Recap

The police keep grasping at straws while Shibazaki heads to Aomori to gather more clues. Nine prepares another riddle, but starts to clash with Twelve over whether they should take in the runaway Lisa.

Aqua’s Thoughts

Where do you run when you have nowhere to come home to? At the end of last week’s episode, Lisa gathered the courage to leave it all behind and run away from home, only to end up on Tokyo’s neon-clad streets as Nine and Twelve make their next riddle known. Terror in Resonance‘s Tokyo is at its most atmospheric yet in this episode, with the soft bloom of a bristling dusk and Yoko Kanno’s haunting soundtrack having little need for more than the few seconds set aside for highlighting Lisa’s utter desolation. As text messages are poured across the screen and surprises lurk around every corner, it quickly becomes apparent that there’s nowhere to truly be alone in this paranoid city, culminating in an evocative motorcycle rescue courtesy of Twelve and our troubled heroine feeling at ease for the very first time since they show has gone on air. It’s a scene that works only because it feels so wrong, from the obvious prince charming on his white stallion analogies, “rescuing” the “damsel in distress” from people who mean well, to Lisa’s cathartic cracking up when Twelve all but silently confirms their desire to destroy the entire world. It’s the most depressing road for her character to go down to, but as with everything in this series, also the soundest.

Furthermore, the scene might tell us even more about Twelve than it does about Lisa – by saving her, he openly defies his partner in crime for the very first time, which given the fact that Nine is by all means the mastermind behind the operation could lead to a possibly lethal rift between the two further down the line. On the other side of the battle, things aren’t looking to bright either, as Shibazaki’s willingness to play along with Sphinx’s games is starting to get on the other cops’ nerves. They leave him to his riddles and use more conventional methods to track down the bomb, eventually leading to Nine being able to even out tip the scales back into Sphinx’s favour. The bomb triggered by the other policemen’s “cheating” — can you blame them, though? — once again makes no victims, but leaks full details of their investigation on the Internet. It’s certain Sphinx’s beef is with the establishment rather than with the people now, and Nine and Twelve might even be trying to get the public on their side. If Terror in Resonance wanted the audience unquestioningly on Sphinx’s side, they wouldn’t have put a character as charismatic as Shibazaki on the opposite side. It’s a battle of order versus chaos, of old, world-weary goodheartedness against a young, idealistic desire to rid the world of all its evils by completely tearing it apart. But if they have no intent of killing people, what non-genocidal goal could Nine and Twelve possibly have in mind for the plutonium they stole? And how will Lisa factor in all this? I can’t wait to find out.

Random Observations

• Terror in Resonance once again displays a shocking amount of technical prowess, with a realistic depiction of hacking and Sphinx using Bitcoin of all things to illegally purchase gunpowder off the Internet. I guess that farcical funnymoney is good for something after all.
• Similarly, there’s a bunch of mythology references again as well, with shout-outs to Sophocles’ subsequent tragedy Antigone being an embarrassingly geeky standout. More importantly, Shibazaki manages to tie the ‘killing his father’ aspect of the Oedipus myth to Sphinx’s motives, hinting at the analogies being a lot more important than they originally seemed.
• Now her mum’s no longer picking out her clothes, I’d suggest she goes for a change in wardrobe. That orange bag dress isn’t exactly flattering.
• Pretty nice to show Lisa being able to stand up against creepy rapist guys on her own. This makes the fact that she’s “rescued” from the cops by Twelve all the more morbidly ironic.
• Nine’s mention of ‘music from a cold land’ immediately brings Iceland to mind, and indeed, Icelandic singer Arnór Dan performs three extraordinarily Sigur Rós-esque tracks on the sow’s official soundtrack. What’s up with that, huh? The song that plays during Twelve and Lisa’s motorcycle escape, however, is performed by Californian indie band POP ETC, formerly known as The Morning Benders. Pardon my rambling, if you will.