace lazy with b*tchy and it fills in just nicely.  I’m guessing that guy is just an ambitious young detective, but it’s clear that no one wants to participate in a d*ck waving contest aside from him.  Thankfully, it looks like he’s starting to be one over.

 

Note 2: I love learning about myths and legends.  It’s incredibly interesting for me to hear what minds long ago thought made up the world and inhabited it.  Human creativity is amazing.  I’ll have to remember to look up that Japanese water dragon god mentioned in this episode.

Further Reading:

• Zankyou no Terror ep2: so begins the simple game of “catch or be caught”