Zankyou no Terror episode 9 ~Highs &Lows

Zankyou no Terror episode 9, Highs & Lows

Shibazaki and Hamura go to the residence of the one Government official they could find that was connected to the Athena Project. However, it seems like this information is highly sensitive, someone has already died for trying to report it to the authorities. If they want to walk safely, they should leave. Shibazaki tells Hamura to leave but he says he’s come too far to back down now.  This guy was so against Shibazaki at the beginning of the series, I can still remember when I was ranting about how much I hated him. Now he’s right by his side as he learns things that are dangerous to both of their lives. It was an unexpected character turn around but one that I’ve really enjoyed.

Savant syndrome, a condition in which you excel at certain things. Math, Art, Music among others but lack severely in other areas of brain functions such as communication with other people, to artificially reproduce Savant syndrome, which was the goal of the Athena Project. Ah, my Death Note comparisons get larger by the minute! I’ll deal with that discussion at the end of the review. OH GOD, THEY’RE GONNA TALK ABOUT THE PLACE THEY GREW UP! OH MAN, I’m kind of nervous! Alright, let’s see what the settlement is all about. Oh god, they were drugging these kids as well as making them undergo various tests. The drug killed a good deal of the kids. From the way that this guy seems to be talking about them, I don’t think that Five, Twelve and Nine have that much time left either. It sounds like this drug might be killing them slowly. This is awful, it’s no wonder Nine and Twelve hold resentment against these people. What was done to them was sick!

Five is the only one that survived the end of the project and was of course taken in by the American Government. Nine and Twelve however, had escaped from the facility. They’re the ones that started the fire in Nine’s flashbacks? They’re the ones who started that fire!? The one that haunts them to this day? The guy Shibazaki and Hamura talk to, reveals to them who was in charge of the project. Dr. Mamiya, the suicide that Shibazaki just wouldn’t let go. The reason he was working archives at the beginning of the story to begin with. Alongside all these plot revelations we’ve been cutting in between Nine working on what looks like a pretty elaborate bomb set up and Nine riding off to save Lisa. Speaking of Lisa…

I AM FEELING, INCOMPREHENSABLE LEVELS OF RAGE RIGHT NOW. SHE STRAPPED A JACKET, FULL OF BOMBS TO LISA? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? WHO ALLOWS THIS KIND OF THING? SHOULDN’T THE US GOVERNMENT BE STOPPING THIS? FIVE IS ALL SORTS OF MENTALLY FUCKED UP. THIS IS NOT OKAY! Right um, calming down. Twelve looks Lisa over and aww, I’ve shipped this couple for a while but without the threat of a jacket full of bombs this would be a massively romantic scene. The Farris wheel is a nice touch, it gives it a very epic setting of being able to see out over the city. It’s also a public area so if the bombs do blow up, she can just blame it on Sphinx. Clever, bitchy, but clever.

HOLY SHIT, WHAT THEY STOLE WASN’T PLUTONIUM. IT WAS A DAMN PROTOTYPE ATOM BOMB? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY GOING TO DO? This reminds me of episode one, you know where Nine held a gun to the thing he was carrying. He held a gun to an atom bomb! I thought he was nuts when I thought it was plutonium but that’s just a whole new level…well I guess that’s one way to say you mean serious business. On a side note off that tangent this episode is amazing, I can’t even with it. As Twelve tries to disarm the bombs on Lisa, it’s obvious that he really does love her.

Five calls and says in return for telling her where the prototype atom bomb is, she’ll disarm the bombs on Lisa, with a mere two seconds left on the timer. Twelve tells her that they’re at the school, in a locker. The bombs are deactivated and Lisa and Twelve are safe, at the school Nine is getting the bomb when the police show up in mass. He escapes, Five faints. Maybe a side effect of the medicine from when she was a child? Who cares, faster this bitch dies the happier I’ll be.

I can’t handle these feels guys, this series is slowly wrapping up to its ending and my heart can’t take this kind of abuse. I thought that Lisa and Nine were going to die, or at least Lisa. I know this series can’t have a happy ending, I’ve been aware of that since I started it but that doesn’t change the fact that I am really invested. I have a bad feeling all through my body, now for those Death Note comparisons I was going to draw earlier in the review. Last week I compared the Settlement to Wammy’s house and in a way my opinion on that hasn’t changed. While I don’t see Wammy’s house using drugs the way the settlement did, their goals were pretty much the same. Develop Ultra smart children by training the vital parts of the mind while neglecting anything deemed unworthy. Thus why Near, Mello and B. Along with Nine, Twelve and Five have such stunted personalities. One might argue in Twelves case that it wasn’t entirely affective and I’d be inclined to agree. I can’t wait to see where this goes, what does Twelve intend to use the atom bomb for? How does Shibazaki play into all of this? As I recall he was a child of the atom bomb, so how will he feel when he finds out what they have isn’t plutonium but in fact an atom bomb? We’ll see in episode 10!

~Midnight