The scenario is high-flying. Reminder: in the timeline of the saga launched in 1984 by James Cameron, the nuclear apocalypse, under the name of Judgment Day, took place in 1997. And it is from what was then the future – our 2020s – that human-looking killer robots, the Terminators, are sent to eliminate the people at the source of the human resistance. Which sends elite soldiers as bodyguards.
In this vast temporal soup, the saga has managed to maintain a semblance of coherence with the now classic notion of alternative reality: each modification of the past generates a new future. Let’s admit… Terminator Zero dare, therefore, to return to the fundamental time, the year 1997.
We must save the children
In Tokyo, computer scientist Malcolm Lee senses the catastrophe that will be caused by Skynet, the artificial intelligence developed by the American Defense. Lee has designed Kokoro, another AI intended to counter Skynet. From the future, Skynet sends a Terminator to eliminate Lee. In order to protect him, the resistance sends him one of its best recruits, Eiko, a certified Terminator “killer”.
The plot follows the pattern of the films, with that characteristic nuance of anime : Malcolm has three children. Not the most obedient, they ran away. Keiko soon finds herself having to protect them from the Terminator who has understood that they represent a good way to force Lee to expose himself.
The series’ past remains anticipation. Kokoro is an AI more developed than anything we know. And Japan in 1997 is already filled with domestic robots, which have their part to play in the plot. If we know that Terminator Zero is an independent series and does not belong to the “canon” of films, we can appreciate it as an honest SF production that does not skimp on action, pyrotechnics or violence. For the rest, nothing new under the Japanese sun.
Terminator Zero Animation et SF Series created by Mattson Tomlin With the English voices of Timothy Olyphant, André Holland, Sonoya Mizuno, Rosario Dawson, Ann Dowd,… Netflix 8×30 min
