Once upon a time, it was safe to view anime versions of U.S. pop culture franchises as garbage at worst and disposable at best. Apart from the excellent Animatrix and a couple of lesser, clearly derivative anthology films (Batman: Gotham Knight and Halo Legends), all that springs to my mind are the quartet of frankly dull early 2010s Marvel anime TV shows Iron Man, Wolverine, X-Men and Blade), plus Witchblade, a 2006 Image Comics adaptation almost no-one else seems to remember. Terminator Zero bucks the mediocrity trend by, incredibly, being unexpectedly brilliant.
You can forgive some cynicism here – it’s clear that as a franchise, the beleaguered Terminator series has long since passed its glory days. While James Cameron’s 1984 original was a lean, gritty thriller, and its 1991 sequel redefined the blueprint for blockbuster movies, it’s safe to say none of the following four live-action sequels match the first two in terms of quality. Only the sadly-cancelled-before-its-time 2008-2009 TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles did anything truly new or startling with the Terminator concept. (I’ll never forgive them for leaving us with that damned cliffhanger.)
From the basic synopsis above, it would seem that this eight-episode Netflix anime is nothing but a retread of past cinematic glories, but nothing could be further from the truth. Terminator Zero rams a nuclear rocket up Skynet’s shiny metal ass, explosively reinvigorating the franchise’s flailing, half-dead cybernetic corpse. Psycho-Pass and Ghost in the Shell‘s revered Production I.G were absolutely the correct studios to adapt Terminator to the anime medium, and they do it with style and verve. Unlike the previously mentioned Marvel adaptations, Terminator Zero clearly wasn’t made by the B-team on a shoestring budget in a closet under the stairs – this is high-quality, glossy, and impressive stuff. There’s a decent mix of CG and hand-drawn animation, but this is primarily a 2D-animated show – thankfully it’s not more effluent from that seemingly endless 3DCG sludge-spewing content pipe of personality-bereft garbage that Netflix seems to think we want to watch (such as 7 Seeds, Cagaster of an Insect Cage, Ingress, and revisions, to name a few.)
Satoru Nakamura‘s character designs are attractive in a very mainstream anime style (especially a couple of notably cute female characters) while maintaining the cyborg antagonist’s metallic menace. We’ve not quite reached kawaii Terminator-chan levels of desperation for the franchise yet! Though maybe that would work for a spinoff…? Masashi Kudo‘s direction, especially during the intense gunfights and hand-to-hand battles, keeps tight control of pacing and flow. Even amid more complicated set-pieces, the viewer never becomes disoriented. During the many night-time scenes, frequent use of colored highlights on characters’ hair and clothing really helps to sell a 1980s action movie vibe, as does the atmospheric, if subdued, retro synth-pop soundtrack.
Bucharest-born (but U.S.-resident) showrunner and writer Mattson Tomlin demonstrates a clear, laser-focused understanding of what makes a Terminator story tick. His propulsive and efficient script includes all of the expected elements – nightmare future-scapes, wacky naked time travel, relentless monstrous cyborgs chasing unsuspecting innocents, grizzled future freedom fighters, and shockingly brutal violence. These superficial trappings are then utilized in service of a plot that hinges on a mix of temporal paradoxes/multiverse shenanigans (depending on your viewpoint) across six totally different periods, all tied together with fascinating moral, ethical, and logical quandaries. The eight-episode structure allows Tomlin to explore concepts like selfhood, familial love, sacrifice, the purpose of living, and the differences (or similarities) between organic and synthetic life. While none of these musings break particularly new ground, it’s gratifying to experience an action-heavy SF story with evidence of actual intelligence behind it.
In fact, (nominal) protagonist Malcolm Lee’s entire role is to spend almost all eight episodes locked in a room with a nigh-godlike AI pleading his case for humanity’s continued existence. While these highfalutin conversations seem jarring initially, especially as during his lengthy intellectual sabbatical, the rest of the world descends into chaos and destruction, Malcolm’s backstory, revealed in the truly excellent episode seven, becomes the conceptual lynchpin around which the entire plot resolves. More than merely chin-stroking philosophical discussions divorced from other more action-packed storylines, the time spent with Malcolm and his initially ambivalent creation, Kokoro drives the conclusion of a multifaceted, urgent, and complex climax.
Terminator Zero isn’t all talk, however. From the outset, we’re (re)introduced to the terrifyingly tenacious, practically unstoppable T-800s: perma-grinning, red-eyed, metal-skeleton cybernetic abominations who wear human flesh like removable meat suits. From rending apart roomfuls of screaming people in the dark future to relentlessly hunting down Malcolm’s children in the present, we’re always fully aware of how unstoppable and downright terrifying the Terminators are. The original movie was always more horror than SF, and Terminator Zero really dials down on the horror and chase movie aspects. At one point, the children and their apparently timid guardian, Misaki, run to a police station for safety, only for their metal pursuer to tear through the entire precinct in a matter of moments, reinforcing that, for them, nowhere is safe.
Misaki is my favorite character, though she’s difficult to discuss in detail without revealing major spoilers. While future warrior Eiko is fun in a fairly one-note Mad Max-esque way, Misaki is a quiet, demure girl who could be the star of any number of shojo anime series, with her homely nature, long, straight black hair, and large, expressive eyes. Her true identity and purpose are perhaps the single most interesting aspects of the show, while her initial confusion regarding the truth, and her eventual acceptance thereof, are deeply empathetic. The kids in her care are more of a mixed bag, with youngest brother Hiro as the most irritating, sister Reika as fairly cute but annoying, and eldest Kenta as the most complex and conflicted. While Kenta gets the most character development of the three siblings, it’s mostly loaded towards the very end, and he veers between plot-requiring technophilia and AI-hating at the drop of a hat. Each character is served well by a very competent English dub, with no poor performances, though no voice actor could possibly reduce my children-related irritation. André Holland provides much-needed gravitas and sorrow as Malcolm and Timothy Olyphant‘s sinister turn as the Terminator is exactly the kind of deep, menacing timbre the evil cyborg demands. Rosario Dawson‘s portrayal of Kokoro fits the AI’s authoritative and inquisitive tone well.
While Terminator Zero is an unexpectedly strong anime, it does suffer a little from pacing issues, especially in its early and middle segments. Most scenes involving the children outstay their welcome – there’s only so much kiddie bickering I can cope with. Malcolm’s lengthy conversations with Kokoro also seem extraneous to begin with. I can’t help but think there was a tighter six-episode anime somewhere here – sometimes less is more. However, I wouldn’t mind more Terminator Zero in the shape of a sequel. If anything, this anime proves that by doing its own thing, far from needing John or Sarah Connor to drive the plot, the Terminator franchise has (cybernetic) legs fully able to explore new timelines and settings far from the endlessly self-referential constraints the live action movie series built for itself.
