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 heart-pounding 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 Cameron's 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 that's just about where Terminator's accolades end, as almost everything afterwards has been flop after flop. Terminator 3 was a pretty big nothing burger and it's 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 that's 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 weren't 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 movie's post-apocalyptic future into our heads, and borrowing the interesting elements from the last three trainwreck movies and incorporating them in ways that weren't 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 post-Judgement Day, when the world is set aflame by Skynet's nuclear winter. Malcolm Lee, seeing these visions, decides to create his own artificial intelligence, Kokoro (voiced by Atsumi Tanezaki, Frieren from Frieren Beyond Journey's End), capable of protecting Japan from Skynet's 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 Skynet's 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.

It's very basic Terminator stuff that we've all grown up on here in the US. We know what's up. What we didn't 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, didn't gain self-awareness 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 Skynet's assertion of domination as a reflection of humanity's destructive impulses.

It isn't thought provoking in any stretch of the imagination, but its legible, and clear, and makes sense as debate material. It's 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

Spoiler, click to view

is actually Malcolm Lee's mother, shocker, Malcolm Lee is actually from the future himself!

and somehow has a sense of kinship with Malcolm's 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 Malcolm's 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

Spoiler, click to view

also being a machine, uh oh!

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

Spoiler, click to view

how real her emotions are despite being a machine, and that anyone with sentience should be capable of emotion just as she is

. Kenta is also faced head on with his own future

Spoiler, click to view

where apparently he's supposed to be a bridge between humankind and Skynet in another possible future

and is capable through the help of Kokoro of overcoming his fear and rejecting that future. There's 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 shouldn't be surprising considering it's made by Production "King of the Sci-Fi Anime" IG, with the chief animator for Bleach at the helm. If you're a fan of Bleach you'll like the fact that Masashi Kudo is the director (even if you aren't a fan of Bleach you will because he's 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.

It's 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 Sci-Fi Anime.

If you have Netflix, watch this. We've never been so back Terminator bros.