Zankyou no terror sphinx
But Sphinx is an inherently personal group, and Nine can’t deny Twelve’s (dare I call it love?-not yet…) affection for Lisa. It’s not enough to keep him from initially making the utilitarian choice to evacuate the airport and sacrifice Lisa, Five’s horror at the suggestion forces Nine to reconsider and enlist Shibasaki’s help-Shibasaki’s duty, as Nine quips on the phone, is to protect the public. We’ve known Five was pretty emotionally involved with her for a while now, but even Nine falters in his icy regard for Lisa when he realizes that Five has taken steps to eliminate her. Lisa makes Nine and Twelve more human, and she makes them more vulnerable. She knows she’s been replaced by Lisa and she’s absolutely livid.Īnd she’s right, of course. The final shot (right), are some damn good crazy eyes, as Five kisses Lisa’s school ID-oh, yes. She wants to play, but she similarly doesn’t want to lose. The second one (center) is actually impossible to convey with a still shot, but it’s a tiny moment of frustration eking out in the form of a subtle eye twitch from the impeccably collected Five. After giving the orders to capture Twelve, Five zooms right back into her game with Nine-it’s where her attention and selfishness lead her. But Five glances immediately back to the main monitor, where her game with Nine is ongoing. Five’s eyes move away from the central monitor, just for a moment, and Sphinx’s plan succeeds. The first of these (left) comes right after Lisa creates the distraction in the bathroom and the screens flicker. And in this episode, there were three distinct moments with her eyes that really caught my attention. Five is nothing if not selfish, and she wants her game uninterrupted by outside forces-and she wants desperately to win.Įyes have always been a focus in Zankyou no Terror (really, in anime in general), but especially so with Five.
It’s clear by her reaction to losing track of Twelve that this is a game she wants to play with Nine, and Nine alone. We also got a lot of information about Five this episode. And, even better for him, the knowledge that the images showing up on the airport screens are coming on police orders give him an excuse to say the line he’s been wanting to say since the time he was banished to the archives: “ It looks like we’ll be better off looking into the movements of the police.” Yes, Shibasaki, whether he realizes it or not, has grown found of the chase with which Sphinx has provided him.
The chess game got underway pretty quickly, but it’s not the chess game that was really important here-it’s what it represents and how it draws everyone who’s important to this story (including a Shibasaki who smiles in delight when he realizes Sphinx is in the airport), finally, into one single whirlpool of intrigue, anger, and twisted camaraderie. I will admit, I was pretty worried about where this episode was heading when they took almost four minutes of screentime for recapping the previous episode, and while I don’t excuse that choice, I forgot that it happened pretty quickly. There were also a TON of facial expressions this episode, most of them revealing small details in tiny moments that are easy to miss. This episode we saw the return of (better) visual storytelling to Zankyou no Terror, as well as giving us a number of parallels and contrasts on which to ponder.
Y’all are too grounded in the real world.) This wasn’t my favorite episode of Zankyou no Terror, but it was more that serviceable. (EDIT: Apparently the ruckus has to do with believability problems with FBI allowing a bombing to take place under their command. I was worried coming into this episode, as the popular opinion on the streets (read: Anitwitter) seemed to be that this episode wasn’t very good.