The other big reveal is the true nature of what Nine and Twelve stole in the first episode. What the Settlement did was evil, but the sole fruit of its experimentation was gobbled up by the US without any regard for ethics. The aims of the Settlement had obvious military applications vis- à-vis the creation of super-soldiers, so it can be assumed that the United States shut it down not out of altruism, but simply because Japan was not allowed to do so. Both Anpo and article 9 of Japan’s own constitution (drawn up after World War II with the help of the United States) forbid the state from maintaining a standing military capable of war, while also allowing the United States to maintain a constant military presence in Japan. On the surface, this seems just and heroic, but it’s colored very differently when we consider Japan’s complex relationship with the United States. The most interesting tidbit is how the program reached an abrupt end by the hands of the American government. It’s nothing that comes as much of a surprise–the government was just trying to create super-intelligent humans and was willing to sacrifice children to do so. The first comes from Aoki, who discloses to Shibazaki and Hamura the origin and methods of the Terror Broiler (which now unfortunately has a real name: the Settlement). Let’s talk about the two big reveals of the episode. Perhaps this is not the intended reading, but a particularly interesting point emerges. In a show that deals thematically with echoes and resonance, this conscious use of symmetry seems to beg the viewer to lay these two halves side by side and compare them.
We can assume that both stories take place at roughly the same time, but rather than integrate the two, the show chooses to split the episode down the middle and devote one half to each. Episode 9 of Terror in Resonance tells two stories: one in which Shibazaki and his young ward Hamura interview a man connected to Sphinx’s past, and another in which Twelve has a romantic Ferris wheel encounter with Lisa.
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