Netflix's New Terminator Anime Breaks the Mold

• Netflix's Terminator Zero returns to the theme: "No fate but what we make."
• Written by Mattson Tomill and animated by Production IG.
• Follows Eiko, who must protect a scientist and his children from a Terminator.
• Features gory killing sprees and existential AI debates.
• Time travel creates separate timelines, not altering existing futures.

Anime Review: Netflix's Terminator Zero

Like the Alien franchise, the Terminator series has been stuck in a rut since its early days.

Subsequent projects have failed to recapture the greatness of its first two films.

Netflix's original anime spinoff, Terminator Zero, doesn't entirely shake the uncanny sameness of its predecessors.

However, it boldly returns to the series' long-lost core theme: "No fate but what we make."

Plot Overview

Terminator Zero is written by The Batman co-writer Mattson Tomill and animated by Ghost in the Shell studio Production IG.

The story follows time-jumping hero Eiko, played by House of the Dragon's Sonoya Mizuno.

She is tasked with protecting a scientist and his children from a Terminator.

The Terminator aims to stop a rival AI program from thwarting Skynet.

Eiko has 24 hours to save them all before Skynet goes online and kickstarts a nuclear holocaust.

Key Features

• Eight episodes filled with gory killing sprees and callback catchphrases.
• A shocking revelation in the sixth episode: time traveling isn't changing the existing futures but creating separate timelines.
• Existential debates between an AI and its creator about whether humanity is a disease that should be purged.
• A Terminator with a retrofitted crossbow attachment to circumvent Japanese gun laws.

Character Development

In the original Terminator, time-traveling hero Kyle Reese brings Sarah a message from her son John, the leader of humanity's resistance.

The message includes the phrase: "The future is not set."

Eiko learns that she can't change fate for the people she knows.

Her actions can only create a new branch in time rather than alter an existing one.

She decides that a new present and a completely different future are worth fighting for.

Creator's Insight

Speaking with IGN, Tomill recounted how he navigated developing a story for a world that already has its own, albeit uneven, canon.

He aimed to put his own emotional spin on its storytelling.

Tomill said, "For me, it's about sticking to those tenets and then going, 'Okay, now I've got to just try not to make everybody mad.'

Conclusion

While your mileage may vary with the Netflix anime's surface-level moral quandaries, Terminator Zero boasts the best writing the troubled franchise has had in the last 30 years.

Hopefully, the series will steer clear of leaning on the crutch of Arnold Schwarzenegger's T800 and Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor should it get the green light for a second season.