Zankyou No Terror/Terror in Resonance ep 4

This episode was a lot more plot then character, it covered evenly between all of the characters. The first half of the episode focuses on Shibazaki’s investigation of the bombings, he returns to the place where the plutonium to see if he can get information about the culprit. He questions all the people who worked with Nine when he was working at the plutonium plant. Though not a lot of people seem to remember him and all and all that they can remember is very minimal. Shibazaki compares the culprits to ghost, almost non-exsistant. When asked why he went there, he comments that he first off knew the one thing they couldn’t cover up was peoples memories. Also, that he wanted to see what they saw, smelled what they smelled, saw what they saw. It’s as if he’s trying to get into their heads. It’s a rather interesting investigation method to be sure.

The only co-worker that could really remember anything about Nine at all commented that he wasn’t very social at all. During lunches, he would often sit there with his headphones in. When he went over and questioned him what he was listening to, he commented. “Music from a cold land.” my first guess would be that this perhaps means Russia? I can’t say for sure, it may mean something completely different then that. He commented that the other thing that stuck out in his mind was that when he asked Nine what his dad did for a living he got really quiet. This really struck me for some reason considering the small things we know about their past.

Lisa is on the run from her mother, wanting to avoid home. Twelve is starting to show concern, he says it’s because they can’t afford to have her taken in by the police and have her talk about them. I doubt this is actually the case. Nine keeps telling him to get too involved with Lisa. He says he won’t.
The parallels that are drawn between Nine,Twelve and Lisa are rather interesting. Shibazaki also fits into this. They are all people that society had no use for. Nine and Twelve were abandoned and raised in a institution, Lisa’s father ran off and her mother went off the deep end, she’s constantly rejected by her peers and Shibazaki was thrown away to the archives until retirement. They are people who are no longer wanted. It’s interesting that this series came out at the same time as the Psycho-Pass re-edit because many lines can be drawn between the two series.

Moving that aside for now.

While Shibazaki is eating ramen with his heavier set friend from the archives when the next video from Sphinx comes out. It’s time for today’s quiz, the Time Shock Bomb. “At the place where the king who solved the riddle received a scary prophecy, Who’s name would you carve on its entrance? If you don’t know, there’ll be a huge blast from a hidden bomb. Please try your best to stop the bomb! I hope you’ll play with kids like us without cheating. We’ll be waiting at the kings entrance, oh, and when you come, use letters, not bronze.”

As per every riddle it all links back to Oedipus, this time though we know they want us to stop the bomb instead of find it. Shibazaki is very focused on this while the rest of the department is trying to find it. The line “I hope you’ll play with kids like us without cheating” obviously is directed at the challenge that Shibazaki issued to them in the previous episode.

I hate this other cop, the one that was bitching about Shibazaki coming back on the investigation team in the previous episode. I hate him. He thinks he knows everything when he doesn’t know a damn thing. I spent half the episode sick to my stomach thinking that people were going to get killed because of his attitude.

While Shibazaki is doing his best to solve the riddle, this guy catching a lead on where the bomb is brings the bomb squad in to defuse the bomb. This is cheating, and even though Shibazaki solves the riddle before the timer runs out it keeps running. Clearly stating that while he solved the riddle, they were cheating. Speaking of the answer, it was a fairly simple one. The key to it was “Know thy self” the answer to the riddle was his name.

The bomb in this case, was a release of information. Keeping to their trend of not killing anyone. I spent half the episode whispering under my breathe that I wanted Shibazaki to make sure nobody died. Thank Goodness that Nine actually expected them to cheat and went with a harmless bomb.
Well not harmless for the police, that was confidential police information on the case released to the public and it was also proof that they had the skills to hack into the police.

Twelve goes to talk to Lisa and she talks about perhaps when they saved her before, being brought away from this world. How she wanted to be saved, but nobody would ever save her. She runs away, as she’s cornered by some cops she’s trembling in fear and Twelve comes in on his bike. Takes her and pulls her away from the cops, it’s the happiest she’s looked in the entire series.

She asks him if they are going to do it, destroy the world. Twelve laughs and she laughs as well saying it’s the happiest she’d been in a long time. Twelve returns them to their apartment, where Nine gives a prompt NO to Lisa staying there.
However, the stress of running away and probably not eating or sleeping since she left home catches up to Lisa and she passes out. That’s the end of the episode.

I ship Twelve/Lisa so fucking hard right now! Okay, no Midnight, don’t get too emotionally involved. They’re still terrorist and in the end they can’t win. Compared to last episode this one was a lot more fast paced, it’s nice but I’m hoping to have more character centric episodes like last week.

~Midnight