The Terminator franchise as we know it today is a fucking laughing stock in Hollywood. Conceived in 1984 by James Cameron to both critical and financial success the original Terminator was a heartpounding blockbuster that managed to meld elements of science fiction and horror practically effortlessly on an insanely tight budget of at the time 6.4 MILLION DOLLARS and James Camerons directorial genius led to both him and Arnold Schwarzenegger to sky rocket to stardom immediately and lead to an even more explosive and way higher production sequel known as Terminator 2 Judgement Day that was somehow even more popular than the first despite being way more action oriented than the prequel. And thats just about where Terminators accolades end as almost everything afterwards has been flop after flop. Terminator 3 was a pretty big nothing burger and its only purpose was seemingly to just call back to the first two movies and go yeah look at how cool these two movies were right guys? and thats how it would be for the next three movies as well except Salvation Genesys and Dark Fate were even bigger trainwrecks than Terminator 3 and the series possessiveness over the exploits of the Connor family was so glaringly detrimental that nobody back when Dark Fate aired knew if Terminator could course correct at all or if it was gonna eventually just crash and burn. Enter Masashi Kudou animator for Bleach and screenwriter Mattson Tomlin. Two people that are as far as I can tell completely disconnected from the line must go up mindset that seemingly possesses the higher ups at Skydance to continue pumping out Terminator slop over and over throughout the years. Skydance decided movies werent enough and they wanted a Terminator animated TV series on Netflix for some fucking reason. which was a prospect that was almost guaranteed to fail and they got Production IG to do the animation and Kudou and Tomlin to be director and screenwriter specifically. Tomlin and Kudou were wondering how to properly make a Terminator entry that could stand on its own and thought What if we just completely cut out the Connor family all together? and started crafting a narrative around a new family in Tokyo Japan in 1997 on Judgement Day when Skynet becomes self aware and annihilates the world in a single day known as the Lee family. Guess what? THEY FUCKING DID IT. THEY MADE A GOOD TERMINATOR ENTRY. For the first time in two decades we finally got a good Terminator. They went all the way back to the very first movie and did a critical analysis of it picking it apart on an abstract level wondering how well the pieces fit together in a modern series and reconstructed Terminator from the ground up in a way that makes it stand apart from the escapades of the Connor family while continuing to drill the poignant science fiction horror of the original movies postapocalyptic future into our heads and borrowing the interesting elements from the last three trainwreck movies and incorporating them in ways that werent complete dogshit and they did it with such flying colors I forgot there was even any content made between Terminator 2 and Terminator Zero. The basic premise of Terminator Zero is that a Terminator voiced by Yasuhiro Mamiya Mask de Masculine from Bleach Thousand Year Blood War is sent back in time to assassinate Malcolm Lee voiced by Yuya Uchida Clive Rosfield from Final Fantasy XVI who began seeing dreams of the future postJudgement Day when the world is set aflame by Skynets nuclear winter. Malcolm Lee seeing these visions decides to create his own artificial intelligence Kokoro voiced by Atsumi Tanezaki Frieren from Frieren Beyond Journeys End capable of protecting Japan from Skynets impending assault on humankind. Meanwhile an agent of the resistance named Eiko voiced by Toa Yukinari Casca from Berserk the Golden Age is sent back in time to stop Skynets Terminator from assassinating Malcolm Lee and to also prevent Malcolm Lee from bringing his artificial intelligence online fearing that Kokoro would ally itself with Skynet. Its very basic Terminator stuff that weve all grown up on here in the US. We know whats up. What we didnt know until it released is how well it executed the basic principles of a Terminator entry. Kokoro and Malcolm Lee provide very fulfilling philosophical conversation that had been missing from the franchise giving insight into the series tendency to go Robot bad that Terminator Salvation tried to do with Sam Worthington but failed miserably at. Here it works though because they actually give Kokoro and Malcolm Lee breathing room to say what they need to say. Skynet Malcolm argues didnt gain selfawareness because of humanity being an existential threat but because Skynet was programmed with the destructive impulses of its creators in the United States military. Meanwhile Kokoro being programmed with true free will by Malcolm Lee argues that most of the inventions that humanity has created have been perverted into weapons of destruction anyways so humanity needs to be pacified with force note not exterminated pacified so that life can go on on Earth and sees Skynets assertion of domination as a reflection of humanitys destructive impulses. It isnt thought provoking in any stretch of the imagination but its legible and clear and makes sense as debate material. Its great a Terminator series that actually fucking says something. It feels so great watching an adaptation of Hollywood movies that use the different medium to have actual conversations about the themes of its source material. Speaking of conversations the conversations between the Lee family are also pretty... okay. Which is still a marked improvement compared to Salvation Genesys or Dark Fate which barely have conversations period just one liners and exposition dumps. Eiko and somehow has a sense of kinship with Malcolms daughter Reika voiced by Miyuki Satou from Shinkalion Change the World. Misaki voiced by Saori Hayami Miyuki from Irregular at BLEGH also has a sense of kinship with Malcolms two sons Kenta and Hiro voiced respectively by Hiro Shimono Connie from Attack on Titan and Shizuka Ishigami Stella Vermillion from Chivalry of a Failed Knight and a lot of their conversations later on in the series revolve around Misaki and how Kenta is unable to trust Misaki as a result of this fact but they end up somewhat reconciling by the end of the series due to Misaki repeatedly affirming . Kenta is also faced head on with his own future and is capable through the help of Kokoro of overcoming his fear and rejecting that future. Theres a lot that went into each and every character in this series and I really appreciate that considering the past three movies have been nothing but popcorn slop. The animation is also pretty good which shouldnt be surprising considering its made by Production King of the SciFi Anime IG with the chief animator for Bleach at the helm. If youre a fan of Bleach youll like the fact that Masashi Kudo is the director even if you arent a fan of Bleach you will because hes also a part of Tower of God and Akudama Drive and Code Geass and Mobile Suit Gundam 00. A lot of work was done to make sure every movement in the anime has weight behind it and the sound design also backs it up every punch of the machine against flesh being incredibly meaty and the gunfire also sometimes having insane amounts of reverb to it as well. The soundtrack also... god. The married couple that worked on the soundtrack cooked so fucking hard with its droning ambience and heart pumping drums. Its honestly a miracle how well this series came together considering the franchise has been owned by Skydance since 2015. The brainworm in the higher ups actually made a good decision for once giving Production IG complete creative control over the project. Skydance finally gets a W and Production IG continues to keep its crown as the King of SciFi Anime. If you have Netflix watch this. Weve never been so back Terminator bros.