I can understand the writers here rewinding a bit of what happened last time but that was entirely unnecessary.  Almost three and half minutes of recap that they could’ve used for another new scene!  It is nice however how this show uses the same exact scenes from last time even with the same music- Sakamichi no Apollon crafted their episodes in the same manner.  Basically you could edit all the episodes omitting all the recap scenes and opening/ending animations as an entire film when it’s all finished!  That would be very cool to see!

I’ve been re-watching this series’ episodes prior to the new one that airs each week and there is a huge parallel to Norse mythology throughout.  I’ll start with how I noticed this.  Twelve beginning in episode 1 indicates how he’s memorized all the girls’ names in their class; Nine mentions how irrelevant and minuscule that is to do that.  Not to stand out.  Nine as seen most especially in the 4th episode- the scene where he’s hacking into the government website to obtain the investigation files has an innate ability of thought.  If we take what we know from the riddles and the stories of Oedipus that Zankyou establishes the plot around it especially in the opening and ending sequences with the ravens- you’ll notice words flash horizontally on the screen.  Huginn and Muninn.  According to Norse mythology, Huginn being thought and Muninn being memory or mind are a pair of ravens that travel all over the world to bring information to the god Odin.  It is amazing how there is this strong correlation between Nine and Twelve and Huginn and Muninn in Zankyou!

It’s going to be difficult on what series will be the number 1 anime of the year.  Mushishi has been an amazing collection of stories and only when the second half finishes airing in December will I be able to make this decision.  Space Dandy is refreshingly hilarious every week, and Ping Pong the Animation had such strong characters behind a solid plot and audacious animation!  However, Zankyou no Terror is intense, a show that strings the viewer along with subtle hints of what is to come with well-developed characters, plot, and one amazing soundtrack.  It’s an intelligent anime that is consistently solid with every episode and without a doubt in my mind will be a tough act to follow for series airing in the Fall 2014 season!

This was single-handedly the best episode of the series so far even of the entire season!  Holy crap!  The facial expressions throughout the airport incident were animated incredibly well!  We haven’t had such an action-packed one in this series until this- it helps a lot when you’ve got well-drawn characters and fluid animation to push this story along! Kazuta Nakazawa animated Samurai Champloo and some of the people in this show especially Shibazaki look like the designs out of that series- love this guy’s artwork. Sayo Yamamoto, Masaaki Yuasa, Shinji Ochi, Hiroshi Shimizu and this guy are my favorite animators in the business- I cannot think of any other artist that could have had a better handle on designs with this series like Kazuta! I thought last week was done extremely well but this- this was on a whole other level!

Continuing the chess match between Nine and Twelve versus Five they finally pulled Lisa into the fray!  Since the very beginning Lisa Mashima has been quite the nervous person and here is where we get to see her actually take her time in setting up the flares in the bathroom!  Even that scene outside where she received the call from Twelve felt real-  again another reason why I love the dialogue in this show!  Zankyou doesn’t toss anything aside, every scene is calculated and very much though out well!  Not only that but she jumps/falls off a plane much like when she did in the first episode yet in this she has set herself up to be the damsel in distress in a very big way.  Lisa has been the struggling character of this series- a broken home, abuse at school with nowhere to run to but in the arms of terrorists.  It’s disheartening to watch her- this episode diverged from that entirely!  We get to see her trying very hard at being one of them- and the camera capturing her movements illustrated that perfectly!  Nice touch to add Lisa as Sphinx Number 3.

There were tons of development here from Shibazaki!  He enjoys the chase and in getting the jump on catching whoever is setting up this bomb he finally gets what he asked for- the revealing of Nine and in learning of that ends up helping them out to save Lisa!  Such a powerful moment when he receives that call from Sphinx Number 1 Nine!  It is going to be extremely difficult to see this series end, but every episode so far just draws you in!  I felt a lot like this with Mushishi as well.  Even the music here ended up being just as good as the previous episodes!  I’ve enjoyed all of Yoko Kanno’s compositions but Zankyou is probably her best work and never have I seen a series give off so much emotion like this one does with its soundtrack!  I can also tell how delicate they’ve had to be in creating the explosion scenes- no deaths in any of the bombings and here is where we’ve got an entire plane blow up on a tar mat.  The animation was astounding this time around too!  Nine and Twelve are finally out of complete control of the situation!  Twelve freaking out over the fact that Lisa might die on that plane and Nine had not a care at all-  the look he gave Nine was superb! With the addition of Lisa as a Sphinx member into the mix- allows for the story to be a heck of a a lot more interesting and what an amazing episode we had here!

OVERALL IMPRESSION: 10/10

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