Recap

When Five manages to blow up Sphinx’s hideout and Twelve starts to question his resolve, Lisa feels she’s overstayed her welcome. Meanwhile, Shibazaki uncovers an important lead and starts an investigation of his own.

Aqua’s Thoughts

Terror in Resonance returns from its agonizing week-long hiatus with a noticeably quieter episode following last time’s explosive confrontation. As the preview suggested, this episode was mostly about Lisa, yet in grand Terror in Resonance tradition being “about Lisa” mostly encompassed a lot of other characters talking about Lisa. The show’s stubborn insistence of treating the girl supposed to be its viewpoint character with less respect than a wet mop has reduced her from the heart-wrenching, sullen heroine we were introduced to to a pitiful, nearly completely useless ditz. She can’t fight, she can’t scheme, she can’t cook, she can barely speak, let alone stay out of danger, yet instead of letting these flaws fuel Lisa’s own character arc, they only ever serve to get Nine and Twelve in trouble. Only the criminally sparse moments when we get to see the girl behind the doormat — most noticeably the motorcycle scene a few weeks ago, and all of the first episode — save Lisa from being just another pathetic sexist stereotype; yet it’s also these excellent scenes that render simply ignoring her impossible.

Sure, a healthy dosage of human error can make a character much more relatable. Yet the near-constant, disrespectful maltreatment of the least dramatic and character-building possible sort Lisa has to suffer through will only leave the audience completely apathetic about her once her role in the grand scheme of things is eventually revealed. It’s not exactly impossible to make a meek, seemingly useless character significant even amongst their hyper-competent peers — just look at Madoka Kaname. Lisa’s complete incompetence, however, only serves to advance the plot and help along Five’s plans. There is nothing inherently wrong about her screwing up everything she does, because that’s most likely how any normal person would act in her situation, with or without Lisa’s psychological baggage. It’s the fact that her feelings and actions are hardly ever used to enhance her character arc, or to make her contributions to the plot more interesting, however, that makes the botched execution of Lisa’s role in the story so damn frustrating.

Anyways, with Five on the scene, Nine decides to stop playing games and break out the ace card all of Sphinx’s shenanigans have been seemingly building up to. Shibazaki figures out the same thing, but gets suspended indefinitely for intervening with Five’s insane plot. Of course, his going rogue could hardly be called an unpredictable twist, but the revelations that spout forth from his subsequent investigation make for some of this episode’s best moments. Sure, consulting a physics major isn’t exactly the first thing I’d think off when looking into the probability of a homemade atomic bomb, but it was a nice, organic way of introducing Shibazaki’s alleged daughter Haruka to the fray, highlighting his continued reliance on sources and authorities close to him to solve his mysteries. Does this throw out the possibility of Lisa being Shibazaki’s daughter? Well, no one said he only had one child, and Haruka does look a surprising lot like Lisa…

The revelation of what Project Athena is and who is behind it isn’t that big of a surprise either, but luckily, it’s not being treated as one as well. Instead, Shibazaki is competent enough to quietly put two and two together and the episode mostly focuses on some actual, good old investigating, allowing us a glimpse at what this crisis is like for the average Joe Schmoe in Tokyo. We even get to meet a civilian supporter of Sphinx, yet aside from a dismissive “Yeah, I like them”, Terror in Resonance fails to give this interesting detail the attention it deserves. Death Note this isn’t, in spite of the many similarities (constant scheming, villainous protagonists with good intentions, female characters being treated like dirt, …), though Terror in Resonance has a nice, subdued edge to it that makes it a wholly different watch from the seminal classic’s almost puerile bombast. It doesn’t come close to beating Death Note at its own game, but at least it deserves to exist alongside it.

The episode reaches its climax when Shibazaki manages to single out a politician involved in Project Athena and Five kidnaps Lisa to lure in Nine. With their resolve already starting to crumble, Twelve heads out to go save Lisa after asking Nine if they should just stop their terrorist campaign after Five endangers yet another civilian. Nine, on the other hand, wants to use the plutonium they stole way back in episode one, but we all know by now he hardly ever lives up to his boasts. Lisa is pretty much the only one who actually still believes Sphinx can make a change, judging by Five slamming her wide-eyed idealism, as even Nine knows his desperation is making him lose his touch. It’s incredibly refreshing to see our protagonists barely able to outwit their adversaries, and while it does make Five a rather dubious presence, it’s working miracles for Nine and Twelve’s overall character arc. Sadly, not all of Terror in Resonance‘s many twists and turns are as original — Shibazaki resorting to blackmail because he is ‘not a cop anymore’, for starters — but at least all the pieces are in place for what seems to be a phenomenal finale. It’s impossible to indulge in Terror in Resonance‘s splendid presentation without acknowledging its evident shortcomings, but I’d rather have a flawed delight than a perfect bore.

Random Observations

• The slimey politician’s explicit involvement with current real-world prime minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party can’t be a coincidence, right?
• The episode’s opening minutes, set to a haunting track, were beautiful in all their simplicity.
• I wonder if Five painting Lisa’s nails is significant in any way. Good thing she didn’t turn out to be a psycho lesbian as well, if only to keep up the appearance that she isn’t a complete cliché cartoon character.
• Showing a bit of Shibazaki’s colleague’s family life was a nice little addition.