Terror in Resonance‘s care towards lighting and framing can also be found throughout this scene. In this way, Shibazaki and Sphinx are further united as individuals whom were not just abandoned by society, but callously thrown away by Mamiya. Again, Mamiya was directly responsible for Shibazaki’s demotion to the archives and the end of his career as a detective, so for Shibazaki to finally stand before him is even more of a confrontation than Sphinx’s indirect attacks. Tied into this conflict is the struggle between outcasts and the society they came from. Her drive and passion are the total opposite of the stagnant, static Mamiya. Both Mamiya and Five are physically deteriorating, confined to beds, but Five musters the will to pull herself up and die on her feet.

The scene with Mamiya is also intercut with scenes of Five waking up and leaving the hospital. Even Shibazaki, the eldest of the protagonists, is young compared to Mamiya, and he still possesses the fire of his fifteen-years-younger self who was slighted and exiled. The conflict between the young, who possess no power, and the old, who hold all the power, comes to a head with Mamiya, the oldest and most powerful person in the story. The entire scene between Mamiya and Shibazaki is a beautiful culmination of many of the show’s themes. There is definitely an argument for a more independent Japan, but Shunzo Mamiya’s extremism and militarism are not the answer, and Shibazaki knows it. Shibazaki himself has admitted to sympathizing with the student protestors who rallied against the Anpo treaty. Perhaps Shibazaki’s grandmother harbored similar resentment as she too was cooped inside of her house. The unspoken tension between Japan and the United States has dotted the entire latter half of the show. The FBI’s intervention has undermined the Japanese police and government at every step (and exacerbated the situation every time). Shibazaki’s family was directly affected by the bombing of Hiroshima. Mamiya’s methods are extreme, underhanded, and evil, but his resentment is understandable, especially in the context of this show. He thought nothing of using the lives of children to create an independent Japan, even stooping so low as to replicate the weapon that stripped his country of the dignity he so values. Literally shrouded in darkness, as his poorly-lit bedroom meshes sublimely with Yoko Kanno’s tense score, Mamiya cooly admits to his crimes. Thus, Terror in Resonance reveals its main antagonist to be Japan’s own strain of nationalism, here embodied by this withered leader of the conservative majority party.

The end of World War II turned a once proud and militant country into a superpower’s lapdog. In Mamiya’s estimation, it was the flash of atomic heat in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that kept Japan trapped inside of its own walls. In this tenth episode, in the middle of summer, Shibazaki finally enters one of these houses and meets its occupant, Shunzo Mamiya, a small husk of a man who has been stewing behind locked doors, high walls, and wire fences all these years. The heat kept the elderly indoors, and an uncomfortable quiet blanketed the streets he walked. Way back in episode 3 of Terror in Resonance, Shibazaki recalled his childhood summers spent in Hiroshima.

Shibazaki zankyou no terror