Summary
TheTerminatorfranchiseexpands its universe withTerminator ZERO, an 8-episode anime series that offers a fresh perspective on Judgment Day. Set in Japan, this Netflix original shifts focus from the Connors to Malcolm Lee, a brilliant scientist who creates a new AI system to combat Skynet. The official synopsis reads;
2022: A future war has raged for decades between the few human survivors and an endless army of machines.
1997: The AI known as Skynet gained self-awareness and began its war against humanity.
Caught between the future and this past is a soldier sent back in time to change the fate of humanity. She arrives in 1997 to protect a scientist named Malcolm Lee who works to launch a new AI system designed to compete with Skynet’s impending attack on humanity. As Malcolm navigates the moral complexities of his creation, he is hunted by an unrelenting assassin from the future which forever alters the fate of his three children.
Throughout the series, Eiko’s mission evolves as she attempts to safeguard Malcolm’s children while also trying to prevent Kokoro’s activation. However, Eiko’s character harbors deeper complexities than initially apparent. Her true origins and intricate connection to Malcolm Lee are explained much later in the series.
Eiko: The Resistance’s Ace from the Future
A Soldier’s Mission Through Time
Eiko emerges as one of the resistance’s elite soldiers in the war-torn world of 2022. Her exceptional combat skills are on full display as she fights the Terminator units, marking her as a formidable warrior in humanity’s struggle against the machines.
When intelligence reveals thata Terminator has been sent back to 1997with the potential to harm Malcolm Lee, the resistance’s leader (known as The Prophet) makes a crucial decision. Recognizing the gravity of the threat, The Prophet selects Eiko for a critical mission: travel back in time to protect Malcolm Lee and prevent the launch of his AI creation, Kokoro.
Why was Eiko trying to stop Kokoro from being launched? Because in her future, Kokoro did not turn out to be what Malcolm hoped it would. There was always a possibility that Kokoro would agree with Skynet and also attempt to destroy humanity, and in Eiko’s timeline, that seems to be the case.
Upon arriving in 1997, Eiko finds herself in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse with the Terminator. Her primary focus becomes safeguarding the Malcolm children, as she repeatedly fails to make direct contact with Malcolm himself. Left with limited options, Eiko forges an alliance with Misaki, seeing it as her best chance to reach Malcolm and potentially change the future.
Malcolm Lee: Eiko’s Son from Another Timeline
When Malcolm sees Eiko in the final episode, he recognizes her and says that he thought he would never see her again. As it turns out, Malcolm is Eiko’s son from another timeline. He was born to Eiko in 2025, three years after the point from which our familiar version of Eiko traveled back to 1997’s Judgment Day. In his timeline, Malcolm grew up to become a brilliant scientist, driven by the belief that AI and humans could coexist harmoniously.
Malcolm’s journey through time was necessitated by his vision for Kokoro. Recognizing that Skynet’s dominance in the future would make it impossible to develop his AI there, Malcolm made the decision to travel back to the past. In 2040, accompanied by Misaki, he journeyed to 1983 - a full 14 years before Skynet’s activation - to begin work on Kokoro.
With this revelation, Malcolm assigns Eiko a new mission: to protect her grandchildren - Kenta, Hiro, and Reika.
Kenta’s Paradox: The Timeline Conundrum in Terminator ZERO
While the series doesn’t delve deeply into the intricacies of Eiko and Malcolm’s relationship (Malcolm dies moments after he meets Eiko), it presents an obvious paradox. Eiko’s trip to 1997 has created a new timeline where she will never give birth to Malcolm as she knew him, which means that in the first timeline we saw (from 2022), Malcolm will never be born.
However, the Terminator sent to stop Kokoro’s launch was working for Kenta from the future, Malcolm’s eldest son. If Eiko never gave birth to Malcolm, how could Kenta exist in her timeline?
There is only one possible answer to this: the show misled the audience and tricked them into believing that the Terminator sent from Eiko’s timeline was the same one that arrived in 1997.It’s possible that the Terminatorfrom Eiko’s timeline ended up in another reality, and Eiko happened to end up in the one where Kenta sent the Terminator to stop Malcolm. But this is just a theory, and the only way to know what happened for sure is if Netflix green-lights a second season for the series.
