Tag Archives: Anime News Network

Terror in Resonance, an Alternative View

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Before you read any more of this post, I want to let you know there will be SPOILERS to the show Terror in Resonance. This posting is in response to the recent Anime News Network podcast, it is meant to provide my point of view on the series. Enjoy the discussion!

I recently reviewed the show Terror in Resonance on my site and mentioned about how I enjoyed the show. It was sometime last week I was catching up on my podcasts, including  the ANN Cast, which I listen to regularly. The crew at ANN had a different perspective on the show and since listening to the episode I have thought about what I enjoyed about the show and how I perceived it. The goal of this post isn’t to defend the show, but simply to provide my own perspective and maybe open up another avenue for a viewer to enjoy the show.

The story centers around 2 youths who are terrorists but don’t kill people in their bombings. The two characters posses a nuclear weapon and play some games with the police. Eventually a special force is brought in to oversee the operation. The leader and the 2 terrorists all were experiments of a government program to raise super intellects.

Some of the criticism from ANN I can agree with. I thought it was a bit convenient for the main detective to have someone who studied nuclear technology in his circle. There wasn’t much set up in this aspect and seemed a little sloppy without any kind of set up or foreshadowing.

ANN said Terror in Resonance “was a wasted opportunity that clipped its own balls by making the 2 lead characters not kill other people”. At times, I agreed with this statement, it wasn’t until the end of the series that it made sense to me. I believe that the two characters are actually eco-terrorists. Eco-terrorism refers to acts of violence committed in support of ecological or environmental causes against persons or their property, from Wikipedia. Before you roll your eyes and close the browser window, hear me out.

Eco-terrorists don’t kill people, which would be in-line with the 2 lead characters belief systems. Some of ANN’s criticism of the series was that the series didn’t offer anything new to the concept or notion of terrorism, which I disagree with. I felt that Terror in Resonance’s main theme wasn’t about terrorism at all, but the over reliance on technology in society.

Throughout the show, there is the element of the nuclear weapon which I thought (and undoubtedly many other fans thought) was going to be used to either destroy a city or was going to be recovered by the police. There lies a common misperception in nuclear terrorism. Would terrorists detonate a nuclear weapon in a city and kill millions of people? Or would they target a high level detonation (such as seen at the end of the series) where it would disable an entire country’s electronic infrastructure?

If you want to learn a little bit more about Electro Magnetic Pulses (EMPS), this article from USA Today is a good start.

It’s an honest question to ask and one that I think the series tries to ask and start a discussion. Would one kill millions of people or kill them slowly by destroying their infrastructure and causing a massive rebuilding effort at home, one that would potentially limit the reach of a country on the international stage.

How would a technologically advanced society react to having no electronic infrastructure, meaning no cell phones or other means of communication. I don’t believe the show was framing terrorism from past events in the US or Japan, but to point out how fragile our society is to terrorist attacks.

The characters detonate the nuclear weapon at the end of the series to unplug all of society from their devices and get them to focus more on nature and living with it. There goal was never to kill people, it was to save them from technology and to save the planet.

It is with that lens, I look at Terror in Resonance. The viewpoint of the characters as eco-terrorists, which is why I find the series powerful and with a story worth telling.

 

 

 

 

Recent Viewing: Tsuritama

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When I was traveling in Japan last summer, I came a cross an advertisement for the show Tsuritama. The cardboard characters, with fishing gear in hand, were the first fishing characters I really recalled. Of course there was characters in shows, but not a show entirely about fishing. So I put the show on my radar and Sentai Filmworks released it in the US. It took me some time to get around to watching all 13 episodes, but I made it through the show. Check out the trailer and review below.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQBw_XrZWkw&w=560&h=315]

First off, I must admit that when I was growing up I fished a ton, almost every day in the summer since I lived about a half mile from the river in the city I would ride my bike and take my fishing pole and gear. So I was really interested in seeing a fishing series and had to watch it.

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(*cut out advertisement in Japan)

The premise of Tsuritama centers around Yuki, a new student at Enoshima and an alien friend he makes named Haru. The first half of the series focuses on character development (like most shows, of course), but Yuki also starts to develop his fishing skills. The show follows a little bit of a formula in which one of the characters doesn’t know much of a certain topic, in this case fishing, so the audience learns some things with the character.

The later half of the series (which runs 13 episodes) fleshes out the underlying plot of the story. Overall I felt the series was a fun and entertaining series. Nothing groundbreaking, I can’t imagine anyone calling this a must-watch series, but if you want a unique title, give Tsuritama a shot. The education of fishing throughout the series isn’t super realistic or too advanced that it could be a turn off.

The music for Tsuritama is light hearted and fun, it matches the art style of the show. The backgrounds are a little untraditional. Most anime backgrounds are designed to look traditionally painted, with brushstrokes and all, or more recently, 3D backgrounds. Tsuritama employs backgrounds that appear as if they are cel shaded, so the same style as the characters are typically done. It was a unique style that I haven’t really seen before, so I enjoyed it very much.

If you are an Evangelion fan, the voice actresses of Asuka and Misato are used for a couple characters in Tsuritama. I always enjoy hearing familiar voices and trying to trace who they are. There is even a cute animal sidekick in the show, Tapioca the duck.

Here is a little more on Tsuritama from Anime News Network.

Power of the Prologue 2: RWBY

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Last week I posted about prologues and ways that they can be used to help enhance stories. I was referring to the first three episodes of Soul Eater and also Crest of the Stars. However, I completely blanked out on something I saw a while back, a trailer to the Black character in Roosterteeth’s RWBY project. Here are all of the characters prologues, in the order they were released.

I first heard of Roosterteeth when I was in college and a friend showed me the world of Red vs Blue. If your not familiar with that, thats a whole other rabbit hole you will have to look into, but you can start here.

Anyways, I believe it was at some point around season 4 or 5 that I caught up with Red vs Blue and admittedly kinda forgot about it, even though it was hilarious. It was probably around the time I was moving around. But one day I was on Anime News Network (ANN) and saw a trailer to the Black character in RWBY. When I was at Akon and met up with my composer, he told me that he went to the Roosterteeth panel to see the final character, Yellow, trailer revealed. I planned on going to the panel but the line was super long and there was no way I was going to get into the panel.

So post A-kon I recently decided to check out all of the RWBY trailers (as seen above). They all do we a very nice job of building up intrigue for each character. At the end of the Yellow trailer we see that the original Red character is her sister. In the Black trailer we see the character leave a guy behind. At the end of each trailer we are shown the silhouettes of the remaining characters that we know nothing about at certain points. We also get the released date of when we can expect the next video or unveiling of the world of these characters.

I felt compelled to show show these trailers because we are currently in the process of seeing the power of the prologue that Roosterteeth is utilizing as we approach the July date of yet another announcement or unveiling. I guess we will both have to stay tuned to see where this trip ends up. I am looking forward to seeing where it goes.